“Heil Hitler!” the men echoed. Beside Hans-Ulrich, Sergeant Dieselhorst spoke up as loudly as anyone else. You couldn’t just be loyal these days. You had to be seen and heard to be loyal. Hans-Ulrich didn’t care for that, but he didn’t know what he could do about it, either.
As the squadron commander stepped back, Major Keller stepped forward. He wore the ribbon for an Iron Cross Second Class thrust through the third buttonhole on his tunic. The Iron Cross Second Class wasn’t quite like a vaccination scar; not everybody had one. But even Sergeant Dieselhorst sported an Iron Cross First Class. The rest of the loyalty officer’s decorations were Party awards, not ones earned in the field.
“We must be ruthless in our devotion to duty! Ruthless!” Keller declared. “The Jews and Bolsheviks who hate the Reich and plot to destroy the German Volk, we must root out and eradicate without mercy. They would give us none, and so they deserve none themselves. We must prosecute the war as if there were no tomorrow. If our enemies triumph, there will be none for us!”
Beside Hans-Ulrich, Dieselhorst reached into a tunic pocket. He pulled out a pack of Gauloises. Rudel wondered where he’d got them. From a Belgian farmer who’d got them from a Frenchman, seemed the best bet. The rear gunner and radioman stuck one in his mouth and lit it. He made a horrible face, but kept puffing away. Even Hans-Ulrich, who didn’t use tobacco, could smell how harsh the smoke was.
“We must fight. We must keep on fighting till Germany has the final victory and the Lebensraum our Volk require,” the loyalty officer went on. “We must back the Führer of the Grossdeutsches Reich, Adolf Hitler, and the National Socialist German Workers Party with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our might. Heil Hitler!”
“Heil Hitler!” the Luftwaffe men chorused again. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. How often had Hans-Ulrich heard that verse from his minister father? Did Major Keller even know he was quoting Scripture-and the Old Testament, at that? Or was he just pulling a phrase that sounded good out of thin air? Even Hans-Ulrich could see that asking him wasn’t the smartest thing he could do.
“The Führer is always right!” Keller thundered. “That is why we must back him with blind courage and blind obedience. He and he alone knows what is best for us and best for Germany. Sieg heil!”
“Sieg heil!” his audience responded. Albert Dieselhorst sent smoke signals up into the damp, drippy sky from his stinking French cigarette. No Red Indian stood on a hilltop to read what those smoke signals meant. Hans-Ulrich thought that might be just as well.
He joined in the polite applause as the National Socialist Loyalty Officer clicked his heels and took two steps back. Colonel Steinbrenner strode forward again. “Thank you, Major,” he said. “Thank you very much.”
Then Keller stepped up to stand beside him again. “One more thing, sir, if I may, which I unfortunately forgot to mention,” he said. The squadron commander waved for him to continue, so he did: “You must ignore-ignore absolutely-any reports of unrest coming from the homeland. Either they are lies spread by the enemy to weaken your spirit or the unrest was fomented by Jews and other traitors to the Reich.” He clicked his heels and withdrew once more.
“Thanks for making that plain,” Colonel Steinbrenner said. “Aber natürlich, reports of unrest at home can only be lies or treason.”
Keller nodded vigorously. Sergeant Dieselhorst coughed. It might have been the Gauloise’s fault-if that wasn’t poison gas he was breathing, what was it? Or the sergeant’s irony detector might have gone off. Hans-Ulrich’s had, and he was sure it was less sensitive than Dieselhorst’s.
By all appearances, the Party hadn’t issued Major Keller a working irony detector. After all, he still plainly believed everything he said himself. Well, Hans-Ulrich believed most of it, too, though he wasn’t so sure all the unrest in Germany was lies and provocations. Albert Dieselhorst, being more ironical, believed rather less.
“Now that you men have listened to Major Keller, listened to him carefully and with the great attention a National Socialist Loyalty Officer deserves, you may return to your regular duties,” Steinbrenner said. The loyalty officer looked pleased with himself. He was sure he deserved to be heard with great attention, all right.
Hans-Ulrich wasn’t so very sure Colonel Steinbrenner was so very sure of that. He didn’t think the squadron commander was a defeatist, or anything of the kind. Steinbrenner had replaced an officer who wasn’t loyal enough to satisfy the security forces. But the colonel didn’t care to have anyone tell him how to think.
Neither did Sergeant Dieselhorst. He stuck another Gauloise in his mouth. “Those things are filthy,” Hans-Ulrich said.
“So’s your granny … sir,” Dieselhorst replied. He scraped a match against the sole of his boot. After he lit the cigarette, he coughed some more. He took it out of his mouth and eyed it with mingled caution and respect. “Does kind of feel like I’m smoking sandpaper,” he allowed. That didn’t stop him from taking another drag-or from coughing afterwards.
Hans-Ulrich took a few steps to get upwind of him. The Gauloise was so harsh, he didn’t want anything to do with it. In a low voice, he asked, “And what did you think of Major Keller today?”
For a few seconds, he thought he’d been too quiet and Dieselhorst hadn’t heard him. Then, without seeming to, the sergeant looked around to make sure no one else stood close by. As quietly, he answered, “In the time I needed to listen to that, I could’ve taken a good shit. Quatsch mit Sosse, nothing else but.”
Rubbish with sauce. That was further than Rudel wanted to go-further than he might dare to go. “We do have to win the war, you know,” he said mildly.
“Aber natürlich.” Dieselhorst did a good job of echoing Colonel Steinbrenner’s dry tones. “But you know, sir, I could figure that out all by myself. I don’t need some would-be Party Bonz to shove it up my asshole.”
“He does try,” Hans-Ulrich said.
“He’s trying, all right,” Dieselhorst answered, which sounded like agreement but wasn’t. “If the Party wants to tend to politics, fine. It can tend to politics. I’m a Luftwaffe sergeant, for God’s sake. What do I know about that crap, or care? But if the Party wants to run the goddamn war, it should do a better job.” He breathed out more smoke, either from the Gauloise or from his own ire. Then he paused and added one more word: “Sir.”
“Oh, yes.” Hans-Ulrich nodded. “As long as you tack that on the end, it makes everything that came before it wunderbar.”
They both laughed. They’d been flying together since before the war started. Not many crews from those days were still alive, much less still flying together. They’d saved each other’s bacon too many times. They didn’t always agree, but neither one would ever report the other.
You followed your superiors’ orders. You hoped the people set over you were there for a good reason and knew what they were doing when they gave them. Most of the time, they put their lives on the line along with you. You couldn’t ask for more than that. In the end, you had to hope it would prove enough.
CHAPTER 8