Chapter 2
Tanner took his first tentative steps without crutches. Doctor Lennie Hagerman watched him tolerantly. “Not bad, Captain. You won’t make the ’48 Olympic track team but you’re otherwise going to be all right. Of course, there might not be a ’48 Olympics unless this war winds down.”
“How long will I need a cane?”
“That’s up to you. I would use it for a couple of weeks. Your leg and foot are still weak and sore and, besides, people will feel sorry for you and might give you a break, or even a seat on a bus. Seriously, you don’t want to fall down and hurt yourself worse.”
“I don’t want anyone giving me a break. I want to have another chance to kill the Nazi bastards who murdered my men.”
“Understood. However, it is unlikely that you will be assigned to a line unit until your leg is totally up to par, and maybe not even then. Can’t have a crippled captain leading troops, now can we?”
Scott had been in worse shape than he’d thought when he got to the hospital just outside of Celles, Belgium. The otherwise lovely but undistinguished village had been the high-water mark of the German’s Ardennes invasion. He’d had pneumonia along with a bad case of trench foot that had taken a couple of weeks to clear up. The medics had given serious thought to amputating his right foot after stabilizing his badly twisted left knee. The knee had been easy. It just needed rest. The foot, however, raised concerns that it might turn gangrenous.
Hagerman continued. “You were very fortunate that your foot did heal. The traditional treatment of keeping the foot dry and letting the dead skin slough off and new skin grow back actually worked. We also tried you with some of that new drug, Penicillin. I have no idea if it worked or not or just made me feel better. You are now very unfortunate in that you might be susceptible to it happening again. Ergo, it is highly unlikely that you will be cleared to be in a situation where your feet could become wet and cold for a prolonged period of time.”
“What if I promise to bring extra socks?”
“As they say, Tanner, put a sock in it yourself. Keep your socks and your powder dry or you’ll wind up being a cripple. That’ll get your out of the army but won’t do a damn thing about you’re urge to kill the Nazis who murdered those two men. Not that they weren’t the only GIs who were executed like that.”
Tanner nodded thoughtfully. There had been other massacres of American prisoners. A particularly terrible one had occurred near the Belgian town of Malmedy where almost a hundred American soldiers had been butchered. There would be a lot of Germans facing trials and the firing squad when this war was over.
“Any idea where I’m going to be assigned?”
“Do I look like God? There are ugly rumors that the Krauts are pulling up stakes and heading south to the Alps. That means that this part of the war is going to wind down and the next phase will be up to Devers and the Sixth Army Group. Is that where you’d like to be? I do have some friends in low places who would do me a favor.”
“Do that, please.”
“Then get into a uniform and we’ll go out to dinner. Your treat, of course. After all, you do owe me a foot.”
Tanner laughed and agreed. The only place to eat around the hospital was the army’s mess hall.
* * *
Staff Sergeant Billy Hill sat in the last vehicle in a ten jeep convoy and tried to keep warm as the snow-flecked wind hit him in the face. He would not show the rest of the men that he felt the cold. He would not show the platoon that he was human. After all, he was the platoon sergeant. He would also never let them call him Hillbilly Billy Hill.
If the officer commanding the platoon thought that being last in line was his punishment for being outspoken, the young and inexperienced second lieutenant was very, very wrong. This was the safest place to be as the officer led his platoon from the front down the paved two-lane highway. It wasn’t quite the Autobahn, but it was nicer than anything Hill had seen in or out of his small town home in Opelika, Alabama.
According to the maps, the American army was getting ever closer to the Alps, as were the Germans they were chasing. The land was hilly, not mountainous, but there was the idea that the terrain was going to get more difficult. There were many great places for an ambush.
