Along with a couple of letters from Jack Morgan, she’d gotten a batch from home. Most of the comments from her mother were complaints about the inequities of the ration system. There never was enough gas, they were supposed to do without meat on certain days, and, heavens to Betsy, nylons were nonexistent.
Jessica’s father was more pragmatic. It didn’t bother him that they were reduced to driving one car and that it was now almost five years old. Everyone was in the same boat and, he said, as long as the boat wasn’t sinking, all was well. She sometimes wondered just what planet her mother came from. Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler hadn’t made a new car since shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Everything they now produced went to the military. Her father said there would be plenty of time for new cars, new houses, and, yes, nylons, when the war was won.
Jessica decided she’d write her father about the idiot pilot of a small plane she’d seen buzzing the Eiffel Tower. Hundreds on the ground had cheered and laughed while the military police glowered in impotent fury. There was no doubt that it was an American plane and she wondered if the pilot would get into trouble. Whimsically, she wondered if it had been Jack.
Finally, the small convoy arrived at their new offices. Sign painters were busy writing instructions to the people already waiting outside. To Jessica’s dismay, there were hundreds of anxious French men and women, some clutching thoroughly confused and squalling small children. Once again, she would be telling hopeful people that she had no information at the moment, and that she could only hope to provide hope for the future.
Someone in the Red Cross had estimated that fully ninety-nine percent of those missing or displaced would find their own way home and to their families. The remaining one percent would be the cause of all the heartaches and grieving. With millions of displaced persons expected, it could still result in many tens of thousands needing their help.
Nor was Jessica comfortable with the ninety-nine percent figure not needing their help. Not when she saw the line of humanity waiting for them.
***
How was it possible, the Soviet Union’s Foreign Minister, Vacheslav Molotov, wondered, that the senior representatives of two of the world’s major powers were reduced to meeting in a seedy hotel room in Sweden? He had arrived that morning in a transport plane bearing Swiss markings, while his counterpart flew in from Germany in a plane also with Swiss markings. That neither was even remotely associated with neutral Switzerland was irrelevant. What was important was that nobody noticed and, most definitely, nobody at either the Soviet or German embassies was aware of his arrival or that of his counterpart. Embassy personnel were supposed to be trustworthy, but there was an old saying about secrets attributed to an American, Benjamin Franklin, that three could keep a secret only if two were dead. He sometimes wished a Russian had authored that wonderfully prescient quote.
Molotov was thankful that he would not be in discussions with that pompous and crude buffoon, von Ribbentrop. Molotov hated the aristocracy with the true fervor of a dedicated communist. Aristocrats and capitalists were the cause of the world’s ills and he wished he could exterminate them like the Nazis were exterminating the Jews. However, even he had been appalled by the reported numbers of dead coming out of Poland regarding the concentration camp complex near Auschwitz.
At least his counterpart, Franz von Papen, was a real aristo, and not a parvenu like Ribbentrop who’d gotten the right to use the “von” mostly because he’d married well. Von Papen had history and ancestry on his side, while Ribbentrop had simply fucked his way into the nobility.
Von Papen entered the small room, and the two men bowed and nodded. They did not shake hands. Molotov got directly to the point. “You wished this meeting, why?”
Von Papen was not shaken by Molotov’s bluntness. He’d expected it. “It is time to end this war, at least for a while. Our two countries have been tearing at each other like mad dogs, while the Americans and British do nothing. If we are not careful, when the war does end, as all wars do, they will be the winners and our two nations the losers.”
Molotov silently agreed. The Americans had taken their own sweet time getting into the war. They had waited years while Mother Russia absorbed the best, and worst, that the Nazis could hand her. And in return for scores of millions dead and wounded, what did the Soviet Union get? A few thousand trucks and some useless tanks. He knew he was being unfair about American Lend Lease. It was brutally difficult to send supplies by sea around German occupied Europe and an incredibly long way to go overland from Iran and Iraq. Still, the American armies had waited until the heavy fighting at Stalingrad, Moscow, Leningrad, Sevastopol, and Kursk was over before finally sending a pathetically few divisions into France where a small German army had all but halted them. It did appear that the Americans, and their lap dogs, the British, were more than willing to let Russia fight their war.
Molotov kept his expression cold. “May I remind you, von Papen, that your country violated a perfectly good treaty and invaded Mother Russia, thereby starting this ruinous war? May I further remind you that Germany is the cause of all the troubles and all the devastation in Russia that is now going to be repaid by Soviet armies as they invade your country?”
Papen nodded solemnly. “That tragedy was perpetrated by Hitler, Goering, and Bormann, none of whom are any longer with us, thank God. While there is nothing we can do to bring back the dead and remove the devastation, it is possible that we could consider some form of compensation in the future should the war be brought to an end.”
Molotov noted that Himmler’s name was absent from the list of those who’d perpetrated the surprise attack on the Soviet Union. Of course, Herr Himmler, inventor of Germany’s concentration camp system, was as pure and innocent as the new fallen snow.
