Himmler's War-ARC (22 page)

The Germans panicked, which was not a smart thing to do. Their vehicles scattered in all directions. Carter whooped again and ordered a general attack, a charge, with machine guns and cannon blazing from his dozen Shermans. The two German tanks gamely turned to protect their charges. Concentrated fire from the American tanks quickly knocked out one Mark IV and the other moved away in reverse, firing and keeping his more heavily armored front towards the Americans.

“They’re getting away,” Carter snarled.

He ordered three platoons to chase the other vehicles while the remaining platoon tangled with the surviving Panzer. A shot from the German blew the treads off one Sherman, but a pair of shells struck the Panzer, stopping him cold. Hatches opened and men jumped out while machine gun fire raked them. One man dropped and two others ran off. Carter recalled that the Panzer IV had a crew of five. Tongues of fire came from the hatches of the last tank, telling him that the other two men were cooked.

Carter’s other tanks were catching up to the trucks which couldn’t move fast on rough terrain, nor did they have a chance to unlimber and man their guns. Again, men abandoned their vehicles and ran for their lives.

Overhead, Morgan watched the slaughter. There may have been people down there, but they were the enemy and the presence of the towed eighty-eights told him they’d been shooting and killing Americans. With a roar, a quartet of American fighter bombers, P47’s, flew low and began to strafe the fleeing Germans. Morgan hoped to hell that the flyboys could tell which side was which. They could and they chewed up the vehicles that Carter’s tanks couldn’t reach.

“You called for the cavalry?” Carter radioed. “If you did, we sure as hell didn’t need them.”

Jack wasn’t so sure. It looked like several German half-tracks would have made it. Carter was a cocky bastard.

Prudently, Carter called a halt to his advance. He didn’t want his men getting tangled with the Germans and a tragedy to occur.

“Hey, Bomber,” he radioed to Jack.

“What, Rebel?”

“Looks like the good guys won one today.”

“Yeah, Carter, but I’ll bet you a dollar that the Air Force takes full credit for this little barroom brawl.”

* * *

Molotov had given his report and sat nervously while Stalin contemplated the consequences of the German proposal. Josef Stalin ruled the Soviet Union with an iron and bloody fist. In his zeal to first consolidate communism in the newly formed country, and to export it to other countries, he had been ruthless. Millions of reasonably well-off peasants, the kulaks, had starved when he’d forced them to live in communal farms, and millions of others had died in the civil war that had resulted in him taking the reins of power from Lenin on that man’s death. People had made the mistake of underestimating the small, rumpled, and often crude man with the thick mustache.

Above all, however, Josef Stalin was a realist. The Soviet air forces ruled the skies over the Germans, and Soviet armor and artillery outnumbered the enemy and were qualitatively better in many areas. Numerically, the vast Soviet horde was hugely dominant.

Realistically, however, the Red Army’s march into Poland was slowing. The army continued to go forward, but now in small, painful steps instead of great sweeping advances. The reasons were several. The Germans had withdrawn isolated pockets of their soldiers to form new and stronger defenses. The Germans had retreated closer to their bases which meant they could be supplied more easily while the Red Army’s replacement equipment, manpower and ammunition had farther to go. Also, the Germans were now fighting behind a shorter defensive line.

Worse for Stalin’s ambitions, the professional German generals were now running the war and not the erratic and insanely stubborn Adolf Hitler. Not for the first time did Stalin wish that Hitler was still alive.

Zhukov’s warning of several weeks earlier was coming true. The mighty Soviet war machine was running out of gas, and, in some ways, literally. There was little fuel, and the army was indeed exhausted. If it collapsed, so too might Josef Stalin and his dream of communist expansion.

So, he wondered, what might be the outcome of a truce?

Obviously, as Zhukov said, it would grant time for the army to rest and re-fit. But what about the political and long-term aspects of a truce?

