Fox at the Front (Fox on the Rhine)

by Douglas Niles

  The surrender conference at the Church of Notre Dame in Dinant, with Rommel on one side and Patton on the other, had lasted for several hours. The immediate act of surrender was easy enough, but it turned out that the mechanics of arranging the cease-fire, surrender, and turnover of forces and control were surprisingly complex—especially since Rommel was unable to guarantee that all the forces under his command would accept his order to surrender.

  After all, Rommel’s surrender was not so much the act of a man who was completely defeated and without options, but rather a careful calculation of threats to his fatherland. One remark of Rommel’s had stuck in Porter’s mind. “The mark of command is not one’s ability to make good decisions, but rather one’s ability to make a decision in cases where all alternatives are unpleasant and dangerous.”

  Porter was struggling with the comment when Patton’s translator, an American intelligence lieutenant colonel named Reid Sanger, injected his own translation. Patton had laughed heartily and knowingly at the remark. “Hell, that’s the truth,” he’d said. “Any jackass can make a good decision. Making the right bad decision—now, that’s an art!”

  Seeing Patton and Rommel in their first face-to-face meeting was an interesting experience. Although sharing no common language and serving enemy governments, the two instantly seemed to relate on a deeper, personal level, one born of shared experience and shared passion. Patton did not treat Rommel as a defeated enemy, but rather as a business colleague engaged in a necessarily adversarial, but mutually respectful, transaction.

  Yet the two could hardly have been more different in personal style and demeanor. The tall, loud Patton, very American in his personal style, was oddly matched against the stocky, somewhat reserved and analytical Rommel, scion of a long German military heritage.

  One thing the two had in common was rapidity in their thinking. Not being a student of the military arts, Porter was quickly overmatched in trying to translate complex military terminology. Fortunately, Lieutenant Colonel Sanger was quick to interject when necessary, and the two commanding generals themselves had a rapport that seemed almost telepathic at moments. After a while, Porter found himself dismissed from the meeting, and had used his time to scrounge up a typewriter and get to work.

  How to describe it all? Porter worked to find the perfect words to capture the moment and all its import: adversaries united in mutual respect, knights of the battlefield meeting on the field of honor, the culmination of the Second World War in a single meeting on the hallowed soil of a church.

  Porter had no doubt that this meeting spelled the effective end of World War II. While Rommel’s army wasn’t the entire German army, it was a large enough section, especially as it had been heavily reinforced with troops from the Eastern Front, that its surrender effectively eliminated German ability to mass sufficient forces at the critical point.

  And with Patton, whose concerns about the Soviets had been so loudly expressed, the idea of “unconditional surrender” had slipped into abeyance. Patton seemed to be forging a peace of his own design, not that of his government, as if he were channeling the ghost of Ulysses S. Grant to Rommel’s Robert E. Lee.

  Porter stopped, typed a few lines. That would make a very interesting sidebar—how this surrender would stack up against the Allied declaration of intent, and whether Patton would find himself in trouble yet again for exceeding his mandate as a negotiator. He’d have to make a few calls as soon as he could get near a working civilian telephone.

  Another sidebar that needed telling was the story of the near assassination of Rommel only hours before the surrender was to take place, and how it was narrowly foiled by a German supply officer, of all people—Müller, his name was. It was a narrow escape from disaster for everyone concerned; if it had gone just a hair differently, there was a good chance that Patton would be dead by the same hand right now. The German intelligence officer who had first taken Porter to his own headquarters instead of a POW camp had been shot by the same SS officer, as had Rommel’s personal driver. Porter made himself a note to find out whether those two had lived or not.

  Porter continued to type, then paused as he realized that he probably would have been dead as well, shot at the hands of some Waffen-SS bastard just on general principles. The Nazis weren’t big on freedom of the press. At the start of the war, quite a few foreign correspondents had been rounded up, and some of AP’s German stringers had been arrested on loyalty charges. One American AP reporter, Joe Morton, was still in Nazi hands, in some kind of concentration camp. Porter hoped he was okay.

