“Jawohl, Herr Field Marshal.”
Gunter nodded, leaving the dispatchers to issue the orders to the units in the field. The time-delay was a major headache; no matter how quickly he responded to any reports of trouble, events might well have moved on before his orders reached his subordinates. But he had faith in the junior officers leading the advance. They could cope with most matters without needing him to hold their hand.
But they don’t see the overall battle either, he reminded himself.
The map was updated, again. Blue arrows were lancing towards Warsaw, punching through the observed enemy defensive lines. It wouldn’t be long before the enemy CO had to make a choice between pulling into Warsaw — and being trapped — or retreating further east. Either way, Gunter thought, his counterpart would lose. Unless he had something clever up his sleeve…
“More contacts,” a dispatcher called. “Enemy forces are holding the line at…”
“Dispatch aircraft to deal with them,” another dispatcher snapped.
Gunter nodded to himself. The Waffen-SS was good, but he had enough mobile firepower to flatten them. If they chose to stand and fight, so much the better.
And if they don’t, he thought, we still have enough firepower to give them one hell of a mauling.
Hauptmann Felix Malguth kept a wary eye on his radar screen as the HE-477 flew over the battlefield. There were no SS aircraft in the air, according to the intelligence staff, but it would only take one jet fighter to ruin his day. And besides, the level of antiaircraft firepower the SS had drawn up to protect their lines was truly staggering. He’d seen two of his comrades blown out of the sky, one crashing before he’d had a chance to eject, simply for flying too close to one of their concentrations.
But that didn’t stop him playing a major role in the battle.
He smiled, coldly, as he altered course, following the orders crackling through the radio. The SS was making a stand, holding back the panzers as they fought to punch through enemy lines and advance towards Warsaw. Felix allowed his smile to grow wider as he caught sight of the enemy positions, then tipped his aircraft down towards the ground as he released his bombs. A chain of explosions billowed up underneath him as he levelled out, spinning his aircraft through a whole series of evasive manoeuvres. The SS’s antiaircraft rockets were pitiful, compared to the American Stingers, but they might still score a lucky hit.
Go get them, boys, he thought, as he saw the infantry run forward. Any survivors, he hoped, would be too badly battered to put up much of a fight. Don’t let them get away.
A lone farmhouse sat in the midst of a field, looking suspiciously innocent. Felix had learned a great deal over the last month about ‘innocent’ buildings — it looked, very much, as though the SS had turned it into a fortress. He pointed the nose of his aircraft towards the farmhouse and strafed it, watching with satisfaction as a pair of black-clad men fled the burning ruin and ran for cover. There was no point in trying to pick them off individually, he knew; he turned and headed north, looking for further targets of opportunity as he returned to his base. Once he had a new load of bombs, he’d be heading back out to find more targets…
…And hurting the SS, once again, for what they’d done to the Luftwaffe.
Andrew had been warned, very firmly, to stay at the rear as Generalmajor Gunter Gath led his staff through what had been the outer edge of the enemy’s defence line. He did as he was told, keeping his head down as the sound of shooting grew louder and louder. The roads were lined with destroyed vehicles, pushed aside by follow-up units as they headed into the combat zone. He couldn’t help wondering just how many of the destroyed panzers could be salvaged.
Panzer armour definitely appears to be somewhat overrated, he thought, silently composing the report he intended to write. He wouldn’t actually write it until he got back to the embassy, but it helped to plan it out in advance. German antitank rockets appear to be capable of stopping even their latest panzers, even when striking frontal armour rather than the sides or turret…
He smiled at the thought. The Germans had never succeeded, if MI6 was to be believed, in duplicating Chobham armour. And it looked, very much, as though the Brits were right. The panzers, once the most feared tanks in human history, had taken hideous losses to weapons their American and British counterparts would shrug off. But then, it wasn’t that much of a surprise. Britain and America had lavished billions of dollars on finding new ways to penetrate panzer armour, unaware — until it was too late — that they’d not only beaten the Germans, they’d moved so far ahead that the Germans didn’t have a hope of catching up.
A set of orderlies hurried past them, carrying stretchers as they headed west. The wounded, no matter their condition, were being moved all the way back to Berlin, where doctors and nurses were waiting to treat their wounds. Andrew had a nasty feeling that it wouldn’t be long before the medical staff were completely overwhelmed, if they didn’t start running out of supplies. The Reich hadn’t asked the United States for medical supplies…
They probably don’t want to admit just how badly they’re suffering, Andrew thought. He couldn’t blame the Germans for trying. If they looked weak, their American counterparts would try to take advantage of them. But it doesn’t take a genius to know that they are taking a beating.
He sucked in his breath as they walked into a village… or something he assumed had been a village. There were piles of debris everywhere, but no intact buildings. Even the church had been destroyed. It didn’t look as though the damage had happened recently — there were no fires — yet there was no way to know for sure. Even if the war ended tomorrow, even if Holliston shot himself in a bunker, the Third Reich would take years to recover. The United States would have plenty of time to solidify its position.
Hitler wouldn’t have gone down so easily, Andrew thought. It was easy to imagine the first Führer leading a final defence of Berlin, reverting to the infantryman he once was as British, French and American troops broke into the city. Hollywood had definitely thought so — there were plenty of movies where the Reich was defeated, either during the war or shortly afterwards. But instead he went mad and died.
He wrinkled his nose as he scented the burial pit. Dozens of bodies had been unceremoniously dumped in the hole, after they had been stripped naked. Their hands were tied behind their backs… he swore, quietly, as he saw the blue tattoos on their arms. SS men, not Heer or civilians. They’d been killed by their own side.
“Deserters,” Oberleutnant Sebastian Riemer said.
Andrew glanced at him. He looked sick.
“How do you know?”
“They’ve been stripping bodies ever since the offensive failed,” Riemer told him. “We’ve stumbled across plenty of naked bodies. But this… they’ve all been shot in the back of the head.”
Andrew nodded, slowly. He had no inclination to get any closer — the smell was thoroughly unpleasant, even though it was cold enough to keep the bodies from decomposing rapidly — but Riemer was right. The dead men — the murdered men — hadn’t been killed in battle, they’d been executed. And the only reason the SS would execute its own men was for desertion.