Regarding compensation, Molotov thought that the Soviet Union would like to take anything of value that Germany possessed, including the dubious virtue of the Reich’s women. This would be in return for the countless rapes and other atrocities endured by the Soviet people. Russia wanted ten pounds of flesh for each pound earlier ripped from her. Still, what was von Papen proposing?
The German diplomat smiled. If Molotov didn’t know better, he might have thought it was with warmth. “My dear Molotov, there is no reason for us to be enemies when our true foe is the United States. The Jewish capitalists will rule the world if we are not careful. If we destroy each other, the Wall Street barons will be in total control and will hold both our countries in bondage. You know that the Americans hate communism, and you must be aware that the Jew Roosevelt’s government plans to turn Germany into a vast farmland devoid of manufacturing and incapable of defending itself. It is a tragedy that we went to war and the Reich accepts the blame for it. Now, however, it is time to change the course of history.”
Molotov eyed the German coldly. “Are you saying there is room to negotiate?”
“Comrade, there is always room to negotiate.”
***
Jeb Carter whooped into his tank’s microphone at the sight of the German vehicles on the road parallel to his and only a half mile away.
“So much for them being the master race. They screw up just like everybody else and we’ve got them dead to rights.”
The German unit holding the crossroads had made a major blunder. Instead of heading east to safety, they’d taken a wrong turn on a road that looped west instead. By the time they’d figured it out and turned around, Morgan in his little plane had spotted them. Thirty German vehicles were all in a row. Most of them were lightly armored troop carriers like American half-tracks. Most happily, three trucks were towing what looked like 88mm antitank guns and they were accompanied by only a pair of Panzer IV tanks.
The Germans panicked, which was not a smart thing to do. Their vehicles scattered in all directions. Carter whooped again and ordered a general attack, a charge, with machine guns and cannon blazing from his dozen Shermans. The two German tanks gamely turned to protect their charges. Conc
entrated fire from the American tanks quickly knocked out one Mark IV and the other moved away in reverse, firing and keeping his more heavily armored front towards the Americans.
“They’re getting away,” Carter snarled.
He ordered three platoons to chase the other vehicles while the remaining platoon tangled with the surviving Panzer. A shot from the German blew the treads off one Sherman, but a pair of shells struck the Panzer, stopping him cold. Hatches opened and men jumped out while machine gun fire raked them. One man dropped and two others ran off. Carter recalled that the Panzer IV had a crew of five. Tongues of fire came from the hatches of the last tank, telling him that the other two men were cooked.
Carter’s other tanks were catching up to the trucks which couldn’t move fast on rough terrain, nor did they have a chance to unlimber and man their guns. Again, men abandoned their vehicles and ran for their lives.
Overhead, Morgan watched the slaughter. There may have been people down there, but they were the enemy and the presence of the towed eighty-eights told him they’d been shooting and killing Americans. With a roar, a quartet of American fighter bombers, P47’s, flew low and began to strafe the fleeing Germans. Morgan hoped to hell that the flyboys could tell which side was which. They could and they chewed up the vehicles that Carter’s tanks couldn’t reach.
“You called for the cavalry?” Carter radioed. “If you did, we sure as hell didn’t need them.”
Jack wasn’t so sure. It looked like several German half-tracks would have made it. Carter was a cocky bastard.
Prudently, Carter called a halt to his advance. He didn’t want his men getting tangled with the Germans and a tragedy to occur.
“Hey, Bomber,” he radioed to Jack.
“What, Rebel?”
“Looks like the good guys won one today.”
“Yeah, Carter, but I’ll bet you a dollar that the Air Force takes full credit for this little barroom brawl.”
***
Molotov had given his report and sat nervously while Stalin contemplated the consequences of the German proposal. Josef Stalin ruled the Soviet Union with an iron and bloody fist. In his zeal to first consolidate communism in the newly formed country, and to export it to other countries, he had been ruthless. Millions of reasonably well-off peasants, the kulaks, had starved when he’d forced them to live in communal farms, and millions of others had died in the civil war that had resulted in him taking the reins of power from Lenin on that man’s death. People had made the mistake of underestimating the small, rumpled, and often crude man with the thick mustache.
Above all, however, Josef Stalin was a realist. The Soviet air forces ruled the skies over the Germans, and Soviet armor and artillery outnumbered the enemy and were qualitatively better in many areas. Numerically, the vast Soviet horde was hugely dominant.
Realistically, however, the Red Army’s march into Poland was slowing. The army continued to go forward, but now in small, painful steps instead of great sweeping advances. The reasons were several. The Germans had withdrawn isolated pockets of their soldiers to form new and stronger defenses. The Germans had retreated closer to their bases which meant they could be supplied more easily while the Red Army’s replacement equipment, manpower and ammunition had farther to go. Also, the Germans were now fighting behind a shorter defensive line.
Worse for Stalin’s ambitions, the professional German generals were now running the war and not the erratic and insanely stubborn Adolf Hitler. Not for the first time did Stalin wish that Hitler was still alive.
Zhukov’s warning of several weeks earlier was coming true. The mighty Soviet war machine was running out of gas, and, in some ways, literally. There was little fuel, and the army was indeed exhausted. If it collapsed, so too might Josef Stalin and his dream of communist expansion.
