“I wasn’t planning on going outside,” he said as he slipped his hand onto her breast.
“Well, that makes two of us.”
Guderian quickly realized that he had not been invited to a normal conference with his fellow general. Instead, something was terribly wrong. He kept his face impassive as the motorcycle was driven down a dirt path to a tent that was clearly marked with a Red Cross on the top. He thought about asking the driver about von Arnim’s condition, but decided that the young man probably didn’t know much at all.
When it stopped, he eased himself out of the sidecar. He ached from the cramped space, but tried to keep it from showing. Guderian was relieved to see a familiar face emerge from the tent, an anxious looking Koenig.
“How is he?” asked Guderian.
“Very bad, general. His vehicle was bombed and he was thrown from it. From what we can figure out, he hit his head on a tree.”
Guderian nodded and pushed his way inside the tent. He was met by a man in a doctor’s smock who introduced himself as Doctor Rinaldi, and that he was part of the Italian detachment sent by Mussolini to show his support for the Reich. The doctor spoke passable German.
“Your general is unconscious. We took x-rays and concluded that he has a depressed fracture of the skull, along with some cracked ribs and a broken leg. I can show you the x-rays if you’d like.”
Guderian did not wish to see them. “Will he live?” Guderian asked softly.
Rinaldi shrugged. “If we can give him nourishment, yes, but the proper questions should be when will he recover and how well will he recover. The answers to those are simple — we don’t know. He is not responsive and we believe he is in a coma. Some people come out of them and some don’t, living forever like a vegetable. Some others come out perfectly normal and others recover as little children who have to learn everything all over again. His recovery is in God’s hands.”
If there is a God, Guderian thought as he entered the screened off area where von Arnim lay motionless on a bed. His leg was in a cast, which was bad enough, but his skull was heavily wrapped in bandages. Only the lower part of his face was visible. Guderian wanted to ask how they were sure it was von Arnim, but held his comment.
“Koenig, how many know about this?”
“Just a handful, I hope, and they’ve been sworn to secrecy. Realistically, I can’t be certain that there aren’t others who know, or that those who do know won’t talk.”
Guderian agreed with the realistic assessment. “And as the days go on, more will certainly find out. This cannot be kept a secret forever.”
He especially wondered how long before the Italian army doctor informed his fellow doctors, or how long before he needed their input to care for his patient. Mussolini had sent a division of infantry to help hold Canada and they had been an utter disgrace. Arriving a month before the start of the war, fully a third had deserted in the first few days and simply crossed the border. The joke went — if you seek the Italian army, check Manhattan. They were followed by even more of their compatriots to the point where only a couple of thousand were left and von Arnim had sent them to Ottawa, which was much farther away from the tempting American border.
Guderian wondered how resentful Rinaldi was that he was in a war in Canada and not home in Italy. He would arrange for a German doctor to take over caring for von Arnim.
“We cannot keep a secret,” Guderian said. “Koenig, draft an announcement to the army and I will prepare one to send to Hitler and the OKW in Berlin. The messages will simply state the truth — General von Arnim has been seriously wounded and it will be a while before he recovers. In the meantime, I will assume command over all German forces in Canada.”
Koenig nodded and started to leave. “However,” Guderian continued with a wry smile, “if those in Berlin think one of von Arnim’s subordinates is more qualified, I will step aside. Or, if they wish to send someone from Germany, like that arrogant jackass Rommel, they are welcome to try to run the blockade the Americans are setting up as we speak.”
Chapter Fourteen
Sam Lambert was exhausted by the time he finally arrived home. He lived in a small frame house a couple of miles north of downtown Toronto. It wasn’t a very nice house and it wasn’t in the best part of town, but it was what he could afford on a cop’s salary. He’d been saving up for a better place, but now wondered if that day would ever come.
He was distressed that his city was on the verge of chaos. Thousands of people had already fled Toronto on what they felt was the logical assumption that it would be a target for American bombers. Lambert wasn’t quite so certain. He thought the Yanks would be after military targets, rather than civilian ones.
Toronto was one of Canada’s largest manufacturing centers, if not the largest, but most of those businesses made goods for the civilian sector. Of course, he thought, they could be converted to military use in short order should the Germans demand it. They couldn’t make tanks, but they could make small weapons and ammunition.
The absence of so many people had led to a degree of anarchy among those who remained. Many of them didn’t have the resources to flee and had nowhere to go anyhow. There had been cases of looting and Lambert was sure that looting would only increase. The Black Shirts were having their own little party, robbing businesses and homes and breaking heads. Some of the fools were actually resentful when police intervened. They believed that the war rendered them immune from prosecution. He hoped they weren’t right.
Damn it, he thought as he took a bottle of Molson’s from the fridge. He would rest, try to unwind, and then go to bed. He had a feeling tomorrow would be as bad as today.
The knock on the door startled him. He got up and walked over warily, first making sure that his service revolver was tucked in his belt.
“Who’s there?”
“Sherry, now open up.”
Sherry? Who the hell was Sherry? Somewhat confident since it was a woman’s voice, he opened the door a crack. A short blonde woman about thirty stood before him.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
“Sorry, but I don’t. Should I?”
