Red Inferno: 1945 (39 page)

“Enough,” said Anton. “Now let’s find a place to hide these uniforms.”

T
OLLIVER’S FIRST IMPRESSION
of the nightmare land was that it was some kind of hideous modern landscape painting by some psychotic artist in which everything was done in black. The trees were black, the grass was black, the vehicles were black, and worse, the bodies were all blackened and shriveled. Maybe it was more like some medieval painting of hell he’d seen in a college art class.

His jeep was the third in the column that drove slowly toward where the atomic bomb—they now knew its name—had been detonated. The first jeep contained a couple of scientists with a machine called a Geiger counter that supposedly told them it was safe to go on. Safe from what? Radiation, whatever the hell that was. The second jeep carried some mid-level brass from Ike’s headquarters, and Tolliver and his men in the following jeeps were along to provide security. He had been told that a number of other columns were going to try to penetrate the area and might need protection.

They didn’t. The only Russians remaining were vast numbers of the dead and the dying. Those who could still move and who hadn’t already surrendered had fled to the east, leaving behind a scene of catastrophe unparalleled in scope. Tolliver had never seen so many dead bodies and so many ruined vehicles in one area before. He now realized that it was true—an entire Russian army had indeed been destroyed by this atomic bomb. Someday, he might feel truly sorry for them, but not now. He thought of dead Holmes and so many others whose lives were wasted by a war that, in his opinion, hadn’t had to happen.

A scientist in the lead jeep signaled a right turn, and the column obediently followed. Tolliver saw that they were skirting the actual center of the blast, now referred to as “ground zero.” If the bodies strewn about were any measure of the danger they were avoiding by detouring around ground zero, it was okay by him. This was yet another sight he would never forget and never be able to describe. Black death, black fire, black earth, and now the black stench of ruined bodies rotting in the summer sun. He noticed that birds were eating the dead. What effect would radiation have on them?

Someone in the second jeep yelled out that Zhukov was probably in there, in the center of this mess. If he was, thought Tolliver, he wasn’t going to be found and he sure as hell wasn’t coming out.

As they slowly circled ground zero they began to encounter survivors. Many of those trapped between ground zero and the American lines had already surrendered, while these pitiful remnants had been trying to make it east to supposed safety. The only thing was, they weren’t going to make it. Their wounds and burns were ghastly. The flesh had been destroyed, and some of the things crawling on the ground could scarcely be recognized as human.

The column did find signs of attempted mercy. Some few Russian doctors had set up hospitals, which had been overrun by the numbers of wounded.

Tolliver saw a light colonel named Burke leave his jeep and talk to a Russian doctor. The colonel then got on the radio and delivered an emphatic message. Tolliver caught only a few words but he got the gist of it: send help fast. Tolliver also noted that this Burke looked quite shaken.

They drove on a little farther. They stopped when they saw a handful of men who appeared to be relatively unharmed. A scientist got out and waved his magic wand over them and said they were safe to approach but not to touch. The brass got out and Tolliver tagged along.

The Russians were pale and covered with sores. Their eyes looked at the Americans with utter helplessness. The Americans might have been the enemy, but the Russians were in no shape to fight—or to surrender. They just sat or lay there. Tolliver leaned down to see if one of them was alive or dead. His face was all burned up and the skin had peeled off in gobs.

“Don’t touch,” said the scientist, and Tolliver withdrew his hand like a shot. “Radiation sickness. Don’t take a chance.”

A few feet away, Burke leaned over and said something in Russian to a soldier who tried to focus on them. The soldier managed to mutter a response, and then began coughing.

“What’d he say, sir?” Tolliver asked.

“He said his friend died an hour ago and he will die soon as well. He said his name is Suslov and we should pray for him.”

With that, Burke began to shake and tears ran down his face. It was just too awful to even begin to comprehend.

Tolliver tried to be helpful. He walked over and, instinctively and in total disregard of the difference in their ranks, put his hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Hey, Colonel, don’t take it so hard. It’s not as if this was your fault or something.”

