He leaned forward, more confident now. “And you, Mr. Donovan, will try to infiltrate the Soviet Union, or at least focus more on what they are doing.”
“That would take years,” Donovan said ruefully. “Realistically, Mr. President, we should be working with sympathetic Germans to find out what they are observing regarding Russian moves, and develop sources who might know of secret German-Russian agreements. What I can and will do regarding the Soviets is send teams into Poland to observe.”
Roosevelt thought for a moment. “Very well,” he said thoughtfully and then beamed. “Martinis?”
CHAPTER 14
The trouble with landing a plane in a grassy field was that you were never quite sure what you were landing on. Morgan had dropped his plane quite gently into tall grass and been taxiing comfortably when the left wheel hit a rock, dipping the nose of the Piper Cub into the ground and breaking the blades of the propeller. Save for mortal wounds to their pride, he and Snyder were unhurt. The plane, however, would be hors de combat until someone scrounged up a new propeller and the mechanics determined whether or not the structure had been damaged.
As a result, Morgan was now an unofficial aide to Whiteside. Now piloting a Jeep, he kept his ears on radio traffic while his eyes took in the countryside. The American army was moving even more slowly than before as the Germans grudgingly gave up the remnants of French territory that remained in their possession. If they were fighting like devils for occupied France, he wondered how they would fight when the army crossed the border into the Rhineland, that large portion of Germany that lay to the west of the Rhine. It had been occupied by Allied armies in 1918, when Germany had been forced to give up the Rhineland as part of the Treaty of Versailles. The Nazis had taken it back in 1936.
Worse, the closer they got to Germany, the more armor and artillery the Germans seemed to possess. It made a kind of sense since German supply lines were shortening, but there were rumors of German troop pullbacks from the Russian fronts and that made no sense to Morgan or anyone else in the 74th. Of course, what the hell did they know about grand strategy in the first place?
With the presidential election only days away, there was a lot of talk about whether Roosevelt would be reelected for the fourth time. He’d been President for twelve years and many younger soldiers really couldn’t recall anybody else in the White House, while older ones recalled Hoover and the other idiots who preceded him and, in their opinion, caused not only the Great Depression but this fucking war.
For his part, Jack recalled the anxiety his parents felt during the Depression and remembered the sight of people waiting in long lines for free bread. At first people they knew seemed embarrassed to be seen getting handouts, but they soon got over it. Handouts beat the hell out of starving.
Jack’s family had come through the Depression poorer and possibly wiser, but not economically destroyed like so many others had. Some meals had been sparse and he’d gone a long time wearing worn out and patched clothes, but they’d never been bankrupt and never had to stand in lines for handouts.
Another halt and they piled out of their vehicles. Levin walked up. “You voted, didn’t you?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Helluva strange question to ask while standing alongside a column of military vehicles, Jack thought.
“Didn’t it feel funny, filling out a ballot in the middle of combat? It was almost like what the Union soldiers did during the Civil War with McClellan running against Lincoln.”
“And the soldiers overwhelmingly voted for Lincoln even though it meant more war,” Jack said thoughtfully.
Most of the guys who’d been willing to admit their preferences said they were voting in favor of FDR. If the 74th was an example, Roosevelt would carry the soldiers’ vote and the war would go on. FDR had said there would have to be unconditional surrender on the part of the Germans and the Japanese, and Dewey hadn’t said much that Jack could remember on the topic.
Stick with the devil you know, dance with the girl you brought, and ride the horse you rode in on were some of the sayings and they all made a kind of sense to Jack. It was not time to change direction. Replace the President, and you had to replace the Cabinet and many other people in leadership positions, which might cause chaos in the short run, and chaos could result in people dying unnecessarily.
Whiteside’s voice came over the radio. “Morgan, Levin, get up here now. This is nasty.”
“Jesus,” Morgan said and covered his mouth so he wouldn’t puke. The bodies had been dead for several days and, despite the cooling weather, the stench was bad. A couple of them looked like they’d been chewed on by birds and animals. Levin looked like he would throw up as well.
Men, women, and children, some just infants, had all been shot. Some of the men looked like they’d been bayoneted as well and he wondered if the knife work had been performed before or after the shootings.
Jack moved down the rows of bodies and counted a little more than a hundred and they all looked like they were French.
“They weren’t Jewish,” Whiteside said. He used stick to show where some wore religious medals around their necks. Many of the women were naked, clearly signaling that they’d been raped, and some were mutilated. Maybe they’d pleaded with the Germans for their lives? Maybe they’d offered sex to protect themselves, their children, or their men? If they had, it hadn’t worked.
Colonel Stoddard had gone to the other side of the field of death and he looked as grim as they all did. “You’re bright, Morgan, who did it?”
“My money’s on the SS, sir.”
“Mine too. Okay, now why?”
Jack shuddered. “Because they’re a bunch of sadistic murdering mother-fucking lunatics who did it because Hitler told them they were a master race and then gave them guns to go and prove it.”
In the distance, a machine gun chattered. Nobody moved. It was just too normal and too far away. “Your dispassionate scientific analysis sounds about right,” Whiteside said.
“Over here!” a GI yelled and they trotted over to an area obscured by bushes. A dozen more bodies were lying on the ground, only this time they were GI’s. They’d been bound hand and foot and been shot in the back of the head. Jack remembered the time when the sniper POW at the roadblock had been shot by the friend of man he’d killed. But that had been an immediate act of passion and anger. This was cold-blooded. Surrender was futile was the lesson.
The firing in the distance picked up in intensity. It sounded like someone had found another German strong point. The crack of an eighty-eight followed.
Levin shook his head, despair etched on his face. “If this is what they do to Christians, what the hell are they doing to my Jews?” He looked at Jack and at Whiteside. “Tell me, should we negotiate with these fucking animals?”
Jack couldn’t find an answer and Whiteside turned away.
Otto Skorzeny drove the truck slowly on the wet and slippery dirt roads. A light snow had fallen and the last thing he needed was an accident, especially with this valuable and fragile cargo. As a colonel he could have let someone else drive, but this was too important to leave to another.
As agreed, a kubelwagen preceded the truck and it flew a white flag. He wondered if the Russians could see it and would they honor it if they did. It was strange to be driving towards the enemy without any sound of battle. Normally, artillery would be crashing even if the fighting was considered light. The truce was holding, but he wondered for how long.
A mile behind him a long column of trucks followed. These were filled with unarmed German soldiers who
