Fox On The Rhine (21 page)

The SS troops continued their fire long after both von Stauffenberg’s and von Haeften’s helpless bloody bodies stopped twitching, but finally the crashing din came to a stop, echoes dying like the end of an artillery bombardment. The soldiers watched the blood oozing from the two broken, shattered bodies. In the sudden silence, time seemed to stop for all the living.

Then the ranking enlisted man spoke up. “Get this mess cleaned up. We must file a report.”

Even so, for a long time nobody moved.

Wehrmacht Hospital, Vesinet, France, 30 July 1944,1520 hours GMT

‘The Americans are hammering on the left flank... bombers, artillery, tanks. There’s no question that they’ll be through in a matter of days--if they’re not already.”

General Speidel’s voice through the telephone was tinny and distant, but there was no mistaking the glum reality of the tones. Rommel knew his former chief of staff, now von Kluge’s right hand man, was telling him the truth.

Normandy was lost.

“Thanks, my friend,” he replied. “I have one favor to ask--can you patch me through to von Kluge?”

“I’ll try--you know what the connections are like, even before the Allies started bombing everything in sight.”

The Desert Fox hung up the phone in his hospital room while he waited for word of the connection. Stiffly, he pushed himself to his feet and limped to the window. Though he moved much more easily than he had even a few days earlier, he still chafed against the limitations caused by his sore leg. And the impairment of his vision was equally troubling--his left eye was covered by a thick patch, and as a result his eyesight had a flat quality, a lack of real depth or texture. A thick, almost stupefying, headache throbbed through his skull, the background of pain that was always simmering near the surface of his consciousness. Angrily he rubbed his neck and grimaced, knowing that these were things he could not control.

But where was there something, in truth, where he did have control?
Think, Rommel, think!
His mind had become a stuck tank, digging deeper and deeper ruts around the same dark pit.

He grimaced in frustration as he stared over the expanse of lawn and grove. As always, he found his attention drawn to the splintered oak, the blackened spire of trunk that had been shattered by some not-too-distant lightning strike.

“I know how you feel,” he growled, aware that it was strange for him to be talking to a tree. “Both of us blasted from the sky … “

His bitter musings were interrupted by the jangling of the phone, and he ignored the pain to move to the instrument with a trace of his old alacrity. Snatching the receiver out of the cradle, he barked into the mouthpiece. “Rommel here.”

“Herr Feldmarschall? I have Field Marshal von Kluge for you.”

He waited for a few seconds, then heard the greeting in the clipped tones of the famed commander, widely known as the master of defensive warfare--a reputation he had earned on the eastern front.

Rommel remembered von Kluge’s arrival in France, shortly after the invasion. Spurred by reports from Hitler’s headquarters about Rommel’s defeatist reports, the veteran of the Russian campaign had peremptorily informed the Desert Fox that “now you’ll have to start following orders.” It had taken exactly one day of touring the front for von Kluge to realize that Rommel’s reports, regarded by the führer as almost treasonous, were nothing less than the truth.

“Hello, Hans,” Rommel replied. “I understand that our difficulties in Normandy continue.”

“Indeed...” He pictured von Kluge’s reticence as the front commander considered how much he should communicate to the man he had replaced. Apparently he decided that Rommel deserved exactly what he had given--that is, the truth.

“The Americans have broken out on the left... I don’t think we can stop this attack. We’ve identified no less than three armor divisions already through the breach--and as you know, once they pass the shell of our position, we have nothing in mobile reserve.”

“It was inevitable, only a question of when,” the Desert Fox declared sadly. ‘Tell me, are you making plans for a withdrawal--to the Seine, or farther if necessary?”

There was an awkward pause. “I have been given orders to stand for as long as possible,” von Kluge admitted. “Orders that come from the highest source in the Fatherland.”

“Blast!” Rommel snapped his harshest expletive. “I had thought that some good might have come out of that madman’s death! Surely you can’t stand by and let the whole Army Group be encircled?”

“Perhaps the situation is not so dire as that. After all, Montgomery still commands the British... as a result we have every reason to expect that they will move quite deliberately against our right flank. And Bradley is quite untested at this sort of warfare.”

