In the end, somebody had an inspiration, The head of the ICRC, Doctor Wijnand, had arranged for some of the women and children who had resettled in Germany after their expulsion from New Schwabia to be flown in. They were known personally by some of the Gaza Germans, known by reputation to others. They had told their stories, good and bad. The bad stories had been more convincing than the good, nobody, especially the women, would invent such things about themselves. Those stories had the ring of truth about them and they’d given credibility to the good news. There had been no great massacres, despite the nuclear bombing, there was a home to go to. It was not a home that the people here would recognize but, they were going to go there. As soon as they could be screened and those who were wanted for crimes against humanity isolated. That was taking time, but, over the years, enough refugee Germans had been screened that the procedure had been refined to the point of being a fine art.
So, the Germans had decided to go home and the Americans had provided the transports that would take them there. One of the Cargomasters had finished loading and was closing its rear ramp while Father Schneider watched. It’s engines were already running and it started to taxi out to the runway, ready for take-off on its long haul to Warsaw, There, the refugees would be transferred to trains for the refugee processing center at Gorlilz, on the German-Polish border.
As the transport waddled down the taxiway, it passed a line of F-105 bombers and F-106 fighters that had been sent to cover the evacuation. Amongst the detachments of sleek jets was an equally sleek transport, a C-144 Superstream, only this one wore the markings of the Russian Air Force. That brought Father Schneider’s mind back to the person standing next to him. And a question he had to ask.
“Field Marshal, why did you do it, why did you lie to them all.”
Model looked at the Jesuit steadily for a moment. For that moment, he was about to crush the question with a wintry retort but he didn’t. For all that he’d told himself that he didn’t care what other people thought and didn’t need to explain himself to anybody, he suddenly realized he did want one person to know, he did want one person to understand even if they didn’t approve. And who better than a Jesuit, told under the seal of the Confessional?
“This is a Confession, understand Father? It will be covered by that secrecy and remain between us. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“At first it wasn’t a lie. Not knowingly at any rate. When we heard of the bombing it seemed like the whole of Germany had been destroyed, as it had been of course. Nobody could get news from there, communications were down, all we could get was that an immense fleet of American bombers had destroyed everything of value there.
“Some commanders sent back troops to find out what was happening, some troops deserted and tried to get back. The messages we got from them was that there was nothing left. Germany was a destroyed desert where nothing lived or would ever live again. We knew that Germany had “surrendered” but we assumed it was the surrender of a corpse “agreeing” to be buried. So we were trapped deep inside enemy territory with nowhere to go and nobody to turn to.
“Remember Father, the Russians might show mercy now but then they did not. Surrender meant slavery or death. Or both. Had there been something to go home to, we might have tried to fight our way back, to cut a path back home, but there was no home. Of course, now we know the worst news, the news that came back to us, was from those who hadn’t made it back to Germany, the ones who had given up and exaggerated the stories to explain their dereliction. The ones who had made it all the way back, stayed.
“So we tried to make our own homes in the territory we occupied. We set up our own little states, ruled them ourselves and tried to turn them into new Germanys. I was fortunate. My Army Group had ended the war in a good defensive position and with enough people to make a functioning state. Enough but only just. The countries that didn’t have enough people became nothing more than bandits hiding in the woods. I hoped that they would buy us enough years to become a new country, to become too strong for the Russians to defeat and they would decide to let us be.
“Then, after a few years, I began to learn the truth. That there were survivors in Germany, that a shadow of our home had survived. I knew if my people learned that, some, perhaps many, of them would try to get back. I knew that their chances of getting back were slight and in trying for that slight chance they would destroy the rest of us. Remember, we had only just enough people to create a functioning state. If any significant number left, we would also become nothing more than bandits hiding in the woods.
“So I kept the truth a secret, and once the truth was kept secret, it had to be guarded by a bodyguard of lies. I had to lie to prevent some jeopardizing the survival of alt. Of course, once the lie was started, it couldn’t be stopped, year on year it grew and took on a life of its own. As times changed and situations developed, I had to create new lies and invent new bodyguards to prevent the truth being told.”
“Why did you not just tell your people, let them decide? Lay the issues out for them so they understood what was involved?”
“Because I was their leader, it was for me to decide, not to desert my responsibilities.”
And that, thought Father Schneider was it. A leader either trusted those be saw as his people or he didn’t. In the final analysis, Model didn’t. However much they had deserved his trust, he hadn’t deserved theirs. Now, he never would, for there were a group of Russians coming. Two officers and a pair of enlisted men.
“Field Marshal Model? Major Putin of the Russian State Security. I am placing you under arrest for crimes against the Russian People. Crimes, I might say, that are almost without number.”
“Major, If I may get my bag from my office?”
“I think not Meld Marsha!. You will remain with us. One of my men will get your bags. We have an aircraft waiting to take you to Moscow for trial.”
Father Schneider watched as the German was lead away. It was ironic in a way, of all Model’s people, he was the one who would not be going home.
The Oval Office, The White House, Washington
“The South Africans have agreed Mister President. They’ll be sending troops into the two neutral zones starting within a week. The ICRC will be the supervisory authority for the refugee zone around Gaza, the British have agreed to do the same for the cultural preservation areas in the Nile Valley. We should be able to pull the Marines out very shortly.”
“How much is this costing us?”
“We’re agreed to supply the South Africans with military equipment and some economic and trade considerations. Actually, they’ll benefit us as much as them, there’s a storehouse of raw materials down there and the South Africans have been out in the cold for decades. They’re taking some of the refugees as well by the way, not all the Germans want to adopt the simple agrarian lifestyle. All in all, the economic impact on us will be pretty negligible. We got off lightly in that respect.
“Militarily, we’ve learned a lot. There’s a lot of things wrong with the M60 that need fixing. It turns out there is a design fault in the hydraulics, the whole system is shock-sensitive and the fluid is inflammable. Colt have an urgent contract to re-chamber the captured MG42s for our standard .276, the Marines are riding herd on that. They won’t make the same mistake we did last time we tried to copy the ‘42. We hope to issue the new gun within a year.
“Politically? This one has cost us.”
LBJ nodded bitterly and looked out of the windows. The anti-nuclear demonstrators were out again, their chanting could be heard faintly through the heavy glass ‘Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids will you kill today?’