Hill was twenty-eight and had been in the army since a week after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He’d hitched a ride from Opelika down the road to Fort Benning, Georgia, where he’d enlisted. He hadn’t intended to be a lifer, but that’s what it looked like was going to happen. He’d seen combat in North Africa and been wounded in the drive towards Tunis. He’d given some thought to going to Officer Candidate School but decided that he’d have to be a gentleman in order to be an officer and that just wasn’t in him. He smiled at the thought as he spat tobacco off the side of the jeep, courteously missing the other men with him. They nodded their appreciation.
Of course, if he’d been an officer, he could have told the young shit-eating puppy of a lieutenant that he was doing a truly dumb thing. The captain had said send a small patrol down the road to probe and see where the Krauts might be holed up. The captain hadn’t said to take the whole damn platoon and ride down the middle of the highway like a bunch of sightseers. To Hill, the captain really wanted two or three men and a radio to quietly and slowly figure things out. Rumors said that the Nazis were moving south to the mountains, but who could trust the Nazis?
The men wore white smocks which helped hide them in the snow, but the jeeps were painted olive drab and clearly stood out on the snow-covered highway. Hill swore silently and hoped that the Nazis were asleep at the switch while the column moved down the road at twenty miles an hour.
They weren’t. Just as he started to grab another chew, tracers snaked out from either side of the road, smashing into metal and flesh. Bullets swept the column, dropping screaming men from the jeeps. The lead vehicles were quickly driverless and crashed, while the others tried desperately to turn and get away from the deadly rain of bullets. Gas tanks exploded. Men screamed as burning gas enveloped them.
“Turn around!” Hill yelled. The jeeps in front of him were already trying to do just that, but they too were quickly hit with bullets. There was the loud crack of an antitank gun and another jeep simply exploded. He didn’t need his radio to tell the others to get the hell out. He was about to radio the company commander when something smashed into the side of his jeep, slowly turning it on its side.
Hill hit the ground and crawled towards the cover of a ditch. The gas tank exploded, sending debris and burning gas over him. His uniform was on fire. He rolled around in the snow and mud and finally put it out after a few seconds that seemed like forever. He hurt like the devil from a number of burns, but he could deal with it. He had to.
More machine-gun bullets sprayed the area and made sure the dead were well and truly dead. Hill and a couple of other survivors lay in the ditch. The whole damn platoon had been pretty near wiped out. If it was any consolation, the idiot boy lieutenant was likely one of the bodies smoldering at the head of the devastated column.
“Damn it,” he snarled. He’d only been with the inexperienced unit for a couple of weeks and didn’t know any of them well, but they were still his men. Or had been, he thought angrily.
The wind shifted and he could smell burning flesh. He managed not to gag but one of the men with him wasn’t so lucky, vomiting violently. After a while, he got up the courage to look over the edge of the ditch. The Germans had come out of their holes and were headed slowly up the road. They checked American bodies and found a couple still living. They called for medics to take care of them. At least, he thought, they weren’t SS. One German shot a body that was still burning. A mercy shot, Hill thought. In North Africa he’d killed a badly burned Italian soldier who’d been screaming through charred lips to be put out of his pain.
He signaled to the other two men and they crawled slowly towards the safety of the Austrian forest. Hill waited until after darkness to go by himself to the head of the smashed column. He quickly found the sites where the shooting had come from. The Germans had evacuated, correctly feeling that American artillery or fighter planes would soon bomb and shell the area. Maybe the planes would use that new napalm to cook up a passel of Germans and call them “Fritz Fries.” He liked that thought. The Germans also likely assumed that a stronger American column would rescue the one they’d massacred. They didn’t know that all the platoon’s radios had been destroyed in the attack.
Nobody’d had a chance to pick up the dead and the German positions had been evacuated. He wasn’t going to bring back the dead either, but he did want to identify them. He gently removed one set of dog tags from each of twenty-three bodies, including the young lieutenant’s.
Hill couldn’t even recall the poor kid’s name until he saw it on his tags. The boy had arrived only a few days earlier. Now he would be buried in a local cemetery or shipped home in a box. Just because he’d been stupid didn’t mean he ought to have died.
