Fox On The Rhine

by Douglas Niles

  Müller straightened up with a shock when he heard that. “T-trump card?” he said, a brief stammer robbing his voice of strength.

  Reinhardt smiled. “The military secret of the Reich that Stalin needs most--our Vengeance Weapons.”

  “But surely--you can’t mean giving that to the Russians!” Müller said.

  It was Ribbentrop who replied with somewhat greater lucidity than before. He seemed to be going in and out of his fugue state. “I can see that you want to preserve the secrets of the State, young man. But don’t worry. I, Joachim von Ribbentrop, will ensure those secrets are preserved. You see, it is only some of the technology we will give away. The V-1 is nearly obsolete already, right?”

  “Oh!” Müller said. “You mean the new V-2? Yes--an amazing weapon. Amazing. But of course--the V-1 technology is not so secret, although it might set them on the path...”

  “And there is even more technology in the research programs,” Ribbentrop interrupted, a mysterious edge to his voice. “Secrets even you do not know.” Müller wondered whether he really knew anything, or whether this was the sort of technology-as-magic thinking he’d encountered before. He knew that only a fraction of research projects ever brought forth useful results--the difficulty, of course, being that one never knew in advance which ones would pay.

  “Of course, there are many issues yet to be decided. In 1943, when I last met Molotov, our sticking point was that we could not agree on an armistice border. We must plan... we must plan...”

  He met with Molotov in 1943? Müller was shocked. That was a period in which Hitler was publicly certain that Germany would prevail, that there was no doubt. Now he was learning that there had been secret talks. All this political work is too much for me, he thought.

  Reinhardt, on the other hand, was clearly eager to be part of this mission, and that made Müller feel somewhat relieved. Ribbentrop, in his estimation, needed a nursemaid as much as a military aide. Müller found himself being shunted aside as the two continued their planning, walking over to a table covered with maps. Müller, still seated, watched the two in a mirror. Two aristocrats, alike in some ways, worlds apart in others, but now lost in planning for their diplomatic objectives.

  Müller, like many Wehrmacht officers, had nightmares about the Russian front. And now, all he could think about was he had only two days left before he’d not only reach the front, but penetrate it.

  CCA (Nineteenth Division) HQ, Normandy, France, North of St.-Lo-Periers Road, 29 July 1944, 1005 hours GMT

  Pulaski paced back and forth under the open sky. Flashes of red brightened the southern horizon, as they had all through the night. His command tent had been struck hours before, and all around him the olive-drab steel hulks of Sherman tanks waited in eerie silence. Nearby, his senior officers hovered around the command half-track in some semblance of patience, though the colonel himself was unable to contain his agitation.

  Do I look like a command officer? Or do I just look nervous and untried? Pulaski knew he worried too much what other people thought of him, but damnit, he had so much to prove and so little time to prove it.

  From the time he was six, he had understood his role in life: he was his family’s golden boy, their hope for a bright American future. His parents had come to the United States shortly after the end of the First World War, saved their money and opened up a small grocery store in Milwaukee, where he was born. His parents didn’t talk much about their Polish heritage. Jimmy was to be an American, and nothing else. He excelled in school and went on to the University of Wisconsin--and that was the first time he ever heard a Polish joke. Suddenly he wasn’t an American, but a “dumb Polack,” and it still infuriated him at the same time it shamed him. But he turned the fury and the shame into work, applying himself to his studies with diligence and passion.

  While he was in Madison, going to school full time and working late nights as a bartender at Foamy Lohmy’s, a well-known (some would say notorious) college hangout, he had signed up for the ROTC program--not out of any concern about Nazis, but because he could get a credit and exempt himself from the school’s phys ed requirement. As a secondary benefit he’d been able to take showers in the old brick Armory--a luxury his Park Street boarding house was unable to offer.

  His parents had in mind for him a career as a doctor or lawyer, but in 1933 he’d graduated at the top of his ROTC class and, as a result, had been offered a coveted commission in the army. He’d made first lieutenant shortly after the Nazis had rolled into Poland in 1939, and from then on he’d set his sights on one thing: war. By Pearl Harbor he was the XO of an armor company at Fort Hood.

