“Don’t know,” Theo said: the truth, but not a helpful truth.
“Something’s fucked up somewhere,” Witt said. Theo thought that was very likely, as it was on every other day since the creation of the world. The sergeant went on, “Well, if we lose the war because the Ivans pour through the hole, nobody can blame us for obeying orders.”
“Who says?” Adi put in, and he too had a point. Nevertheless, he swung the panzer to the southwest and chugged toward the rendezvous.
They got there a couple of hours later. By then, Adi was muttering darkly about how close to dry the fuel tank had got. Theo had yet to meet a panzer crewman who didn’t mutter about fuel every once in a while … or more often than that. Panzers didn’t sip gas. They gulped it. They all but inhaled it. And getting more was never as automatic as it should have been.
Other worries first, Theo thought as he climbed out of his steel shell. It was even colder in the open air. He had on a wool sweater and long johns under his black coveralls. He was cold anyway. He lit a cigarette. It didn’t warm him up, but he enjoyed it anyhow.
More Panzer IVs, and a handful of beat-up IIIs, clattered into the woods. More crewmen in panzer black got out and started loudly and profanely wondering what they devil they were doing there. Theo thought it was too cold and too Russian out for such important philosophical questions, but what did he know? He knew he didn’t have the answer, which put him one up on most of his comrades.
“Achtung! Achtung! Gather around me, dedicated soldiers of the Grossdeutsches Reich!” That loud voice belonged to Major Stähler, the National Socialist Loyalty Officer. Theo and the whole crew had as little to do with him as they possibly could. With Adi driving their panzer, even that little seemed like too much.
“Maybe he knows something,” Witt said.
“That’d be a first,” Adi remarked. Theo heard him, but he didn’t think the sergeant did.
“Our regiment-our brave and reliable regiment-has been chosen for an important military honor,” Stähler went on as the crewmen gathered around him. “You will have heard certain lying rumors about disaffection, even rebellion, within the boundaries of the Grossdeutsches Reich.”
As a matter of fact, Theo had heard those rumors. He didn’t suppose anyone in the regiment hadn’t. Adi seemed to know an awful lot about what was going on in and around Münster. He never got mail from home, but he damn well did keep his ear to the ground. And, from what he said in a low voice when no one untrustworthy could overhear, a hell of a lot was going on around there.
“We must ruthlessly stamp out treason without mercy so the war effort can proceed to our certain final triumph,” Major Stähler said. “Rebels against the state, the Party, and the Führer must be suppressed. They must be, and they shall be. And our regiment has been chosen as one of the instruments of suppression.”
He sounded proud to announce that. The panzer crewmen’s hum of low talk suddenly rose. Some of them were bound to be proud, too-like any German outfit, the regiment had its share of enthusiastic Nazis. Some, yes, but far from all.
Stähler went on, “Since the police and the security services have not been able to bring order to certain regions in the western areas of the Reich, the Wehrmacht will insure that obedience to our beloved Führer is restored. As I said, we are part of that effort.”
If the Führer was so beloved, why did he need a regiment of panzers to restore obedience? Theo wondered about things like that. He also wondered how many other soldiers wondered likewise. But then something else the National Socialist Loyalty Officer said lit up inside his mind like a searchlight. So they were bound for the western part of Germany, were they? Surely it was no accident that most of this regiment came from Breslau, not far from the Polish border. The Nazis might be bastards, but they were sly bastards. They knew better than to send a unit where the men might have to open fire on their cousins and sisters and mothers and granddads and kid brothers.
“And so,” Major Stähler finished up, “tomorrow we shall proceed to the nearest railhead. From there we shall return to our dear Grossdeutsches Reich and cleanse it once and for all of the filth of treason and betrayal.” He looked out at the assembled panzer crewmen. “Any questions?”
No one said a word. You had to be the world’s biggest Dummkopf to ask questions of someone like Major Stähler. You wouldn’t find out anything worth knowing, and whatever you said would land you in trouble. The major was just trolling for suckers. He didn’t catch anybody this time. Theo wondered why he bothered trying.
But Theo didn’t wonder for long. Stähler bothered because some people were at the same time rebels and natural-born damn fools. If you offered them half a chance, they would give themselves away. The loyalty officer was just doing his job.
“Germany,” Hermann Witt said in wondering tones. “Been a devil of a long time since I last saw Germany.”
“Me, too,” Lothar Eckhardt agreed. The gunner went on, “Not my part of Germany, exactly, but a lot closer to what I’m used to than this Russian garbage is.” He nodded at Adi. “We are heading back to your part of Germany, aren’t we?”
“Sounds like it,” Adi answered. “I’m the same as you are, only more so. I haven’t seen the old stomping grounds in a hell of a long time. I wonder if I remember what things look like.” He shrugged broad shoulders. “Doesn’t matter, I guess. We’ll figure out what to shoot at.”
He didn’t say whether that should be rebels or people like Major Stähler. Theo had opinions on that score. No doubt Adi did, too. No doubt everybody in the crew did. Whether all those opinions matched … Well, that was an interesting question, wasn’t it?
“This is Douglas Edwards with the news.” Even coming out of a radio speaker, the newsman’s voice sounded as if he belonged on the stage. Peggy Druce had always thought so. Edwards went on, “President Roosevelt has announced that the Stars and Stripes fly once more over Midway Island.”
Peggy nodded as she spread butter and jam on her toast. The Inquirer’s edition yesterday had had a great photo by some wire-service cameraman of a group of Marines stabbing a flagpole with Old Glory flying from it into the sandy soil of what passed for high ground on Midway.
“A few stubborn Jap holdouts still skulk on the little island like sand crabs,” Edwards said solemnly. “They cause casualties every now and then, but cannot hope to change the result of the battle. The Marines hunt them down one by one. Soon no more will be left to hunt. And what comes next for Uncle Sam in the Pacific? I’ll be back with a look at that right after the following important messages.”
If you found yourself in desperate need of cigars or laundry soap and had no idea where to turn, the messages might have seemed important. Otherwise, they just helped the network pay its bills. Douglas Edwards was bound-was more than bound: was paid-to think that important. It didn’t matter a hill of beans, or even a single bean, to Peggy.
When Edwards came back, he delicately suggested that the United States might look to Wake Island next. “Thank you, Field Marshal Model!” Peggy exclaimed. You didn’t need to belong to the German General Staff to figure that one out. Peggy’d done it for herself while the sultry chanteuse sang the praises of White Owls. Wake was now the closest Japanese-held dot on the map to the main Hawaiian islands. It legally belonged to the USA. Once it fell into American hands again, nobody could even dream about dropping any more germ bombs on Honolulu.
In the Atlantic, a German U-boat had fired two torpedoes at a U.S. destroyer. Both missed. The destroyer depth-charged the U-boat, but didn’t sink it. FDR had sent Hitler a stiff protest note. Hitler’d told Roosevelt where he could stick that note. All of which was done diplomatically, of course, but that was what it boiled down to.