Stalin agreed that communism’s long-term enemy was the United States and, as the war was progressing, America increasingly looked to be victorious and unscathed while Russia would be in tatters after having won a Pyrrhic victory. Worse, America would soon be in possession of the powerful nuclear weapons being developed in New Mexico and elsewhere, and would be in a position to impose a peace. His spies were keeping him reasonably well up-to-date on America’s progress towards an atomic bomb. He shuddered at the thought of a victorious America having such a weapon. The Germans, too, were working on a bomb and Soviet scientists were trying to apply the information stolen from the Americans toward building their own, but so far without success. He’d thought of executing a few of the Soviet Union’s physicists, but thought better of it. Not even fear could improve the pace of acquiring knowledge. He’d purged the Red Army of thousands of officers prior to the war and suffered for it. He would not do the same with the few scientists he had.

The idea of Germany and the United States tearing each other’s throats out appealed to him. Germany would buy time and quite possibly win a negotiated peace for itself, but Russia would be the stronger and could simply abrogate any truce at her convenience. Thus, Russia’s new war with Germany would be against a seriously weakened opponent, and the United States would be in no position to intervene.

He was unconcerned about England and France. The French were in no position to affect anything militarily, while the British were far more concerned with conserving their manpower than they were in fighting and winning a war. His intelligence said that English were growing disenchanted with Churchill’s leadership and a war that seemed to drag on forever. Churchill might not survive the next election. It was incredible to him that the England and the United States would permit political opposition, especially during a war. To Stalin, political opposition was synonymous with treason and the reason the Gulags existed.

A respite would give him a chance to tidy up his own house. The self-titled Marshal Tito in Yugoslavia was showing signs of becoming independent of Moscow, which was intolerable. Granted, Yugoslavia and Tito were still fighting the Nazis from behind German lines, but, if the war paused, perhaps the Germans would do the Soviet Union a favor and crush Tito. Perhaps they would withdraw and let Russia do it.

Another benefit from a pause in the fighting would enable Stalin to resolve his relations with China’s growing communist movement. He could join forces with Mao Zedong and throw the Japanese out of Manchuria and Korea; thus earning Mao’s gratitude. Or he could ally with Chiang Kai-Shek, dominate that man and subsequently destroy him. Mao called himself a communist, but Stalin considered him a peasant and worse, a potential rival.

Regardless, the attack on the Japanese would also aid the Americans whom he wished to destroy. It was an irony he understood and appreciated. The Americans would be grateful while two more countries would be added to the Soviet bloc. Three if China was counted.

If he did it correctly, Stalin thought, he could confuse the Americans and leave them wondering just what had happened to them.

Stalin smiled grimly and Molotov shuddered at the sight. “We will negotiate with the devil, Comrade Molotov.” Stalin wrote furiously on a sheet of lined paper while puffing equally furiously on his pipe. “And here are the terms we will settle for.”

Molotov scanned the sheet and nodded approval. “The Allies will realize rather quickly that we have departed the war.”

Stalin was unperturbed. “Then we will have to have a reason that is plausible enough to justify our defection.”

“Do you have something in mind, Comrade Stalin?” The question was rhetorical. Stalin always had a plan.

Again Stalin smiled, this time with humor. “The French, of course. The French are always good for something. They think the world turns on them and the sun rises and sets on Paris. They cannot abide being second fiddle to the damned Americans and the British. The communist party in France is very strong and, since many of its members were in the Resistance, fairly well provided with light arms. I believe they would provide us with a most useful distraction.”

CHAPTER 11

THE DEAD AMERICAN SOLDIER more resembled a pancake with flattened arms and legs than a human being. He looked like a cartoon character that could have been peeled off the ground like a coat of paint. Being run over by a tank will do that. The pounding rain made matters worse.

“What the hell happened?” Whiteside asked. The half dozen wet infantrymen in ponchos from the 116th Division looked stunned, while the driver of the tank that had run over the GI stood a few yards away, puking his guts out.

Finally, a corporal spoke. “Sir, we was hitching a ride when it happened. For some reason the turret turned and the barrel swept Hickey right off and under the tracks of the tank behind. He didn’t scream, he just kind of squished. I don’t think he knew what hit him. Hell, I hope he never knew it.”

Infantrymen were always hitching rides on the hulls of tank. It beat the hell out of walking and the infantry and armor were supposed to support each other, so riding on the tanks made sense.

