“And then I shot Hitler in the face,” he said with a grin.
“Very good,” Wesley sniffed. “I think I’ve got the gist of it, Sergeant. You can tell me the rest later. We’ll be moving out momentarily.”
Wilkins went on grinning after the captain left. Of course, the man wouldn’t believe he’d taken out der Führer himself. It was a story nobody would really believe except maybe Colonel Adams and of course Jocelyn.
No matter. He knew he’d done it.
He’d just wanted to hear himself say the words aloud.
No matter how chuffed he was, in the big scheme, he knew, it didn’t matter. Revenge was sweet, but in this case, it didn’t change the game. The draugr had no leader. They didn’t fight for ideology or resources or territory. They fought for its own sake because that’s what they were programmed to do.
Programmed by the Nazis. By Hitler’s order.
Yes, revenge was sweet.
Thunder to the north, the rolling roar of a pitched battle commencing.
“Captain!” he called after Wesley.
The officer turned. “Yes, Sergeant? What is it? We’re quite busy.”
“That’s the Germans shooting. They’re in action.”
“Yes. What of it?”
“They’re alive. The planes should stand down until they get here, eh?”
Captain Wesley snorted with amusement. “Carry on, Sergeant.”
Wilkins gaped at the officer’s back as he strode off across the tarmac. The battalion had the serum. They were leaving. They would not spare a man nor even a single bomb or bullet from an escort plane, which were needed at the Meuse.
As for the Fallschirmjäger, they would have to fend for themselves.
Those men were home, right smack in the middle of the mess their leaders had created, and they could clean it up.
One could even say there was a bit of justice to it.
Wilkins looked over at Muller shivering in his blankets. Schulte was mopping sweat from the boy’s forehead. Beyond them, Steiner sat huddled in his charred jacket, a vacant smile plastered on his face. They’d sacrificed everything to get the serum here. The rest of the regiment out there, they were sacrificing right now.
No, leaving them behind wasn’t justice. That was old thinking. There were no sides anymore, only humans fighting to survive against a rising tide of undead. The Red Devils wouldn’t leave their countrymen to die, nor the Americans. They should treat the Germans the same. If they didn’t, they’d never truly be allies.
Telling that to the likes of Captain Wesley would be a wasted effort. As with his tale about shooting Hitler, the man simply wouldn’t believe it.
A squad of paras arrived to hustle them onto their designated transport.
Orders were orders. They were leaving Berlin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
BATTLE CIRCLE
The Belle-Alliance-Platz was a circular treed plaza named after the Battle of La Belle Alliance, what the Prussians called the Battle of Waterloo. Large derelict tenements overlooked the 100-meter-wide plaza, some of them heavily damaged by bombs, one of them smoking from a dying fire.
Three major avenues fed into the plaza from the north. Another road wrapped around the buildings’ southern side. That made four entrances and exits, all of which the Fallschirmjäger barricaded with furniture plundered from apartments. Overall, it wasn’t a bad defensive position for the regiment to regroup and hole up until Eagle Company arrived with the serum.
Oberfeldwebel Wolff looked around and wondered how quickly they could move out. He’d only arrived minutes ago, but the sporadic gunfire had become a constant chatter at the entry roads. He was here with the Overman serum safe in its canister looped over his shoulder; the regiment should leave now while it could.
He did a quick count and estimated the 3FJR only had around 200 men left. They faced a hard fight getting to the airport.
Some of the men wore bandages. They were wounded. Worse, bitten. As good as a death sentence. Their ammunition had been taken away. They carried spades and bayonets. Before they became ghouls, they were resolved to die fighting for their comrades.
Leutnant Reiser returned glowing. “The oberst is very pleased with us, Herr Wolff.”
As long as he had the serum, the regiment could accomplish its mission. “That is good, Herr Leutnant.”
“Very pleased. You understand what this means.”
“Verstanden, Herr Leutnant.” Even now, the lieutenant was gunning for an Iron Cross, though medals no longer meant anything.
“Ja, we are moving out now to the airport. You will have your own honor guard.” A special squad that would protect him. “As a hero of the Reich.”
“Jawohl, Herr Leutnant.”
The paratroopers packed up their gear and formed up for the march. Snow fell in big flakes. They fluttered like moths onto Wolff’s uniform and left gray smudges. It wasn’t snow. It was ash from some distant fire. The ash of the Reich.
There was no more Reich, only the Fallschirmjäger. Only his duty.
He added, “Any word from Eagle, Herr Leutnant?”
“Nein,” Reiser said, still strangely cheerful. “We will hope for the best but assume they did not survive.”
Wolff had lost half his squad in the pell-mell flight from the Reichstag. More good men he’d trained and mothered and led to their deaths.
“Maybe they didn’t have any Englishman to put out as bait,” he said.
The lieutenant cackled. “Herr Wilkins is a hero of the Reich as well, in his own way.”
Wolff glowered. “Sometimes, Herr Leutnant, you really are a pig.”
He instantly regretted saying it, especially with Beck, Weber, Braun, and Engel within earshot. As a paratrooper, his training placed supreme value on obedience and respect for superior officers.
Reiser only chuckled. “And you are too sentimental, like an old woman. If the company is dead, they died for a good cause. Look around you. We can stop this nightmare and rebuild the German nation. There is no greater cause to die for.”
Wolff could think of one, which was dying for the men who fought at his side, this type of self-sacrifice being the only noble act left in this war. But the point was taken. Eagle had died for something, not just a hill or a crossing.
They’d died to save the human race.
He was just tired of it all. The war’s endless degradation, waste, and horrors. A part of him longed for his own warrior’s death. His own self-sacrifice.
“There isn’t a greater cause,” he agreed as the first of the planes hummed overhead.
The paratroopers looked up as the Skytroopers reached for the sky. The giant winged beasts climbed the air, gaining altitude as they headed northwest.
Back to the North Sea. Back to the United Kingdom.
One by one, the paratroopers lowered their gaze to the ground. The Americans had already evacuated. Now the British were leaving.
The Fallschirmjäger weren’t going anywhere.
“They’re coming back for us, right, Herr Oberfeldwebel?” Beck said. “Right?”
Wolff spat and said nothing. The English, it seemed, themselves weren’t above cruel pragmatism.
The paratroopers buzzed with this realization. Officers hurried to the regimental headquarters for information and orders. The buzz rose to shouts of anger and panic.