Hitler's War (22 page)

As soon as they crossed the front, Dutch AA opened up on them. All
the Stuka pilots started jinking without waiting for orders. A little faster, a little slower, a little to the left or right, up a little, down a little—anything to keep from giving the gunners an easy target. The neat formation suffered. With luck, the planes wouldn’t.

But one of them, trailing smoke, turned back toward the east. That didn’t look good. Hans-Ulrich hoped the pilot and rear gunner came through all right. Next to that, getting the Ju-87 down in one piece was small potatoes.

A near miss made his own bus stagger in the sky like a man missing the last step on a flight of stairs. Shrapnel clanged against the left wing. Everything went on working.
“Danke, Gott,”
Rudel murmured. His father the minister would have come up with a fancy prayer, but that did the job.

“Alles gut?”
Dieselhorst asked again.

“Alles gut,”
Hans-Ulrich said firmly.

Holland wasn’t a big country. There lay Rotterdam, on both banks of the New Maas. It was a big shipping town, with the most important quays on the north side of the river. Most of the city, including the central square, was on the north bank, too.

“There’s the square we’re supposed to hit,” the squadron leader said. “Follow me down.” The underside of his wings flashed in the sun as he aimed his Ju-87 at Rotterdam’s heart like an arrow. One after another, the planes he led peeled off after him.

Acceleration shoved Hans-Ulrich against the back of his armored seat. Facing the other way, Albert Dieselhorst experienced dives very differently. He always thought the Stuka was trying to tear the straps off him and pitch him out over his machine gun and through the window behind him.

No antiaircraft fire here. The Dutch must not have thought Germany would attack the towns. Didn’t they pay attention to what happened in Czechoslovakia? If they didn’t, too bad for them.

Rudel yanked the bomb release lever. Suddenly, the Ju-87 was lighter and more aerodynamic. He pulled back on the stick to come out of the dive. The Stukas, he saw, weren’t the only planes working Rotterdam over. High above them, Do-17s—Flying Pencils to friend and foe alike—and He-111s sent bombs raining down on the port. They couldn’t put them just where they wanted them, the way a Ju-87 could. But all that high explosive was bound to blow
somebody
to hell and gone.

“Alles gut?”
Dieselhorst asked one more time. “Sure looks good,” he added—he was the one who could see what the bombs had done.

“Couldn’t be better,” Hans-Ulrich answered, and flew back toward the airstrip from which he’d taken off.

SERGEANT ALISTAIR WALSH WAS WHERE HE
was supposed to be: on the Dyle, in central Belgium. The whole BEF was on the line of the Dyle—the whole BEF, less what the Germans had blown sky-high. If what had happened to the rest of the force was anything like what had happened to Walsh’s unit, the BEF was missing more than it should have been.

One of the soldiers in Walsh’s platoon waved to him. “What’s up, Puffin?” Walsh asked. Everybody hung that name on Charlie Casper—he was short and round and had a big red nose.

He also had news: “Bloody goddamn Dutchmen just tossed in the sponge.”

“Where’d you hear that?” Walsh demanded in angry disbelief.

“Bloody goddamn wireless.”

“But they can’t,” Walsh said, though he knew too well that they could. He went on protesting: “They just started fighting—what?—five days ago. We all just started five days ago.” Except for a few useless rounds aimed at German planes, he had yet to fire a shot.

“And now they’ve bloody well stopped,” Puffin Casper said. “Bunch
of damn rotters. Said the Germans bombed the hell out of that damn Rotter place, and they couldn’t take any more of that, so they went belly-up.”

Something seemed to have gone missing there. Whatever Puffin had heard, he hadn’t got it straight. But if the big news was right—and Walsh had no reason to doubt it was—what difference did the details make? Not bloody much, as Casper would have said.

Walsh looked north. “So they’ll hit us from that way
and
from the east,” he said. “Just what we need.”

“Frenchies’ll help us,” Puffin said.

“Well, maybe.” Walsh didn’t argue, not right out loud. Casper was only a kid. If he had confidence in the French army, more power to him. He might even end up right. The French Seventh Army, which was in place north of the BEF—on the far side of the Scheldt—was supposed to be big and strong. Maybe it was. Or maybe the BEF would have to go it alone. Back in 1918, British forces seemed to have done that when the Kaiser’s army hit them with one haymaker after another.