“But it won’t be Bradley who closes the trap--trust me, they’ll give Patton a command before much more time passes. And he is the one general over there who understands how to conduct armored operations!”

“Our intelligence suggests that Patton is too unpopular with the high command,” von Kluge countered stubbornly. “And, in any event, I have my orders.”

Rommel’s temper surged, but he forced himself to hold his tongue. There was nothing to be gained by angering von Kluge, the man who had control over the situation. All Rommel could do was offer advice.

“The troops of General Wiese’s Nineteenth Army, around Marseilles and Toulon, also in the Rhone valley?” he asked in carefully modulated tones. “Can you bring them north, a precautionary withdrawal?” Even with his mind thick and dull, he was smart enough to understand the necessary next move. Both field marshals understood that the campaign would be decided in northern France. An entire army, including at least one good panzer division, the Eleventh, was garrisoning a part of the country that had no strategic significance any more.

“It is a good idea,” von Kluge conceded. “But, alas, such a withdrawal runs counter to my orders.”

“But surely you can see what will happen if the Americans get around behind you--or drive on Lorraine, and cut you off from the Nineteenth?” He knew he needed to be slower, more subtle, in talking von Kluge around, but his emotions were slipping out of control. He was being too blunt, too forceful. As dull as I feel right now, lean still see the obvious next step. Why can't he?

“Of course!” von Kluge’s answer was curt, letting Rommel know he’d pushed too far, too fast. “And do you know what has happened to officers, including generals, who have failed to carry out their orders?” Left unstated was von Kluge’s concern that he, too, might be implicated in the conspiracy to kill Adolf Hitler. Rommel knew that von Kluge, like himself, had been approached by the conspirators, had even considered their proposal seriously, and that could easily become fatal.

“I see... well, I wish you the best of luck, Hans,” Rommel concluded.

‘Thank you... we both know that I’ll need it.”

Placing the telephone back on the table, the Desert Fox turned back to the window and its vista of greenery against the lightning scar. He knew that the war was lost, and he grieved for the fact that he was powerless to save even a single one of his brave men.

Sainte-la-Salle, Normandy, France, 1612 hours GMT

“Where the hell is Third Armored?” Pulaski was standing atop the turret of a Sherman, his field glasses trained along the road running northwest out of the tiny hamlet. He next studied the vista to the south, where the equally empty road vanished over the crest of a low elevation. A small church, steeple and cross silhouetted against the sky, commanded the height. Avranches, gateway to the rest of France, lay in that direction and so far as he could tell there was nothing to stand in his combat command’s way.

Nothing except his orders.

“What should we do now, Colonel?” Dennis White, reflexively chewing on his pipe, squinted up at Pulaski.

The file of Combat Command A vehicles--tanks, halftracks, jeeps, and tracked guns--was rolling to the right and left of the narrow lane they had followed to the village. The artillery batteries were taking positions behind a couple of low hills, while the men of the armored infantry battalion were busy digging foxholes and setting up machine gun nests atop the surrounding hills. But for now the preparations were cursory, since Pulaski had made it known that he hoped they weren’t going to be here very long.

“Damned if I can tell you,” Pulaski grunted. “I know what I want to do--get CCA onto this road, race down to Avranches. I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts we could get there before sunset tomorrow!”

“Christ, Colonel--let’s give ’em a knock-out punch!” declared Ballard. The ex-boxer’s jaw was set, and he looked like he was ready for a match.

If he had been given a little more time, he might have decided to do just that, but even before the village was fully occupied his attention was drawn to a couple of jeeps racing down the lane in the wake of the fast-advancing armored spearhead. Presumably because he traveled through a combat zone, General Wakefield had wisely stowed away the one-star flags that had previously decorated his jeep, but even so Pulaski recognized the division executive officer when he was still a half mile from the village.

The colonel greeted the general as soon as the jeep pulled into the small square, a plaza between the church, mill, and. inn that seemed to be about all there was to Sainte-la-Salle. A few local Frenchmen and women had hesitantly come forth from their homes, and now they gathered in front of the chapel, watching the Americans with considerable interest.

