On Desperate Ground (24 page)

Two hours later, Mack finished reading the last of the intelligence reports and SHAEF summaries. Nothing jumped out at him. No German commandos in GI uniforms reported anywhere, no special code names for operations of any sort. The Germans were fighting a down and dirty defensive battle along the Rhine, with little apparent resources for special operations. They contested every village and crossroads, sometimes with just a few troops with
Panzerfaust
, sometimes with a brutal counterattack. But nowhere could he find any evidence of even a hint of a subtler stratagem. Either no special commando operations were planned for this section of the front, or they were missing something completely.
 

Mack tossed the folder he was holding onto his desk, leaned back in his chair, and swung his legs up, stretching back and linking his hands behind his head. It was his favorite position for thinking. He stared at the situation map on the wall above him. To the north, Montgomery and his Commonwealth forces were planning a major offensive to cross the Rhine within a few days. In typical Montgomery fashion, it was an overblown affair with a huge artillery bombardment and parachute drops planned. Mack wondered how the Germans could disrupt such an offensive. Knowing Montgomery as they did, the enemy could easily surmise he would conduct a major set-piece battle to cross the Rhine, whether he needed to or not. But there were few Americans participating, beyond the airborne units and Simpson’s Ninth Army, which of course was limited to a minor supporting role. No, it didn’t make sense.
 

Maybe a raid behind Allied lines? Germans in American uniforms were more likely to fool a bunch of Brits than Yanks. Even though Skorzeny’s commandos dressed in American uniforms had caused a major panic during the Bulge, there were actually very few of them who could speak English like an American. Maybe the Jerries learned from that, and would use them next time against Montgomery himself?
Hmmm.
Mack continued to stare at the map, lost in thought. He didn’t hear someone enter the room behind him.

“Hard at work, Captain?”
 

Mack swiveled around in his seat and almost lost his balance as one of his boots caught a pile of files and sent the papers flying in every direction. He struggled to his feet and stood up in the midst of papers scattered on the floor. He groaned inwardly and tried to reply cheerfully, “Colonel Prescott, sir, what a pleasant surprise!”
 

Colonel Samuel Prescott dropped his briefcase on the floor, tossed his wet trench coat over Mack’s chair and sat down on the only other chair in the room. “A surprise, I’m sure,” Prescott said with a half grin. “Did I disturb your beauty sleep, Mack?”

“No sir,” Mack chuckled, trying to show Prescott he took it as a joke, although there had been a time when Prescott would have kicked the chair out from under him if he found him like that at SHAEF. “I’ve been going over these reports before the G-2 meeting this afternoon, and just got to thinking about something I’ve been trying to figure out. What are you doing here?”

Prescott pulled out a cigar from his tunic pocket, lit it slowly, and puffed a few times to get a good glow going. Only then did he look up at Mack. He seemed to be thinking how much to reveal.
 

“I’ve been up with Monty going over his Rhine crossing operation. You know how he is, lots of little details.” He turned his attention back to his cigar.
 

“And you just happened to be in the neighborhood?”

“Well, any excuse to get out of the office. Nothing but rain and paperwork waiting for me back in London.”

Mack relaxed and leaned against the desk, waiting for Prescott to get to the point. He eyed his chair, now holding Prescott’s coat and a puddle of rainwater dripping off the waterproof material.
 

“It’s raining here, too, Colonel.”
 

“Knew I couldn’t fool a trained investigator, Mack.” Prescott leaned forward and hesitated before he lowered his voice. “Your reports have been great, you’ve done good work. We’ve gotten a good feel for the actual situation on the front lines, combining what you’ve sent us with other sources.”

“Thanks, Colonel, but you didn’t come all the way down here just to pay me a compliment.”

“No.” Prescott tapped the ash off his cigar. “We know we can expect some hard fighting ahead, especially when we come up against the SS and other hard-core units. Even the old men and boys they’re putting into the line can knock out a tank with a
Panzerfaust
before they skedaddle.”

