Fox at the Front (Fox on the Rhine)

by Douglas Niles

  The day was sunny, though the inside of the metal tube was cold and very loud. Porter found that if he twisted around in the seat he could get a pretty good view out of one of the oval windows lining each side of the C-47. He could see the starboard engine and the blur of the big propeller; beyond, there was a scattering of cotton-ball clouds, sparse enough to provide a good view of the countryside. For a time they flew above a region of densely forested hills, marked by occasional outcrops of weathered stone. Gradually the ground gave way to a patchwork of fields, greening only slowly in the wake of the harsh winter. Looking ahead, he could make out a broad strip of water, a cluster of industrial buildings sprawling along the bank beside a medieval town.

  “That’s the Rhine!” he called out, tapping Dickens on the shoulder.

  The captain looked at his watch. “Right on schedule!” he shouted back, the words barely audible over the drone of the engines and the rattling of wing against the aluminum frame.

  The landscape of Germany didn’t look all that different from France, or England—or parts of New York or Pennsylvania—he reflected. He saw no signs of enemy fighters or antiaircraft as they droned on, passing another great river he guessed to be the Elbe.

  He saw the twin ribbon of a great highway, and knew this was one of the legendary autobahns. They flew along, parallel to the road, and he guessed that it would lead them all the way to Berlin. Soon the character of the land began to change: He saw more factories, a network of railroad lines—though there were still great swaths of forest and dazzling blue stretches of lakes to break up the appearance of civilization.

  Now the first puffs of smoke began to appear, and he knew that a few German guns were opening up. The bursts were spread out far in front and off to the side, appearing to be silent and harmless. But there were many of them, and as the Dakota flew on they grew closer and closer.

  The outskirts of the city were below them. Some of the explosions were near enough that he could hear the blasts, sharp cracks against the background din of the aircraft.

  Porter told himself that the antiaircraft fire was light. With his face pressed to the glass of the round window, he could see only a few blasts of black smoke. They were distant and, against the backdrop of the roaring engines, soundless, yet he knew that each one had the potential to bring sudden and very violent death to a plane full of men.

  He felt a tap on his shoulder, looked to see Dickens leaning close. The captain shouted in his ear, pointing to the horizon toward their course.

  “That’s one of those antiaircraft towers!” he shouted. “They were plastered by bombers, but they’re still shooting.”

  The reporter could easily make out the sinister structure. It was like a square block of concrete, many stories high and apparently a full city block around. It was shrouded in smoke now, with bright flashes sparkling across the roof and sides. Numerous tactical fighters strafed and bombed the tower, like insects buzzing around a picnic box. Porter could see more of those black puffs now, higher in the sky. He felt a chill as he realized that the German gunners were ignoring the direct threat of the strafing fighters to direct their fire against the precious transports.

  A C-47 not more than a mile away suddenly lurched, angling downward from the formation, flames trailing from a stricken engine. Porter watched in horrified fascination as the troopers started to fling themselves from the jump door … . One … two … three men made it out before the plane flipped onto its back and spiraled away.

  It was only then that he noticed the sky filling with parachutes, white silk canopies bursting into view across the whole of his view. They drifted downward with deceptive gentleness, suggesting nothing like an army on the attack.

  Porter stared out of his small window, wishing he could have a view of a broader section of the sky. Everywhere he looked he could see parachutes, a rain of fighting soldiers that seemed like it must be an overwhelming force. These were elite soldiers, he knew, a select few drawn from large numbers of volunteers. Each man carried his ammunition and full kit, as well as a portion of the company ordnance, whether that be a portion of a light machine gun, extra ammo for the gun, or any of the components of the bazookas and rockets that were supposed to serve as a defense against enemy armor.

  Even so, he knew that these men landed, and entered combat, with significant disadvantages. They had no armor, no artillery to speak of—though there were a few small pieces that would land in the first wave of gliders—and no way to retreat. Furthermore, they were at the mercy of the wind and the not-necessarily-perfect accuracy of the pilots and jumpmasters. Even those who landed exactly where they were supposed to had to avoid trees, buildings, water, and enemy soldiers.