The snow began falling again. In a few seconds it was almost impossible to see more than a few feet. Someone had told them that this was one of the worst winters in decades and he believed it. Alabama got bone-chilling cold and damp and of course it snowed every now and then, but this, he thought, was something else. At least the snow would cover their withdrawal. Thank God for small favors, he thought.
They got another small favor. One of the damaged jeeps actually started and ran, although they couldn’t get it out of second gear. Beat the hell out of walking, they thought.
* * *
General Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived without incident at Lieutenant General Jake Devers’ Sixth Army Group headquarters near the old border between Austria and Germany. The U.S. owned the skies so the handful of passengers and crew of the modified B25 bomber had little to worry about except boredom and the weather. Even so, the flight had been accompanied by a dozen P51 fighters. Nobody was leaving anything to chance. The Germans had very few planes left, but it would only take one ME109 or one of the new jet-propelled ME262s and the Allied High Command could have been decapitated. There had also been some disturbing instances where German planes had carried out suicide attacks on U.S. bombers.
Devers Sixth Army Group was the smallest of the three army groups fronting the Nazis in a line that ran from the North Sea south to the Alps. A fourth army group, the Fifteenth under Mark Clark, was clawing its way up Italy. Devers had twelve American divisions in General Alexander Patch’s Seventh Army and seven French under General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny in the French First Army.
Coffee and pastries were served by awed privates in a large house that had once been owned by a wealthy German. A large but slashed and mutilated portrait of Hitler decorated a wall. With the bulk of the war raging to the north, there was the feeling that the Sixth Army front was pretty well forgotten. The presence of Ike told them otherwise. Rumors quickly flew saying that big things were in store for the Sixth and that meant bloody fighting.
It wasn’t that the Sixth had been sitting on its collective hands. It hadn’t. They’d fought long and hard and successfully. They’d just completed eliminating what was called the Colmar Pocket, a German holdout on the west bank of the Rhine. As a result of that effort the city of Strasbourg was once again part of France. Unfortunately, Ike had not been impressed by Devers and the Sixth Army Group’s performance in that fighting. If the war in and around the Alps was to become critical, Ike had been thinking that a change in command might become necessary.
Ike gave Devers copies of the latest Ultra intercepts received from the code-breaking center at Bletchley Park in England. Only a handful of Allied leaders were privy to the fact that the U.S. and Britain had been listening to much of the German military’s communications for quite some time. He lit up a Camel, his current brand of choice, while Devers scanned the papers.
Devers shook his head and handed the documents back to Ike who stuffed them in a briefcase. They would not be left around for curious eyes to see. “This changes a lot of things,” Devers said. “A lot of people thought that the idea of an Alpine Redoubt was a figment of somebody’s imagination. The idea of the Nazis turning the Alps into a fortress is a frightening prospect. We’ve got to get across the Rhine and fast and that isn’t going to be easy.”
Ike nodded. At least Devers wasn’t saying I told you so. He’d been one of the American generals who’d thought that a German move to an Alpine redoubt was likelihood. He’d even urged Ike to let his Sixth Army Group troops be among the first to cross the Rhine and cut off a German retreat to the Alps, but Ike had emphatically shot down that idea. Without proof that a redoubt was actually going to be built, there was no reason to change Allied strategy. They would press on towards the Rhine and then the Elbe. Thus, the Rhine crossings would be to the north. But now the situation was different.
Ike accepted that Devers was right about the Rhine preventing any move to cut off a German dash to the Alps. Plans were being made for Montgomery to command an enormous crossing force near where the Rhine flowed into the North Sea. Unfortunately, that would place Montgomery’s army as far from the Alps as possible. They would be in no position to stop the German exodus. As always, hindsight was a great view.
