The Steel Wave

by Jeff Shaara

  Rommel had named the aging veteran Paul Hausser to replace Friedrich Dollmann at the head of Rommel’s Seventh Army. Dollmann had been elderly as well, in his mid-sixties, a tall, elegant man who had done as much as anyone could to prevent the enemy’s success on the Normandy beaches. As the Allies increased their pressure and drove inland, those failures had taken a toll on Dollmann that Rommel did not expect. Word had come that the old man had died after suffering a heart attack, but Dollmann’s staff officers had finally revealed the truth: General Friedrich Dollmann had committed suicide. It was an unnerving piece of news and few would speak of it, even now. What good is loyalty if you don’t have the stomach for a hard fight? Suicide is just another form of desertion.

  Rommel pushed the thoughts away and focused on von Kluge, still grateful for von Kluge’s endorsement of his letter to Hitler. He came here expecting glory, Rommel thought, the grand reward for his good service. Now he has put his neck on the chopping block alongside mine. I should not forget that. Hitler certainly won’t.

  The car turned down a narrow lane, a white gravel road so common in the farm country. Rommel glanced at his watch: After four, he thought. We should reach La Roche-Guyon by dark. I need to speak to Speidel about the artillery—

  “Aircraft! Behind us!” The voice was Holke’s.

  Lang did not hesitate, shouting to Sergeant Daniel, “Quickly! Those trees up ahead! Turn in behind them!”

  The car surged forward. Rommel twisted in his seat, saw two planes coming toward them, fast and low over the distant trees. He felt cold in his chest, began to duck, but there was no time; his eyes were frozen on the nearer plane, the screaming roar of the engine, bursts of smoke from the wings. Streaks of fire hit the rear of the car with punching force: a fiery explosion. Rommel tried to lean over but the glass shattered beside him, a blast that blew hard into his face and neck. The car swerved, and Rommel tried to hold tight, grabbed at the man beside him, but the pain was ripping through his head, and he felt wetness in his eyes, blindness, heard the roar of the planes swirling above him, the echoing shouts of his men. The car swerved, a sudden jolt, rolling on its side, and Rommel was falling, landing hard on his face and arm. He gasped into dirt, tried to cough, but there was no air, no sight, and now the sounds were gone, darkness, his brain carrying him to some silent place very far away.

  Captain Lang and Corporal Holke escaped from the wreckage and kept Rommel and Sergeant Daniel in hiding until another staff car rolled past. Still unconscious, the two men were carried to the village of Livarot, but there was no facility, no adequate place for the wounds to be treated. Desperate, German officers transported them to a larger town nearby, Bernay, where the Germans had a field hospital. The officers who carried them expected the worst, reacting with sickness and tears to the bloody wounds to Rommel’s head, a cracked skull and shattered cheekbone, wounds every man thought to be mortal. Though Rommel remained unconscious, the doctors at the field hospital were able to stabilize him. But their other patient was in far worse condition. Within an hour, Sergeant Daniel was dead.

  Word was quickly sent to the senior commanders and to La RocheGuyon, where Hans Speidel received the message with a soft cry of hopelessness.

  At the time we most needed him…we were deprived of our pillar of strength.

  The German commanders in the field could only keep to their posts, every man knowing that the Allies were coming again, their next attempt to smash an opening in the German lines. Without adequate strength and resources to launch an attack of their own, the Germans could only wait. But closer to Hitler, one man would not wait.

  His name was Klaus Philip Schenk, Count von Stauffenberg. Like Rommel, he came from the south of Germany and did not hold the pedigree of those elite military officers from Prussia. But Colonel von Stauffenberg had a different kind of prestige, a long family lineage of noble service to Germany and an education far beyond that of most military officers. He carried knowledge and an air of culture and artistry that far out-shone his own Führer, so much so that Hitler never completely trusted the man and was always uncomfortable in his presence.