“Colonel, did you know that the men at the front are starting to talk about not being the last guy to get it? Nobody wants the last bullet on the last day.”

“The G.I.s aren’t the only ones getting nervous. Ike’s capped the Remagen bridgehead at four divisions.”

“So we can supply Monty’s ‘big push’ over the Rhine instead of the crossing we beat him to!” Mack did not try to hide his frustration.

“Captain, may I remind you we are here to beat the German army, not the British?” Prescott hesitated, and then checked himself. “Never mind. You’ve heard the standard SHAEF argument before. It’s like Churchill said, the only thing worse than having allies is not having them.”

Prescott pulled his briefcase closer to him and opened it. “In addition to Monty and your Remagen bridgehead, Simpson and the Ninth Army are pushing for a direct attack on Berlin. Being between Monty and First Army, he’s in a good position.”

Mack watched Prescott’s eyes and listened to his tone. He heard sympathy and a trace of regret.
 

“We’re not going to take Berlin, are we?”
 

Prescott knew exactly whom Mack meant by “we”. He meant the Americans, or even the British. The closer the Anglo-American armies came to the Soviet armies, the clearer the divisions between them became. Prescott felt obliged to utter the standard SHAEF line again, and was upset with Mack at putting him in the position of a mouthpiece. “Yes,
we
are, dammit,
we
meaning the Allied forces!”

“Okay, okay,” Mack put his hands palms up, “I get it. The Russians take Berlin. Fine with me. I don’t mind missing out on the house-to-house fighting.”

“I didn’t say that, and what I didn’t say doesn’t leave this room.”

“Jesus, Colonel, I’ve been in this job too long. I actually understand what you just said.” Mack laughed, and Prescott did too, appreciating Mack’s talent for defusing tense situations. He got back to his main point.
 

“So we’re watching the military situation very carefully. We don’t want any more surprises. Ike is very concerned about the Alpine Redoubt, or the National Redoubt, as the Germans are calling it. Since the British are heading north, we would be the ones to deal with it, along with the British and American armies coming up from Italy.”

“Goebbels has been all over the radio broadcasts about it.”

“Personally, I don’t believe a word of it. Aside from the propaganda, there is no hard evidence of any actual buildup in the Alps or defensive preparations.” Mack could tell from the fervor with which Prescott delivered this speech that he had made it many times before, but without success. “The biggest clincher of all is that they haven’t even named a top commander for this famous Alpine fortress. If this was the real deal, they’d be crowing about Guderian or Manstein or some other top general preparing the defenses.”

“Sounds logical. But you’re the minority opinion?”

“Yep, even though we have good intelligence that Ernst Kaltenbrunner, head of the SS in Austria, is going to Berlin next week in order to persuade Hitler to name him head of the National Redoubt and start construction! Which means they have nothing in place yet!”

Now Prescott was up and pacing, pointing with his cigar at Mack to make his point. “It also means that while we’re chasing ghosts in the Alps, the Germans could be organizing something else entirely that we could miss. That’s what really worries me. That’s why I’m here.”

“Colonel, that’s just the kind of thing that I was thinking about when you came in—”

There was a knock at the door. Lieutenant Jeffrey Rose rapped twice and opened the office door. “Briefing is starting up, Mack—oh, sorry to interrupt.”

“Colonel Prescott, this is Lieutenant Rose, CO of the HQ Reconnaissance Platoon and my guide to the other side.”
 

“Sir.” Rose came to attention.

“Relax, son. I’ve heard good things about you. Forceman?”

“Yessir, 1
^st
Special Services Force, until they split us up and I ended up here with some of my boys. Wasn’t much to do until Captain Mackenzie showed up,” Rose answered with a ready smile.

“He’s certainly kept you busy. The briefing?”

“In five, sir.”

“OK, let’s go. Mack, we’ll continue this discussion afterwards.”

He stood up and stopped both men. He spoke to Mack in a whisper. “I’m here to observe only—just a courtesy call. Do not refer to anything we’ve spoken about. Understood?” Prescott waited for his answer, blocking the doorway.
 

