“That’s … harsh.” Hans-Ulrich had supported the Nazis ever since he’d decided they were the ones to make Germany strong again. Now, for the first time, he started to wonder whether he’d made a mistake. “And how do the, ah, Bulgarians like that?”
Dieselhorst smiled a thin smile. “They’re up in arms-literally, for the people who happen to have any. And I’ve heard they aren’t the only folks in Bulgaria who are. I don’t know that that’s true. Bulgaria’s a long way away, and you can’t always trust the news that comes out of it. But that’s what I hear.”
“Huh.” Rudel didn’t like the way that sounded. “How can we fight a war if the home front falls apart on us? That’s what happened in 1918.”
After coughing a couple of times, Albert Dieselhorst made a small production of lighting a cigarette. The pause let Hans-Ulrich remember what a little boy he’d been in 1918, and that he didn’t really know for himself everything that had gone on then. After said pause, Dieselhorst answered, “You know, if you build a house of cards outside and the breeze blows it over, that’s one thing. But if you build it on the kitchen table and then you knock it down, you’ve got only yourself to blame. Or that’s how it looks at me, anyway.”
He waited. Hans-Ulrich realized he had to say something. “What do you suppose Major Keller would say to that?” he tried.
“Major Keller knocks down houses of cards for the fun of it … sir,” Dieselhorst said. “If the Party had half as many people like Major Keller in it, we’d be twice as well off. That’s how it looks to me, too.”
Rudel opened his mouth. The speech about how, when enemies were everywhere, you needed National Socialist Loyalty Officers jumped to the tip of his tongue. But it didn’t jump off. Foreign foes, yes-you needed to worry about them. When your own people started hating your government, though, how could you be so sure the people were the ones with the problem?
When Hans-Ulrich didn’t come out with that canned speech, Sergeant Dieselhorst blew a stream of smoke up toward the sky. He didn’t say anything like You’re learning or You’re growing up. The proof, as the geometry books put it, was left to the student.
Dieselhorst did say, “They would have been smarter not to mess with the bishop.”
Again, Hans-Ulrich kept quiet. This time, it was because he didn’t know what to say. He was no Catholic. He was the son of a Lutheran minister. He had no use for the Pope or his faith. But a Catholic bishop was a clergyman, too. What if the Gestapo had come for Pastor Rudel instead?
He had trouble imagining Johannes Rudel saying or doing anything that would make the authorities want to come after him. But if they did, he hoped the people of whichever little Silesian town he happened to be preaching in would be upset enough to try to do something about it.
So he said, “Yes, I guess they would. But we can’t change any of that. All we can do is bomb the French and the English so they don’t break through and invade the Vaterland.”
“Well, you’re right about that,” Dieselhorst said. “It’s bad when politics comes to the Luftwaffe, and it’s bad when the Luftwaffe gets into politics.” He ground out the cigarette under his boot heel. “And if we don’t get more fighter support, we won’t keep flying against the enemy much longer.”
Hans-Ulrich grunted. The noncom was dead right about that. Without 109s or 190s flying top cover, Stukas that ventured far past the front were asking to get shot down. When the war was new, the Luftwaffe had more fighters and better fighters than the RAF or the Armée de l’Air. German fighters were still as good as any the Western democracies made, and better than the ones they bought from America. But there weren’t enough of them here.
“Too many planes fighting the Russians,” Rudel said. “Too many trying to keep the enemy from knocking our cities flat, too.”
“I know,” Sergeant Dieselhorst replied with what sounded like exaggerated patience. “You would have hoped the people who got us into this war wondered whether this would happen when they told us to start shooting.”
“They thought we’d win in a hurry,” Hans-Ulrich said.
“Yes, yes.” Sure enough, the sergeant’s patience showed more and more. “Winning in a hurry was Plan A. But they should have had Plan B ready ahead of time in case we didn’t, and Plan C in case something funny happened, and Plan D in case something stupid happened, and … and on and on. That’s why God, or maybe the Devil, made the General Staff, nicht wahr?”
“I don’t think either one of Them would want to get blamed for it,” Hans-Ulrich answered.
He surprised a laugh out of Sergeant Dieselhorst, which wasn’t something he managed every day. “There you go!” Dieselhorst said. “You know, you can be dangerous if you give yourself half a chance.”
“Who, me?” Rudel did his best to assume a look of wide-eyed innocence. For a minister’s son, the look came naturally. The sergeant’s snort confirmed that.
It started to rain then. That was another reason they weren’t flying. The clouds in Belgium blew right off the ocean. When it was cloudy here, the ceiling was almost always low. You didn’t want to go up in a dive-bomber when you might dive below the ceiling to drop your load and then not have time to pull up before you hit the ground.
The fellows in the level bombers didn’t fret about such things. They flew above the clouds, not below them. They could bomb in any weather. But they were none too accurate even when they could see what they were aiming at. When they couldn’t … Well, the bombs were bound to come down on something or other.
Up ahead of the airstrip, German guns started firing on the enemy positions facing them. Before long, French guns answered. Chances were none of the men serving the 105s could see their target, either. That didn’t mean dropping shells on it wouldn’t hurt the other side. Stretcher-bearers and ambulances would carry wounded men back to aid stations.
Gravediggers would be busy, too. Hans-Ulrich seldom thought about such things. When you were flying, you were too busy to worry about them. Only at times like this, when you couldn’t go up, did they invade your mind.
It was also only at times like this that you got the chance to think about politics. And that was bound to be just as well.
Alistair Walsh had found one thing almost unchanged from the last war to this one. Wherever the front was in France or Belgium, estaminets would spring up right behind it. They’d sell you bad wine and watery beer, fried potatoes, fried eggs, and, if you were brave enough, fried sausages.
Somebody’d said you never wanted to know what went into politics or sausages. Was that Bismarck? Walsh thought so. The mustached old bugger might have been a Fritz, but he knew what he was talking about just the same. And you especially didn’t want to know what went into sausages you bought at an estaminet within earshot of the guns.
Which didn’t mean Walsh hadn’t ordered a couple of them with his chips and his pint. Horse? Cat? Hedgehog? Ground-up inner tube? There was enough pepper and garlic mixed up with everything else to keep you from noticing how rank the meat (or possibly rubber) was.
He thought so, anyhow. A corporal sitting at the table next to his took a bite and pulled a face. “I think the landlord chopped up his granny and stuck her in here, like in the penny dreadfuls back when,” the fellow said.
Walsh donned a contemplative look as he ate some more off his plate. “Not dry enough for granny,” he said after he swallowed. “Maybe it’s his maiden aunt.”
“If she tastes like this, no bloody wonder she died a maiden,” the corporal answered. He swigged from a glass of wine and grimaced again. “And this here is grape juice and vinegar.”