  He looked down at what he’d written so far. Not bad, even for a long day’s work. The wastebasket next to the desk he’d commandeered had thirty or so wadded-up sheets of typing paper in it, but that was par for the course. The classic advice for new reporters was “Don’t try to put more fire in your work; put more of your work into the fire.” The ratio of trashed pages to finished pages was fairly reasonable.

  Porter stood up, stretched, and decided to go in search of some coffee—or what passed for coffee around Rommel’s headquarters. He’d put in a long shift of work after a sleepless night; he deserved a break.

  Porter pushed a hand through his thinning hair and patted his comfortably thick belly. He was wearing American military fatigues without any insignia, and thick, heavy boots fit for an infantryman but not for a primarily deskbound reporter and editor.

  Rommel’s headquarters looked more or less the same as American headquarters he’d seen—it must be a function of how a military organization was run. Aside from the fact that most of the people wore Wehrmacht gray instead of American olive drab, it was pretty close. Clerks typed, officers scurried into and out of meetings, cigarettes were stubbed out into already overflowing ashtrays.

  Which reminded him, so he lit up a Lucky Strike and took a big drag from it. He saw another flash of olive drab, and there was General Wakefield, CO of the Nineteenth Armored Division. Wakefield was a short, squat man, built a little like the tanks he commanded. He took his ever-present cigar out of his mouth. “Porter—just the man I’m looking for.”

  “I was just getting ready to scrounge a cup of coffee, General. What can I do for you?”

  “I need a little translation support. You available?”

  “Sure thing, General.”

  “Good. Patton stole my translator, my G-2, Sanger.”

  “I met him in the surrender talks. His German’s a lot better than mine,” Porter said.

  “Parents are German. He was there before the war. Speaks like a native.”

  “I spent a couple of years there before the war myself, but my German’s weak at best.”

  Another grunt. “Best I’ve got right now. I need to talk to some of the Krauts as well as my own men. I could use your help.”

  “Sure, General. I’m at your service.”

  Porter followed Wakefield out of the headquarters, grabbing his field jacket from the back of his chair on the way. At the door, two German guards snapped to attention. Seeing two Americans, one with stars on his shoulders, confused them.

  “Halt! Excuse me, sirs, you can’t leave this building without proper permission,” the guard said in German.

  “This is an American general,” Porter replied, also in German. “He can go wherever he likes.”

  The guards looked warily at each other. “We must have a pass before you can exit.”

  Porter thought for a moment, then smiled. “One minute.” He pulled out his reporter’s notebook and scrawled a few words on it. “General, please sign here.”

  “What’s this?” Wakefield growled.

  “The Germans need a pass so they can let us through.”

  “Hrrumph!” Wakefield snorted, but he signed the form.

  The German guards looked carefully at the pass, then back at Porter and Wakefield. Porter said, in German, “He is the American general. He is able to issue any required pass or order.”

  Finally, the guards decided that the pass was satis
factory, snapped back to attention, and opened the door.

  The outdoor air cut through Porter’s jacket at once, making him shiver. Wakefield, no more warmly dressed, seemed not to notice. The smoke cloud from his cigar grew larger as he puffed; Porter’s cigarette made its own smoke cloud.

  There were several jeeps parked outside Armeegruppe B headquarters, one flying Patton’s three-star flag, another flying a single star. Wakefield got into the one-star jeep and started the engine; Porter climbed in beside him.

  It seemed strange wending their way through German armor in an unarmed American jeep, but then nothing much seemed normal right now. Porter didn’t know if he should initiate a conversation, but Wakefield did it for him.

  “Reporter, eh?” said Wakefield in his gruff voice.

  “Bureau chief, actually,” Porter replied.

  “German bureau?”

  “No, sir. Paris.”

  “Paris.” Wakefield put the cigar back in his mouth, puffed a cloud of blue smoke as he thought about it. “This ain’t Paris,” he observed.

