“Are these today’s trickles?” he asked Cullen, who nodded solemnly. The press had taken to saying that surrendering Germans were trickling in and the term had caught on.
Cullen was not happy. Responsibility for the loss of the young Werewolf and the wounding and mutilating of his guard had fallen on him. He had been the one to assign the job of guarding Gruber to the inept Oster and it had been he who had ordered the prisoner’s handcuffs loosened. He’d actually believed Gruber’s lament that they were so tight that they hurt. He’d had his tail reamed by General Evans along with having a formal reprimand in his file. If he’d been planning on making the army a career, those opportunities had gone. Fortunately, he too wanted nothing more than to go home.
Tanner counted heads. Twenty-three former enemy soldiers were looking at him. “Are they all Germans or are there any from elsewhere in the Reich?”
Cullen rolled his eyes. “Are you asking me if there are any Czechs in this small mob so you can bring Lena in here, the answer is yes, there is one and I’ve already sent for her.”
Tanner felt himself flushing. “Am I that obvious?”
“Only when you speak. And, along with our one Czech, we have two Poles, a Frenchie and one lone Wop. God only knows how he wound up in Germanica, but we’ll ask him and find out. A nickel says he got lost. And are you aware that several turncoat Russians have tried to surrender? We’ve gotten messages that, if we promise not to turn them over to the Reds, they will surrender. Otherwise, they will fight to the death and take as many of us as they can with them.”
“How jolly,” Tanner said. He understood the current policy was to turn over any captured Russians to the Reds. That they would execute them was not America’s concern, he’d been told. He didn’t agree. In fact, it sickened him, but he didn’t have a voice in the matter.
The prisoners were all staring at him. They understood that their fate largely lay in his hands. They’d been told that the Americans usually respected the Geneva Convention regarding prisoners, but usually is not the same as always. There had been cases where Americans had considered prisoners a nuisance and had murdered them. This batch was terrified. The Americans could still kill them outright, or turn them back to the Nazis where they would be brutally executed, or worse, given to the Soviets even though they weren’t turncoat Russians. Rumors of the horrors of Soviet captivity were beginning to circulate. It was highly unlikely that any German soldier taken by the Reds would ever see his home again. And even if he did, he would be old and crippled and mentally broken.
Lena arrived in her almost military outfit. She could have passed for someone from the Women’s Army Corps. Tanner smiled and gestured to the man Cullen had identified as Czech. Lena took him by the arm and they walked away. Lucky Czech, thought Tanner. Lena had gained some much needed weight and it had affected her personality, which was now much more outgoing and even happy.
Tanner talked to the German POWs. They were all infantrymen and all enlisted. They looked gaunt. When asked how often they were getting fed, they’d laughed derisively. Not very often, was the response, and what food they did get was bad.
“We get to eat shit, while the fucking officers get the good stuff,” said one German sergeant named Gunther. He stopped abruptly when he realized he was talking to one of the fucking officers he’d just disparaged. What Gunther had to say, however, was typical of the responses Tanner had been getting.
Tanner laughed and told him not to worry about rank and insulting German officers. This sergeant was particularly loquacious. He said that food deliveries were irregular and that they’d received no mail since arriving near the Alps. He said that many more would surrender if they had half the opportunity, but the diehards and SS fanatics were watching the men like hawks. A number of deserters had been hanged along with men who’d simply complained about their circumstances.
“The SS are fucking monsters. There might not be too many real Gestapo agents, but there are more than enough SS and that prick, Hahn, keeps them sniffing for the slightest hint of defeatism.”
Another reference to Hahn, Tanner noted. He would really like to get his hands on that guy.
“You sound like you were a prisoner,” Tanner said.
“Pretty much.” Tanner had given the man an American cigarette and he was puffing on it with almost sexual pleasure. “But prisoners are not sent out with inadequate weapons and ammunition to get killed.”
Tanner was intrigued. “You don’t have enough ammo?”
“We were told not to waste it. Bullets don’t grow on trees, you know. The same holds with rifles, machine guns, and anything else. We do have tanks. I’ve seen some of them dug in, but what we don’t have is the fuel to run them. I could show you where a dozen Panzer IVs are dug in and immovable because their fuel tanks are practically dry. Petrol is almost nonexistent. I talked to one crew leader and he said he could go about twenty miles on what his tank has. He was told not to expect any more. Not exactly the army that raced across France and Poland, is it?”
“Do you think those tanks are still there now?”
Gunther shrugged. “They were yesterday. And I’ve never seen any Panthers or Tigers, just Panzer IVs. I guess the good tanks are all shot up and gone. Is that worth another cigarette?”
It was, and Gunther took it eagerly. “Gunther, how about their trucks? How do they get the gasoline to get whatever supplies that do get to you?”
“In many cases, they don’t use trucks. Human mules are used instead. But that won’t last long, because the fools in the SS won’t feed the slave laborers enough to keep them going. When all the slaves are either dead or too weak to work, I don’t know how the front line soldiers will get anything. Of course, the bigwigs don’t think of practical matters like that. I give it a couple of weeks before the slaves start dropping like flies.”
“Gunther, did you always feel this way?”
Gunther was in his late thirties and looked wily. “Of course not, Captain. Your American phrase is ‘bullshit,’ so I will not bullshit you. When we were running all over Europe, we had anything we wanted. We had food, liquor, women, and warm beds, and most of the women were even willing. Life was good and Hitler was our God. Then we began fighting the Russians and then you people and it all went to hell. This war is over. Germany has lost and why can’t idiots like Goebbels and Schoerner realize that? And oh yes, don’t get me started on medical supplies. We may have invented aspirin but I haven’t seen anything with the Bayer label on it in months.”
Tanner smiled in a reassuring manner. “Gunther, I am now going to get you a map of the area and you are going to pinpoint the location of those tanks. Does it bother you that they are going to get bombed and that some of the men in those soon to be burning hulls were your friends?”
Gunther’s expression was impassive. “A little, but this is war and I want to survive it. I think I deserve a bonus, don’t you?”
Tanner handed him a full pack of Chesterfields, which Gunther grabbed and stuck into a pocket after making sure that none of his erstwhile comrades could see. Tanner walked away. There was nothing more to be gotten from the prisoners. Lena met him outside the interrogation center. “Did your Czech prisoner know anything?” he asked.
“About the German Army and its local dispositions, a little. About my father, nothing.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I, but I have no plans to stop looking. I will talk to every Czech I can find. I will either find that he is dead and at peace, or I will find him alive in some slave camp and get him out.”
Her body shook and Tanner put his hands on her shoulders. She slipped against him and rested against his chest. “Sorry,” she said softly after a few seconds. He slipped his arm around her and she did not resist.