It also hurt her to breathe. It was difficult for her to stand up straight. This finally convinced her to go to a doctor who informed them that she had at least two cracked ribs. There might have been a third, but the x-ray machine he was using wasn’t very good. The doctor also added that nothing could heal broken ribs besides time.
On hearing of Winnie’s problems, Dulles had flown into Arbon in a five-seat Cessna AT-17. Two other men flew in with him but they disappeared quickly. Ernie assumed that they had OSS-related jobs to do and he was not about to inquire about them.
In deference to Winnie’s injuries, they met at Ernie’s quarters. He had moved out of his room and been assigned another one. The remaining two units were still empty.
Dulles was visibly upset. He’d had agents killed and wounded in the line of duty and hated it. “Winifred, I very much regret getting you involved in that mess. You were fortunate to survive. Had we lost you, I would have been devastated.”
“So would I,” she said with an attempt at humor, “It’s all right, sir. After all, who could have known that Hitler would choose that day to join his friends and relatives in Hell? But was anyone able to finish my task?”
Dulles smiled. “That is being taken care of as we speak.” It was an obvious reference to the men who had flown in with him. “On the other hand, Captain Janek, I understand you had a little, ah, fun this morning.”
“I was just doing some reconnoitering, sir.”
“What in God’s name did you do?” asked a shocked Winnie. “You didn’t cross the border, did you? You wouldn’t have lasted ten seconds if you’d been stopped.”
Ernie was quietly delighted that she was concerned. “Nothing of the sort. I just wondered if the hole in the fence I’d made had been fixed, so just before dawn I went and checked it out. At first it didn’t look like anything had been done to it, so I crawled closer. Then I noticed a bunch of wires and realized the place had been booby-trapped by the Nazi swine.”
He smiled at the memory. “So I went to the garbage dump and found a really ripe dead cat. I put it in a bag and crawled close to the wire. When I figured I was close enough, I took the stinking animal out of the bag and hurled it into the hole in the fence. Sure enough, it triggered the booby traps and they exploded. Dead cat went flying all over the place. Lights went on and German soldiers went screaming towards the pieces of the poor little dead kitty. When I left them, I think they were trying to figure out if it was the cat who’d set of the explosives or something else. It was nice to see the Germans grubbing through debris and dead cat.”
Dulles shook his head. “Do me a favor and don’t do it again.”
“But I did it for Winnie.”
Winnie leaned over and clutched herself. “I told you not to make me laugh.”
Ernie decided it was time to change the subject. “Sir, what plans do you have for us?”
“For the time being you are to sit tight and observe. Check the border and note any changes. Take the boat out and observe, but only after Winnie is cleared to swim in case something should happen.”
“What was the information I was supposed to pick up?” Winnie asked.
Dulles smiled tolerantly. “Are you wondering just what was worth risking your life? Well, I can’t tell you that right now, but someday I will. Trust me, though, it might have been worth many lives. And if we can still get it, the info will indeed be worth it.”
* * *
Eisenhower and Devers looked over the several pages of information they’d just received courtesy of someone. “Amazing,” said Devers. He had flown into Reims at Ike’s request. “It certainly looks like we have people high up in the Redoubt.”
Ike was not so confident. “You’re assuming that the information is correct. If it is, it is a godsend. How many generals would have loved to have all this much detail about an enemy army before a battle?”
“I can think of a few who did and still blew it,” Devers said and Ike chuckled.
What they had before them was a detailed listing of all German units in or near the redoubt. It gave their size, location, and a succinct analysis of their fighting ability. It said that the Germans had reconstituted twenty-five divisions out of the retreating remnants. These totaled one hundred and eighty thousand men. An additional twenty thousand Russians who had turned against Stalin were included along with a division of ten thousand Croats. The Germans also had four hundred tanks. All of the German units were said to be above average in fighting ability. The two generals had their doubts.
Devers gave his own analysis. “First of all, I believe this analysis tells Goebbels and Schoerner what they want to hear and not what is necessarily the truth. I sense some lower-ranking staff officers trying to save their own skins. I just can’t believe that all the German units are such rabid and diehard Nazis. After all they have been surrendering by the thousands, the hundreds of thousands north of the Redoubt. Why should these guys be any different? They weren’t chosen for any particular skill or dedication. These are just the poor schmucks who happened to be in the area when the Redoubt was formed. If they’d been more fortunate, they’d be in prison camps awaiting repatriation instead of the opportunity to get blown to pieces.”
“Are you saying they might surrender if given a chance?”
“Couldn’t hurt to find out.”
Ike agreed. “Any other thoughts?”
“Yes. The Russians and the Croats will fight like cornered tigers because they know they are all dead if they are captured. Any captured Croats will be murdered by Tito and the Serbs, and the Russians will be turned over to Stalin who will either shoot them outright or send them to Siberia to be worked to death. If there was some way we could promise either group sanctuary somewhere, perhaps they would not fight so desperately.”
Ike conceded that Devers had a good point. The current agreement with Moscow required the U.S., Great Britain, and France to turn over to the Russians any captured Red Army deserters. Already there had been incidents of suicides and suicidal resistance from those preferring death with a rifle in hand. Killing one’s self was preferable to either being executed or spending a horrible brutish existence in the snows of Siberia. He did not know of anything regarding the Croats. He made a mental note to check it out.
“It may be a lost cause, but I will contact General Marshall regarding your thoughts. Any soldier we can get to surrender will be one less that we will have to root out and kill while he’s killing our boys.”
“Ike, I could not help but notice that those non-German troops are all stationed on the west side of the Brenner Pass. I wonder if that’s a coincidence. Or maybe they don’t trust them all that much.”
Ike had noticed it as well. “Very interesting,” was all he said.
* * *
Wolfgang Hummel and Martin Schubert had known each other since the day they’d been inducted into the German Army some six years ago. Now they had each risen to the rank of corporal and were still close friends. The men were a team. They operated the MG42 machine gun. Hummel did the actual firing while Schubert supplied ammunition and generally assisted whenever he could. Sometimes they’d switch, but not for long. Hummel was by far the better shot.
They’d lugged the twenty-five pound weapon along with many pounds of ammunition across several European countries and now found themselves in Germany with the Alps to their back. They considered the gun to be a marvel. It could easily fire twelve hundred rounds a minute, had a range of more than a thousand yards and this one even had a telescopic sight. It also gave off a horrible screeching noise that could easily terrify an enemy soldier. They treated their new gun like a queen, keeping her clean and oiled. And why not? She had helped keep them alive.