  As German disillusionment with Hitler grew, it was mostly the intellectuals, the men of breeding with a strong link to German aristocracy, who had begun conspiring to remove him from power. But these men were not always soldiers, were not schooled in the art of killing, and few of them had direct access to Hitler. Von Stauffenberg, badly wounded in an air attack in North Africa, had lost an eye and had one arm badly crippled. Hitler admired men who seemed willing to absorb such wounds in service to their country, and so, despite his distrust of von Stauffenberg’s position in the German intelligentsia, he had made the count something of a confidant.

  As Hitler’s great dreams were replaced by catastrophic military failures, the conspiracy against him grew and congealed, the plots unfolding. But most were clumsy insipid attempts that usually went unnoticed by anyone, including Hitler himself. These attempts usually involved bombs, but there were bad fuses and mistakes of timing. The Führer seemed to be a charmed man, with a sorcerer’s knack for foiling his enemies.

  Hitler was far from unaware of the potential for threats to his life. On most occasions when crowds were present, he wore a bulletproof vest, and his hand-picked bodyguards were ruthlessly efficient, highly trained elite marksmen. No matter the passion of those who wanted Hitler dead, no one believed that any man could simply walk up to Hitler and shoot him.

  Of all the men who plotted against him, none were able to stand beside Hitler with as much predictable regularity as von Stauffenberg. And so von Stauffenberg had accepted his role as the triggerman. But his luck had been no better than any other would-be assassin. On three prior occasions, careful planning had failed to produce results. All involved poorly constructed bombs and errors in timing, and all seemed to inflate Hitler’s freakish aura of invincibility. But von Stauffenberg would not be swayed. On July 20, a meeting was scheduled at Hitler’s field headquarters, the Wolf’s Lair, one more discussion about maps and planning, where Hitler’s generals would offer reports as inoffensive to the Führer’s temper as possible. Von Stauffenberg was invited to attend. In his briefcase, he carried yet another bomb.

  The meeting took place in a small building, aboveground, separate from the heavy stone bunkers that would usually protect Hitler. It was a miserable surprise for von Stauffenberg, who had expected the meeting to be belowground, inside concrete, where any blast contained in a tight space would certainly kill everyone in proximity. But the conspiracy was in place, the unstoppable commitment that this time there would be no failure. With the bomb by his side, von Stauffenberg entered the meeting.

  There were twenty-five people in the airy space, gathered around a heavy wood table. Von Stauffenberg maintained as much composure as he could muster and set the briefcase down on the floor, a few feet from where Hitler stood. Then, feigning a sudden need to answer a call from nature, he left the room.

  The blast destroyed the structure, shattering windows and walls and punching the roof skyward. The heavy wood table was tossed upright, collapsing to one side and falling on top of Hitler himself. Four men died in the explosion, and every other man in the room was wounded. After the explosion, von Stauffenberg left Wolf’s Lair in a waiting car. His objective was the nearby airport, where a plane waited to ferry him to Berlin. There, the word would go out quickly to the other conspirators, expanding in a spiderweb of messages and setting in motion an elaborate plan to seize control of the German government and military in the certain chaos that would result from Hitler’s violent death, before the Gestapo or anyone else could fill the vacuum. Across Germany and beyond, the calls were expected by anxious men who sat nervously in offices and homes from Berlin to Paris to La Roche-Guyon. The conspirators hoped that Hitler’s death would begin an elaborate chain of events aimed at reaching out toward the Allies, who were already battering the German defenses in Normandy. There was a desperate hope that, with the death of Hitler, the war could b
e brought to a rapid close.

  But Hitler did not die.

  The bomb had detonated beside a thick wooden table leg, which had blocked Hitler from the major force of the blast. Though pinned beneath the table, his worst injury had come from the sound of the blast itself. He suffered a punctured eardrum.

  Believing that the plan had succeeded, von Stauffenberg made his way to Berlin, but within hours, word rang out from Wolf’s Lair and the Gestapo reacted immediately. Before anyone could make any real attempt to seize power in Berlin, the entire conspiracy collapsed. Less than a day later, von Stauffenberg and many others had been arrested and were quickly executed.

