Maps and photographs told Tanner and the others what they would be facing. There was a narrow strip of what could even be called a beach that ran along the lake and inland for a few yards up to several hundred. In some areas there were narrow roads leading inland. Everywhere, however, were the steep and heavily wooded hills that ultimately led to the Alps. There would be no climbing the more rugged mountains, at least not by the men of the 105th, although they might have to climb some of the hills.
“Are you confident that you could make it to the top?” asked Tanner.
“Yes,” said Cullen. He was quiet and thoughtful and not his normal self. “I just don’t relish the idea with somebody shooting down at me or lobbing grenades as I try to haul my ass to the top.”
“We’ll probably have to carry full packs as well,” Tanner added.
“What great joy,” Cullen muttered. “Whatever happens I just want it to end the war with Mother Cullen’s oldest boy in one piece.”
Don’t we all? thought Tanner. What was a concern to everyone was the fact that brand new gas masks had been issued, replacing the ones the GIs had so cavalierly tossed away months earlier. And, unlike the past, there were strict orders for soldiers to have them in their possession at all times. Clearly, there was a serious suspicion that the Germans would introduce the horrible weapon as a desperation measure.
Tanner had seen photos from the last war of long lines of gassed soldiers who’d been blinded and were being led by the hand away from the trenches. Some soldiers survived, but many had died and others been seriously scarred, both mentally and physically. Back in the States, he’d seen a man in an army hospital coughing away what remained of his life, the victim of a gas attack a generation earlier. Adolf Hitler himself had been gassed and the consensus was that it was too bad he hadn’t been killed. Some gasses required the victim to inhale them, while others needed only a brief touch to the skin to kill.
Nor was gas particularly accurate. Once released as clouds of death, it went where it wished and as the wind blew it. It was like a mad dog that had been let loose among tethered sheep.
No wonder it was so dreaded. One of the smaller blessings was that Germany hadn’t introduced it, at least not yet and doubtless for fear of retaliation from enemies who controlled the skies. So what had changed? Was Germany so desperate that she would risk annihilation?
Then he had a thought that chilled him. What if it wasn’t the Germans who might introduce poison gas?
* * *
Sergeant Archie Dixon had gotten himself a brand new Sherman tank and he liked it. The tank was a vast improvement over the one the Germans had destroyed and taken so many of his crew with it. This new tank had a higher velocity 76mm gun and could likely handle anything the Germans had, with the exception of the Panther and Tiger series. But then, he thought with as much happiness as he allowed himself, the Nazis didn’t have any more of those beasts.
Along with a fresh tank, he had a newly minted crew and they all hated him, and this was fine by Archie. He’d lost one crew and didn’t want to lose another if he could possibly help it. Of the five men in the original crew, he was the only one to survive physically unscathed, although he’d spent some intense time talking to chaplains and psychiatrists before they would let him back into the war. The chaplains tried to commiserate with him and he thought that the head doctors were crazier than he had been. One of the things he now understood fully was don’t ever become friends with the crew. In his first tank, they had all been friends, buddies. They’d gone through basic and tank training and had become close. They’d partied together, chased women and fought as a team. Dixon had known all about their personal lives and what they wanted for a future. He’d known who had kids and whose wife was giving him a hard time and maybe sleeping with some damn 4-F.
Now three of them were dead and the fourth one spent his time so heavily medicated he might as well be. He had brutally severe burns on his legs. A doctor had told Archie that the man might walk again, but always with a limp and always with pain. Since Archie had been their commander, he’d blamed himself. He knew he was being irrational, but didn’t care. They had been his responsibility. Therefore he would never let anyone get as close again. Losing strangers was bad enough, but losing friends just hurt too much.
Thus, he kept his new crew at arm’s length. He never used their names. They were Driver, Gunner, Loader, and Co-driver. He was Sergeant. Not Sarge, Sergeant. Nor did the tank have a name, and that further pissed off the crew. Tough shit, he thought. People have names, not lumps of metal.
He trained them hard, and that too annoyed them. The war was almost over, he’d heard them say, so why doesn’t he lighten up? Because the war isn’t quite over, you assholes, he’d yelled at them. And until that happy day, he was going to train them and train them. One of them actually went to a chaplain to complain about Archie’s behavior. Archie wanted to kill the whiny little shit, but the chaplain calmed him down.
As to where they were all going, it was no secret. There was some town on Lake Constance with an unpronounceable name and they would then be the spearpoint that would drive down the coast and to the German capital of Bregenz. It was almost a given that they would again be alongside the 105th Infantry and that was good. They’d worked together before and knew each other. He snorted and one of the crewmen looked at him, puzzled. He’d just realized that he probably knew more about some of the men of the 105th than he did of his own crew, and that pleased him. At this stage of his life he wanted no friends, no entanglements, no sentiment.
* * *
Hans Gruber’s devotion to the cause of Adolf Hitler and Josef Goebbels was fading rapidly. He had just found out that both General Hahn and Captain Diehl had disappeared during the night. “Disappeared” had become a euphemism for deserting, and this upset him deeply. He didn’t care about Diehl, whom he thought was a slimy shit and who had tried to caress Gruber’s leg. But Hahn was his hero, a man who had made him a Werewolf. He was a general and a confidante of Josef Goebbels.
What was he supposed to do now? Worse, many other leaders of the new Reich were also fading away, leaving the junior officers and enlisted men to their fates. If the Americans caught him, would they treat him honorably as a prisoner of war or as a terrorist? He felt that the Americans at that base had been legitimate targets, and that included their general. Would the Yanks feel the same way or would they call him a murderer and hang him?
He rolled over and stared at Astrid Schneider. They were in her bed at her parent’s quarters and she was, as usual when she was with him, quite naked. She was the first woman he’d ever made love to and he wondered if he was in love with her. She had repeatedly told him that she loved him and he’d told her that he loved her, but he wondered if he meant it. Or did he just like getting laid? Whenever he said he loved her, she became a tigress and that was good.
“Everyone is leaving Germany,” Hans said.
“My brother and father are still here. They will not abandon the Reich.”
“Nor will I, although I think you should make plans to go to Switzerland with your mother.”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“And I don’t want you to leave either. But I would feel better knowing that you were safe. Think about it. You serve no real purpose here, except of course,” he added with a grin, “satisfying a brave German soldier’s lusty needs.”
She laughed and punched him on his thin shoulder. “My father is deathly afraid that he will be considered a war criminal. My mother told him that if the Allies arrested everyone who’d done what my father did, there’d be no one left. My father may have done some things that the Allies will doubtless consider wrong and he may have to spend a little time in a prison, but he’s done nothing serious. He’s not a Himmler.”