  “No, sir. But the Paris bureau covers a lot of territory, especially right now. It’s not like we can set up shop in Berlin, at least not yet.”

  Wakefield grunted in response. “How’d you get here?”

  Porter decided that short and quick was the best communication style for this man. “Captured.”

  “Yeah? Where?”

  “Trying to get out of Stavelot when the Germans captured the fuel dump. I was there looking for a story.”

  “Story’s simple. Hell of a lot of good men died, and it looks like it’s about over. That’s the story,” the general replied.

  “Well, General, some of us get paid by the word, and I think I’d better find a few more to write down.”

  Another grunt, and a nod, then silence.

  They passed through the German cease-fire line into the part of Dinant that lay hard against the waterfront of the Meuse, quickly reaching the wreckage of the final bridge. Across the ruined span he could see tanks from Wakefield’s own division, CCA of the Nineteenth, lined up along the shore and covering approaches from the left and right. The onion-shaped tower of the Church of Notre Dame dominated the ruined town. Directly behind the church was a cliff face, and at the top of the cliff face was a huge medieval citadel dominating the view. Both the citadel and the church seemed oddly out of scale for the tiny city.

  Wakefield stared across the frigid Meuse for a moment. “Find me a German officer,” he ordered.

  Several curious Germans had followed the strange solitary Americans, and Porter picked out one with officer’s insignia, a major. “Entschuldigen Sie mich, bitte!” he called out.

  The officer responded. “Jawohl, Herr …” he replied, letting the sentence trail off.

  “Ich bin Herr Porter. Dies hier ist Generalmajor Wakefield.” A one-star was a brigadier general in the U.S. Army, but a major general in the German Wehrmacht.

  The German saluted and clicked his heels together. “Herr Generalmajor!”

  Wakefield returned the salute. “Tell him I need this area cleared. My engineers are going to be setting up a pontoon bridge across the Meuse. While he’s at it, I want to get some scouts out. My people will take the other side of the river, but we’ll need Germans to cover this side. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir,” Porter replied, and immediately began to translate.

  The German major looked puzzled, then embarrassed. He shrugged, then began speaking rapidly.

  “He’s very sorry, General,” Porter translated. “He says he understands that his forces have surrendered to you, but that he cannot take the actions you request without permission from his own superior officers.”

  “Yeah, I kinda figured that,” Wakefield growled. He chewed his cigar for a minute.

  “Tell him I’ll get an okay from his superiors. But I don’t want to waste any time. Tell him to get a work detail here and ready to coordinate with my engineers, and tell him that if the German army has got the sense God gave green apples, he’s already got scouts out.”

  Porter tried to translate both the words and the forcefulness of the delivery. Something of Wakefield’s intent must have gotten across, because suddenly the major was stammering his agreement. “Yes, yes, of course we have scouts out. And a work detail can be arranged—but you must get approval from my superior as soon as possible!”

  When the agreement was translated, Wakefield nodded with satisfaction. “Good. Have the scouts report as they normally do, but I want a runner to inform me about anything out of the ordinary. And tell the major he has half an hour or so before the work detail needs to be here. It’ll take my engineers a few hours to get their work done.” He looked at the major. “Dismissed,” he said firmly. Some orders seemed to be the same in any language, because the major immediately saluted. First he started with the Nazi salute; then he changed course to give an imitation of an American salute. Wakefield returned the salute with gravity. The major clicked his heels, said, “Herr Generalmajor!,” and left.

  “I understand the bridging, but not the scouts. Why, General?” Porter asked.

  “Rommel has surrendered two armies that have God knows how many SS divisions in them. He’s already said he can’t guarantee that everyone will stand down. I want scouts out on both sides just in case. I’ve already radioed to my combat commands and their scouts are out already. Maybe nothing is going to happen, but I’d hate like hell to be caught with my pants down.”