  Porter’s attention whipped around at a new sound, and he saw that the door at the back of the plane had been thrown open by the jumpmaster. The soldiers had stood up while he had been looking out the window, and he saw that each man had clicked a sturdy strap, his static line, to a cable running down the center top of the fuselage. The first man stood in the door, while the jumpmaster held his hands to his earphones, concentrating on some message unheard by the reporter.

  Abruptly the man looked up and clapped the first paratrooper on the shoulder. With both hands braced on the sides the door, the soldier leaned forward and leaped into space. The next came right after, the whole stick moving down the plane with precision and impressive speed.

  “Good luck!” Porter shouted, as Dickens turned back to give him a wave. The reporter raised his fingers, a V for victory, and then the captain was gone, the last man through the door. The jumpmaster started to pull the portal shut, but Porter had already turned around, once again pressing his face against the glass of the window.

  142ND TANK BATTALION, SECOND GUARDS TANK ARMY, KÜSTRIN, GERMANY, 0609 HOURS GMT

  The prison truck was a large armored vehicle with a steel shell of a trailer, two small, barred windows, and a single door securely locked on the outside. There was enough room inside of the compartment to hold twenty or more men, but for now Colonel Alexis Krigoff was the only prisoner. He had been handled roughly by Petrovsky’s headquarters guards, who literally tossed him through the open door and then slammed it, loudly, behind him.

  After testing the barrier and finding that it had indeed been securely locked, Krigoff sat on the floor with his back to the wall and brooded on the injustices that had brought him here. Petrovsky was a stubborn reactionary fool, and he would pay for his arrogance, his contemptible dismissal of a true envoy of the state, not to mention for his desecrating the likeness of Chairman Stalin himself. That act was the single most horrifying thing Alyosha Krigoff had ever witnessed. The colonel spent more than an hour imagining the ways, many of them quite creative, in which the general could be made to suffer.

  But gradually, as his thoughts twisted on, he began to have some doubts. Petrovsky had made it clear that he would deny that the spitting gesture had occurred. He was in fact a highly regarded soldier who had been decorated by Stalin personally. He was a good friend of Zhukov, who was perhaps the only general in the Red Army whose reputation made him if not quite untouchable, at least the closest thing to it. If it came down to an argument of wills between Petrovsky and Krigoff, could the young colonel truly be certain that his word would be accepted over that of the veteran army commander? Certainly Krigoff had earned the ear, and even the trust, of the chairman, but Stalin’s loyalty had been known to be fickle in the past … might it prove to be so in Krigoff’s case, as well?

  That was a very frightening thought indeed.

  Eventually the inactivity and the brooding drove him to move, and he started to pace around the long, featureless metal box. He went to one of the windows and looked out, saw only the black night of the German plain. On the other side he noticed a sergeant standing on duty, wearing the sidearm and the cap of a military policeman.

  “Serzhant!” Krigoff hissed, pressing his face against the bars of his cell. The man made no verbal response, but a twitch in hi
s posture revealed that he had heard the summons. “You are making a terrible mistake—see me released from here, and I will see that Chairman Stalin personally hears of your good judgment.”

  The soldier spun about to glare at him. “I have served General Petrovsky since the first weeks of the war. It may interest you to know that he, too, has the chairman’s ear. I should not want to be in your shoes when word of your insubordination reaches Moscow!” He laughed, a short, nasty bark of sound.

  Krigoff slumped back from the window. This was bad, as bad as it could be. In despair he slid down the wall until he was again seated on the floor, holding his head in his hands.

  It was some time later that he heard talking outside of his cell, and he was apprehensive—though curious—when the door suddenly swung open. He recognized the commissar officer standing there as Major Rokov, his adjutant from the intelligence office, and he took this as a good sign.