Ike drew deeply on his cigarette. “Once we’re across, Bradley’s Twelfth Army Group will give up any and all thoughts of heading to Berlin. As planned, they and Monty’s troops will stop at the Elbe. Patton’s Third Army will swing south and east to try and cut off forces trying to make it to the mountains. Patton’s angry as hell but he’ll deal with it. This seals the fact that we will not send men to Berlin just so they can give it back to the Russians.”
The agreement between the Allies made at Yalta specified that the Elbe River would be the boundary between the Soviet sphere of influence and the Anglo-American-French lines. If the American troops crossed the Elbe, they were treaty-bound to withdraw back to it at a later date. Thus, any American casualties sustained in the effort would have been lives wasted. Regardless of how much generals like Patton and Montgomery wanted their armies to make it to Berlin ahead of the Reds, Ike had forbidden it.
Ike continued. “Once Monty’s across, we hope there will be other opportunities to cross; perhaps there’ll even be a collapse of the German forces on the Rhine. Be prepared to make the jump at the first opportunity. Once on the other side of the Rhine, can your men make an all-out effort to cut off the Germans?”
Devers winced. “You know we’ll do our damndest and then some. I’ve got nineteen divisions, which sounds like a lot, but all of them are understrength, filled with raw and inexperienced rookies, and just plain worn out. The army is scraping the bottom of the barrel.”
“So are the Germans,” Ike said. “We’re conscripting eighteen-year-olds, but they are drafting children who are much younger.”
“Understood, but it doesn’t change the fact that this isn’t the same army that invaded France last summer. The men are counting the days until the war ends and they can go home, and those who don’t have enough time in service to get discharged are scared to death at the thought of going to fight the Japs. Until the Bulge, everybody thought the war with Germany was over and nobody wanted to be the last man killed.”
“Can’t say as I blame them,” said Ike. “Everybody’s mad and disappointed that the Krauts have shown so much life.”
Devers continued. “And don’t forget that seven of my divisions are French and they are pretty much fighting their own war. De Gaulle has instituted some troop replacement policies that are just plain nuts and that’s left their units badly understrength and undertrained. That and the fact that General Tassigny takes his orders from De Gaulle and not from me is a royal pain. And don’t forget that General Leclerc and General Tassigny won’t even speak to each other, which is why Leclerc’s division is in the Seventh Army and not the French First Army. It’s a farce.”
“Understood,” said Ike grimly. The French had shown a propensity to squabble like children both among themselves and with their erstwhile allies.
Devers had never been Ike’s favorite general and he had been considering replacing him. But now he was having second thoughts. Maybe Devers’ apparent problems weren’t all his fault. Perhaps it was also due to a fractured and fractious command. De Gaulle had been a thorn in the American command’s side from the very first. Neither FDR nor Churchill could stand the man and accepted him as the leader of France only reluctantly. Paris had been liberated some months earlier and it was felt that De Gaulle no longer saw any need to expend effort and French lives in a war that was already won. France had regained control of Alsace and Lorraine, provinces claimed by France and lost in 1940, and that further dampened their enthusiasm for future operations or even basic cooperation.
Devers stood and pointed at a map of Europe on the wall. “Once across, I’m sure I can halt a lot of German traffic, but that still leaves the road from the south via Italy wide open. And then there’s nothing to stop the Krauts from coming up through Yugoslavia. The Reds aren’t there yet.”
Devers turned a worried look at Ike. “General, am I allowed to speak ill of our allies?”
Almost from the day he’d taken command, Ike had issued a fiat that no one could insult the British or the French. A few officers had made that mistake and paid for it with their careers.
Ike smiled. “If it’s just between us, yes. Of course, you could always call General Alexander a bad general who just happens to be British rather than a bad British general.”
British General Harold Alexander had recently been promoted to Field Marshal and made commander of all operations in the Mediterranean. Ike and others felt that Alexander had been kicked upstairs and out of the way.