“I guess I’m not surprised. My name is Sherry Piper and the last time you saw me I had been beaten and raped, and was lying naked and bloody on a stretcher. My brother was even more terribly beaten as well. Now please let me in.”
Sam opened the door enough for her to enter, closing it quickly once she was in. Now he did recognize her, sort of. She had lost a lot of weight and had died her hair a gaudy blond that did nothing for her. There was a vivid white scar on her cheek, a reminder of the beating and worse she’d endured.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Why?”
He took a deep breath. That night had upset him terribly. “That we couldn’t get there in time. Our source in the Black Shirts couldn’t get us the info until the attack was about to happen. As it was, I could only get six guys together and only four of us had weapons.”
“But you did manage to kill two of them. Now I’d like to kill some more. First, however, get me one of those things in your hand.”
Lambert grinned. He’d picked up his beer when he closed the door. He got her a Molson and opened it for her. She declined a glass.
“Don’t tell me I’m looking well,” she said. “I can’t stand being patronized.”
“How’s your brother?”
Her expression changed to one of deep sadness. “He’s dead. He killed himself. He was filled with irrational shame that he was the cause of what happened to us, to me in particular. He kept telling me that he visualized me spread-eagled on the bed and being forced to watch while those bastards raped me. He felt it was his fault for getting involved with the printing operation, totally forgetting that I was the one who urged him to do it. Maybe the beating unhinged him. I just don’t know. He ate a whole bottle of aspirins one night and never woke up.”
“Can I say I’m sorry?”
“Sorry for what? You tried to help and you did
help. Now you can help some more.”
Lambert was intrigued. He also realized that Sherry Piper was a very attractive woman, or would be if she did something about her hair. “How can I help?”
“Afterwards, we went to the states where we got medical help. I left Steve in a hospital outside Washington, which is where he got his hands on the aspirins, and went to look for the OSS. It was surprisingly easy to find and, after my brother’s funeral, I volunteered to come back here and feed them information about the Germans and the Black Shirts.”
“How will you do that?”
“You will help get me a job near the German headquarters. I brought a small radio with limited range, but good enough to reach the American side of Lake Ontario. Being a cop, you will be able to retrieve it for me and bring it here.”
“Here?”
Sherry smiled, this time with amusement and a degree of warmth. “Of course. I have to have someplace to stay and this is it. You don’t mind, do you? Besides, so far it is not illegal to have a short wave radio.”
Sam Lambert shook his head. No, he did not mind at all.
Admiral Vian was almost in tears as he sat across from Admiral Ernest King. “I am sorry, but I have my orders. Prime Minister Lord Halifax has ordered the Royal Navy to stand aside in this war between the United States and Germany.”
King nodded. “I understand his reasoning and almost agree with it. The issue is food.”
When the truce between Germany and Great Britain was informally agreed to, one of the conditions was that food shipments from Canada and elsewhere to the British Isles would be unimpeded. Without them, the people of England and Scotland would starve. As it was, they would be on short rations and were growing food on every available patch of land. The food issue was a Sword of Damocles hanging over the British Isles. Food rationing was already tight and any cut in imports could be disastrous.
Vian continued. “It will always be food, and even Churchill concurs. Until and if there are assurances that the U.S. Navy will protect food convoys to England, I cannot run the risk of cutting off Britain’s food supply by participating in this war.”
King understood, but didn’t like it. He wasn’t at all fond of the British, but that did not extend to starvation. The navy was about to begin blockading the port of Halifax when FDR had informed him that ships exiting Canada could be searched and seized only if they contained war materials and food was not on that list. Nor did it matter that much of the food might make its way to the Reich. His hands were tied, as were Vian’s. Nor could the Royal Navy move to the Pacific and aid in the war against Japan. Too risky, was the assessment, and, besides, it would be a logistical nightmare. For the time being, the Royal Navy was out of this war and this meant that additional warships needed to fight the Germans would have to come from the Pacific, thus weakening the American effort against the Japanese.
Damn it, King thought. The Brits couldn’t do anything right. They couldn’t even lose a war without screwing it up.
After a shaken and despondent Vian left, King was left to confront another problem — how to clear Lakes Ontario and probably Lake Erie of German presence so that an invasion of Nazi-held Canada could commence. There were no American warships on the Great Lakes and hadn’t been since the war of 1812. Even then those had been wooden ships built on the lakes, a total impossibility given the needs of modern shipbuilding, which included guns and armor plate.
It seemed so simple to armchair strategists, and that included Roosevelt. All the navy had to do, they thought, was steam up the St. Lawrence and insert American warships where there were none. The President had to be reminded that it was almost eight hundred miles from Halifax to Toronto and warships would have to make their way up a narrow river with a hostile enemy on both shores.
Some bright mind had suggested arming smaller ships, even yachts, with depth charges and deck guns along with anti-aircraft guns and this was being done. But how long would it take for them to clear out the damned German E-boats and submarines, and how many enemy ships were there in the first place? Besides, wasn’t this more of an army operation? King smiled as he recalled that a number of B24 bombers had been assigned to the Tenth Fleet to hunt Nazi submarines, and had been fairly successful.
