“Marshal. There is something I must say. In the Wehrmacht we believed we had kept our hands clean of the worst of this war. That the things spoken of in whispers were the doing of the SS and units like Dirlwangers. I cannot believe that any longer. Our hands are as stained as any; we believed otherwise because we wanted to and denied what our own eyes told us. The ultimate responsibility for what happened in Army Group Vistula is mine. I accept that responsibility and am prepared to, no, I insist on, being judged accordingly.”
“You will be, Field Marshal Rommel. But speaking for myself, brought up as a Polish Catholic, I will say realization of guilt is the first step towards redemption. And this war has caused enough guilt for all of us to share.”
Rommel relaxed. It was true, confession did ease the soul. He felt the crushing weight that had been squeezing his spirit out of him lift slightly. “Marshal, may I ask a personal favor? My family lived in Mannheim. Is it possible to find out from the Red Cross if any have survived?”
“I will ask, Erwin, I will ask. But I counsel you to drive any hope from your heart. The Americans know destruction well and practice it with skill and efficiency. For them, destruction is just a job, something to be done as quickly and as completely as possible. I believe Mannheim is in the center of the Ruhr industrial belt. If that is so, there will be nothing left. Nothing at all.”
HMS Xena, At Sea, Off Rotterdam
“Trim's on Sir. Ready to dive.” The Outside Wrecker, who trusted officers about as far as he could carry the submarine's main batteries, ran his eyes over the array of valves. What should be shut was shut and what should be open, which wasn't much, was open. All was right with the world.
“Take her down, 100 feet. Then watch the gauge. I want this boat so finely balanced she moves when a fish swims under us.” Commander Fox thought for a second. “Sonar, keep your ears open. If we hear revolutions anywhere near us, I want to know about it pronto. No matter what else is happening.” Fox reflected that too many submarines had been run down by surface ships because the officer of the watch had been fixated on getting the trim right.
“Swampy, I think we're over your undersea river now. I propose to get trimmed at 100 feet then we'll start taking depth soundings. Once we're over the old river bed, I'll put a tiny negative trim on her and we should settle down slowly. If you're theory is right and there's a fresh water stream down there, we should be able to sit on the interface between fresh and salt and let the flow carry us.” Fox glanced around the control room. “I want an honest answer. Swampy. Is the contamination down here enough to hurt us? Just how bad is it? I do have hopes of a litter of little Foxes you know,”
“Honestly, the water pollution isn't as bad as we feared. It’s short-lived and the contamination is fading as fast as it’s spreading. It’s the heavy stuff that's the worry and the problem is chemical toxicity as much as anything else. The figures I got so far indicate that the contaminated area is at about ten times background. Everything's radioactive you know, it’s a question of how much more so than normal. We're safe inside Xena although I wouldn't like to make a living swimming in the waters around here. Six months ago it was a little over eight times background. So my guess is that the initial surge of contamination is over. The amount coming down is nasty but its doing little more than keep up the levels as they fade from decay.”
“How soon can we eat the fish?” Fox knew the North Sea fisheries were desperately needed to help feed the population of the UK; Britain was so desperately short of food that the fisheries would be worth their weight in gold - if only the fish was safe to eat. Which, going by experience to date, it was not.
”That's a harder question. One of the contaminants is an iodine product that the fish preferentially absorb. We're going to have to catch some fish samples and take readings. If we can organize that, it would be a big help. But, my guess is that it could be a very, very long time before we see North Sea fish again. Now, let’s try and find my undersea river.”
Grenade Pits, Chulachomklao Military Academy, Bangkok, Thailand
“That's not good enough. Nowhere near good enough. You must do better.”
That could be the motto of the day, thought Officer Cadet Sirisoon Chandrapa na Ayuthya. Nowhere near good enough, she would have to do better. The day had started on the rifle ranges, shooting their Mausers for the first time. She'd laid down on the firing line and then felt the thumps as Sergeant Major Manop had kicked her legs into the approved firing position, none too gently she'd noted. It hadn't made matters any better when she'd noted that the “approved” position gave a much steadier hold on the heavy rifle.
She'd dropped a round into the receiver closed the bolt, taken careful aim and fired. The rifle had kicked savagely back into her shoulder and she'd seen stars as her erect thumb had jammed into her eye. Manop had laughed at her and explained why it was better to do things properly. The bullet had missed the targets completely of course, only the gods knew where it had gone. She'd tried again, keeping her thumb down and the rifle tucked into her shoulder. That shot had hurt less, but it was still a complete miss.
“You're snatching at the trigger. That pulls the rifle down and to the left. Squeeze the trigger, don't pull it. Equal pressure throughout the hand. Now try a clip of five.”
She had taken the stripper clip, thumbed the rounds into the chamber and started firing. No sign of the stick with a red circle on the end that marked the position of a hit. After the fifth shot had thrown up a spray of dirt from the embankment in front of the targets, a stick had appeared but it had a white flag on it, being waved in the traditional 'surrender' gesture. She'd laughed despite the sting. Behind her Manop had quietly picked up the telephone to the target spotters. “Cut it out boys. Its her first day on the range. None of the others has done any better.”
She'd fired off fifty rounds, the last few actually hitting the white target although scattered all over it. Then she'd taken her position behind the firing line while the next group of cadets started their shoots. Even with her little experience it had been easy to spot the mistakes they'd made and realize how much she had to learn. Then, they'd returned their rifles to the racks and set out to the grenade pits.
Once into the secluded area, they'd each been given a red-painted dummy grenade to throw. Up the range was a white line that marked the minimum acceptable range for a grenade throw. The cadets had thrown their dummy grenades then looked to see how they had done. There were a cluster of red blobs around the white line - and four well short of it. Nobody needed to be told who had made the short throws.
Beneath his impassive expression, Sergeant Major Manop was a deeply worried man. The four women cadets were studying harder than any of their coursemates, indeed harder than any he could remember. Their scores on tests and trials were high, well above average, and were particularly good in tasks that needed attention to details. Their equipment was clean and well-maintained. The problem was they were nowhere near the physical standards required, in fact, in virtually every task or exercise that required sheer physical strength; the women were coming out at the bottom. Not just by a small margin either, they were far short of the standards required and the specified physical training wasn't going to make up for that.
The instructors had discussed the matter at length. One had taken a day's leave to go to Bangkok and consult with the martial arts experts and fitness professionals down there. He'd come back with a revised training schedule and some insights into what the problems were. It wasn't just that the women were weaker; it was that their strength was all in the wrong places. It sounded trite, but women were different and the Army-specified training regime didn't allow for that.