‘So, this is better than sitting out in the open, eh? Just think, we could still be sitting in the back of that truck.’
‘This is much better. Just to be warm again is great. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t cold.’
He couldn’t agree more.
If he lived to be ninety Max knew the most enduring memory of his time on the eastern front would be that of a constant battle with the cold. Staffel KG-301 had been stationed up on the northern end of the frontline near Murmansk for a good portion of the last two years. Up there, even in mid-summer, it was an unforgivably cold place to live.
‘Yes… warm is good,’ he replied, turning on his side to look at the amber glow of the heater.
Stefan sat hunched over it, a small, thin, ginger-haired youth with the pale skin of a child unblemished with the knocks and scrapes of life. He was nineteen, but he looked so much younger. He reminded Max of his younger brother, Lucian.
Lucian Kleinmann had been nineteen when he’d died. That had only been eight months previously. He had fallen in Poland, near the Vistula River, just east of Warsaw during the Russians’ summer offensive, Operation Bagration. Max’s parents had been given no details as to how his younger brother had died, just that he had been one of the casualties of the ill-equipped infantry regiment that had been placed in the way. There had been ten years between Max and Lucian, almost a generational divide. In many ways the age difference had made them more like father and son than brothers.
The news had almost broken Max, as it had his parents. A lot of the bitter anger he felt for the death of his younger brother was directed towards the Russians, quite understandably, but a little was also directed towards the German high command, for pointlessly throwing an infantry regiment in the path of a battalion of T-34s, a tactical decision born out of desperation, as they all seemed to be these days.
‘Max? Can I ask you a question?’
‘Of course, ask away.’
‘What will happen if we do make it there and drop the bomb?’
Max spent a moment considering the question. Rall had suggested that there was a growing feeling amongst the American people that Stalin and the communists were becoming a dangerous force in the world, and potentially an enemy that they would end up fighting some time in the near future. This bomb would provide them the final incentive to change sides.
‘The Americans will have no choice but to join up with us and fight the Russians.’
‘And what will the Russians do?’
‘They haven’t the resources to take on America and Britain combined. Even Stalin isn’t that crazy. They would have no choice but to turn around. I suppose we hope they will panic when they see the devastation this new explosive does and promptly withdraw.’
Stefan was silent for a moment, digesting Max’s answer.
He had a good mind, thought Max. One that soaked up information quickly, but more importantly extrapolated from it, applied it and used it.
‘If that happens, the Russians withdraw… will that be an end to it? An end to the war?’
Another good question.
‘Of course, because they’ll be out of our land, that’s all we’re after right now. I’m sure that would put an end to it.’
Really?
Max wasn’t entirely convinced by his own answer. Would the war truly end? Maybe it would for a few years, long enough for Germany to replenish her resources. But then what? He wondered whether a leader like Hitler would simply settle for Germany’s pre-war borders. After having conquered most of Europe, would he be happy with that?
Would he fuck. There would be another war.
Another war, a Third World War in ten, fifteen, twenty years? This time fought with planes and these super bombs. The world would obliterate itself with them. For a moment Max wondered whether the best thing to do would be to drop the weapon in the Atlantic when they reached it, where hopefully no one would ever find it and use it.
‘Do you think we’re going to do it, Max?’
‘What?’
‘Do you think we’ll make it across to America?’
The troubling doubts instantly vanished to the darkest corners of his mind as he considered the audacious, ambitious challenge Rall had presented to him. It could most certainly be done.
‘The Major’s put together a clever plan, Stefan… of course we will.’
That seemed to satisfy the lad for a few moments, before he looked up once more from the heater and stared at Max. ‘Why did you decide to do this mission? I know why the others did. Pieter I think because he believes in this country, Hans because he just wants some revenge, and me, I voted yes because of my family, my mother, my sisters… but you?’
So much like Lucian, always asking bloody questions.
Max suspected Pieter had volunteered because deep down he’d never stopped believing in his beloved Fuhrer, something he would never admit to in public now. There was a lot that he didn’t have in common with Pieter, their politics, their background, their basic view on life differed, and yet it was the shared experiences of the last three years that had forged a rock-steady partnership between them. They had seen three navigators and two gunners come and go, and most of the other original personnel of KG-301 had died, been wounded or transferred to other undermanned squadrons. He wondered, if both of them survived the war, whether they would stay in touch with each other.
Probably not.
They would have nothing in common to talk about other than their wartime experiences. Pieter’s world was factory floors, beer cellars and women. Max’s world had once been teaching, a long, long time ago in his pre-war life.
‘I suppose I want my life back, Stef. I want to grow old in a quiet country village where I know everyone’s face, and the most terrifying thing that happens to me every day is crossing the road.’
He turned to the young man. ‘If the Russians take Germany, we can’t expect an ounce of mercy, and I don’t expect they’ll show us any. If they take Germany, Stef, we’re all as good as dead.’
‘We have to succeed then, don’t we, sir?’
Max nodded. ‘Yes, we do, lad.’
Chapter 25
27 April 1945, a southern suburb of Stuttgart
Dr Hauser stood in the middle of the lab and stared at the device. It looked like a small beer keg surrounded by a frame of scaffolding.
This is my creation, MY creation.
Hauser felt the need to remind himself regularly that this thing was his work. Of course, the Jew had made a contribution, but in the end it was just a different way of calculating the same process, and it was obvious now, looking back. Hauser knew he’d have figured it out for himself sooner or later.
This was the fruit of all his hard work; the Jew had merely helped.
Without him the project would never have been put before Albert Speer and consequently would not have received the go ahead.
To be fair, the Jew, Schenkelmann, and his two assistants had done a good job assembling the device, but Hauser had designed the mechanics of the bomb and had drawn out the schematic; after all, he’d spent enough time poring over Heisenberg’s bomb designs to know what the best configuration would be.
