and it might help me make some very important decisions.”
Ike’s expression softened. “Notice, I said I will make the decision. You will provide information that may help me.”
“I understand, sir.”
“Burke, Tibbetts is an old friend of mine who is part of an incredibly secret project involving a weapon whose potential is so devastating that it could affect the war, perhaps all mankind. Not even I know the details, and your task is to learn what you can readily assimilate about that weapon’s capabilities and limitations, and then advise me as to how it might best be used against Stalin and the Russians.”
So that’s it, Burke thought. There is a secret weapon. Burke’s expression must have given him away. Ike stood and glared at him from across the desk. “You didn’t look surprised. Did you know about it, and, if so, who the hell told you?”
“Sir, I didn’t know anything specific, only a hunch.” He quickly recounted his two conversations with Marshall, and Marshall’s reactions when he speculated there was more to Stalin’s motives than pure greed. He told Ike that he felt Stalin knew there was a limited window of opportunity and for reasons that were not readily apparent.
Ike nodded, his anger dissipated. “Good guess. I can see why Marshall recommended you.” He checked his watch. “I laid on a plane for you, and it should be fueled and ready about now. You probably won’t have to stay more than a day to learn all you need to know about this weapon. When you get back, keep yourself available at all times. I’ll tell Smith not to send you on any errands. Now get going.”
Burke saluted and started to turn. Then he saw Ike’s hand was out and he grasped it. “Do a good job, Colonel.” This time Ike was grinning slightly.
CHAPTER 25
“Here they come again,” Holmes yelled. It was all that an exhausted, hungry, and filthy Lieutenant Billy Tolliver could think of as he looked through his binoculars. How many times had he thought that phrase during the last couple of months? A dozen? A hundred? Only this time, it was a mob scene with people close-packed and making easy targets. What the hell kind of commanders did the Russkies have?
Tolliver’s platoon was dug in as a rear guard with the Weser River to their backs. Behind them, a steady column of American trucks and tanks crossed the temporary bridge that had been constructed only a couple of months prior in happier times, when the army was whipping the Nazis. Now it was used so Americans could retreat. When the last vehicle was safe, Tolliver and the rest of the rear guard would cross to the west bank and the bridge would be blown up.
Holmes grabbed his sleeve. “Lieutenant, take a closer gander. Those look like civilians, not Russians.”
Tolliver shook the fatigue from his brain and looked again. As usual, Holmes was right. It was a mob of civilians heading toward their position. That would complicate things a bit. They would have to frisk them and let as many of them as possible cross before making their own escape and destroying the bridge. What the hell was the matter with those people, didn’t they realize the field they were crossing might have been mined? It would have been had there been more time. Then he realized the awful truth, the reason for the advancing wave of civilians.
“Holmes, are those soldiers behind them?”
Holmes moaned. “Aw Jesus, the Reds are pushing them in front.”
Tolliver looked at the approaching horde of panic-stricken people. The closer they got, the better he could see the Russians pushing them, prodding them forward with gun butts and bayonets. Worse, there were women and children among them. I’m going to be sick, he thought. But what choice did he have?
“Tell everyone to open fire,” he ordered, then turned to Holmes, who, as usual, had the radio. “Then get mortars on them, fast. Come on. If you don’t we’ll be overrun!” Holmes paled but complied, quickly relaying the message to the weapons platoon.
For a moment, there was no rifle or machine-gun fire from his platoon. No one wanted to kill women and little kids. At least, no one wanted to be first. The wave of people was only a couple of hundred yards away and Tolliver could see faces. Their mouths seemed to be open in frightened Os. He also thought he could hear a kind of collective singing moan coming from them.
Tolliver jumped out of his foxhole and stood upright. “See,” he screamed, “this is how you do it!” He fired his carbine at the advancing host, emptying the clip. Even though it was a long shot for a carbine, the mob was difficult to miss and he saw several people fall over, and the moaning turned to screams. It was enough. The rest of the platoon opened up and bullets cut the advancing people down in rows, not discriminating between soldier and civilian, adult or child. Within seconds, the mortars arrived and bodies and parts of bodies were hurled into the air as the shells exploded.
Holmes paled and sobbed, but he too kept on firing. With macabre satisfaction they saw that Russian soldiers were lying dead among the fallen civilians. Holmes wondered if he could ever have been the first to kill those people, like Tolliver had. Then he saw that Tolliver too was crying.
The Russians stopped advancing and began to withdraw, leaving the dead and dying civilians. Tolliver lifted fire and directed the mortars to follow the retreating enemy infantry. Along with the civilian casualties there was a number who were unhurt. These milled about in confusion until a couple of them realized that the Russians had abandoned them. Then some of them started to walk slowly toward the American positions while a few of the other survivors searched among the bodies for loved ones.
A runner appeared beside Tolliver. “Captain says the last truck is about to cross and we should get ready to leave.”
“Did he say anything about this mess?” Tolliver asked.
The runner gulped at the sight of the slaughter. “He said he understands, and that you should still get out right now. He said battalion thinks there’s Russian armor coming up real fast.”
Which means, Tolliver thought as he gave the order to withdraw, there will be no aid for those poor wounded civilians lying there. It was funny. Just a few weeks ago, he would have thought of them as Nazis, the enemy, people to be punished. Now he thought of them as flesh-and-blood human beings, just like himself.
It took only a few minutes to reach the bridge and sprint across. Tolliver found his captain and asked for orders. The captain said nothing, only pointing. A line of civilians was crossing the bridge. They could see safety in their grasp and some began running. Then he saw the first Russian tank starting to cross the field a couple of hundred yards from the bridge. Oh no, he thought.
Suddenly, the lead tank exploded, its turret flying off. Seconds later, Tolliver saw the blur of a barrel- chested P-47 Thunderbolt pulling out of its dive. The air force had arrived.
“Hey, Captain. Now we can delay blowing the bridge, can’t we?”
The captain started to say something, but it was too late. Both ends of the bridge disappeared in a cloud of smoke and flame. The civilians were thrown off by the explosion and soon disappeared in the water. Tolliver shook his head in mute anger and sorrow. He already knew why some of the old guys back home who had fought in France in 1918 wouldn’t talk about their experiences in that war. If he ever made it back to Alabama, there was no way he could speak and let mere words try to describe what he had seen and what he had done.
Suslov was careful not to get too close to the Weser, staying instead in a line of trees a half mile away. There wasn’t much cover for the tank column from air attack, and he had heard what had happened to a couple of tankers who had strayed too close. The Yank army had retreated across the Weser and taken all their bridges with them. The Americans had escaped.
As if there was a doubt, he thought. After crossing the Leine, it seemed that the American resistance had suddenly collapsed. Gains that had been measured in yards suddenly became miles. While it had taken two months to go from the Elbe to the Leine, it had taken only a little more than a week to go from the Leine to the Weser.
Had the Americans broken and collapsed? Suslov didn’t think so. The withdrawal across the river had been done without any panic that he could see. They had left neither their equipment nor their wounded. No, it was obvious to him that the slow fight to the Leine had permitted them time to build up defenses along the Weser.