F
IVE DAYS AFTER
the massive assault on Potsdam, two battalions of the 82nd Airborne Division parachuted onto the runways of Berlin’s Gatow Airport and secured it. There was little resistance, only scattered sniper fire, which the airborne soldiers quickly eliminated. Additional drops were made and work began immediately on filling in the craters so that at least one runway would be ready for planes to take off and land. All this occurred while additional paratroops continued to descend from the sky. By nightfall, the entire division was on the ground and had linked up with the defenders of Potsdam, who had sent a strong patrol to Gatow.

Early the next morning, C-47 transports began to arrive with supplies, medical personnel, and additional soldiers to protect the expanding perimeter. One of the first planes carried General Omar Bradley and a handful of his staff.

Bradley had not announced that he was coming, so no one was waiting for him at Gatow. That neither surprised nor disturbed him. He was certain his men at Potsdam had more important things to do than arrange a ceremony for him. He and two of his staff hitched rides to Potsdam from an astonished young private.

“Shit,” said General Miller as he ran out to greet Bradley. “You could have warned me you were coming.” He snapped to attention and saluted. Bradley returned the salute. The two men then shook hands and, spontaneously, embraced warmly. “Good to see you anyhow, Brad,” Miller said.

“Good to see you too, Puff. What on earth have you done with this lovely little town?” he said half jokingly. “And what have you done to your head?” he added, commenting on the bandage on Miller’s scalp.

Inwardly, Bradley was appalled by the devastation. Few buildings still stood, and the ground was pocked with so many craters that it looked like a moonscape. Broken vehicles were everywhere, as were signs that showed where graves had been dug. Soldiers’ graves were marked by crude crosses with dog tags nailed to them, while civilians had been buried in mass graves that were now large mounds on the ground. Worse, almost everyone seemed to be at least slightly wounded.

“It was a helluva fight, Brad. I got off easy.”

Bradley took Miller by the elbow. “Let’s go take a look around and talk about it.”

Typically, the first thing Bradley wanted to see was the wounded. He toured the hospitals and talked to the men for several hours. He was gratified to see the fresh medical personnel moving in to take over from others who looked like they were dead on their feet. As always, he was sincerely moved, and they responded to him. He noticed German and American wounded were together while the Russians were separate. After all, they were still at war and they were still prisoners even though they didn’t look like they had any fight left in them. The Russians smiled and nodded at everyone who passed by.

It was much later before he had a chance to sit down with Miller and talk over the situation.

“I lost a third of my men dead and wounded in that last attack, Brad. I really thought they were going to smash their way in. They had those damned big tanks and there wasn’t anything we could do to stop them. Behind those tanks they had numbers equivalent to almost a whole field army. We would have killed a lot of them, but they might have killed all of us. When the air force came and started bombing from such low height, I knew the Reds were in for it.”

Bradley chuckled. “Some of the higher brass wanted to bomb from greater altitude for safety’s sake. The pilots and crews wouldn’t hear of it. Many of those boys who bombed the Reds were the same ones who dropped supplies to you during the siege. I think they kind of adopted you people and were angry at the thought of losing you.”

Miller nodded appreciatively. “Well, whatever the reason, it worked, even though they had to drop their bomb loads on our own lines and caused some casualties among our troops. It was war and it had to be done. And I have never seen anything as terrible as napalm.”

“Then,” said Bradley sadly, “you haven’t seen what the atomic bomb did.”

“I guess not.”

“Puff, it was as bad as anything I’ve ever dreamed. We will never know the total butcher’s bill for that first bomb, but it looks like about thirty thousand Russian dead and another eighty thousand wounded. Worse, there are at least a hundred thousand more suffering from various levels of radiation sickness. Many of them will die within the next few weeks and months and there’s nothing we can do to treat it. The second bomb, dropped on Koniev’s troops, was just about as bad.