Devers laughed. “Ike, I know that Mark Clark is now in charge of the Fifteenth Army Group and that’s got to be an improvement over Alexander. From what I can tell, it’s been a slow-motion chase for months. And yes, I know the Fifteenth has been climbing northward towards the Alps and I also know that we’ve stripped it of some of his best units, but Clark won’t be able to stop the Germans in Italy from getting to that redoubt. The British Eighth Army is run down and they don’t want to take any more casualties either. Clark’s armies are made up of units from many countries, including Brazil. It’ll take time for Clark to sort things out. I mean, does anybody really think the Brazilians can take on even a weakened Wehrmacht? Hell, we all know FDR’s big on this new United Nations thing, but Clark’s got Canadians, Poles, and South Africans in his army along with those damned Brazilians. I’d like to have the Poles and South Africans but you can keep the others. The Canadians are just as worn out as the British.”
Ike nodded and dug out another cigarette. Mamie had written him about his chain smoking. He thought he might do something about it after the war. Now it gave him comfort. Ike was confident that Mark Clark was an improvement over Alexander, but by how much was a question. The man had a tendency to act like a prima donna. He had liberated Rome on June 5, 1944, the day before the invasion of Normandy. Rumor had it that he felt that Ike had upstaged him. There was also the question of his liberating Rome in the first place. Clark’s advance had been controversial. By taking Rome instead of cutting across the width of Italy, he had permitted large numbers of Germans to escape to the north where they now confronted the Allies and could be heading for the Redoubt. Jesus, he thought. How many prima donnas could he have? First there was Montgomery, then De Gaulle, add Mark Clark and stir in a dash of George Patton.
Of course, he thought with a small degree of satisfaction, he didn’t have to deal with that ultimate prima donna, Douglas MacArthur. That legend in his own eyes was Roosevelt’s problem.
“Have you forgotten the soldiers from India and that regiment of Japanese from Hawaii and California?” Devers added with a smile. The Fifteenth Army Group was indeed a polyglot force.
“Intelligence says that the German and Italian units facing Clark are mere remnants,” said Ike. He was now regretting the decision to exclude Clark from this meeting. Ike’s staff had talked him out of making a dangerous flight over the Alps to Italy or having Clark make one instead.
“Even a beheaded and dying snake might have enough venom to kill a victim if given a chance,” answered Devers. “If the Germans in Italy decide to make a run for this redoubt area, I don’t see any way of stopping them. Once they get to some kind of sanctuary, they can rest and reorganize and be a real bear to push off of those mountains. Of course the weather continues to be miserable, which doesn’t help matters one damn bit. By the way, if Clark can’t use the 10th Mountain Division, I’d like to have it. Their skills will come in handy if we have to fight on those peaks.”
Ike nodded grimly. While Bradley and Devers would ultimately close the route from northern Germany to the Redoubt area, the door from the south was open and would likely remain that way. Maybe it wouldn’t be a huge German army that made it to the mountains, but it wouldn’t have to be to be an effective deterrent. Damn it to hell, he thought as he reached for another cigarette. Realistically also, there was no chance of stopping the Germans from moving to the Alps until the Rhine was crossed.
“You can have the Tenth,” Ike said. And, he thought, you have convinced me to give you a chance to either stop the Germans from making it to the Redoubt in large numbers, or taking it from those who do make it.
“Do I have the go-ahead to begin planning to cross the Rhine?”
Ike winced inwardly. It was a reminder that he’d shot down Devers’ earlier plan. “Just don’t plan too long. I want your men across as soon as feasible.”
Devers beamed. “Great, Ike. To get started I want to switch the Seventh Army’s location with the French First Army. I want Americans heading east along the Swiss border where they can cut off Germans from the north and east. I just don’t think the French are up to it and you can blame De Gaulle all you want.”
Ike laughed. Devers enthusiasm was contagious. Now all the man had to do was pull it off. “Jake, I plan on blaming Le Grand Charles for everything.”