So, he wondered, what might be the outcome of a truce?
Obviously, as Zhukov said, it would grant time for the army to rest and re-fit. But what about the political and long-term aspects of a truce?
Stalin agreed that communism’s long-term enemy was the United States and, as the war was progressing, America increasingly looked to be victorious and unscathed while Russia would be in tatters after having won a Pyrrhic victory. Worse, America would soon be in possession of the powerful nuclear weapons being developed in New Mexico and elsewhere, and would be in a position to impose a peace. His spies were keeping him reasonably well up-to-date on America’s progress towards an atomic bomb. He shuddered at the thought of a victorious America having such a weapon. The Germans, too, were working on a bomb and Soviet scientists were trying to apply the information stolen from the Americans toward building their own, but so far without success. He’d thought of executing a few of the Soviet Union’s physicists, but thought better of it. Not even fear could improve the pace of acquiring knowledge. He’d purged the Red Army of thousands of officers prior to the war and suffered for it. He would not do the same with the few scientists he had.
The idea of Germany and the United States tearing each other’s throats out appealed to him. Germany would buy time and quite possibly win a negotiated peace for itself, but Russia would be the stronger and could simply abrogate any truce at her convenience. Thus, Russia’s new war with Germany would be against a seriously weakened opponent, and the United States would be in no position to intervene.
He was unconcerned about England and France. The French were in no position to affect anything militarily, while the British were far more concerned with conserving their manpower than they were in fighting and winning a war. His intelligence said that English were growing disenchanted with Churchill’s leadership and a war that seemed to drag on forever. Churchill might not survive the next election. It was incredible to him that the England and the United States would permit political opposition, especially during a war. To Stalin, political opposition was synonymous with treason and the reason the Gulags existed.
A respite would give him a chance to tidy up his own house. The self-titled Marshal Tito in Yugoslavia was showing signs of becoming independent of Moscow, which was intolerable. Granted, Yugoslavia and Tito were still fighting the Nazis from behind German lines, but, if the war paused, perhaps the Germans would do the Soviet Union a favor and crush Tito. Perhaps they would withdraw and let Russia do it.
Another benefit from a pause in the fighting would enable Stalin to resolve his relations with China’s growing communist movement. He could join forces with Mao Zedong and throw the Japanese out of Manchuria and Korea; thus earning Mao’s gratitude. Or he could ally with Chiang Kai-Shek, dominate that man and subsequently destroy him. Mao called himself a communist, but Stalin considered him a peasant and worse, a potential rival.
Regardless, the attack on the Japanese would also aid the Americans whom he wished to destroy. It was an irony he understood and appreciated. The Americans would be grateful while two more countries would be added to the Soviet bloc. Three if China was counted.
If he did it correctly, Stalin thought, he could confuse the Americans and leave them wondering just what had happened to them.
Stalin smiled grimly and Molotov shuddered at the sight. “We will negotiate with the devil, Comrade Molotov.” Stalin wrote furiously on a sheet of lined paper while puffing equally furiously on his pipe. “And here are the terms we will settle for.”
Molotov scanned the sheet and nodded approval. “The Allies will realize rather quickly that we have departed the war.”
Stalin was unperturbed. “Then we will have to have a reason that is plausible enough to justify our defection.”
“Do you have something in mind, Comrade Stalin?” The question was rhetorical. Stalin always had a plan.
Again Stalin smiled, this time with humor. “The French, of course. The French are always good for something. They think the world turns on them and the sun rises and sets on Paris. They cannot abide being second fiddle to the damned Americans and the British. The communist party in France is very strong and, since man
y of its members were in the Resistance, fairly well provided with light arms. I believe they would provide us with a most useful distraction.”
CHAPTER 11
The dead american soldier more resembled a pancake with flattened arms and legs than a human being. He looked like a cartoon character that could have been peeled off the ground like a coat of paint. Being run over by a tank will do that. The pounding rain made matters worse.
“What the hell happened?” Whiteside asked. The half dozen wet infantrymen in ponchos from the 116th Division looked stunned, while the driver of the tank that had run over the GI stood a few yards away, puking his guts out.
Finally, a corporal spoke. “Sir, we was hitching a ride when it happened. For some reason the turret turned and the barrel swept Hickey right off and under the tracks of the tank behind. He didn’t scream, he just kind of squished. I don’t think he knew what hit him. Hell, I hope he never knew it.”
Infantrymen were always hitching rides on the hulls of tank. It beat the hell out of walking and the infantry and armor were supposed to support each other, so riding on the tanks made sense.
Whiteside turned to the sergeant who commanded the tank that had thrown the man off. The man looked stunned and near tears. “I thought I saw something suspicious to my left and I instinctively swung the turret. I completely forgot about the guys riding topside.”
Medics had arrived and were gawking at the flattened corpse. “Get him out of here. Now!” Whiteside barked.
Two medics lifted, almost slid, the distorted caricature of a corpse onto a stretcher. The ground was soft and an impression of his body remained. It began to fill with water like an obscene pool. Curiously, there was very little blood and it was being diluted and washed away by the rain. A moment later, the ambulance was heading down the road and in no great hurry.
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