Behind the first behemoth came a second. It broke through the trees, growling close at the tail of the leader, eyes slitted too, adding to the cacophony of tread and engines.
As Kelly's eyes adjusted to the scene, he could make out a long line of narrow, blackout headlights stretching to the top of the eastward rise and out of sight. We're all dead, Kelly thought. Mashed. Crushed. All destroyed.
The first Panzer slowed down. Its whirling tracks stuttered noisily. The heavy-duty engines screamed down the musical scale and settled into a deep-throated, unmusical rumble as the tank halted with much shuddering and rattling behind the two soldiers on the motorcycle. Thin white smoke rose lazily from the well-meshed gears inside the tread band, drifted eastward.
Behind the first tank, the second tank stopped as well, rocking back and forth for a few seconds as its frame worked against its tracks. Along the sloping highway, out to the undefined crest of the dark hillside, the rest of the convoy came to a standstill.
Major Kelly, or Father Picard as he must now be, was out in front of the other villagers by a full yard. He looked up at the shelved front of the Panzer and wondered what in hell he was doing here. They were all dead. Crushed. Mashed. And worse. Why in the name of the God he didn't believe in — why had they not run away?
And then he remembered why. They were behind German lines. There was nowhere for them to run.
On the rectory steps, Lieutenant Beame looked from the tanks to the convent where Nathalie was standing in a nun's habit. He was suddenly, incredibly terrified of losing her. Why had he let Maurice put him off? Why hadn't he knocked that fat old frog on his ass and taken Nathalie? Why hadn't he reacted to Maurice like a man? This was the perfect woman. Nathalie was what he had always dreamed about — and more. They were perfect for each other both spiritually and, he was somehow certain, sexually. He wanted her more than he had ever wanted the other women of his dreams — Betty Grable, Veronica Lake, Lana Turner, Marlene Dietrich, Dorothy Lamour, Ann Sheridan, Rita Hayworth, Hedy Lamarr, Jane Russell, Esther Williams, Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Mae West, Barbara Stanwyck, cute little Mary Astor, the Andrews Sisters whom he had wanted to assault all at the same time, Bonita Granville, Gene Tierney… Nathalie was more desirable than all of those women put together. And now he had lost her. His optimism had vanished in the face of the German power; and he felt certain that he would never see the sun rise.
Standing on the convent steps in her nun's habit, Lily Kain reacted to the Panzers much as Beame had done. She imagined that she could smell death in the muggy night air. She wished Kelly could have found the time to put it to her today. Maybe the sight of these huge war machines would have been easier to take if she had had it put to her recently. Sighing, she raised both hands and waved at the Germans in order to keep from throwing up her nun's habit and diddling herself.
The officer commanding the first Panzer, General Adolph Rotenhausen, clambered out of the hatch and down the side of his tank, stood for a moment on the muddy tread fender. He was a tall, whiplike man, not an ounce overweight. His face was square and harsh, though the features were in no way brutish. There was aristocracy in his heritage; it showed in his carriage and in his thin-lipped smile. His hair was cut close to his head, a white-blond cap that caught the light from the scattered lanterns and gleamed with it. He jumped from the fender and walked swiftly toward Major Kelly.
PART FOUR
Deception
Midnight-Dawn/July 22,1944
1
When he led them down to the front room after inspecting the second floor, General Rotenhausen stood with his back to the fireplace, his hands folded behind him even though there was no fire to warm them at this time of the year. Rotenhausen looked as if he desperately needed warmth. He was a bloodless man, as pale as linen. He smiled coldly at Major Kelly. There was no threat in his smile; it was just that Rotenhausen was incapable, even in the best of times, of a smile that was not icy. “Well, Father Picard, you have a most pleasant home. It will serve splendidly as our overnight headquarters.” His French was less than middling, but so far as Kelly was concerned his sentiment was absolutely perfect.
Kelly smiled and nodded, twisted his black felt hat in both hands. He wondered if a French priest would treat a German general as an equal or as a superior. The point was academic, really, because he was too terrified to be anything but obsequious and subservient. “I am pleased you like it, sir,” he said.
“Standartenführer Beckmann and I will require the two largest upstairs rooms. My aides could be quartered in the small front room. And the Standartenführer's aides could sleep down here, in the bedroom by the kitchen.” Rotenhausen turned to the black-uniformed SS colonel who sat on the bench sofa. He smiled, and this time he did put a threat into it. “Have you any objections to these arrangements, Standartenführer?”
The SS officer was even more the Aryan ideal than General Rotenhausen. He was six-three, two hundred and thirty pounds. Like the slim Wehrmacht general, he was in perfect condition; however, unlike Rotenhausen, Beckmann was muscular. His legs were strong and sturdy and looked as if they had been poured into his black trousers and knee-length leather jackboots. His hips and waist were flat. The Standartenführer's neck was a thick, bullish stem of gristle, hard muscle, and raised veins. His face was a sharply featured square with a long brow, deep-set eyes, a Roman nose, and lips as thin as pencil lines. He was perhaps forty years old, but he was not touched by age in any way; he looked as fresh and young as one of his aides. And as nasty. His face was pale like Rotenhausen's face, but his eyes were a lighter blue, so sharp and clear they seemed transparent.
Beckmann returned Rotenhausen's ugly smile. “I think the arrangements will be satisfactory. But I do wish you would drop the clumsy Schutzstaffeln title and call me 'Oberst' instead.” Beckmann looked at Kelly and shook his head sadly. “General Rotenhausen is such a one for form. Since we left Stuttgart, he has insisted on using the clumsy title.” Beckmann's French was no better than Rotenhausen's.
“Standartenführer Beckmann is correct,” the general said, directing himself to Kelly. “I am a man who believes in forms, rules, and dignity. Being a man of the Holy Roman Church, you must sympathize with me, Father Picard.”
“Yes, of course,” Kelly said.
“The Church relies on rules and form quite as much as the Wehrmacht,” Rotenhausen said.
“Certainly, certainly,” Kelly said, nodding stupidly.
Major Kelly sensed the friction between the two officers and thought he understood at least part of the reason for it. In the last year the German army, the Wehrmacht, had begun to lose nearly all of its battles to superior Allied forces. Meanwhile, the Waffen SS, the independent army which the SS had built despite Wehrmacht objections to this usurpation of its role, was still winning battles. Therefore, Hitler had begun to trust more in the Waffen SS and less in the Wehrmacht. The traditional army lost power, while the Waffen SS grew larger and more formidable. Hitler favored the Waffen SS in every case: officer promotions, weapons development, funds, weapons procurement, the requisitioning of supplies… And now as the Allies pressed closer to the fatherland, Hitler had given the SS permission to observe and oversee selected Wehrmacht units. A contingent of these black-uniformed fanatics now often accompanied a traditional army unit into battle— not to help it fight the enemy, but to be sure it fought exactly according to the Führer's orders. Naturally, the Wehrmacht hated the SS, and the SS hated the Wehrmacht. This was interservice rivalry carried to a dangerous extreme.