* * *
Tanner tried not to limp too badly as he reported to Major General Richard Evans of the 105th Infantry Division. His knee had healed and his foot was getting better, but was a long ways from healthy. He wondered if he would ever be able to play touch football or pickup basketball. Hell, or even walk briskly. He had also picked up an intestinal bug that had cost him twenty pounds. This morning he’d noticed that there was a hint of premature grey in his hair. Damn. The last thing he needed was to look old before he was thirty. When he got home after the war, how would he ever find a woman if he looked older than he was? He had laughed at his reflection when he realized that first he had to survive the war in order to get home upright and not in a box.
Evans commanded the 105th Infantry Division. He was at his headquarters in a farmhouse ten miles west of the still uncrossed Rhine and north of the Swiss border.
An officious clerk told Tanner to have a seat. He was informed that the general would be with him in a moment. He took the opportunity to look at the numerous maps tacked to the walls. Evans’ division was the closest to the Swiss border. To its left as it faced Germany in the east was the Thirty-Sixth Infantry Division and the other divisions that comprised the U.S. Seventh Army.
The clerk told Tanner to go in. He saluted the general and reported formally. Evans casually returned the salute, shook his hand, and directed Tanner to a chair. Evans was short, pot-bellied and had thinning red hair. Tanner judged him to be in his fifties. He looked nervous and exhausted but greeted Tanner cordially.
“I’ve read your record, Captain, and it’s not my policy to make wounded soldiers stand. It’s also not my policy to spend too much time greeting captains, even those who’ve been wounded and decorated. There are just too many of them. However, your story intrigues me. Just how the hell did the 106th get in such a position that two of their three regiments had to surrender?”
Tanner had told the story so many times that he almost had it memorized. “It’s a sad old tale, General. We saw what we wanted to see and believed what we wanted to believe. The Germans were making a lot of noise putting their armor into position but we thought it was them getting ready to pull their vehicles out of the area, not attack us. They also tried to mask the sounds by flying planes low over the area. Some of us thought otherwise, but we were pretty much shouted down by so-called experts. We believed that they knew more than we did, despite what we were hearing and sensing. We were reminded that the Germans were dead, were on their last legs, and, hell, the war would be over by Christmas and we’d all be home by Easter. Sir, I’m not going to insult you by saying I was a genius and disagreed with those assertions. I did to a point, but then I agreed with their collective wisdom. I decided that all those experts had to be right and who was I to argue?”
“How much did the division’s inexperience and the fact that you were spread so thin have to do with the disaster?”
“A lot, sir. The higher-ups said our area was a quiet zone and we could gain some valuable experience without getting too many people hurt. And then when the Krauts did attack, we were spread so thin that the German infantry and armor came in hordes and punched through us like shit through a goose. That’s when I got wounded and escaped through to our lines.”
Evans leaned back in his chair and nodded grimly. “Do you feel that you disobeyed a direct order by not surrendering?”
Tanner answered with barely controlled anger. It was not the first time he had been asked that question. Usually, it had come from men who’d been nowhere near the front. “I never actually got such an order and, besides, sir, I’m not so sure that I’d have to obey an order to surrender when I had an option to escape. I can’t imagine getting court-martialed for wanting to continue on fighting.”
Evans laughed softly. “I can’t either, son. I just don’t know what to do with an officer who had trench foot and now can’t get his feet wet.”
“I’ll do whatever you ask, sir.”
Evans paused thoughtfully. “A couple of days ago, a young lieutenant misunderstood an order and wound up getting his platoon almost wiped out. The platoon sergeant and three others survived. I hate speaking ill of the dead, but the boy made a dumb mistake. As a result, he and a score of others paid with their lives. Now they’re all either dead or wounded prisoners.”
