Still, he had joined the Army to do his part. Germany was his nation, right or wrong, and he would fight to stop foreigners from invading it.
Back home, everybody except the diehards knew Germany had lost the war. The better the propaganda became, the worse everything got. All the while, Adolf Hitler promised experimental super weapons that would deliver victory, though few believed him. The Führer’s aura of strength and genius had faded. The Leader no longer trusted the Army, and word had it he’d lost his mind.
But he’d done it. Operation Autumn Mist. An all-or-nothing gamble in the Ardennes Forest. Half a million men in the assault. For the past few weeks, the Wehrmachtbericht, the daily State Radio broadcast about the military situation, buzzed with the great victory and promised an end to the war. Muller wouldn’t have believed that either if it weren’t for the Avro Lancasters.
Due to Genoa’s importance as a port, the English had pounded it from the start of the war. Planes and naval guns had flattened one out of three buildings. Early this morning, the air raid sirens wailed. English bombers roared again over the Ligurian Sea, and Genoa girded itself for another pounding. Instead of bombs, papers rained from the sky, announcing a unilateral ceasefire.
While overjoyed that Germany had triumphed, Muller worried he might never see combat. He might have missed the war and the chance to prove himself to his comrades. He’d begun to wonder if he’d enlisted for Germany or for his own personal reasons. Not that it mattered, as he would have been drafted anyway.
Wolfgang retched into the bidet. The door opened, flooding the room with the piercing notes of the swing band out in the dance hall. Oberjäger Erich Schulte entered and wrinkled his nose at the smell.
“Delightful,” the sniper sighed. “Just delightful.”
Schulte marched to the mirror and inspected his appearance. Probably touching up before making his move on some local girl. The squad constantly ribbed the handsome soldier for being a ladies’ man.
“Your appearance doesn’t matter if you’re paying for it,” Steiner said.
“That kind of thinking is why you’re always paying for it, Otto,” Schulte said as he combed his hair into a neat side part. “And while you’re paying for it tonight, I’ll be bedding a sexy taxi dancer.”
“And here all this time I thought your scoped rifle was your girlfriend.”
Schulte laughed.
Steiner said, “She’s probably a partisan, you know.”
“Not after I’m done with her.” The sniper sauntered out the door.
“It’s all the same,” Steiner shouted after him. “You pay no matter what.” The lance corporal shook his head. “That asshole thinks he’s better than everybody.”
Muller agreed, but had learned to keep his mouth shut. The veterans were fiercely loyal to each other even as they squabbled.
He patted the rifleman’s back. “You all right, Wolfgang?”
“God is with us,” the man mumbled and passed out.
“Give me a hand,” Steiner said. They hauled him into a corner and left him. “Makes you wonder.”
“What does?” Muller asked the machine-gunner.
“These idiots, that’s what. War made them hardened killers, but peace turns them into raging beasts. When they aren’t fighting, they become insatiable for alcohol, food, and tits. I hope we get back in the fight before we sack the city. It’s a beautiful city, and I’d hate to see it burn to the ground.”
The soldier pushed the door open, and they returned to the crowded dance hall. Soldiers caught sight of the Fallschirmjäger patches on their sleeves and stepped aside. Along with the mountain troops, the paratroopers were the most elite infantry in the Wehrmacht, or German Army. But Muller didn’t feel like a real Fallschirmjäger, not yet.
“Do you think there will be more fighting?” Muller said.
“We haven’t beaten the commies yet, Yohann.”
They rejoined their table. The paratroopers grinned at them, eyes bleary. Muller sat next to Oberfeldwebel Jurgen Wolff, his squad leader. The thickset veteran brooded over his glass of beer. When he raised it for a drink, Muller spotted the puckered scar on the back of his hairy hand. He suspected the master sergeant had more scars than that, both on the outside and inside. The man wore four wound badges on his chest, the Iron Cross at his throat.
“How goes it, Herr Oberfeldwebel?” Muller said.
Wolff finished stuffing his pipe with Turkish tobacco and lit it. “Tired.”
Tired of it all, sounded like. Muller envied him his world-weariness. The things he’d seen. The ordeals he’d suffered and survived. Wolff was alte hasen, one of the “old hares,” the veterans who’d survived the horrors of the front line. He’d seen it all, and it had shaped him.
“Do you think it’s over? The armistice?”
The sergeant exhaled a puff of smoke. “There’s still Ivan.”
“At least we’re not fighting the whole world anymore,” Oberjäger Weber said, the soldier everybody called Kugelfest. Bullet-proof.
Muller had heard the stories. Believing Hitler watched over him, Weber often charged enemy positions under withering fire, but had never even gotten a scratch.
“Tsk, tsk, comrade,” Steiner corrected. “You forgot we’ve still got the Macaronis on our side.”
The paratroopers smirked at the joke that told itself. The Italian Royal Army was famous in the German ranks for running away in battle. A bitter joke, as they ran precisely when needed most. Now the joke was growing old as it wasn’t quite true anymore; the southern half of Italy had declared itself for the Allies.
“Have you fought the commies, Herr Oberfeldwebel?” Muller asked.
The sergeant nodded. “At Orel.”
“I wish I’d been there.”
“Careful what you wish. It was hell on earth. Now we might be going back. Last time, the Ivans killed most of my squad.”
“Were you an oberfeldwebel then?”
“No, I was a green recruit like you.”
“Ah, scheisse.” Shit. Steiner nudged Wolff. “SS, Herr Oberfeldwebel.”
A squad of Waffen-SS panzergrenadiers had entered the dance hall. They looked down their noses at everybody before finding a table for themselves.
“Pricks,” Wolff growled.
“Psychos,” Steiner agreed. “But they’re our psychos.”
Muller eyed the Waffen-SS panzergrenadiers, who stiffly shed their green wool coats around a table they’d confiscated from some artillerymen. The Führer didn’t trust the Wehrmacht anymore, so he’d built up a shadow military called the Waffen-Schutzstaffel (SS, or ϟϟ in Armanen runes) or armed protection squadron. The state media constantly trumpeted the great fighting abilities and triumphs of the SS, most of which Muller had no doubt were fabricated.
He’d heard that over the summer, a combat group from the Sixteenth Waffen-SS Division had fought the Americans at Anzio and later destroyed the Red Star Brigade, an Italian partisan force. Which was well done except for the rumored massacre of a thousand civilians in Tuscany. What kind of animals would do that? Murder, torture—no act was too brutal for the SS in service to the Fatherland.
The paratroopers prided themselves on their chivalry. They didn’t abuse civilians or prisoners. Muller was glad for it. Back home, the propaganda portrayed the war as a very romantic and sanitary affair. The soldiers told a different story, that it had reached an unprecedented level of savagery. Muller hadn’t had any romantic illusions, particularly after seeing Berlin bombed, but also had no desire to shoot non-combatants. He wanted to survive the war with his moral self intact.