Lena did not cook for the Schneiders. Perhaps they didn’t want to accidentally eat something kosher, she’d thought with amusement. Olga prepared the food. That woman was a servant, not a slave, although she complained that she rarely got paid. Instead, Lena did all the cleaning and any chores assigned to her.
The house in which they lived had belonged to a Jewish merchant who had fled to England before the war. It was very large, opulent, and even had a wing for the servants. Thus, Lena had her own room. Her bondage might have been light, but it was still slavery.
Thanks to her father’s insistence on her getting an education, she was fluent in English as well as Czech and German. She recalled someone, possibly Abraham Lincoln, saying that to the extent a man is not free, he is a slave. Well, she was not free and she was always terrified. Not only were the Schneiders capable of turning on her like animals, but the Allied victories in the war represented a threat as well. What would happen to her as the Americans drew closer? Would the Schneiders take her south to the mountains like they were talking about or would they turn her loose to fend for herself? She didn’t think the Americans raped and murdered like the Russians did, but she wasn’t certain. And the French were known to take vengeance on German women for what the Nazis had done during their occupation. That she was Czech and not German would have no meaning to them.
And if the Schneiders took her with them, then she was condemned to that much more slavery along with the ever-present threat of death.
No, what she wanted to do was run and hide until the tide of war passed over. Then she would emerge and try to begin a new life.
CHAPTER 2
Tanner took his first tentative steps without crutches. Doctor Lennie Hagerman watched him tolerantly. “Not bad, Captain. You won’t make the ’48 Olympic track team but you’re otherwise going to be all right. Of course, there might not be a ’48 Olympics unless this war winds down.”
“How long will I need a cane?”
“That’s up to you. I would use it for a couple of weeks. Your leg and foot are still weak and sore and, besides, people will feel sorry for you and might give you a break, or even a seat on a bus. Seriously, you don’t want to fall down and hurt yourself worse.”
“I don’t want anyone giving me a break. I want to have another chance to kill the Nazi bastards who murdered my men.”
“Understood. However, it is unlikely that you will be assigned to a line unit until your leg is totally up to par, and maybe not even then. Can’t have a crippled captain leading troops, now can we?”
Scott had been in worse shape than he’d thought when he got to the hospital just outside of Celles, Belgium. The otherwise lovely but undistinguished village had been the high-water mark of the German’s Ardennes invasion. He’d had pneumonia along with a bad case of trench foot that had taken a couple of weeks to clear up. The medics had given serious thought to amputating his right foot after stabilizing his badly twisted left knee. The knee had been easy. It just needed rest. The foot, however, raised concerns that it might turn gangrenous.
Hagerman continued. “You were very fortunate that your foot did heal. The traditional treatment of keeping the foot dry and letting the dead skin slough off and new skin grow back actually worked. We also tried you with some of that new drug, Penicillin. I have no idea if it worked or not or just made me feel better. You are now very unfortunate in that you might be susceptible to it happening again. Ergo, it is highly unlikely that you will be cleared to be in a situation where your feet could become wet and cold for a prolonged period of time.”
“What if I promise to bring extra socks?”
“As they say, Tanner, put a sock in it yourself. Keep your socks and your powder dry or you’ll wind up being a cripple. That’ll get you out of the army but won’t do a damn thing about you’re urge to kill the Nazis who murdered those two men. Not that they were the only GIs who were executed like that.”
Tanner nodded thoughtfully. There had been other massacres of American prisoners. A particularly terrible one had occurred near the Belgian town of Malmedy where almost a hundred American soldiers had been butchered. There would be a lot of Germans facing trials and the firing squad when this war was over.
“Any idea where I’m going to be assigned?”
“Do I look like God? There are ugly rumors that the Krauts are pulling up stakes and heading south to the Alps. That means that this part of the war is going to wind down and the next phase will be up to Devers and the Sixth Army Group. Is that where you’d like to be? I do have some friends in low places who would do me a favor.”
“Do that, please.”
“Then get into a uniform and we’ll go out to dinner. Your treat, of course. After all, you do owe me a foot.”
Tanner laughed and agreed. The only place to eat around the hospital was the army’s mess hall.
* * *
Staff Sergeant Billy Hill sat in the last vehicle in a ten jeep convoy and tried to keep warm as the snow-flecked wind hit him in the face. He would not show the rest of the men that he felt the cold. He would not show the platoon that he was human. After all, he was the platoon sergeant. He would also never let them call him Hillbilly Billy Hill.
If the officer commanding the platoon thought that being last in line was his punishment for being outspoken, the young and inexperienced second lieutenant was very, very wrong. This was the safest place to be as the officer led his platoon from the front down the paved two-lane highway. It wasn’t quite the Autobahn, but it was nicer than anything Hill had seen in or out of his small town home in Opelika, Alabama.
According to the maps, the American army was getting ever closer to the Alps, as were the Germans they were chasing. The land was hilly, not mountainous, but there was the idea that the terrain was going to get more difficult. There were many great places for an ambush.
Hill was twenty-eight and had been in the army since a week after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He’d hitched a ride from Opelika down the road to Fort Benning, Georgia, where he’d enlisted. He hadn’t intended to be a lifer, but that’s what it looked like was going to happen. He’d seen combat in North Africa and been wounded in the drive towards Tunis. He’d given some thought to going to Officer Candidate School but decided that he’d have to be a gentleman in order to be an officer and that just wasn’t in him. He smiled at the thought as he spat tobacco off the side of the jeep, courteously missing the other men with him. They nodded their appreciation.
Of course, if he’d been an officer, he could have told the young shit-eating puppy of a lieutenant that he was doing a truly dumb thing. The captain had said send a small patrol down the road to probe and see where the Krauts might be holed up. The captain hadn’t said to take the whole damn platoon and ride down the middle of the highway like a bunch of sightseers. To Hill, the captain really wanted two or three men and a radio to quietly and slowly figure things out. Rumors said that the Nazis were moving south to the mountains, but who could trust the Nazis?
The men wore white smocks which helped hide them in the snow, but the jeeps were painted olive drab and clearly stood out on the snow-covered highway. Hill swore silently and hoped that the Nazis were asleep at the switch while the column moved down the road at twenty miles an hour.