  His life, like everyone else’s, had speeded up considerably after that. As a young major he got an assignment with Patton in North Africa, and in one blazing moment in combat, he’d won his Silver Star and a light colonel’s rank--though, at some level, he wasn’t sure he deserved either. He could only remember the terrible feeling of not knowing what to do, the feeling he’d doomed his men and himself--but somehow, he’d come through all right. When he took a round of German fire, he almost felt it was a payback for his earlier luck, but the wound was relatively slight, and after another period in a training command, he was back, a newly minted full-bird colonel. Now it was up to him to do the job.

  “Damn it!” he snapped. “Where are those orders? It’s time to move!”

  “Maybe the Old Hickories are making some progress,” suggested White, the lieutenant colonel commanding CCA’s armored infantry battalion. He puffed reflectively on a pipe, looking every bit the part of the professor pondering some theory of philosophy. “They’ve been trying for two days.”

  “No thanks to the goddamned air force,” snapped Ballard. “Those sons of bitches must have killed as many of our boys as they did Krauts!” The light colonel of armor smacked his fist with a loud clang against the fender of a nearby jeep.

  Pulaski winced but saw that his tough tank leader’s hand was apparently unhurt. And he knew that Ballard could well be speaking the truth. Three days earlier, the bombardment that was supposed to have opened the way for the infantry attack had also killed hundreds of GIs, most especially among the good soldiers of the Thirtieth Division, the Old Hickories. Now the survivors of that steadfast National Guard unit had worked their way forward into a meat grinder. Word was that many Germans--including a few tanks--had not only survived the bombardment but were able to muster an effective and deadly defense.

  The other men--Lieutenant Colonel Lorimar of the self-propelled artillery battalion, the officers of the support units, and Captain Smiggs, whose reconnaissance company made up the final component of Combat Command A--stood mute. They no doubt shared the colonel’s agitation but felt they could contribute little to the conversation. These were good men, Pulaski knew, well trained and supplied with fine equipment. That only made it all that much more vexing--why the hell didn’t the brass give them orders to attack?

  Pulaski’s agitated musings were interrupted as a jeep raced between the parked Shermans and skidded to a stop before the CCA officers. The colonel first saw the two stars on the jeep’s pennant, then recognized Jack King as the division commander bounced out of the vehicle while it was still rocking to a halt. “General! Is it time?” demanded Pulaski.

  “Yep, Ski, it is.” The general’s face was flushed, and he smiled grimly. “The infantry is still bogged down--so Bradley’s given the order to send in the armor.”

  “Hot damn!” declared Ballard. “That is, hot damn, General!” he amended with a fierce grin.

  “You move out right away. Follow the road to Avranches, like you’ve planned, as far as Sainte-la-Salle. And this is the key, Pulaski: if you come to a strongpoint, I want you to go around it. There’ll be more dogfaces coming along behind to mop up. This is the time for you to make some tracks!”

  “That’s exactly what I was hoping you’d say.”

  King leaned in close and stared into his combat commander’s eyes. “I know you can do this for
me, Jimmy. This is modem armored warfare, and we both understand how important it is to move fast. Don’t we?”

  “Aye, aye, sir!” This idea was nothing more than Patton’s own doctrine, as it had been the lifeblood of the Blitzkrieg in years gone by. Pulaski had done his best to learn those lessons and to make a goal of his own. He was determined to bring the art of fast maneuver to a new height, and CCA of the Nineteenth gave him the perfect tool for the job.

  “One more thing, and it comes down from Army HQ: when you get to Sainte-la-Salle, you’re to stop and hold. There’s only one good road down to Avranches from there, and Third Armored has first dibs on it--they should get there before you anyways, since they don’t have as far to go. The last thing General Bradley wants is a traffic jam. Understand?”

  “What if there’s no sign of Third Armored--I mean, if we get there first?” demanded the colonel.

  “Those are the orders from Corps HQ--stop and wait. Is that understood?” King frowned, looking as though he wished he could say more.

  “Understood, sir.” Pulaski might have argued the point further, but his heart was already racing at the thought of prospective combat. And he knew the map: Sainte-la-Salle was a long way down the road, more miles than the American front had advanced in the last seven weeks. He saluted and turned to his officers. “You heard the general--move fast, and don’t look back! Frank, Task Force Ballard will be leading the way.”