“General--welcome to Sainte-la-Salle!” Pulaski announced through a broad grin. “What you see is what you get.”

“Good work,” Wakefield agreed, looking around. “Not much of a social center, is it?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “What kind of losses did you take getting here?”

Pulaski’s ebullience faded a little. “Five tanks, sixteen men killed and another two dozen wounded, already evacuated. But we cut right through the damned Krauts, General! Blew up a couple of tanks and knocked out two of their eighty-eights.” He shook his head at another memory. “Also, we learned that the reports about the Panther were right. Ballard saw two of his Shermans go toe to toe with one of the bastards. The Panther just took its time shooting one Sherman and then the next while the shells from those popgun 75s were just bouncing off the frontal armor. We did finally get the son of a bitch from the side, though.”

“Now you’re holding here?”

“Well, I was getting the men started on some positions... but listen, General--I’m glad you’re here,” Pulaski declared. “You can see we’ve beat Third Armored to the road! Hell, there’s no sign of ’em as far as I can see. What say we get moving toward Avranches?”

Wakefield shook his head. “Nothing doing, Jimmy, sorry. General King’s got his orders from Corps, and we’re sticking to the plan.”

“Where is General King, sir?” asked Pulaski, unable to hold his tongue against the borderline insolent question.

The general shrugged, his face a mask. “He had an urgent call from Army HQ--asked me to come out here and report on progress.”

“What the hell happened to Third Armored, then?” The colonel knew that his tone revealed his exasperation. Wakefield frowned, but didn’t make any direct rebuke.

Instead, the general merely shrugged. “Haven’t heard, though I’d guess they ran into some stiff resistance somewhere up north of here. I’ve gotta say I’m impressed by the time you made, though. A nice piece of attacking, Jimmy.”

Pulaski tried again. He pointed down the empty roadway. “But look--there’s nothing down there! At least let me move past those hills, set up a position for the Third when they finally come through here... damnit, General, we’ve got the Germans reeling back on their asses! Let me get on with finishing the job.”

“I told you, Jimmy, I can’t let you do that. There’s the plan, made by Bradley himself, and if CCA is on the road when a whole armored division tries to roll on through, there’ll be chaos.”

“But that’s just the point--we’ll be down the road and out of Third Armored’s way! If we hit some resistance, we’ll deploy, take out any roadblocks. Sending CCA down there will only let the next guys move that much faster!” Wakefield clenched his jaw and Pulaski saw that he was pushing too hard, especially with his own officers watching.
Slowly
, he thought to himself. He knew his own eagerness was starting to run away with him, and that was no way to get results.

Further debate was halted by the arrival of another jeep convoy, this one distinguished by a three-star general who wore two .45 automatics and swaggered up to the officers with a belligerent scowl. General George S. Patton cut a dashing swath on the battlefield, and there wasn’t a man in the village square who didn’t recognize him.

The officers of Nineteenth Armored saluted and stood straight as Patton marched right up to them.

“Henry, goddamn it, what the hell are you doing?” demanded the famous commander, in a voice that was almost incongruously high-pitched as it emerged from such a warlike visage. “Sitting on your ass here while the Krauts are getting away! D’you think you’re on a goddamned picnic?”

Pulaski could see Wakefield’s face harden.

“General, I’m following orders. Get to this town and hold,” Wakefield shot back. “Orders from General Bradley and Jack King, my bosses.”

“Get these goddamned tanks moving down this road, now!” snapped Patton. “Jesus Christ, don’t you know you’re out here to fight a war?”

“On what authority?” demanded Wakefield. “I’m under Eight Corps, First Army.”

“Your division CO is getting the news right now--Third Army is activated, and I’m your new boss! And if you keep sitting here on your ass you’re going to find yourself out of a job!” The army commander stalked into the middle of the dirt street, spun around with both hands upraised. He kicked through the dust with his cavalry boots. “Damn it, Hank, look around you! This pissant little flea hole doesn’t mean crap--it’s Avranches that we need. And your boys here are at the front of the line--you need to get ’em rolling!”

Wakefield drew a deep breath, then turned to glare at the CCA commander. “Colonel Pulaski?” he roared.