If her father heard the whispers, he didn't show it. "Let's go back to bed," he said. "We might as well try, anyhow. We can't do anything else here."
"Except thank God we came through in one piece," her mother said.
Her father didn't answer. He'd always been less religious than her mother-and even Sarah wondered whether God had His eyes on the Jews in Germany these days. She went upstairs doubting she'd be able to fall asleep again. But she did.
She came down to breakfast: black bread and ersatz coffee that tasted like and probably was burnt barley. Her father was reading the newspaper. AIR PIRATES SLAUGHTER INNOCENT CIVILIANS! the headline screamed.
"The British claim it's retaliation for something our planes did over there," her father said. "Dr. Goebbels says that's a bunch of filthy lies, of course."
"Of course," Sarah echoed. In both what they said and how they said it, they sounded perfectly loyal. A message got passed even so. Just for a moment, Samuel Goldman's eyes glinted behind his spectacles. Then he raised the newspaper, hiding his face.
Sarah felt herself smiling. She was still cold. She'd just discovered she was in danger of getting blasted off the face of the earth. In spite of everything, though, she was happy. She wondered why. LUDWIG ROTHE SWORE AS HE guddled around, deep in the bowels of his Panzer II's engine. "Hold that flashlight higher, Theo," he said. "I can't see what the hell I'm doing here."
"Carburetor again, Sergeant?" Hossbach asked, moving the flashlight not quite enough.
"No, it's the damn fuel pump. I'm sure of it. We've boiled the carb out so often, we could boil coffee in it." If Rothe sounded disgusted, it was only because he was. "Damned engine still keeps missing. I'm going to fix that pump or steal a new one somewhere or go back to the Maybach works and bend a wrench on somebody's head."
"Sounds good to me, Sergeant," Fritz Bittenfeld said. After pausing to light a cigarette, the driver went on, "Why the devil can't they make an engine that does what it's supposed to, for God's sake?"
Part of the reason was overstrain. The engine only put out 135 horsepower. That wasn't much when it was trying to haul nine tonnes around. Rothe was not inclined to feel charitable, especially not right after he cut his hand on a sharp metal edge in the engine compartment. "Why? I'll tell you why. Because they're back there and safe, that's why," he snarled. "They don't have to worry about what happens when things go wrong. We do. Hold that goddamn light higher, Theo!"
"Sorry," Theo said, and still didn't move the light enough. He made a good radioman. Radio waves suited him-they were out there in the ether, and you couldn't see them. When it came to things more closely connected to planet earth, he wasn't so great.
Somehow, Ludwig got the fuel pump out anyway. Six or eight panzers had halted here, somewhere near the border between Belgium and France. Their crews worked on them, aided by a couple of mechanics. A few hundred meters away, two batteries of 105s sent death and destruction across kilometers toward the British and French troops battling to slow the Germans down.
As he tore the fuel pump apart, he wished his panzer could carry a gun like the ones artillerymen used. A gun like that and you'd have yourself a land dreadnought. The 20mm on the Panzer II was a doorknocker by comparison, and not much of a door-knocker at that. Even Panzer IIIs carried only a 37mm piece-and they were still rare birds.
Enemy panzers didn't have much more. Some of the French machines mounted 47mm guns. But the French and the British didn't seem to know how to make a fist. They used their panzers in penny packets. Individually, their machines were at least a match for anything the Reich made. But if Germany had swarms of panzers at the Schwerpunkt and the enemy didn't, the German drive would go forward. And so matters had proved up till now. Would the Low Countries have fallen in less than a month otherwise?
Foot soldiers came forward through the little motor park. At first, Ludwig paid little attention. Then his eyes snapped from the legend on their cuff bands-Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler-to the SS runes on their collar tabs. Here was something out of the ordinary! He'd heard that some SS men were going to the front alongside Wehrmacht troops, but he'd never seen any before. And wasn't the LAH…?
These fellows, all of them big and fair, carried submachine guns and looked either nervous or extremely alert. They were almost out of artillery range of the enemy, so Rothe thought they were being silly…till he saw the middle-aged man in their midst.
He kicked Theo in the ankle. "Achtung!" he hissed, and stiffened to attention himself.
"Are you out of your mind?" the radioman said-nobody paid attention to parade-ground formalities in the field.
"Achtung!" Ludwig repeated. He jerked his chin toward the gaggle of SS men and their charge.
Hossbach's eyes followed that gesture. At attention or not, Rothe almost burst out laughing at the way they nearly bugged out of Theo's head. Fritz was gaping, too. Well, hell-who wouldn't?
Hitler came over to the Panzer II. Automatically, Ludwig saluted. The other crewmen echoed the gesture a beat later. The Fuhrer returned the salutes. "Is everything all right here?" he asked. Up close, his voice was even more resonant, even larger than life, than it was over a microphone in a stadium or on the radio.
"Y-Yes, sir," Ludwig managed. "Just routine repairs. We'll be at 'em again soon." He felt dizzy, half drunk. Talking to Adolf Hitler! He would remember this day for the rest of his life, even if he lived to 112. (Having seen what happened to front-line fighters here and in Czechoslovakia, he knew how unlikely that was. He knew, but he didn't dwell on it. He tried not to, anyhow.)
"Your fuel pump giving you trouble?" the Fuhrer asked.
Theo's eyes bugged out all over again. Ludwig Rothe's did the same thing this time. "How the devil did you know that, sir?" he blurted.
One of the big SS men guarding Hitler growled like an angry Rottweiler. But the Fuhrer only chuckled. "I get reports. I read them. I remember them," he answered. "That's the most common failing on the Panzer II. I have had a few things to say to the Maybach people about it. An improved model is now in production."
"Good. Very good." Ludwig wondered what had happened to the people responsible for the current piece of junk. Maybe he was better off not knowing.
"We will use it to go on to victory," Hitler continued. A lock of hair flopped down over his forehead. He brushed it back with a gesture so automatic, he must have used it thousands of times. "We will!" he insisted. "Victory may be coming a little more slowly than some of the poison dwarfs back in Berlin believe, but it is no less sure on account of that."
Several of the LAH bodyguards growled this time. Wehrmacht men called the Waffen-SS asphalt soldiers, but Ludwig wouldn't have wanted to mess with any of these guys. "I'm sure of it, mein Fuhrer," he said, not because that was the thing to say but because he really believed it.
Maybe Hitler sensed as much. Or maybe, once the Fuhrer got rolling, he was no easier to stop than a river. "Victory is sure!" he thundered, as he might have on the radio. "And the mad mongrels and traitors who tried to stop the Reich from gaining it have got what they deserved. Oh, yes! That they have!" His eyes blazed.
The only trouble was, Ludwig didn't know what he was talking about. "Sir?" the sergeant said.
One of the Leibstandarte men murmured warningly The fellow wore what would have been a major's shoulder straps if he were in the Wehrmacht, but the SS had its own weird set of ranks. Major or whatever the hell he was, the Fuhrer ignored him. "Some of those pigdogs-fancy aristocrats and even a few military men, I'm sorry to say-thought they could run the country better than I am doing it. Well, the ones who are left alive are seeing how they like the arrangements at Dachau."
"Mein Fuhrer-" the SS officer said urgently.
"Ja, Jens, ja." Hitler sounded-indulgent? He turned back to the panzer crew. "Do not gossip about this, bitte. We have not said anything in the papers or on the radio. We do not want the enemy to know there is even so much as a mustard seed's worth of dissension in the Reich. You are good fellows-I can see that. I'm sure you won't blab."