  “Gotcha, Colonel!” replied Ballard with a snappy salute. The men quickly separated to their various commands, and in moments the sounds of tank, half-track, and truck engines roared into a motorized symphony.

  “Good luck,” said King, shaking the younger man’s hand. “And be careful.”

  “We’ll be careful, but we’ll be moving,” replied Pulaski. “I want to kill some Krauts!”

  “Just get Sainte-la-Salle--and try to get there in one piece,” called the division CO as the colonel climbed into the cab of the command half-track. Sergeant Dawson, who would operate as radioman and machine gunner, stood just behind him at his weapon.

  A few minutes later, Combat Command A was on the move.

  Spearheaded by several of the M4 tanks equipped with the hedgerow-busting Rhino apparatus, the motorized column started through the rear areas of the Thirtieth Division’s jumping-off point. Task Force Ballard went first, and included Company B of the armored battalion and Company D of the armored infantry, as well as Pulaski’s HQ company, and supporting platoons from the recon and assault gun companies. They would need two miles of readjust for their tanks, jeeps, half-tracks, and guns. The rest of the command, with the half-tracks carrying the infantry and the rumbling fully tracked chassis of the turretless self-propelled artillery, slowly fell into line. Everything went smoothly as they started out, but even so Pulaski knew it would be a long time before the rear units would even get onto the road.

  He rode near the front, the command half-track racing along behind the first dozen Shermans. The column of tanks quickly stretched far out of sight down the road, but in a few minutes the lead elements passed the front marking the Old Hickories’ attack line. Pulaski’s elation was tempered slightly as they passed between bomb craters and ruined jeeps and trucks, U.S. equipment that had been plastered by U.S. bombers. But now there was infantry on both sides of the road, battle-weary GIs who waved with reckless enthusiasm as the tanks rumbled by. The colonel waved back, and made a private vow to carry the front far beyond these battered troops.

  Then they were into the bomb-scarred no-man’s-land, and here they saw GIs as well--though these soldiers were more cautious as they waved at the advancing armor. They passed a cemetery, graves and headstones shattered by bombs. Pulaski crossed himself, strangely uneasy at this disturbance of the dead. A few minutes later a gun cracked loudly, and the shell from a concealed antitank gun cracked into the lead Sherman, blasting the turret right off the tank. A volley of return fire belched from the guns of the tank column, and the gun’s camouflaged position vanished in a haze of smoke and debris.

  “Who was that?” Pulaski asked, acid surging in his stomach at the knowledge that men under his command had just given their lives in this war.

  “B Company, sir,” Sergeant Dawson replied. The imperturbable NCO spoke without inflection. “I can’t make out which tank.”

  They drove around the burning tank, and the colonel saw the number four on the back. With an irrational flicker of guilt he realized that he didn’t know whose Sherman that was...he’d make a point to ask the B Company captain, Miller.

  Soon the bomb-scarred terrain stretched to the horizon on all sides, and though the tanks and half-tracks had to crawl over piles of rubble and grind through the remnants of hedgerows, CCA barely slowed down in its steady southward advance. A few panzers took shots from the flanks, but these were quickly suppressed or destroyed by return fire--or hammered by the close air support provided by the Mustangs and Thunderbolts snarling in regular circles through the skies overhead. Tanks broke off the road, but the armored fist still advanced on a narrow front for maximum speed.

  After an hour they ran into their first serious obstacle. A powerful antitank gun, one of the dreaded 88s, and a pair of tanks were dug in around a shattered crossroads. Three Shermans were knocked out in the first minute of the engagement, and the onrushing column of armor was forced to halt.

  This was where the armored infantry went to work. Dismounting from their half-tracks, the GIs worked their way over the rough ground while, from several miles away, Lorimar’s Priests hammered the German positions. One panzer, a Mark IV, was destroyed by a direct hit, and the foot soldiers picked off the crew of the AT gun.

  Soon an M4 with the Rhino device ripped through a neighboring hedgerow and four more Shermans rumbled toward the second Kraut tank, a Panther. The panzer wheeled backward as several rounds from American tanks ricocheted off the thick frontal armor. In moments it was out of sight, and once again Combat Command A was rolling forward.