  “Comrade Major Rokov—you are a welcome sight,” Krigoff said, pushing himself to his feet, squinting against the daylight that was starting to brighten the outside world.

  “I have good news, Comrade Colonel,” said the major, standing back to reveal another person who had accompanied him.

  “Paulina—that is, Comrade Koninin!” exclaimed the colonel, as the woman reached out a hand to help him down from the trailer’s door. Just beyond he saw the sergeant he had spoken to earlier; the man’s face was pale, and his forehead was slick with sweat.

  “Comrade Colonel!” said the sergeant. “Please forgive me—I did not understand the situation, not at all. I made a terrible mistake!”

  “What is the situation?” Krigoff asked, turning first to Major Rokov, then to Paulina.

  “The situation is that I have taken a picture of Comrade General Petrovsky,” Paulina said with a tight smile. “He is holding a picture of Chairman Stalin—the chairman he professes to admire so much.”

  “And in this picture … ?” Krigoff let the question hang in the air, sensing good news in the offing, but not knowing what that news could be.

  “I was looking through a gap in the wall of the tent. There was good light on him as he rebuked you, and I had my camera ready. He is spitting on the picture,” Paulina said. “The focus is good, and the shutter speed fast,” she added with true photographer’s pride. “I caught his spittle in midair.”

  SPANDAU, BERLIN SUBURBS, GERMANY, 0611 HOURS GMT

  General Patton was in his element, as he stood in the back of his command jeep—the canopy was folded down despite the spring chill—and acknowledged the cheers of his men. He was passing through the Twelfth Infantry Division, a forward unit where the men had debarked from their trucks and were advancing in file along the shoulder of the road. The general held his salute for a mile or more, as man after man turned to face the road and snap his fingers to the front of his helmet. It was after he passed that the whoops and shouts—“See you in Berlin, General!”—rang out, and the sound thrilled him, filled him to bursting with a sense of fierce pride.

  Everywhere the lead elements of Third Army were streaming into Berlin, while overhead the train of C-47 transports extended in a sky-spanning bridge. In his heart Patton knew there had never in history been such a splendid display of American military might, and it touched him to his soul to know that he was in command.

  He had felt a flicker of resentment, of course, when Ike informed him of the great airborne drop. But the idea made too much sense, and appealed enough to Patton’s own sense of adventure, to hold him at bay for long. In minutes he had been embracing the idea, adding elements. When the transport aircraft returned tomorrow, they would carry supplies, heavy guns, jeeps—and now, with Patton’s suggestion, a large ration of fuel for the tanks and trucks that would spread out to make Berlin an impregnable fortress.

  The fact that their potential attacker was now the Red Army was an interesting detail, captivating to Patton’s sense of history. Yet it did not change the fundamental tactics that had made Third Army such an unqualified success.

  He turned his attention back to the sky. Now passed a glider regiment, a string of powerless aircraft, one trailing behind each Dakota on a long cable. Some of the transports came from France, others from Belgium and England, combining into a river of aircraft as they droned above the racing columns of Third Army.

  When the command car reached the top of a low hill, with a wide expanse of parkland and small houses ahead, Patton ordered Sergeant Mims to pull over. He got out of the car, rested his hands on the butts of his twin pistols, and stared eastward in amazement. The parachutes drifting downward reminded George Patton of milkweed pods, drifting on a summer breeze near the marsh. One of the western airfields, no doubt. His men would be there in an hour.

  A German command car, distinguished as friendly by the white star on the door, pulled up and a colonel got out. Patton recognized the man from Rommel’s staff, and sharply returned his salute.

  “I am happy to find you, Herr General. The field marshal would like to extend an invitation for you to visit him at his new command post, in Spandau.”

  “Spandau?” Patton’s eyebrows rose in shock, before he got control of his features. “How the hell did he get there already?” he demanded.

  “Panzer Lehr hit a long stretch of open road,” the colonel replied with a tight smile. “I believe the field marshal was riding in a motorcycle sidecar for much of the way.”

