And there’s a war on, he thought, sourly. The enemy wasn’t that far from the gates. Berlin was practically under martial law. We don’t have time to worry about the police.
“Good luck,” he said. Kurt shot him a betrayed look. “We’ll bring her back.”
Herman gave him a ghost of a smile. “Have many children,” he said. “And name one after me.”
“Father,” Kurt protested.
“And you find a wife too,” Herman added. “Someone… someone more suited to the modern world.”
Horst kept his expression under control. Generations of German men — and women — had been raised to believe that a woman’s place was in the home, that the husband and father was the head of the household and his word was law. But Herman’s daughter had triggered a revolution and his wife had started to organise political meetings of her own. He couldn’t blame Herman for being confused, for wanting something else. The world had moved on, leaving him behind.
He still loves his family, Horst thought. But he doesn’t know how to relate to them any longer.
“Yes, father,” Kurt said. “If I make it home, I will find a wife.”
Herman nodded. He looked at Horst for a long moment, then turned and strode out of the chamber. Horst understood, all too well. Herman blamed him. Gudrun wouldn’t have been kidnapped if she hadn’t been with him…
There’s enough blame to go around, he told himself. And none of it is very helpful.
“Get some rest,” he ordered. He glanced at his watch, meaningfully. “It starts getting dark around 1800. We have to get through the lines before then.”
“I understand,” Kurt said. He sounded distracted. “Is he out of his mind?”
Horst bit down a whole string of unhelpful answers. “He was a soldier — an experienced soldier,” he said, finally. It was true. “And we need as many of them as we can get.”
He kept the rest of his thoughts to himself. Herman was fit for his age, but he was no match for an SS stormtrooper. There was no way he’d be able to keep up with the young men for long, although his experience might give him an advantage. But the provisional government was very short of experienced manpower. Herman might be needed, if only to teach lessons to the younger soldiers. They were going to war against one of the most formidable military forces in existence.
And he doesn’t want to come home, Horst thought. The modern world has no place for him.
He shook his head. It smacked of defeatism to him. Giving up was, perhaps, the only true sin. He’d certainly been taught never to give up during basic training. And yet, he understood the impulse all too well. Did he fit into the brave new world any better than his father-in-law?
“Go get some rest,” he repeated. There would be time to worry about the future after Gudrun was rescued and the war was over. “I want to be on our way at 1700.”
“Jawohl,” Kurt said.
Chapter Six
Berlin, Germany Prime
29 October 1985
“Drink your coffee,” Ambassador Samuel Turtledove said. “There are people down there” — he jabbed a finger towards the window — “who would kill for that cup.”
Andrew Barton nodded in agreement. Berlin was no longer on the verge of starvation, thanks to vast quantities of food being trucked in from the west, but supplies of everything from coffee to baby clothes were running short. The American embassy was about the only place in Berlin, save for a handful of government offices and military bases, where real coffee was freely available. It wasn’t very good coffee, he had to admit, but it was better than the powdered grit Berliners were being served these days.
“I’ve had worse,” he said. “The… slop… I had to drink on the front lines… no wonder the German soldier is so feared.”
Turtledove smiled, then leaned forward. “Washington has been breathing down my neck for a full report,” he said. “What do you make of the war?”
Andrew took a moment to gather his thoughts, sipping his coffee slowly. “I think in some ways we were overestimating the fighting power of the German military,” he said. “And in others, we were underestimating it.”
General William Knox lifted his eyebrows. “You think we were wrong?”
“The Germans haven’t fought a peer power since the final push against Russia, forty years ago,” Andrew said. “We had to use a lot of guesswork when we calculated how the average German division would stack up against its American or British counterpart. And a lot of those guesses might have been wrong.”
He placed the cup on the desk and leaned back in his chair. “Their panzer divisions didn’t strike me as anything like as fearsome as their reputation suggests,” he said. “They move fast over open terrain, but even relatively small opposition slows them down remarkably. Their designers insist on having a radio in each panzer, a development they pioneered, but I had the impression that their technology is primitive and easy to disrupt. And their armour has not advanced at the same speed as their antitank weapons.”
Knox frowned. “You think their panzers are inferior to our tanks?”
“I think so,” Andrew said. “I’m no expert, sir, but I believe our armour is better — our antitank weapons are better too.
“The same seems to be true for their aircraft,” he continued, after a moment. “Their air force was badly shaken by the uprising, then by the war, but it doesn’t seem to have the same flexibility as ours. Their ground-based air defence units are grossly inferior to ours; their flak guns are of very little value unless the aircraft fly low, their rockets have a nasty tendency to lose their locks and fly off in random directions. The best system they have, as far as I can tell, is an oversized warhead designed to explode close to an aircraft.”
He took a breath. “Technology-wise, we are at least ten years ahead of them,” he concluded. “And I think their military would have taken a pasting if we had ever wound up fighting a shooting war.”
Knox frowned. “That’s not what we were told to expect.”
“No,” Andrew agreed. “And there is a reason for that, sir.
“They are tough, very tough. Their junior officers have less flexibility than I was told, but they are still good at spotting opportunities and thrusting through chinks in the enemy’s defences. Their NCOs are very good at training up young men under fire, sir; I think they’re actually tougher than ours, even if their tech is inferior. And they understand the tech at their disposal. The average panzer can be repaired, more or less on the go, by its crew.”
“That’s true of our tanks too,” Knox objected.
“Not for everything,” Andrew countered. “There are things that have to be sent back to the shop — or merely discarded.”
He shook his head. “Overall, sir, their toughness may be enough to make up for their technological inferiority.”