Evans lit a cigarette. He did not offer one to Tanner. That was fine. Tanner rarely smoked. “The sergeant’s name is Billy Hill and don’t laugh or he’ll skin you alive. He deserved better. He and a couple of his surviving men are hanging around headquarters. I’m going to assign them to you. You’re supposed to be good at intelligence and your report says you’d like to see the Nazi who killed your buddies get justice. You will work for me and you’ll be involved in special projects and, no, you will not be handing out socks and underwear. I will try to make sure that you don’t get your damn feet wet.”
* * *
“Magda!” Josef Goebbels yelled happily as he entered their apartment near the Fuhrer Bunker. Until it became too dangerous to travel, she and the children had been estranged and living separately from Josef. “It has been officially decided and I have the orders signed by Hitler himself,” he exulted. “We are all to leave Berlin while we can and get to the Redoubt. When we arrive, I will be in charge until Bormann gets there. He is to leave Berlin at a later time.”
Goebbels’ wife smiled grimly. “Perhaps we and the Reich will have good fortune and he won’t make it.”
They embraced almost formally, even coldly, and separated. By conventional standards theirs was a unique marriage. She had an adult child by a first marriage and the two had six more children, the oldest of whom was a girl of twelve. While they might love each other in their own way, neither had been a particularly loyal spouse. Josef Goebbels was a notorious womanizer and Magda had taken a number of lovers. Both were proud that they’d produced six young Nazis to serve the Reich and Adolf Hitler.
Josef’s most recent infidelities had become public and almost destroyed the remnants of their marriage. For most of the time, they lived apart with Josef only visiting his children with permission. Now, however, the war had forced them to resume living together.
“Now both we and Germany have a chance,” the Propaganda Minister said proudly and Magda nodded her agreement.
In the distance bombs were falling, but nothing near the heart of Berlin at this time. They would be ignored. The work of government went on regardless of the enemy attacks. After each bombing, thousands of Berliners would come out of their shelters and holes and begin the process of clearing the streets, moving the rubble, and searching for the dead, the wounded and other survivors. Dust clouds covered portions of the city and the stench of death was pervasive. The inhabitants of Berlin looked gaunt and filthy. Food was rationed and bathing was an unheard-of luxury, except, of course, for the party and military hierarchy, and that did include the Goebbels’ family.
Goebbels had the unenviable job of telling the people of Berlin and the rest of Germany that all was well and that victory was just around the corner. He considered himself the most loyal servant Adolf Hitler had, but even he no longer believed that they could hold out against the Red Army’s hordes pressing them from the east. Nor were there any more super weapons to launch at the enemy, unless, of course, Heisenberg’s bomb worked. All had been used and the results had been negligible. Defeat was inevitable.
The two had discussed their options and, until recently, had seen death as the only viable option. It was inevitable that the Russians would take Berlin and the fate of the Goebbels family at the hands of the Red Army was almost too terrible to contemplate. Although in her early forties, the blond Joanna Magdalena Maria Goebbels was still an extremely attractive woman and, since Hitler was a bachelor, she was considered the First Lady of the Reich. She had served as a hostess at a number of events and was a celebrity in her own right. She would be a prized prisoner, ripe for humiliation and degradation.
If she were captured by the Reds, it was presumed that many vengeful Red Army soldiers would stand in line and take turns raping her and her children before killing them. Perhaps their ordeal would be filmed and viewed by posterity. Or worse, after being abused by the Slavic subhumans, they would be shipped to the Kremlin and put on display in cages where they would exist as starving naked animals living in their own filth and driven mad by the abuse. Their oldest, Helga, was only twelve and that fate for her and the others was too terrible to contemplate. No, they already had the cyanide tablets needed to bring all to a quick death. Death by poison would not be painless but they had seen it as their only option. As captors, the Americans might treat them more decently, but the Americans were far away.
But now there was a glimmer of hope. Both were torn. Their adoration of Hitler knew no bounds. But they were human and they wanted the two of them and their children to have a chance at survival. They would obey orders and go to the Redoubt. The cyanide pills were always there, always present. Death was inevitable, but now it could be deferred.