Perhaps, Marshall thought, they would do just as well on the Great Lakes.
Canfield and his men were ready this time. Bunkers had been built and now would withstand anything other than a direct hit by a very large bomb. Given the state of bombing accuracy, the targeted bunker was likely a very safe place. Radar systems were up and operating, and a recent attack by German planes had been met by a horde of American fighters that had chased them back across the lake. Several German planes had been shot down while the men on the ground cheered. A couple of chutes had opened but the enemy pilots had drowned before anyone could get to them.
Still, the area wasn’t safe. The Germans liked to send their high speed E-boats across during the night, just like the Japanese had done to American marines on Guadalcanal. The Germans, however, kept their motors muzzled and ran slowly until the very last minute, then they would open up with their small but deadly cannon and machine guns. It didn’t take much of a raid to keep a thousand men from sleeping. Just a few hundred machine gun rounds and a dozen or so rapid fire cannon shells would keep everyone’s nerves frazzled.
“Why the hell don’t we have radar that can pick out ships?” Canfield muttered.
Dubinski laughed softly in the night. “If the army thought we should have good radar, they would have issued it, just like they don’t issue brains. In the army you don’t need brains.”
“Up yours, sergeant.”
Canfield didn’t like the bunkers they’d been ordered to build. Despite their strength, he thought they were traps. Along with being traps the bunkers were poorly hidden, which meant they could be seen from both the sky and the lake.
Canfield was further annoyed by the passive stance taken by the army. Armies should be on the move, seeking out the enemy and bringing an end to this strange new war. All he wanted to do was go home to his wife and his job as sheriff. In his opinion, digging in and waiting was what got France whipped in 1940 when they found that their vaunted Maginot Line wasn’t worth squat. At least this General Patton seemed to have the right idea. Too bad his army appeared to be stalled out west.
Canfield was beginning to have serious doubts about their own Corp Commander, Lloyd Fredendall. At least their new regimental commander was aggressive and had given his implicit blessing to this latest brainchild of Canfield’s. The colonel was regular army and had replaced their original colonel who had suffered a nervous breakdown. The colonel liked what he’d heard about the skirmish between Canfield’s men and the E-boat a while back and gave the okay to give it another shot.
Another shot, Canfield thought and laughed. He assumed that the krauts were pretty well aware that the American forces were building up a supply of landing craft that could have only one purpose — the invasion of Ontario. Canfield had a dozen dummy boats built of plywood and had camouflaged them in what he called an intentionally very half-assed manner. The Germans would be sure to notice them and would try to do something about it. At least that’s what he hoped.
Canfield yawned and checked his watch. It was almost three in the morning. If the krauts were going to come, it would have to be soon. He’d been up the last few nights and didn’t know how much longer he could keep up this pace. If the Germans didn’t come in the next couple of nights, he was going to give up and dismantle the decoys and get some sleep.
It was hell getting old, he thought. Maybe he should have some more coffee and take another walk around the guns that had been sited to surprise his unwelcome guests.
“I hear something,” said Dubinski, “How about you?”
“Maybe I could if you’d quit talking.” Canfield grumped.
Both men were silent, straining to hear. There. It was a distant humming. They recognized the throbbing of an E-boat’s eng
ines, maybe two of them. Once again, they’d been heavily and skillfully muffled. Canfield suddenly realized they might be a lot closer than he first thought. There was mist on the water and the enemy boats could be hiding in it.
“Should we turn on our lights?” Dubinski asked.
“No, not yet. Let them go first.”
Seconds later, two offshore searchlights flared on and lit up the shore, quickly finding the “landing craft.” Almost immediately, machine gun and anti-aircraft shells began ripping through the fragile dummies. Gasoline from five gallon cans placed in the boats exploded, adding to the realism.
“Now,” Canfield ordered and his own searchlights reached out and found the two German E-boats. They were only a couple of hundred yards from the shore.
Tracers from American machine guns lit the way to the Germans and quickly found the range, ripping into their hulls. Canfield could see chaos on the two boats.
“Where the hell are my tanks?” he yelled.
The M3 might be obsolescent, but it packed a 75mm gun and he had two of them. Their cannon barked and kicked up splashes just a few yards away from the boats that were now turning and frantically trying to get away from the hornet’s nest they’d disturbed.
A 75mm shell struck one of the German boats, rocking it and sending men and debris into the water. Canfield was about to say something when the E-boat exploded with a roar and a shock wave that they could feel.
“I think we just set off a torpedo,” Dubinski commented. “Ain’t that tough shit?”
One German torpedo boat was sinking rapidly and the other had high-tailed it out of range. The battle was over and it was suddenly, shockingly, quiet. Canfield waved for rescue parties in their own small boats to go out and rescue German survivors, if there were any.
It didn’t take long for the motorboats to reach the debris and begin pulling people in. The second German boat was barely visible and staying just out of range, watching the Americans work.
North Reich Page 24