(That the French would have said the same about the British had never come to Walsh’s notice. If it had, he would have called the man bold—or rash—enough to give him such news a goddamn liar.)

Artillery rumbled, off to the east. Some of those were Belgian guns, firing at the advancing Germans. And some of them were German, making sure the bastards in field-gray kept on advancing. The gunfire was getting louder, which meant it was getting closer to the Dyle. Sooner or later—probably sooner—Walsh figured he would make the Germans’ acquaintance again.

An officer came up to him. For a second, he thought the man was British. Then he saw the funny rank badges.
A Belgian
, he realized. Ordinary Belgian soldiers looked like Frenchmen, mostly because of the Adrian helmets they wore. But officers had British-style uniforms.

“Where is your command post?” the Belgian asked in accented but understandable English.

“Why do you want to know…sir?” The British sergeant knew he sounded suspicious, but he couldn’t help himself. The Dutch had just thrown in the towel. What if the bloody Belgies were about to do the same thing? Their king hadn’t wanted to let any Allies in till the very last instant—which was liable to be too late.

But this fellow said, “The better to arrange cooperation between your forces and mine. You are a sergeant, is it not so?”

What do you think you’re doing, asking me questions?
was what he meant. Walsh didn’t think he could get in much trouble for slowing up a wog, but he didn’t want to find out the hard way he was wrong. He pointed north. “Go that way, oh, three hundred yards, and you’ll see the regimental tent.”

“Yards?” The Belgian officer scratched his head.

“Yes, sir.” Alistair Walsh felt like scratching his, too. Then he figured out what had to be wrong. Stupid foreigners with their idiot measures. “Uh, three hundred meters.” Close enough.

The Belgian nodded. “Ah. Thank you.” Off he went, happy as a ram in clover.

“What do you want to bet they’re the next ones out?” Puffin Casper said dolefully.

“Wouldn’t be surprised,” Walsh agreed. “They’ll tear a nasty hole in our lines if they do bugger off, though.”

“They’ll care a lot about that, they will,” Puffin said.

More Belgian soldiers came back over the Dyle. Some of them still looked ready to fight. They were just blokes doing their jobs. Others had done all the work they aimed to do for a while. They slipped back toward the rear first chance they saw. Still others were walking wounded. Some of them seemed angry. Others seemed weary and in pain, as they no doubt were. Still others might have been relieved. They’d fought, they’d got hurt, and they were still alive. Nobody could expect them to do anything more.

Englishmen would have reacted the same way. The idea that foreigners
could act just like ordinary people never failed to surprise Walsh.

And then, with the throb of airplane engines overhead, the only foreigners he cared about were the Germans. He ran for the closest trench and jumped in.

These weren’t dive-bombers, anyway. They stayed high overhead and let their bombs rain down on the general area of their targets. The whistles as the bombs fell weren’t quite so bad as the screaming sirens on those vulture-winged diving bastards. They sure as hell weren’t good, though.

When the bombs burst, it seemed as if a million of them were going off at once. Blast threw Walsh around. Blast could kill all by itself without fragments. It could tear lungs to shreds without leaving a mark on a body. Walsh had already seen that. He wished he hadn’t chosen this exact moment to remember it.

Engines of a different note made him look up. Fighters were tearing into the bomber formations. He let out a whoop. Somebody else sprawled in the trench said, “Blimey, there really is an RAF!” The soldier sounded astonished.

Walsh didn’t blame him. He hadn’t seen many British planes himself. But they were there now. Two broad-winged bombers tumbled out of the air, wrapped in smoke and fire. Parachutes sprouted in the sky. Walsh waited for the British pilots—he assumed they were his countrymen, though they might have been French—to machine-gun the descending German airmen. But they didn’t. He wondered why not. Not sporting? Were he hanging helpless from a silk half-bubble, he didn’t suppose he would have wanted a German blazing away at him.

“Blimey!” the other soldier said again. “That bugger’s going to come down right on our ‘eads, ‘e is.”

He didn’t quite. But he landed no more than fifty yards away. Walsh aimed his rifle at him. “Give up right now, you fucking bastard!” he bawled.

The German paid no attention to him. The fellow sprawled on the ground, clutching his ankle and howling like a dog with its tail caught under a rocking chair. The parachute flapped and billowed like a live thing, threatening to drag him away.

“Easiest prisoner I ever took,” Walsh said. “If he hasn’t broken that, I’m a Belgian myself.”

