Arctic Front

anticipate. The master plan excited him; but then, like the mournful cry of an Arctic wolf, the sound of the ice pressure ridges crushing carried the warning that the unfrozen sea to the south was both his way and his impediment to Siberia. Now that Ratmanov had been secured, marine expeditionary forces could be transported by air and air bases secured on the sparsely populated northern tundra of Siberia across the strait, bases from which U.S. air strikes could be made down the shield of Kamchatka Peninsula. But then what? He stopped suddenly in the snow, the two marine guards looking nonplussed at one another, snow now having been replaced by rain. Old “Von Freeman” was seemingly oblivious to the fact.

He had seen the burning bush. The Pentagon would think him mad, as they had thought MacArthur mad when he had decided to hit Inchon—”The worst possible choice,” the experts had told him; as they had thought Hannibal mad for crossing the Alps, extending his supply line against all common sense. And so, too, Schwarzkopf’s commanders had been shocked by the idea of an outflanking left hook around the Republican Guard. And there had been the great failures, too, which, as the Chiefs of Staff had said, were doomed and which had ruined many a career.

When Freeman showed it to Dick Norton, the only officer privy to his plan so far, Norton immediately saw the potential for a debacle. “In the middle of winter, General?”

“Remember Frederick the Great, Dick. ‘L’audace! L’audace! Toujours l’audace!’ “ It was one of the general’s favorite sayings.

“Perhaps, General,” said Norton, “but he won’t be with us.”

“Yes, he will,” said Freeman, and there wasn’t a trace of frivolity in the general’s tone, nor in his eyes. His eyes were fixed on the map. “You know what a steeplechase rider does before the jumps, Dick?”

“No idea, General.”

“Walks the course,” Freeman said, indicating the map. “I’ve walked the course, Dick.” He flashed a smile. “Metaphorically speaking, of course. But I’ve been with them, all right.” His hand swept out over the western front. “The German campaigns, Napoleon’s. But I must confess no one’s been here: Far Eastern TVD. And right now, Dick, those Commies in Novosibirsk are thinking, how can they outfox me?” He turned to Norton once more. “You think they have any surprises, Dick?”

“Be surprised if they didn’t, General.”

“So would I. But what are they?”

* * *

Freeman and Norton, together with the rest of his HQ staff, pored over the myriad details for three possible amphibious landings south of the Bering Strait.

Everything was considered: special forces that might be required for beach clearance, amphibious hovercraft going in over the icebreaker-cleared channels in the thicker coastal ice, assault ships, cargo-carrying choppers, airlift Hercules, attack helicopters, landing vehicles, air cover and close ground support from subsonic to Mach 2 aircraft. Then there were engineer and sapper battalions, supertough plastic piping “fascine”—tubes that could be dumped to fill a trench and across which a sixty-ton M-1 tank could pass, as well as flail and grader tanks to clear mines, and fiberglass-hulled mine clearers for the sea lanes. One armored division alone would need 620 thousand gallons of fuel, 319 thousand gallons of water, 82 thousand meals, and 6 thousand tons of ammunition a day. All had to be assigned, integrated into the overall attack plans. Freeman made it his personal responsibility to talk to the catering corps commanders, eliciting individual guarantees that each man in action would receive the required 3,000 calories a day, 4,200 for troops in Arctic battle.

“Kick ass, do what you have to,” Freeman told them. “But remember Napoleon: An army marches on its stomach. If any of you forget it, I’ll have your hide plus a thousand-dollar fine.”

“He’s got no authority to fine us — least not that much,” complained a cook.

“You want to find out?” asked a quartermaster.

The offended man was shaking his head, pleased to see Freeman was moving on to breathe fire over some other poor bastard. “Those SAS guys were right. It’s ‘Von Freeman.’ “

The general had already heard a rumor about the “Von” appellation and asked Norton if it was true.

“Uh, yes, General. ‘Fraid so.”

Freeman made no comment and, seemingly turning to a completely different subject, informed Norton that he’d seen some of the Canadian forces personnel assigned with his command wearing beards.

“Hadn’t noticed, General.”

“Well, I have. I want them off. Today.”

“General, Canadian Navy sort of follows Royal Navy tradition. Allows—”

“I don’t give a goddamn what the Royal Navy allows. I want those beards off. And if you don’t know why, Dick, you’re not doing your goddamn homework.”

“No, sir.”

Sometimes, Norton wrote in his diary that evening, Douglas Freeman could be as ornery as a cut pig. The general, he figured, knew that, like Dracheev, Novosibirsk, in the person of Marshal Yesov, C in C Siberian Forces, had its own surprises; as yet he had no idea what they were.

* * *

Though she was thoroughly familiar with the sights and smells of a military hospital, Lana was still unprepared.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” said Shirer gamely, his head completely swathed in bandages that held the compress against his left eye.

“I ‘m…” began Lana, having to compose herself after having heard from the doctor upon her arrival in Anchorage that it was possible that the optic nerve had been partially severed. She smiled bravely, spoke softly. “I’m a nurse, remember?”

“Right,” said Frank. There was no point kidding one another. If the optic nerve was severely damaged, then it would be the end of Frank’s career as a fighter pilot. The fact that it was the same eye that had been injured during his time as a presidential pilot didn’t make it any easier for him to accept. He knew that Lana could live with it, preferring that he never go back into combat, but, like most of his ilk, he lived for flying. Take away that, he told her, and—

Lana said there was no point talking about it till they knew for certain, and she immediately felt guilty. If it had been any other patient she would have listened, knowing it was part of the therapy, but with the man she loved she found herself instead falling back on the bland cliches of reassurance and then just as quickly putting forth the most optimistic prognosis.

“They can do wonders now. Lasers. You know at one time when a retina became detached — remember the Rumpole man?”

Frank thought she meant the actor.

“No, Mortimer, the lawyer who wrote it. His father had both retinas detached. Slipped a few feet one day on a ladder. Blind for the rest of his life. Well, nowadays they can spot weld the retinas back with a laser. Overnight stay in hospital, that’s all. Maybe even day surgery.”

Frank said nothing, trying not to grimace with the pain; the Demerol was wearing off. But Lana had seen too many wounded not to have some idea of what it must have been like when the eye had been gouged, literally hanging by its optic nerve, and later when tiny fragments of foreign material had to be scraped from the eyeball. Sitting down beside his bed, she took his hand in hers and for a moment was transported back to her first casualty of the war — young William Spence — and shivered despite her resolve. She forced another smile. “Well, at least I’ll be seeing more of you — when I can get leave from Dutch, that is.” She tried to make it all breezy, “accentuate the positive,” but could see that either Frank hadn’t heard her or was momentarily overcome with the pain, or both. His hand tightened involuntarily as a spasm pierced the bloody socket of the eye, striking deep inside his skull somewhere.

“What I can’t figure out,” he began, shifting position in the false belief of so many patients that movement itself would relieve the pain when it was really a shift in concentration that momentarily diverted thoughts of the pain, “is why did the bastard do it? There was no point to it. I mean—” Frank forced himself up further in the bed, Lana stacking the pillows behind him, staying close to him, gently massaging his neck. He turned to her, and she could see now how swollen the purplish and dark red tissue around the eyeball was.

“No point,” Frank continued, “trying to get information from me. I mean they were overrun. Under attack. Damn it! What in hell did it matter what airfield or carrier I came from? Our guys were swarming all over