  And then they were into fields of green, a region even beyond the initial bombardment. The road, still narrow and lined with hedgerows, rolled straight to the south over gently rolling country. There was no sign of any German defender.

  “Give me the mike, Bill,” Pulaski said, and Sergeant Dawson handed him the handset for the radio.

  “We’ve got a clear road, men!” Pulaski barked into his radio. “I want everyone to move forward at full speed--understand that there is to be no delay! Let’s make some tracks!”

  Only then did he sit back in the turret of his half-track, letting the wind blow through his short-cropped hair. He’d be damned if he wasn’t going to beat Third Armored into the little spot on the map that was Sainte-la-Salle.

  Ukraine, Soviet Union, 1400 hours GMT

  “Do you think we’ve crossed the front lines yet?” Müller asked, peering out the window of the Junkers transport. “Is that Poland down there--or the Soviet Union?”

  In the seat beside him, von Reinhardt shrugged. “Borders are such tenuous things,” he remarked. “What is Poland today was Germany yesterday, and will probably be part of Greater Russia tomorrow. As our late führer observed, ‘The greater the amount of room a people has at its disposal, the greater is also its natural protection.’ In that the Russian people and the German nation think alike. But to answer your question, judging from the evidence I’d say we’ve crossed the front.”

  He pointed out of the window, and Müller raised his eyes, then gasped at the sight of three fighter planes cruising just above and behind the lumbering Ju-52. Red stars on wing and fuselage gleamed like fresh blood in the sunlight.

  “Th-they’re Russians!” stammered the bespectacled colonel. “MiGs, I think,” Reinhardt agreed, with that maddening display of calm. “Though I confess that I’m not fully conversant with the machines of the Red Air Force.”

  This entire mission had already become a nightmare, and was only getting worse as far as Müller was concerned. He had asked Reinhardt about the forei
gn minister after their disastrous meeting. “Did you observe the slackening of the face on one side, the drooping of the eyes?” Reinhardt had asked.

  “Why yes, but--” Müller started to reply.

  “A minor stroke, I should think,” Reinhardt said. “Brought on by shock at the führer’s demise. Our foreign minister is, I’m afraid, in questionable health.”

  “But doesn’t the new führer recognize it? Even a second’s worth of observation is enough. I couldn’t believe how disorganized his mind was. How on earth can the führer expect him to negotiate with the Soviets?”

  “An interesting question. As the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes observed, ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ If a man is obviously distraught, on the border of being nonfunctional, and is yet being sent on a mission labeled of critical importance to the Fatherland, one must assume either that those who send him are stupid or that there is no other choice, hein?”

  “Damn it, Günter--don’t play with me like that!” Müller said with unusual vehemence. “This is our lives--my life--we’re talking about. If you know something, tell me. If not, tell me that.”

  Gunter paused. “Müller, my friend, I’m sorry. I understand your concern, and quite between us, I share your worries. However, since there’s nothing much we can do about our fate right now, I tend to make jokes. It helps keep me sane. But that’s not fair to you. You need information. Let me tell you what I think … “

  Ribbentrop was the highest-ranking official in the Reich with a background of dealing with Molotov and the Russians. At the same time, his power in the inner circle of the Nazi regime had been steadily slipping. Even Himmler, once his close friend and patron, had finally become disenchanted with the “champagne salesman.”

  Now, Himmler needed to open up new negotiations with the Soviet Union, Ribbentrop was the only man with the contacts and experience to make it happen, and yet there was substantially diminished respect on Himmler’s part about Ribbentrop’s competence--even before Ribbentrop’s apparent stroke. It was unlikely that Himmler would put the fate of the Reich exclusively in that man’s hands. Reinhardt assumed that this mission was only one front in Himmler’s wider plan, and that Ribbentrop--and the entire mission--could be anything from a key strategic piece to a mere sacrifice pawn in the larger chess game. Müller had sputtered with fear at the suggestion that they might all be put to death as soon as they landed; Reinhardt couldn’t completely disabuse him of the idea because in his judgment, it was altogether possible.