  Though Hans Speidel had known of the July 20 plot, he had never informed Rommel of its specific details. As it unraveled and the conspirators were gathered up by relentless Gestapo investigators, Rommel remained completely unaware. He had yet to regain consciousness from his wounds.

  Over time, Hitler’s revenge brought more than seven thousand people into Gestapo custody, anyone who might have had the faintest link to the conspiracy. More than two thousand were executed.

  Speidel would not be arrested until September.

  * * *

  39. ADAMS

  * * *

  MARKET HARBOROUGH, NEAR LEICESTER

  JULY 20, 1944

  The beer was warm, but no one complained. Adams leaned back in his chair against a knotty wooden wall, focused on a woman on the far side of the room. She had tried to avoid his stare, but then he had caught a stare from her as well, brief, discreet, just a hint of warmth in her dark eyes.

  The room was noisy, chatter flowing mostly from the Americans, their attention directed squarely at the women who were sprinkled among them. Adams had tried to stay out of that kind of combat, but the woman he watched now was not speaking to anyone. She seemed uncomfortable, out of place, and his mind went to work, a swirling fantasy fueled by the dark beer.

  I bet she works in Leicester, he thought, in someone’s office, stodgy and stinking of cigar smoke. Do the Brits smoke cigars? Well, sure. Churchill, you moron. She hates her boss, waits desperately for the weekends, when she can take the train down here, a getaway, maybe meet some of her friends. She doesn’t come here by herself. She’s no chippy, no bar girl, so she has to get talked into it by her friends. She’s curious as hell, wondering what Americans are really like, all these veterans, paratroopers, different from the infantry. Hell, anybody can be infantry, but these men are different: tough bastards, floppy pants and tall boots. And me, over here against the wall, toughest in the bunch, but kind, smart. Yep, brains would matter. She wants brains. She’s hoping for a quieter place than this, to have a conversation with a man who can explain this war, who can tell her stories without shocking her, who doesn’t need to impress the hell out of her with all the glory.

  The woman stood suddenly, her attention drawn toward the door, and his mental narrative jerked to a halt. She glanced at Adams, and then another man came in, American: broad shoulders, a loud voice. She waved with a smile, no coyness, nothing discreet about her reaction to this man, who now engulfed her with his arms. Adams felt his fantasy blasted away, raised up in his chair, fought to see them through the crowd. It was an officer, someone he didn’t know. Someone else.

  Well, hell.

  “Hey, Sarge! I just saw Captain Scofield outside. Said he’d like to talk to you later. I wasn’t sure you were still in here.”

  Adams glanced at the voice, Nusbaum, oblivious to the trauma that had unfolded in Adams’s mind.

  “He still outside?”

  “I don’t know, Sarge. I’m in here.”

  Beside the corporal, Unger stood smiling, seemed to sway, his eyes watery.

  “How many beers you had, kid?”

  “Beers…I hate beer. They told me about this malt stuff. Highland brew, Scotty something. Wow, Sarge, it kicks you in the head, burns every inch of you on the way down….” He seemed to drift away for a second, then focused again, a broad smile. “I like it. It’s good stuff.”

  “Scotch, you idiot. It’s called Scotch. Watch yourself. You carrying any dough on you, it’s liable to disappear.”

  “He’ll be okay,” Nusbaum said. “We’re heading back to the camp.” He was weaving slightly himself.

  Adams swallowed the last gulp of his beer. “I’m leaving too. Had enough fun for one day. Guess I gotta find the captain.”

  He stood, a brief wave of dizziness, looked again for the girl, but there was only the crowd, noisier still, someone offering a drunken toast, drowned out by the men he was toasting. Adams felt the room spinning slowly, a hard belch rising up inside him.

  “I want some more of that Scotch stuff,” Unger said.

  Adams pointed toward the door. “Let’s get him the hell out of here. He’ll pay for this tomorrow morning as it is.”

