Mildred Ruffino snorted. She would not give up. She was made of sterner stuff. Still she wished she’d lost the twenty or thirty pounds she’d been planning to but never managed to. It would have made keeping up with Truman so much easier. She also wished she hadn’t worn so much clothing, but standards dictated that she wear not only the damned girdle, but cotton stockings, a slip, and, of course, a bra.
After another mile, Mildred was gasping. Most of the other protesters had fallen back. She gave Truman credit for one more thing. He was in excellent shape.
She looked around and saw that she was alone save for a handful of Secret Service agents and one young reporter who was sweating like a hog. Truman was only a few feet away. He looked at her with some concern.
“Ma’am, you don’t look well. Don’t you think you should stop?”
Mildred was stunned. The President of the United States was actually talking to her. “I’ll stop when you bring our boys home.”
“And I promise you that I’ll bring them home as soon as I can.”
Mildred was feeling lightheaded. “Not good enough. Please bring them home now. Let the Nazis have that little corner of their world, and bring them home now.”
Mildred was about to add something to this wonderful conversation that she was having with one of the most powerful men in the world when her vision turned red and the sidewalk rose up and hit her in the face. She felt hands turning her over and heard the sound of a siren in the distance and coming closer. She looked up and saw a very concerned Harry Truman looking down on her.
“Lie still and you’ll be all right,” the president said gently.
Mildred’s world was spinning and she had the feeling that she was about to take flight like a bird. “No, I won’t,” were her last words.
* * *
“Do you recall Operation Cobra?” asked General Devers.
“Of course,” said Ike. “It was an attempt to break out of Normandy and take the city of Caen.” They were in Devers’ Sixth Army Group headquarters in Strasbourg, France.
“And Cobra succeeded. Now I want to recreate it and start with a massive carpet bombing of German positions. Bradley used three thousand bombers to blast the Germans and I propose the same thing. And then I want to hit them with all the tanks and infantry I have, at least,” he paused, “as much as can fit through the relatively narrow opening of the Brenner Pass.”
Ike was solemn. “I recall that the massive and concentrated bombing, while effective, led to tragedy. So many planes dropped their bombs short and a large number of American troops, including General Leslie McNair, were killed and many others wounded. We can’t have that again.”
“Agreed. We can and must be more cautious and the planning must be more detailed and precise. There was a huge misunderstanding about the direction the planes would come from and that led to the disaster.”
Both men knew it hadn’t been a misunderstanding. The air force had disregarded orders to bomb north to south and had attacked east to west, thus putting their planes over the American lines for an extraordinary amount of time. During that time, the pattern of bomb dropping had crept back towards American lines while horrified GIs waited, unable to run or dig in. The air force did it that way because they were concerned about German planes and the possibility of dense antiaircraft fire shredding the bomber formations. German planes were no longer a threat, but antiaircraft fire still was. But AA could be heavy and come from any direction.
“Ike, I am very confident that we can break through the German defenses and split this Germanica animal in half. With Clark hitting them from the south and my men from the north, we can deal the Germans a decisively catastrophic blow that might just end the war.”
Ike nodded. He would approve Devers’ plans, but he would keep close tabs on them. There would be no surprises and the air force would be fully on board. He looked at Devers, who turned away. Ike had the feeling that the other general’s presentation had smacked of desperation. Devers had lost weight and looked stressed. He’d been defeated in his first attempt to push through the Brenner, and neither he nor his career could stand a second loss. Damn it. Patch was going to relinquish the Seventh Army because of his health. Would he have to replace Devers as well?
* * *
Doctor Lennie Hagerman was still wearing scrubs when Tanner showed up after being requested. “I want to show you something,” Hagerman said. “That last group of prisoners had some unusual problems and you might want to report it upward.”
“Sure,” said Tanner. He’d helped interview several of them and, aside from looking hungry and miserable, he hadn’t noticed anything unusual. They were prisoners who’d been beaten down both physically and mentally.
Hagerman pulled out a folder with a number of photographs in it. “I know you’re not a doctor, but try to figure out what’s wrong with these people.”
Tanner agreed that he was not a doctor but agreed to look anyhow. The photos were in color, which made the Germans look terrible. They were all staring at the camera with their mouths open and their teeth and gums exposed. “Okay,” he said after a moment, “what am I looking for?”
“See how their gums are discolored? Take my word for it but there were sores all over their bodies.”
“Jesus, please don’t tell me it’s something contagious like the plague. Something like that could wipe out the entire German army.”
“Along with a few million other people,” Hagerman added. “No, this is nothing that bad. These poor dumb Nazis are suffering from scurvy. Being a kind and gentle soul, I’ve prescribed vitamin C, which should solve their problems. When they go to a prison camp they’ll be somebody else’s problem. However, if too many Germans facing us get it, there will be large numbers of men too sick, too lethargic and in too much pain to do much of anything in the way of fighting.”
Tanner thought of how Lena had been weakened when he’d first met her. He’d put it down to lack of food and not necessarily to incomplete diet. Perhaps she had been in the beginning stages of scurvy herself. Hagerman was right, however, this was something that had to be bumped upstairs and quickly. Out of curiosity, he would ask Lena if she’d ever suffered any of the symptoms.
After that he would try to find out when the army would make its inevitable next attack through the Brenner.
* * *
“Private Gruber, it is wonderful to see that you escaped from the clutches of the Americans.”
Gruber grinned widely at the compliment from General Hahn, a man he worshipped almost as much as he had his late Fuhrer. “It wasn’t all that difficult, General. They had a fool guarding me. I tricked him, hurt him, and then took his uniform and rifle.”
Hahn rubbed his hands with glee. What a resourceful and violent boy young Gruber had turned out to be.
“And when you were in their clutches, what information did you give them?”
“I admit I told them everything I knew, which wasn’t much at all. They already knew about the Werewolves, so I embellished everything I said. I told them there were hundreds of us and that we were well armed and trained. I begged to be saved and promised them everything if they wouldn’t send me off to Russia.”
Hahn nodded amiably. He had read the young man’s detailed report and didn’t doubt that Gruber had told the Americans everything that he knew. While there might have been some embellishment in telling of his escape, Hahn was confident that Gruber had been basically truthful. He also doubted that the Americans had believed everything Gruber had told them. The Americans were not fools, after all. They would know that a skinny fourteen-year-old wouldn’t have access to anything important.