“Even with precautions, we still had a couple of hundred of our boys killed or wounded by the bomb. Some were blinded by the flash, while others suffered broken bones from falls and crashes. Saddest were the handful of our soldiers who got too close afterward and got radiation poisoning. We also lost three brave OSS men who pinpointed Zhukov and died for their efforts.”

“What about Zhukov and Chuikov?”

“Not found and presumed dead, and Koniev is reported to be badly wounded. There are areas near the center of the explosion that we won’t be able to enter for a long time, and only then with protective clothing on. The net result is that the First Belorussian Army Front no longer exists, and Koniev’s First Ukrainian Front has been decimated. It’s as if my entire Twelfth Army Group had been destroyed.”

Miller shuddered. “It’s awful. But it’s ending the war, isn’t it?”

“It appears that way. Let me give you a rundown. The Germans and British in the Netherlands are now south of Hamburg and have linked up with the British airborne who retook Bremen. Alexander has Dempsey’s British troops moving south to meet Patton, who has crossed the Weser and is running free in the Russians’ rear. He’s approaching Brunswick if he hasn’t taken it already. There’s very little resistance. When our two armies do meet up, there will likely be a very empty bag, as so many of the Russians were either killed or wounded by the blasts or have already surrendered. The experts were right. Without their senior commanders, the Russians don’t know what to do.

“Rokossovsky is pulling his Second Belorussian Front back as quickly as he can.”

“Will we stop?”

Bradley grinned. “Did the Russians? No, we will continue on. There have been some political changes. Truman managed to inform the Soviets that we have other bombs and told them we wouldn’t hesitate to use them on any target we wanted, and that included Leningrad and Moscow. The air force thinks they are both out of reach and too dangerous, but the Russians don’t know that. According to overtures from Molotov, the Russians are willing to return to their prewar boundaries east of Poland if we’ll leave them to withdraw in peace. I think those terms will be accepted.”

“I think I may have fought my last campaign,” Miller said.

“I understand, Chris. Maybe I have too. I mentioned we’ve been talking with Molotov. Well, no one’s heard from Stalin for the last few days. There’s a rumor that there’s been a coup and he’s been toppled. He may even be dead.”

Miller chuckled. “That’d be nice.”

“You won’t get an argument from me, Chris. It also seems that the Japs may have gotten the message. They understand how much we hate them and have figured that if we’d use the bomb on white Europeans, we’d have no qualms about bombing their cities and their culture into ashes along with their yellow skins. They may be as racially bigoted as we are, but they’re not stupid. It may be too early, but we’ll see.”

Miller had mixed emotions about the Japanese. While he wanted no more war, he wondered if they, like the Germans, might get off too lightly considering the atrocities both nations had committed.

Bradley continued. “Where’s your German tank commander? I’d like to meet him.”

“Von Schumann left yesterday for Hamburg. Too many of the civilians he had been protecting were killed in the battle, and he was having a hard time dealing with it. That and the fact that the man is desperate to find his family.”

The thought saddened Bradley. He could barely imagine the torment of someone who had to search a ravaged continent for loved ones who might be dead. Silently, he wished von Schumann well.

“One more thing,” Bradley asked. “Are those three boys still under wraps?”

“The soldier and the two refugees who shot Bazarian? Sure, but why?”

Bradley shook his head. “For some reason, the higher-ups want it still believed that a Russian NKVD officer tried to kill an Armenian general. The OSS says that Bazarian will survive his wounds and has linked up with several thousand Armenian soldiers who are going crazy with anger at the Russians. The OSS likes that and thinks it might contribute to the further instability of the Soviet Union. Ours not to judge. Give our boy a medal and a promotion and order him not to talk. As to the two Poles, they can immigrate to the United States if they swear to keep what they did a secret.”

They turned as a couple of young men approached them and saluted. They wore the insignia of war correspondents.

“How’re you doing, boys?” asked Miller.

“We’re doing fine, General,” said the older of the two. “We’re gonna give this place and these boys the story they deserve.”

“That’s great.”

