The same was true of his once proud armored forces. The tanks, in particular the T34, were magnificent, and the larger Stalin series were at least a match for the German Tiger and King Tiger, but their crews were raw and inexperienced. The Germans had their own problems with manpower, but theirs were easier to hide when fighting a defensive war, and the Germans were masters of defense.
The Soviet air forces were large in numbers and steadily improving, but they too lacked the skills necessary to fight the Germans in the air. The Nazis didn’t have the numbers of planes they’d had in the past and their pilots were of a lower quality. On a qualitative basis, the Luftwaffe remained hugely better.
He accepted the simple truth that Russian peasants who’d never even been in a car would take forever to become mechanics, tank commanders, and pilots, while it came as almost second nature to German youths who had a long term familiarity with things mechanical. He knew that millions of Soviet soldiers had never seen a toilet, much less the engine of an airplane.
“Comrade Zhukov, your armies are now well into Poland and approaching East Prussia. The German defense is stiffening. When will you break them?”
Zhukov suppressed a shiver. He decided to answer truthfully. Why not, he thought, since Stalin had his spies everywhere and doubtless knew as much as he did. Zhukov was one of several leaders of what the Red Army referred to as “Fronts,”
Konev and Rokossovski being two of the more senior ones and both were Zhukov’s rivals. He and Konev had a particularly bitter relationship based on personal ambition. Stalin understood that and played them against each other to keep them off balance. Neither Konev nor Rokossovski was at this meeting and each was doubtless seething and wondering what was transpiring behind their backs.
Zhukov answered. “Comrade Stalin, the days of breaking through and surrounding whole German armies like we did at Stalingrad, or hammering them to destruction at Kursk are over. The Germans fight much more rationally and logically without Hitler to lead them and make his senseless demands that each piece of ground be held to the last German soldier. We will push them back, but it will be a slow and tedious process and we will suffer enormous casualties.”
Stalin barely nodded. Casualties were nothing to him as long as communism was safe. So many of his enemies misread him. They thought of him as a bloody and vicious dictator who used communism as a front for his iron-fisted and sadistic rule. They were wrong. Josef Stalin was a confirmed and dedicated communist committed to expanding his version of Marxism to the world, no matter what it cost. He was more than a dictator. He was a fanatic communist dictator.
He was also a realist. In the heady days after the fall of the Romanovs and the subsequent Bolshevik takeover, he and his mentor, Lenin, had been stunned when the proletariat of the world hadn’t risen in support of Russian communism. Now he understood that much of the world wasn’t ready, and that included many people in his own Soviet Union. In particular, the people of the Ukraine had welcomed the Nazis as liberators before they found out the truth. Therefore, he had to tread lightly, at least for now.
He was also concerned about the so-called communists who were fighting the Nationalists in China. They were peasants, not workers, and he doubted the depths of their commitment to true communism. He sometimes thought it would be good to side with the corrupt and incompetent Nationalists and purge China of her ersatz communists. After that purging, of course, he could easily turn on the Nationalists and impose true communism. That would have to wait. His first priority was the destruction of Germany.
“How much more can the army take?”
Zhukov understood the question. It was not a matter of dead and wounded, it was a question of possible mutiny by the masses when confronted with the likelihood of slaughter. The Russian peasant had fought desperately to save Mother Russia, but now Russia was safe and the Germans were slowly falling back through Poland, killing large numbers of Russians as they retreated. It was not a question of if the army would shatter, but when. If victory was unlikely and the primal urge to live perceived as hopeless, the army might revolt and communism go the way of the Romanovs.
“Unless something dramatic and unexpected happens, Comrade Stalin,” Zhukov continued, “I would estimate a couple of months at best before the army either cannot or will not move forward.”
“What do we need?”
Zhukov exhaled. Stalin was listening to him. He might make it through the afternoon without a bullet in the back of his head.
“A rest. A pause. A very long pause to build up our strength and train our armies. We must also weed out the defeatists who would poison our new recruits.”
“How long?”
“At least a year, Comrade Stalin, preferably two.”
Another purge, Stalin thought, with more people sent to the gulags. So be it. “Continue to push the Germans,” he said and turned to Molotov. “While you, comrade, contact the Swedes. We will see what Himmler has to offer.”
* * *
Life on the farm agreed with Margarete. After only a few days, she realized that she was eating better, losing weight, and gaining muscle. Of course, her mother said it might just be the natural shedding of baby plumpness, but it didn’t matter to her. She only knew that she was well on her way to becoming a woman.
Aunt Bertha’s farm was south and west of Hachenburg, which put it only a few miles east of the Rhine. The farm was prosperous. Bertha and her husband Hans grew wheat, raised cattle and pigs, and made a modest attempt to grow grapes to turn into the white wine that was grown so successfully elsewhere. Their pigs and cows prospered; the wine was ordinary at best. Magda whispered to her that some of the poorer versions could be used as paint remover. Hans and Bertha were stout and looked the part of wealthy farmers with more than enough to eat. As in contrast to the people in Berlin where fresh food was always short.