  Patton laughed ruefully, then climbed back into the jeep. “Lead on,” he said, moments before the jeep roared, tires spinning, after the big Mercedes.

  Twenty minutes later they pulled into the large square at the center of the city, one of many lesser burgs gathered around the skirts of greater Berlin. Rommel’s flag flew from the city hall, and Patton found him supervising the arrangement of the radios in what had once been a large waiting room.

  Only when he clasped the German’s hand in a firm shake did Patton fully experience the wave of relief.

  “Looks like we beat the Red Army here, after all.”

  “Not by much,” Rommel replied. “They’ve pushed through north and south of the autobahn, well across the Oder. It’s only in Küstrin that they’ve been held up—by some SS panzers, of all things.”

  “First time those bastards have done me any favors,” Patton snapped.

  He turned his attention to the map. “These are the latest deployments from SHAEF,” the field marshal explained. “Ninth Army and the Brits have got the Ruhr encircled, but they’re two hundred miles away from here. Hodges is coming up, but First Army has the whole of central Germany to cover—they won’t be any direct support to us for at least a week.”

  The rest of the Allied armies, Alexander Patch’s Seventh and the French First, were needed in the south; indeed, they faced an exceptional amount of German territory because of Patton’s lunge to the northeast.

  “Well, my twelve divisions are coming up—I’m keeping three of them deployed to hold the best routes to the west. If the Reds come up to us, we’re going to hope that they stop—but that’ll be up to diplomats, not soldiers.”

  “I would like to offer a suggestion,” Rommel said.

  “Go ahead—shoot.”

  “I have three divisions of the Republican Army in the western approaches of Berlin. Send them into the city, where they can be used to keep order and calm the populace. If they are not in direct contact with Russian troops, there’s no chance of an unfortunate incident.”

  “I’d like to,” Patton said. “But we’re still coming up to the south—I don’t have anyone to put north, and you can see from your map that Zhukov is coming like gangbusters.”

  “Then I will get on the move,” replied the German field marshal. “Since I don’t think we want the Red Army to hold a victory party on our supply line.”

  “No,” replied the American. “No, that wouldn’t be good at all.”

  EAST BANK OF ODER, KÜSTRIN, GERMANY, 0615 HOURS GMT

  “Go!” called Peiper to his driver. �
�Full reverse, now—let’s get out of here!”

  The Panther rolled backward, lurching and jerking as it rumbled over the broken rock and debris left by the shelling and bombardment. The driver swiftly spun the vehicle to the side, and then stepped on the gas.

  Peiper held on with both hands as they rumbled up over the pile of rubble that had once been a house. He wasn’t even sure he could find the street leading down to the bridge, but he knew he had only a few minutes to cross the span before the reset demolition charges went off.

  “There—turn right,” he ordered, and the driver obeyed.

  The shell smashed into the body of the tank, an armor piercing round fired by a T-34 that neither Peiper nor his driver had seen. Fire flashed through the compartment, incinerating the driver and radioman in the first flash of ignition. A shell exploded in the turret, shrapnel tearing through the body of the gunner, and Peiper cried out in pain as burning metal lanced through his leg.

  He pushed at the hatch, flipping it open, fearing the flames. But when he tried to rise up he found that his foot was caught, imprisoned in a twisted nest of steel formed by the wreckage of the gunner’s seat. Furiously he twisted and pulled, each gesture resulting in excruciating pain, but moving him no closer to freedom. He was caught like a fox in a spring-powered trap.

  There would be no escape for him.

  SECOND SS PANZER DIVISION, KÜSTRIN, GERMANY, 0701 HOURS GMT

  Daylight crept from the east as Lukas was making his way down the road toward the bridge. Sporadic artillery fire was falling on the city, but it didn’t seem close enough to worry about. He was more concerned about the return of the jabos, but for now there was neither sound nor sight of Russian aircraft.