“But, sir. We’re puzzled. What happened to the guy who was here?”

“Oh,” said Miller, “you mean Ames. I understand he flew out about a week ago. You mean nobody’s heard from him?”

“Not a peep, sir. Damn, that’s a shame.”

CHAPTER 31

T
he calendar on Harry Truman’s desk told him it was January 7, 1946. The wars had been over for several months now and it was time to commence the rebuilding.

Truman looked up at the distinguished-looking man who still looked a little ill at ease in civilian clothes. However, he looked refreshed and healthy. A few weeks’ paid vacation in Florida on the order of the president will do that.

“Please be seated, General Marshall, we have so much that needs to be accomplished and so little time.”

Marshall did as requested. “I know, sir.”

“Have you considered? Will you serve as my secretary of state?” Stettinius had resigned to return to the private sector. “To be frank, General, I had considered nominating Jim Byrnes, but he’s been a little too controversial in the past. For this job we need a man of integrity, and that, sir, is you.”

Marshall flushed slightly at the compliment. “I don’t know if I deserve all that, but I will serve and I will do my best.”

Truman could not help but be relieved. “Excellent.”

“I do have some plans for the rebuilding of Europe and Asia, but they will be expensive.”

“General, the price of peace cannot be as expensive as the cost of war. This time we must win that peace. What can you tell me now?”

“To begin with, Mr. President, we have been able to feed just about everyone in Europe and Japan. Nobody’s getting fat, but there’s food and people will survive. In Asia, however, there are parts of China where we cannot go because of the fighting between the Communists and the Nationalists.”

“The Nationalists are losing, aren’t they?”

“Yes, sir, they are.”

“We may be backing the wrong horse in that war. What about Russia?”

“The situation in the Soviet Union is utter chaos. With Stalin confirmed dead—Beria shot him—there are little wars all over the place. The Baltic republics have proclaimed their independence, and Marshal Rokossovsky has suddenly remembered that he’s Polish. He’s leading a Polish army allied with the Czechs and Hungarians to defend those three countries, even though they sometimes hate each other, against Russia. There’s a strong possibility the Ukraine will break away and join him. In the south of the Soviet Union, the republics of Armenia, Georgia, and Kazakhstan have, temporarily at least, put away their ethnic hatreds and are fighting a common enemy, Russia. That madman, Bazarian, is in charge in their war against Koniev’s Russians.

Truman looked puzzled. “Bazarian? Isn’t he the man who was shot by one of our boys and a couple of refugees? What’s happening with them?”

“Well, sir, thanks to your decision to reconstitute the OSS, we have places for all three of them. They’ve shown a real knack for more than survival under adverse circumstances, so we’re keeping them on. In return for their secrecy, they get real good government jobs.”

“Speaking of secrecy,” Truman muttered, “I wish we could have done something about that Burke and his wife and the book they’ve written.”

“In hindsight, sir, it was definitely a mistake to discharge him so quickly. Of course, his wife’s resignation from the State Department couldn’t have been helped. On the other hand, he tells the story of his involvement in the war and the decision to use the first bomb fairly accurately. He was not a witness to the decision to drop the second on Koniev’s army or the third on the Japanese at Hiroshima that finally did end the war. I don’t think there’ll be very many repercussions. Now that we have some additional atomic bombs, perhaps it will be good to keep reminding people.”

“General, I’m not too sure anybody needs reminding. Thousands of people are still dying and much of the Weser River north to the ocean is polluted with radioactivity. The Germans are angry as hell, but that’s tough shit as far as I’m concerned. After all, they’re the ones who started the war, along with the Japs, that is. We are the world’s only nuclear power and we should be able to keep it that way for the foreseeable future.”

“I’m not concerned about the Germans’ anger, Mr. President. We saved their country and they know it. Now that the war-crimes trials are about to start, I think they just want to distract public attention from that issue.”