  Wakefield stood silently at the water’s edge for a minute or so. “Something doesn’t feel right,” he growled. Striding back to his jeep, Wakefield picked up a large walkie-talkie. Giving his radio call sign, he made contact with Colonel Bob Jackson, commanding CCB. “Bob? This is General Wakefield. I’ve got the wind up my shorts, and it’s probably nothing, but I want a line of field artillery covering the river valley. Set it around the fortress I see on the cliff. Make sure you’ve got scouts out in all directions. Armor covering the roads into town, good cover. Dig in like you were preparing for a siege. Got it?”

  The crackling voice over the radio responded, “Got it, General. No specific threat indication, this is a just-in-case. Artillery at the citadel and along the cliff, scouts out and active, roads into town fortified. Call you if anything happens.”

  “Right, Bob. That’s exactly what I want. Thanks for humoring an old man.”

  “Any time, General. Jackson out.”

  “Good man,” growled Wakefield. Then he was on the phone to Frank Ballard, commanding what was left of Combat Command A in the lower city.

  “Good evening, General. My scouts can see you down there by the river,” came the voice over the walkie-talkie.

  “Got a damage assessment put together yet?”

  “Yes, sir, and it’s not real pretty. In a nutshell, we’re running about half strength with damn little ammunition left. We’ve gotten some ambulances in and the worst of the wounded are out. The first company of engineers has arrived, and they’ll be bridging the river pretty soon.”

  The general shook his head in concern. “Frank, get some scouts out around your perimeter and get someone into the highest building that’s still standing. I guess it’ll be that big church. Try to shape what you’ve got into a defensive line.”

  “Yes, sir. Any specific threat indication?”

  “No, Frank,” replied Wakefield. “Just an old man’s rheumatism acting up.”

  “Well, better safe than sorry.”

  “You’ve got it, Frank. Listen, I’ll get this typed up as an order of the day, but in the meantime, you should pass this along. Met with the Desert Fox himself, and he sends his ‘personal respects’ to you and your men for fighting ‘courageously and well.’ I concur.”

  “Thanks, General. I’ll pass the word. And you can give him my ‘personal respects’ as well. Those were some tough Krauts.”

  Wakefield cracked a small smile at the remark. “I’ll tell him. And Frank—”

  “Yes, sir?
”

  “There’s a hot meal on the way.”

  “That beats a compliment any old day, General. Ballard out.”

  Porter was scribbling rapidly in his reporter’s notebook when Wakefield put down the walkie-talkie. When Wakefield looked up, he stopped writing. “What now, General?” he asked.

  “I’m going to get that formal okay I promised the major, and see what else I can do.”

  “Do you really expect trouble?” Porter asked.

  “I always expect trouble,” growled Wakefield. “Only sometimes it doesn’t happen.”

  29 DECEMBER 1944

  THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, DC, 1226 HOURS GMT

  It was still early morning in Washington, DC, and the day was surprisingly bright for late December, the golden sunlight glinting along the reflecting pool that lay between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. Hartnell Stone had chosen to walk the relatively short distance from his apartment in Foggy Bottom to the White House to get a little bit of that sun. Working a regular day, not to mention a long day, in the Washington winter could mean not getting a glimpse of sun for days on end. It had been nice to get out of the White House for a bit; sometimes several days would pass between visits to his apartment. He was freshly showered, freshly dressed, with two cups of coffee in his stomach and his third cigarette of the day in his mouth. The world was his.

  It was cold, but not too cold. Stone wore a long navy wool coat over his gray suit. Although he held military rank as an Army major, his regular duties let him wear civilian dress for the most part. His fedora was tilted just slightly to keep the glare out of his eyes; his jet black hair underneath was slicked back in the best style. Freshly polished wing tips clicked along the pavement as he walked briskly along Constitution Avenue.

  He turned left toward 17th Street beside the Ellipse. A line of government cars, mostly dull green Fords and Chevrolets with the occasional Studebaker for contrast, filled every available parking space—another reason for him to walk. Although he was a White House staffer, that wasn’t enough to always rate a parking space in Washington, DC. The ability to park wherever and whenever you wanted was the mark of real power in the nation’s capital.