* * *
Ernie Janek, late of Chicago, swung his muscular legs out of his bed and thought that war was not always hell. He was twenty-three and a captain in the U.S. Army Air Force, and the mighty Eighth Air Force to boot.
So what the hell was he doing in a cheap hotel in Bern, the capital of Switzerland? Well, he reminded himself, it was because his P51 fighter had a little engine trouble while escorting a flight of B17 bombers. This caused him to drop out of the formation and become easy prey for a pair of German ME109 fighters. He’d fought and danced in the skies and managed to shoot one of them down, but then his engine seized up and the surviving Kraut had poured bullets into Ernie’s plane. Almost miraculously, he hadn’t been scratched while he cowered and whimpered helplessly and waited for the end. He’d been praying for the first time in years when he realized that the remaining German plane had pulled back and was flying away. Ernie had no firm idea where he was, but he decided that south was best since the German plane was headed to the north.
Ernie had nursed the plane along until the engine started to smoke and flames erupted. He’d then climbed out of his cockpit and launched himself down to the mist-covered ground. He first hoped for a clean landing with no broken bones, and then that the Germans wouldn’t kill him. German civilians had begun taking bloody vengeance on the downed airmen who’d rained death on their homes. He’d been told in lectures that the hardest part of surrendering was getting somebody to accept it instead of shooting you first.
He’d landed safely after only a couple of bumps and bruises resulting from being scraped along the ground and was getting out of his parachute harness when a truckload of soldiers arrived. He immediately held up his hands and hoped they would take his surrender. One took his pistol and pushed him into the back of the truck.
“Where am I?” he asked, hoping that someone understood him.
One of them laughed. “You are afraid that you are in Germany, aren’t you? Well congratulations, you’ve had the good luck to land in Switzerland.”
And good luck it was, he thought. Switzerland was neutral and felt compelled to treat combatants from both sides as internees and not prisoners. American internees were treated more as unexpected and somewhat unwelcome guests and their confinement was extremely light. Ernie had been put up at an unused ski lodge for a couple of weeks until being moved to his current abode, an inexpensive but clean hotel in Bern. Of course it would be clean. The Swiss were always clean. Here he would be safe until the war ended. He was encouraged to wear civilian clothes, which was fine since his one and only uniform had been shredded by his parachute landing. The American embassy in Bern even made sure he was paid and that he got his mail.
Problem was, he didn’t want to spend the war sitting on his ass in Bern. Not only was he supposed to be fighting Nazis, but Bern had to be one of the dullest places in the world. Admittedly, it was a pretty little town of about a hundred and twenty thousand souls, and the medieval city center was a joy to look at. Like his hotel, the place was also immaculately clean, making him think that hordes of cleaning ladies emerged each night and scrubbed down the entire town. It was nice, but it wasn’t the U.S. Army Air Force and he wasn’t fighting the Nazis. Someday, when the war was over, his grandchildren would ask him what he did in the war. He didn’t want to say he spent some or most of it sitting on his ass in a hotel in Switzerland.
He’d had an idea and today he would try it out. On many days, a middle-aged man would come to a nearby park that overlooked the Aare River that snaked through Bern. He would sit and smoke his pipe, apparently pontificating. Ernie sensed that the man was an American, doubtless a diplomat, although he might be from the Red Cross, which had its headquarters in Bern. It didn’t matter. Maybe the man could get him out of the boring hole that was Bern and back to the war.
After having watched him for a while, Ernie realized that men and women would occasionally come up to the man, shake hands, and depart. Sometimes they would sit and talk softly. Ernie quickly realized that that some of them were surreptitiously giving him information and documents. Whoever the old guy was, he was likely a spy. Now he really had to meet the guy.
Ernie walked across the park and sat by the man at the far end of the bench. He lit a cigarette and tried to look casual. The man had been reading a newspaper. He folded it and laid it down. “Good afternoon, Captain Janek. My name is Allen Dulles. How may I be of service to you?”