  They eased through the crowd, perfume and smoke washing over them, the door opening, more men coming in, smiles and anticipation. Adams pushed past unfamiliar faces, was outside now, the sun low, heard Nusbaum behind him.

  “Damn, it’s late. This day’s already done for.”

  Unger stumbled, the two men now holding the boy upright between them.

  “He cleans up his own damned puke,” Nusbaum said.

  “I promise you that. We oughta leave him in the alley over there.”

  “Can’t do that, Sarge. Somebody’d roll him, for sure.”

  “I know. I wouldn’t do that to the kid. Let’s just go back to base.” Adams adjusted his grip beneath Unger’s arm.

  “I guess this means he’s a man now,” Nusbaum said.

  “No. It just means he’s as stupid as the rest of us.”

  He lay still, his brain working in the darkness, could not escape it. It had been this way every night, sleep broken by the sudden jolt of awareness. Adams knew to expect some kind of nightmares, something the doctors called shell shock, and he had waited for it. Some of the men were having problems during the night. The number of sick calls was increasing, no officer begrudging any man’s need to see a doctor, seeking something to help him sleep. But there was nothing the doctors could do about nightmares. Adams had heard some of the others at night: a sudden shout, jarring the entire barracks awake, cursing and taunts, and then silence or a soft apology from the man who had suffered the dream. But Adams had gone through none of it, no nightmares at all, the memories of France, of hedgerows and drowning troopers, held away by a great gray wall. He forced himself to think of the dead, Marley and Buford and Pullman, the lieutenant who didn’t have the brains to keep low in sniper country. But those details were clean and clinical now, no screams, no blood, none of the images that seemed to haunt the men around him. The sleeplessness would make him angry, mostly at himself, questions about his own sanity, all those things that psychiatrists were supposed to hear about. But no man would ask to see a shrink unless he was faking something. Adams stared up, thought, No, the crazy ones don’t know they’re crazy. Someone else has to figure it out for them. So what the hell is wrong with you?

  He rolled over on one side, heard snoring, always snoring, a chorus of soft rhythms, the occasional snort and cough, curses. There would be cigarette smoke too, a soft glow down the way, someone else not sleeping, afraid of the nightmares or—like me, he thought. Maybe they’re just…bored.

  Gavin was waiting for him, the tall thin man even thinner now. They were all thinner, but Adams was surprised to see how gaunt Gavin was, a reminder that in France even generals ate K rations. Gavin was shuffling through papers and glanced up, a brief smile.

  “About time you showed up. You operating on civilian time now, Sergeant?”

  “No, sir. Sorry. I didn’t get the order until a half hour ago.” Shut up, he thought. Gavin doesn’t need excuses.

  Gavin read from a paper, set it aside, picked up another, then reached behind him—one flow of motion—grabbed a coffeepot, and set it down on a flat piece of cork on the desk in front of him.

  “If you root th
rough that pile of reports over there, you’ll find a cup. Probably dirty, but it’ll be a general’s germs.”

  Adams saw the cup, half hidden by a stack of blue paper, retrieved it. He filled it from Gavin’s pot, and Gavin returned the pot to the hot plate behind him, still reading the papers. Adams smelled the coffee, his eyes instantly watering.

  Gavin didn’t look up. “I wouldn’t drink too much of it. Some things never change.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The general tossed a paper onto a growing pile to one side and sat back. “Your corporal, Nusbaum, got his third stripe today. He’ll head a squad under the new lieutenant, Lewiston. You meet him?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Brand-new, right out of officer school. Introduced himself to me like he was General MacArthur. Wish he’d done that to Ridgway, love to have seen that: Lieutenant Lewiston, killed in action, burnt to a crisp by General Ridgway’s wrath. Well, he’d get a Purple Heart, anyway. Damn replacements. They’re supposed to be training these guys before they get here, qualify them to jump. Someone up the ladder’s falling down on that one. The damn repple depple is swarming with these guys, ready to be war heroes. Half of them are volunteering for the airborne. Pain in the ass, trying to sort through them all.”