A young Frenchman carrying a lighted Molotov cocktail raced towards the lead tank, his mouth contorted in anger as he screamed something unintelligible. A gunner from the second tank fired a burst that nearly cut the Frenchman in half. The incendiary cocktail ignited in his hand, covering him in flames. The dying man writhed and screamed before falling still. So much for de Gaulle being able to control his countrymen, Schurmer thought. But then, who could control a Frenchman? It would be easier to herd cats.
A rude roadblock suddenly came into view, made up of overturned cars and piled debris. A score or so Parisians, men and women, were on it and in the buildings alongside. They opened fire with rifles and shotguns as the column approached. Two of Schurmer’s little tanks paired up and blazed away with their machine guns. Several resistance fighters fell and the others melted away, dragging their dead and wounded. The two small tanks bulled their way through the flimsy barricade and the other vehicles followed through the opening.
Another partisan with a death wish and a Molotov cocktail rushed up. This one was more successful, hitting the lead tank and inundating it with flames before the guns of the second tank killed him. Schurmer cursed. The damned French would proclaim him a martyr and name a road after him. How about Rue de Fool, he thought. Before the war there had been nearly three million people in Paris, many of whom even admired Germany, and now they all hated the Reich.
The burning tank’s two-man crew jumped out and climbed onto the remaining tanks, and the column drove on. The men appeared unhurt and Schurmer was thankful. He laughed as one of them waved at him.
Safe, Schurmer thought as they reached the countryside, was a relative term. Being alive for the moment did not constitute safety. He did wonder just how far out of the city the truce extended and for how much time now that the damned Americans were across in two places. Thank God the little prick Montgomery had gotten his arrogant little nose bloodied to the north.
Schurmer got his answers a few moments later. They had just cleared the city proper on a road he thought was called Sebastopol Boulevard when he heard the sound of airplane engines over the motors of his vehicles. He turned and stared in horror as a pair of American P47’s turned to strafe the column.
“Out,” he yelled as if anybody needed any urging. His men were already tumbling out of their vulnerable vehicles.
The remaining tanks were lightly armored and were ripped by the planes’ machine guns. They wheeled and commenced to destroy the Kubels while Schurmer and his men hid in a ditch.
Fortunately, the Americans got tired of their fun when the tanks and Kubels were burning, and flew off. Perhaps they didn’t see the score of German soldiers cowering in fear. Or maybe they were out of ammunition. He was thankful the Americans hadn’t carried bombs.
Schurmer stood up and dusted off the dirt from his uniform. He checked his men. Several were wounded, but, thankfully and miraculously, none had been killed. Even the men in the tanks had moved quickly enough to survive. These were all good men and the Reich was going to have great need of good men to confront the coming ordeal.
He turned to his aide and said very loudly. “Willy, didn’t we used to have an air force, too?”
The young lieutenant shrugged and the men grinned. “I think it was just a rumor, Colonel.”
Shurmer formed his men up. “Since we have no choice unless you wish to stay here and become prisoners of war, or, more likely, be hanged by the French after they castrate you with a dull spoon, we will begin to walk back to Germany.”
He had no illusions. Some of his men would doubtless not at all mind spending the remainder of the war doing farm work in Kansas, but the thought of the viciousness of the vengeful French was sobering. Any captured German soldier would be fortunate indeed to make it to a prison pen.
Schurmer waved with forced jauntiness. “Come on my brave warriors. Germany can’t be all that far away.” He laughed genuinely as his men hooted at him. With men like these, Germany could have conquered the world. Why in God’s name had Hitler fucked up so thoroughly?
Victor Mastny counted his blessings each day but they were more than offset by his hatreds. By forging some papers and stealing others from the body of another prisoner, he was able to pass him himself off as a French prisoner of war.
In reality, Mastny was a Czech and a thief, not a POW, although he had lived for years in France. He was also a drug dealer and had been convicted of both crimes, along with a count of sexual assault. The woman had been the wife of a shop owner. Her husband wouldn’t pay Victor for drugs he’d bought and used, and Victor had used her to punish the man. Victor never dreamed that the fool would go to the police for him screwing his wife, although she did scream all the while he did it.
He was convicted and sent to a small German-run work camp where he was put in charge of a group of other prisoners who hated him with a vengeance. When an Allied air raid hit the camp, he took his phony papers and walked away in the confusion. The decision to work on the Mullers’ farm was based on the sobering fact that he could not wander Germany forever. The local police would stop him and turn him over to the Gestapo. It did not escape him that he was only marginally safer as an alleged French POW.
The farm at least provided shelter and an abundance of food and they needed workers. It wasn’t difficult to convince the Mullers that he’d been assigned to work for them.
Still, he hated the Mullers. He hated all Germans, but not because he was a patriot. No, he hated the Germans because they had interrupted his life and sent him away to prison for several years. He also hated the French for initially catching him and convicting him.
Victor had plans. When the war ended, he would return to France and begin anew plundering the people of that country. For that, however, he needed money and he currently had nothing. But perhaps the Mullers did?
He slept in the barn with a couple of illiterate oafs from Latvia, twins named Janis and Juris. He and the twins barely understood each other, but the Latvians fully comprehended that Victor would kill them in an instant if they crossed him. He could see the terror on their faces when he looked at them and he liked that. It further helped that, even though they were large, they were stupid, even for Latvians.
As usual, they were not locked in the barn. After all, where would they go? He felt that the Mullers had deluded themselves into thinking that their slaves were happy with their lot. Victor would be happy when he could piss on their smiling faces.
He slipped quietly to the house. The dogs recognized him and ignored him. He patted them to ensure their silence and they wagged their tails. Sometimes he gave them pieces of meat to cement their friendship.
Victor was intrigued by the fact that two more women had joined the Mullers. One was older, about Victor’s age, and the other just out of childhood. Both of them aroused him. He had been a very long time without a woman. The last had been one of the workers he was supervising and she’d been old and ugly, although she had worked hard to satisfy him in return for extra food.
The two new women had been out working for the Germans and had returned earlier in the evening. He heard the sound of water running and visualized them naked and scrubbing down. On a couple of occasions he’d managed to get to the bathroom window and watch the beefy and very unattractive Bertha at her ablutions. If he had to, he would fuck her, but he wanted either of the two others. He laughed. Why not take both of them? Of course, after he would do that after they told them where their money was. They’d come from Berlin, after all, and that meant they had money.
Margarete felt that all of her muscles ached, including some she didn’t know she had. The work on the Rhine Wall was backbreaking. Many of the women, boys, and old men who’d been drafted to do the heavy work weren’t very strong and some had collapsed. Their foremen weren’t cruel men and the worst of the weak were allowed to rest and some were even sent home. It was Magda’s and Margarete’s bad fortune to be healthy and thus able to pick up the pails of dirt that had been excavated and carry them away.
She had experienced a feeling of camaraderie while working with a crew of young girls her own age. They had sung songs and told jokes, some of them shockingly bawdy, while they worked and tried to ignore the growing stiffness in their joints and muscles. They were under the nominal control of a local school teacher whose name