“But do you want to go out there and get ‘im?” the other British soldier asked. “What if more bombers come over?”

“Urr,” said Walsh, who hadn’t thought of that. Letting the German flyer’s countrymen blow him to pieces was a distinctly unattractive notion. But so was listening to him.

When Walsh said so, the other man replied, “Then shoot ‘im. Or if you don’t care to, I will.”

“No,” Walsh said. If he were lying there with a broken ankle, he would want a German to take him prisoner. And he thought there was a pretty good chance some German would. The bastards in field-gray fought hard. They’d fought hard even when they knew the game was up in 1918. They mostly fought fair, though. Of what army could you say more?

That made up his mind for him. He scrambled out of his hole and trotted toward the downed
Luftwaffe
man. The German saw his rifle and held up his hands. He gabbled something in his own language. If that wasn’t
I give up!
, Walsh really was a Belgian.

He pointed to the pistol on the flyer’s belt. “Throw that damn thing away, and make it snappy!” he said.

“Ja! Ja!”
Maybe the German understood a little English, even if he didn’t seem to speak any. Or maybe the sergeant’s gestures made sense to him. Walsh kept his finger on the trigger while the man disarmed himself. If he turned out to be a fanatic, he’d be a dead fanatic pretty damn quick. But he didn’t. He tossed the little automatic—smaller and neater than the Enfield .38 revolver that was the British standard in this war, to say nothing of the last go-round’s man-killing brute of a Webley and Scott .455—into the bushes.

“All right.” Walsh knelt beside him and pointed to the trench from which he’d come. “I’m going to take you back there.” He got the German’s arm around his shoulder. Grunting as he rose, he went on, “This may hurt a bit.”

The airman hopped awkwardly on one leg. He tried not to let his other foot touch the ground at all. Sure as the devil, that ankle was ruined. Well, he’d done worse to plenty of Dutchmen and Belgians and Englishmen.

“Give me a hand with this bugger,” Walsh called. Unenthusiastically, the other British soldier did.

Once in the hole, the flyer reached inside his coverall. He came closer to dying than he probably realized. But he came out with…
“Zigaretten?”
he said, proffering the packet.

“Thanks.” Walsh took one. So did the other soldier, who gave him a light. They both took a drag. “Bloody hell!” Walsh said. “Tastes like hay and barge scrapings.” If this was what the Germans were smoking, no wonder the bastards acted mean.

He gave the
Luftwaffe
man a Navy Cut. People said they were strong. God only knew they were cheap. But the new prisoner’s eyes went wide when he puffed on it.
“Danke schön! Sehr gut!”
he said. He reverently smoked it all the way down to the end. It probably had more real tobacco in it than he usually got in a week.

Stretcher-bearers took him off to the rear. If he got more proper cigarettes, odds were he was glad enough to go.

CHRISTMAS WAS RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER
, but Peggy Druce found Berlin a singularly joyless place. She supposed she should count her blessings. If she weren’t from the neutral USA, she would have been interned, not just inconvenienced. All the same…

So many shops were empty. Hardly any cars rolled down the street. Even the trolleys operated on a wartime schedule, which meant you
took a long time to get anywhere. The city was blacked out at night. As far as Peggy could tell, the whole damn country was blacked out at night.

Maybe all of Europe was blacked out. Peggy tried to imagine Paris dark at night. The picture didn’t want to form. The City of Light was bound to be as shrouded as any other European capital. After what the Germans did to Prague and Marianske Lazne and the rest of Czechoslovakia, they wouldn’t leave Paris alone. She supposed it was a genuine military target. But the idea of bombs falling on it made her almost physically ill.

She walked past a restaurant not far from the hotel where they’d put her up. She hadn’t the slightest desire to go inside. Like everyone else in Germany, she had a ration card. Even in a restaurant, she had to spend points on what she ate. Whatever she got, most of it would be cabbage and potatoes and black bread. Fats of any sort—butter, cheese, lard—were hard to come by. Milk and cod-liver oil were reserved almost exclusively for children and nursing and pregnant women.

A man with a white mustache walked past her. He tipped his hat as he went by. His wool suit had seen better years, but he couldn’t do much about that. The Germans had ration points for clothes, too. If you bought a topcoat, that was about it for the year. Peggy didn’t have all the clothes she wanted, either; most of what she’d brought to Czechoslovakia was still there. Or, maybe more likely, it was on some German woman’s back these days.