Truman agreed. Some of the big fish in the Nazi regime, like Goering and von Ribbentrop, were scheduled to go on trial. Doenitz and Speer, as leaders in the new German government, were exempt. This did not make Truman comfortable. At least they had gotten confirmation that Hitler and Goebbels were dead, and that Himmler had killed himself. Some others were missing, but they would be found sooner or later. Rumors had them heading for Argentina, but he’d have Marshall read the riot act to the Argentines. They’d cooperate or suffer the consequences.

They spoke of a few other things, like Churchill’s replacement as prime minister by Clement Attlee. Attlee was angry that the bombs had been based in England. Too dangerous, he’d said. They should have been told. Screw him, Truman had replied, although more diplomatically.

As he left, Marshall turned. “At least the boys are coming home. We have that to be thankful for.”

“Yes, we do,” Truman said softly.

Alone for a moment, Truman speculated on his future. Once he had been terrified at the thought of being president. Now he realized he liked it and had thrived on it. The next election would be in 1948 and he would have to begin planning and campaigning for it if he was going to be able to continue in office. He liked Marshall’s ideas and wanted desperately to see them implemented. He was especially intrigued by the plan to provide money for GIs to go to college. Slowing the return of millions of military personnel to the workforce would alleviate unemployment and possibly enable the nation to avoid another depression.

Some people told Harry Truman his political career had ended when the war did. Talk like that simply made him even more combative than he usually was. Hell, hadn’t he won the war against Germany, Japan, and now Russia? He was confident he would win in ’48 against whomever the Republicans sent against him, and now he damn well wanted to. He wanted to wipe away the stain of being what some called an accidental president. He had long ago decided he liked power and the opportunity to do something about his world.

But Marshall had been right about one thing. The boys were indeed coming home, and thank God.

T
HE EASY, ROLLING
motion of the train was restful and allowed him to think. He had gotten on in Pittsburgh after a first train had taken him there from New York. Even though it had been jammed with passengers, his uniform and the fact that he had lost so much weight that he looked like a prison-camp refugee had prompted a middle-aged civilian to give him a seat. That he limped didn’t hurt either. He was feeling a lot better, but he still needed rest and couldn’t put weight on his leg for very long.

A couple of his fellow passengers wanted to talk about the war, but he rebuffed them politely. There was still just too much to think about. He had dreamed of this homecoming for so very long and now it was finally going to happen. But at what price? Sometimes the pain of all he had lost overwhelmed him. Not the physical pain—that was endurable and fading—but the inner pain and the memories of faces lost and voices never to be heard again.

Logan shifted his still aching leg into what he hoped would be a more comfortable position and tried to review what had happened to him. He would probably never remember the last few minutes in the bunker when, somehow, the one-armed Singer had dragged him through the collapsing ruin and then through the falling bombs to another shelter where a medic had given him first aid.

From there it was on to the field hospital where he spent the next several days in and out of delirium while doctors tried to save his shattered leg. They were successful. However, he would limp for a long while, and would probably always be able to predict rain, but the doctors said he would someday be able to walk normally, perhaps even run. He wanted to thank Singer, but Singer had been evacuated early and returned stateside. He’d gotten a letter that said Singer and his wife were together and that he and Marsha were going to start a family. Singer invited him to visit them in Boston, where Marsha had gone back to school. Jack wrote back and said sure, but in a while. Maybe a long while, since he would be finishing his own schooling as well, courtesy of a tuition payment plan developed by General Marshall.

How many friends had he lost? Bailey was dead, as were Dimitri and Crawford. Why them and not him? It would be a long time before he figured that out, if ever. The doctors and a chaplain told him it was normal to wonder about the luck of the draw and, no, he shouldn’t feel guilty about being spared. He agreed. It was just luck that he was alive, and not divine intervention. He had a life to live and would live it without guilt. At least he could begin to purge his guilt when he got over his feeling of emptiness and pain.

Jack recalled General Bradley and General Miller visiting him in the Potsdam hospital and telling him everything was going to be okay. Later, he’d gotten a Silver Star directly from Eisenhower. He wasn’t certain exactly what he had done except destroy that tank, but he accepted it. Singer got a Bronze Star for saving him.