“Understood, sir.”

Prescott smiled. “Okay, let’s go. So, Lieutenant, I’m glad to hear someone still appreciates the Springfield rifle. I carried an ’03 back in the last war.” Mack followed behind as the Colonel and the Lieutenant chatted about their favorite rifle as if they were old pals.

Predictably, the meeting of G-2 Intelligence staffers took longer than planned. With the appearance of Colonel Prescott, each took their time with their own reports, trying to impress the SHAEF Intelligence Deputy and enjoying the sound of their own voice. Prescott began by taking copious notes, and then stopped when he realized he was only encouraging them to drone on. For a while he listened carefully, then grew bored, and finally irritated. No one had anything new to say. Each report was just a longer version of the written intelligence summaries he had reviewed two days earlier in London.

Mack watched Prescott, and knew he was quietly losing his temper, drumming his fingers on the table and looking vaguely disinterested. As the last G-2 officer summed up, Mack thought about not asking again about American uniforms, weapons, and chess code names. At the last second he decided to give it one more try, even if Prescott was about to get up and walk out. As he did, he could see Prescott’s expression change suddenly. By the look on his face, he was obviously no longer bored.

Mack’s questions were greeted by a collective groan. He had asked them so many times before that someone responded, “Give it a rest, Mackenzie!” Nobody had anything. The meeting broke up. Prescott remained in his seat.

“Mackenzie and Rose, stay here,” Prescott growled. The others halted, curious about Prescott’s changed demeanor. “The rest of you, dismissed!” Prescott say silently staring at the wall until all the others filed out.

“First, Captain Mackenzie,” said Prescott, visibly attempting to control his temper, “tell me why you never reported this matter to me, and then tell me everything about it. Everything!”

“Colonel, I did report it! Right after Rose and me went behind the lines and saw those paratroopers.”

“German paratroopers?”

“Yeah. They had taken a group of Americans prisoner. They stripped them of uniforms, weapons and dogtags. We both saw it, then we came back here, drove most of the night. I sent out a coded message to the Division G-2s asking if they heard about anything like that. Then I had a copy sent off to you at SHAEF—” Mack sat back, stunned at his own stupidity, remembering thinking about the message and collapsing into sleep instead. “Oh shit.”

“What, Captain?”

“I didn’t send it, Colonel, I’m sorry. I was about to, and then I fell dead asleep. When I woke up, I must’ve thought I had sent it with the others.”

“Colonel,” Rose broke in, “we had been up more than 30 hours, and had a long patrol behind the Kraut lines. I was dead tired when we got back here and hit the sack. Captain Mackenzie went into HQ and worked at his desk after I couldn’t even keep my eyes open.”

Rose’s words seemed to calm Prescott down somewhat. Mack looked as down in the dumps as anyone could. “I screwed up, sir.”

“Damn right, Captain. But I’ll kick your ass later. Now, let’s deal with the situation. What about the reference to chess code names?”

“That was going in this week’s report to you, Colonel. I have it mostly typed already. We just learned about it four days ago.”

“Cut the excuses, Mackenzie, and tell me about it!”

Between them, Mack and Rose got out the full story of their patrol and the interrogation of the SS officer, ending with his remembering the operational code name had something to do with chess.

“Lieutenant, everything I am about to tell you is covered by the Official Secrets Act, which means imprisonment or worse if you talk about anything I’m about to say.” He waited for Rose to acknowledge this, and then continued.

“I told Captain Mackenzie earlier that I was here because I’m concerned we might be missing another German surprise. Everyone is worried about Berlin or the Alpine Redoubt, or they’re overconfident and think the war is going to be over tomorrow.”

“And this has something to do with chess?”

“I’ll get to that. One reason the Jerries suckered us in the Bulge was that they maintained almost total radio security. All our radio intercepts and traffic analysis showed very little activity. They must’ve kept to landlines or transmitted orders verbally or by courier.”