Margarete had taken with pleasure to milking the cows and feeding the pigs. There were cats and dogs everywhere demanding to be petted. It was almost possible to forget there was a war going on someplace and that people were being bombed to pieces. She could breathe deeply and think clearly. There was no smell of smoke and burned things in the air to choke and nauseate her.
No sirens went off when the American planes flew overhead, which they did quite frequently. Sometimes, she would just look up and watch the precise bomber formations and their fighter escorts as they headed eastward towards Berlin and other major cities. Sometimes she would say a short prayer.
Only two things bothered her. The first was petty—Bertha insisted on calling her Magpie despite Margarete’s protests. The second was far more serious—the depressing presence of foreign laborers at the farm. Large numbers of prisoners of war had been pulled from the POW camps to help out on farms, freeing up German men to fight the enemies of the Reich, and the Mullers had three of them.
It was clear from their sullen expressions and the hatred in their eyes that they despised their situation and everything German. One prisoner in particular, a man she knew as Victor, gazed at her family with barely concealed loathing. Bertha noticed it too and simply told Magda and Margarete to stay away from him. They could send him back to the prison camp, but what if anything would they get instead? They need him to do the work, so they would endure his silent insolence.
Bertha shook her head. “I cannot understand why the prisoners don’t realize that they are so much better off with us than back in the prison camp. Here they get good food and decent living conditions. Why are they so hateful?”
Because they are nothing more than slaves, Margarete thought. They might as well be Negroes working on the southern plantations in America that she’d read about. Since seeing the death train and the dead Jews, Margarete had become more attuned to what was happening around her. Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich had more than a few warts, she’d concluded, and Himmler was doing little to change matters. When she’d mentioned it to her mother, Magda had simply told her to be still. Hans and Bertha were devout Nazis and
still mourned Hitler’s death. According to them, he was the greatest man in Germany’s history.
Everyone glanced up as a dozen American fighters flew low overhead. They were so low they could see the outline of the pilots’ heads in their cockpits.
“The arrogant yanks are doing that to annoy us,” Bertha sniffed.
“I think they are looking for trains to attack,” Margarete said, again thankful that they’d come by the automobile that was now locked away in a small barn.
Bertha agreed. “As long as we don’t do anything to annoy them, they will leave us alone. Someday soon we will launch our super weapons at them and then they will learn humility.”
Germany was a very large country and there were still whole sections where the war had scarcely touched them. Most of the major cities had been savagely bombed, but not little farms or villages like theirs south of Hachenburg. The war, however, was far from abstract. The enemy planes flying overhead prevented that, as did the feeling of dread when the mail came for those families with loved ones in the military. Far too many announcements had arrived saying that young Johan or Fritz had been killed, wounded, or was missing in such places as North Africa, Italy, Russia, and now in France. The war was an omnipresent dark and brooding background.
That evening, Magda showed Margarete a piece of paper that had just arrived by mail. Magda was clearly unhappy.
“We have been drafted,” she said.
Margarete at first thought it was a joke. “Where?” she laughed. “Into the Luftwaffe? I’ve always wanted to be a pilot.”
“No, you silly child, into one of the labor battalions that are being organized to develop defenses along the Rhine. All eligible German civilians between fourteen and sixty, male and female, are to participate, according to Himmler and Speer. Since we are not the farm’s owners or laborers, we are eligible. We will be trucked to the appropriate areas on Friday mornings and be returned on Saturday night so we can spend the Sabbath either praying for Germany’s success or salving our sore muscles.”
Bertha huffed. “You’d think that having a husband as a high-ranking officer in the OKW would be enough to exempt you.”
Magda declined to tell her sister that Ernst wasn’t all that high ranking and that he most likely wouldn’t permit special favors even if he had the power Bertha thought he had. She did wonder if the policeman who’d scolded her for protesting the deaths of the Jews had found out who she was and had been behind the conscription notice. No matter. She would serve the Reich.
Margarete understood Aunt Bertha’s dismay and shared it, but only to a point. Working to defend Germany would be an adventure and might help erase the lingering memory of those dead and rotting Jews. She stepped outside, away from bickering adults, and into a clear refreshing night filled with stars. She stiffened. Victor was slouching against a fence and staring at her. His hand reached down and briefly touched his crotch. She gasped and he walked away. She thought about telling Bertha, but what had she actually seen? Perhaps it was nothing more than a middle-aged man scratching himself.
Besides, she told herself, the farm needed men like Victor to work it. She would ignore the vulgar creature.
CHAPTER 8
LOOKING DOWN, Morgan thought the Seine resembled a twisting winding blue-gray ribbon. It began in the Alps, flowed to Paris, and from there north past Rouen and on to Le Havre, where it entered the English Channel. Even from a distance, the gouges in the earth on the eastern side betrayed the location of enemy positions.
“They just don’t give a shit if we see them or not,” Jeb Carter said. At Jack’s suggestion, several other officers had begun riding as copilot with him. It gave them an opportunity to see what he and his little plane could see and do and, equally important, not see and do. Several officers had found the Piper’s capabilities and limitations to be real eye openers. Snyder, his normal copilot didn’t mind at all staying on the ground where it was safer.
“You gonna get closer, Jack?”