The worst pain was the fact that Lis and Pauli had disappeared, which left him to deal with the reality that he’d made the wrong decision. America had won the battle and the war; thus, safety for them would have been in Potsdam and not on a small plane.

When he was finally shipped to England and was better able to communicate, he had tried to locate her, but to no avail. Some nice ladies at the Red Cross were helpful, but they had nothing on her or the boy. They tried to be kind and told him that there were many millions of unregistered people wandering all over Europe, and that she might yet be one of them. Or she might have gone to a refugee camp and the information had just not reached London. As yet, he was told, there was no central file of those now referred to as displaced persons.

On a hunch he had tried to find the correspondent, Ames. A sympathetic person at Reuters News Service had checked and found that Ames had never shown up either, which further devastated him.

Logan felt the train begin to slow. They were approaching Port Huron and, for him, home. Until the inner pain went away, it would be an empty home.

The train slowed to a stop. He put on his overcoat and, with his duffel bag over his shoulder, gingerly stepped out into the brittle cold of the early February day. There were crystals of ice in the air, and he felt them redden his cheeks. The train station was by the St. Clair River where it emptied into Lake Huron, and was probably colder than a lot of other places in the area. But it was also within walking distance of home.

The station was empty. What the hell? Hadn’t they gotten his telegram? He hadn’t expected a brass band, but it would have been nice for someone to have met him. He shrugged and started to walk.

“Hey, soldier.”

The voice came from behind him and froze him. He stopped and paled. He couldn’t breathe. He turned slowly. The hair was still dark, but it was clean and longer. The face was slightly fuller, but it was still the same face and the smile was the same one he’d recalled every night since Potsdam.

“Aren’t you going to say hello?” she asked.

His voice came out a barely controlled whisper. “Lis?” The duffel bag dropped to the ground with an unheard thud. “How?” he asked as she came into his arms. “I couldn’t find you, Lis. I tried so hard.”

She smiled and hugged him tightly. Her eyes were glistening. In a rush she told him that Ames put down to refuel and crash-landed. He was badly injured, and she cared for him until he died.

“We stayed with some German civilians who were absolute saints. Finally, we were picked up by German soldiers who passed us through to the Allies.”

She pulled back and smiled up at him. “Would you believe the first Allies I saw were Canadians? They flew us to Canada so fast you wouldn’t believe it. Since then, I’ve been trying to find you. I located your family rather easily thanks to the note you gave me so long ago, and kept in contact with them, waiting for you to show up. They said you were wounded but on your way home and couldn’t be reached. I moved in with them last week to wait for you. I’ve been sleeping on their couch ever since. They really are nice people.”

He recalled his parents’ house as being fairly cramped, and he laughed at the thought of Lis on the small couch. “Where’s Pauli?”

“In Toronto. My relatives are going to adopt him. He’s very happy. He’s starting to forget the horrors.”

“Good for him. Ah, Lis, where’s my family?”

She released him and stood back, still holding his hands. “That was my idea. They’re waiting at home with all the relatives and friends you ever had and half the food in the world. I said I wanted the chance to meet you alone at the station and see you first.”

“Why?”

“Well, dear Jack, we had something very special and wonderful in Germany. I wanted to know if it was still special for you. I hope to God it is, but if it isn’t, I’ll understand and go away quietly. This way neither of us has to be hurt too much or be embarrassed.”

He took her face in his hands. “Lis, I’ve thought about you every day and every night. I still can’t believe this is real. No, you’re not going anywhere without me.
Special
doesn’t begin to describe how I feel about you. I love you.”

He grabbed her again and held her tightly and listened to her say that she loved him as well. If it was a dream, he knew he didn’t want to ever wake up.

A car drove by and the driver gleefully honked at the couple embracing in the cold. They didn’t hear it. Nor did they see the dozens of people running down the road toward them.