Whiteside turned to the sergeant who commanded the tank that had thrown the man off. The man looked stunned and near tears. “I thought I saw something suspicious to my left and I instinctively swung the turret. I completely forgot about the guys riding topside.”

Medics had arrived and were gawking at the flattened corpse. “Get him out of here. Now!” Whiteside barked.

Two medics lifted, almost slid, the distorted caricature of a corpse onto a stretcher. The ground was soft and an impression of his body remained. It began to fill with water like an obscene pool. Curiously, there was very little blood and it was being diluted and washed away by the rain. A moment later, the ambulance was heading down the road and in no great hurry.

Whiteside looked solemnly at the tankers and infantry gathered around him. “It was an accident, men, a damn tragic accident and nobody’s responsible for it because everybody was doing what they were supposed to be doing. If you do want to find somebody to blame, try the Germans. If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t be here and none of this would have happened.”

Whiteside turned and walked away quickly so no one would see the look of anguish on his face.

An infantry corporal looked at the tanker. “We’re getting back on, you know.”

The sergeant nodded sadly. “Yeah, I know.” They climbed up and the column began to move again.

Levin looked at Jack and shook his head. “I got a letter from my mother today. She’s complaining about the shortage of butter. Maybe I’ll write her and tell her about what happens when a tank runs over you. I took a picture. Maybe I should send it to her.”

Morgan managed a bitter laugh. The rain had grounded him. “It’s fun to think about doing, but you know you won’t write about anything like that. Censors don’t like any of that nasty but accurate stuff in letters to the home folks. Might make them think that war is actually dangerous and we can’t have that, now can we?”

Levin lit a cigarette. “Right. I’ll save it for my memoirs. By the way, hear anything from your girlfriend?”

Morgan flushed. “Once more, how can she be my girlfriend if I’ve never met her in person?”

“Maybe it’s better that way. If she met you and really got to know you, I’m certain she wouldn’t like you.”

“Screw you, Roy.”

“You do know that obscenities are the refuge of the small-minded, intellectually shallow and illiterate people.”

“Fuck you, Roy.”

Jessica had sent a letter saying she’d received the photo of him beside the Piper Cub. She said she’d like to take a ride in it. It sounded like a great idea, but he somehow knew that Whiteside and Stoddard would put the kibosh on it. Still, it was great to think about.

* * *

Margarete was constantly amazed at the amount of equipment and manpower brought to the defensive construction sites. Heavy artillery, including enormous fifteen-inch naval cannon that she was told could hurl a shell weighing almost a ton for more than twenty miles, were being dug in. Men from Germany’s navy, the Kriegsmarine, cheerfully told her that the guns had come from now useless warships and would be a nasty surprise for the Yanks. They said the casements housing the great guns and many others of smaller caliber would be impregnable and impervious to bombing.

Underground barracks for thousands of men were being constructed along with deep trenches and tunnels to enable reinforcements to be sent from one spot to another. It was

a shortcoming that had led in part to the swift collapse of the Seine River defenses. No one wanted to say that the massive American assaults were the main reason.

Margarete no longer worked with a shovel. Both she and her mother had better jobs and she suspected her father’s hand in it. Magda worked in an office trying to make sense out of the project’s records while Margarete, to her delight, was assigned as a driver. Her learning to drive a car on the journey from Berlin and a tractor on the farm had paid dividends. The only downside of driving a staff car or a truck was that they were fair game for American fighters, while groups of civilians digging holes were generally left alone. Thus and regardless of the weather, she always drove with the windows open so she could listen for the sound of enemy planes. On a couple of occasions, she’d thought she’d heard fighters, stopped the car, and jumped into a ditch leaving whoever she was driving still in the car. She’d been scolded for doing that, but she didn’t care.

Most disturbing to Margarete were the hordes of men coming to help work on and man the defenses. Some were the pathetically thin men who, she was told, came from the various prisoner of war camps. She suspected that a number of them were really Jews and other undesirables taken from death camps. Since their alternative was to go to places like Auschwitz, whose existence she no longer doubted, she thought they were the lucky ones.