“Nope. Just ’cause I look crazy doesn’t mean I am. We already know that a ton of antitank and antiaircraft guns are dug in there, so there’s no reason to push our luck just to prove it.”
To emphasize the statement, a few black puffs of flak erupted to their front. Jack turned the Piper to the north. They would turn back to base in a moment. “Warning shot,” he said. “They’re saying don’t piss us off by getting nosy and we won’t shoot at you either.”
“Sounds fair,” said Carter. He pulled a pack of letters from his jacket pocket, glanced at them and put them back.
“Your girlfriend?”
“She’s my cousin, and more important, a really good friend. So don’t give me any crappy comments about being surprised that I have relatives who can write. Literacy is not all that unusual in Georgia.”
“It ever crossed my mind. Is she married?”
“Naw, she’s single, cute, and actually she’s from up north in Pennsylvania. I’ve forgiven her for being a northerner. She’s here in France working on some Red Cross project trying to reunite refugee families.”
“Christ, that’ll keep her busy for centuries. Did you say she was cute and here in France?”
“Yes to both, although she’s always putting herself down about her looks. Doesn’t think she’s as pretty as she is. We’ve been friends since we were little kids.”
Jeb recalled a time when he’d thought she was both beautiful and desirable. After they’d both had a few illegal drinks, he’d managed to get her blouse and bra off before she’d stopped him and he’d never done anything like that to her again. Nor had they ever spoken of it, although he had a hard time forgetting just how lovely her breasts were. She had been seventeen and he’d just turned twenty.
Jeb pulled a couple of pictures from the envelopes and handed them to Jack. A young lady smiled at the camera. She was sitting on the ground and wearing shorts. Her legs were tucked underneath her and she had a bottle of Coke in her hand. Other people were in the area. It looked like a family picnic. A second picture showed the same woman playing tennis. Jack thought she had a great figure and outstanding legs. She was laughing and he wanted to laugh with her.
“Perhaps you can introduce me? Maybe you can arrange a blind date?”
Jeb Carter roared with laughter. “Sure thing, Jack-off. There’s nothing easier than arranging a blind date in the middle of a continent at war. I’ll call Ike and have him set up dinner and a movie. Maybe you can get Ike’s girlfriend as a chauffeur.”
Actually Jack thought the idea sounded great. But when did people start calling him Jack-off? Wasn’t Bomber Morgan bad enough? Damn Carter. And who the hell was Ike’s girlfriend?
* * *
Monique Fleury was a local Rennes woman in her mid-thirties. Plump, wide-eyed and still pretty, and, most important, she spoke fluent English. She’d found work with the Red Cross where her ability to translate the patois of the area into something Jessica could understand was helpful beyond words.
Monique said her husband was somewhere under German control. That is, if he was alive at all. When he’d first been taken prisoner in 1940, she said she’d gotten a terse postcard allegedly signed by him saying that all was well. The prearranged signal that all was not well was contained in the fact that he’d misspelled his own first name. He was an officer, which meant that the Nazis would be even more loath to release him as they had done with some enlisted men. Rumors said that the Nazis had massacred all the French officers. Monique thought it was likely, and said that this left her with a small child who had never seen his father. He was being cared for by an elderly aunt while Monique went to work.
At the sound of shouts and screams, the two women rushed outside. A local gendarme was herding six distraught young women in their late teens and early twenties, and only half protecting them from a larger group of outraged and mainly older village women. The six younger women had been stripped to their underwear, were bruised about the head and shoulders, and their hair had been roughly hac
ked or shaved off. Blood from cuts and slashes was beginning to scab on their scalps. Their faces were bruised, apparently from being punched. The young women might have been pretty once, but the looks of terror, the bruises, and the blood denied that.
“Whores!” women in the crowd screamed and chanted, shoveling and jostling the six. The gendarme pushed one villager aside when it looked like she was going to hit one of the prisoners with an umbrella. Slaps and kicks were all right, but no umbrellas. A hand reached out and tore at a woman’s slip, exposing her breasts to the jeers of the crowd. The gendarme shrugged and grinned.
“Collaborators, aren’t they?” Jessica asked.
“They slept with the German soldiers and now they pay for it. The losers always pay, don’t they?”
Jessica hadn’t quite thought of it that way. “Why would they ever want to sleep with the Germans?”
Monique shrugged. “For the young ones, perhaps it was for love and adventure. There were very few young men left here thanks to the war, so a German soldier might have seemed attractive to a lonely young woman. After all, hadn’t the Germans won? And weren’t they going to be in charge here for a thousand years? For others, perhaps they screwed for the food that the German soldier had access to. There was never enough food provided by the Vichy government. Who knows? Maybe they really are whores and they did it for the money. Regardless, their side lost and they must now pay for being on the wrong side.”
Monique spat on the ground to emphasize her point. One of the young women had fallen and the crowd began kicking and jabbing at her while she crawled on bloody knees. It reminded Jessica of a scene from the Crucifixion. But these were French women condemned of whoring with the enemy, not Jesus.
“But this is awful.”
“Don’t judge. What do you think will happen to me if the Boche come back and the villagers suddenly decide that the Germans are their saviors?”
Himmler's War-ARC Page 13
