The oldest man leaned forward, suddenly. “Have you heard the news?”
Horst and Kurt exchanged glances. “No,” Horst said, finally. “We’ve been on the road all day.”
He kept his face impassive with an effort. What news? Had someone assassinated Karl Holliston, and his successor had sued for peace? Or had the great offensive finally begun? Horst didn’t know many details — there had been a very real risk he would fall into enemy hands — but he knew the offensive should have started by now. The battle might still be underway.
“The rebels used atomic bombs,” the old man said. He looked as if he wanted to spit. “They’ve used atomic bombs on German soil!”
Horst stared at him in shock. Nukes? He couldn’t imagine Volker Schulze authorising the use of nuclear weapons, not on German soil. No matter how they were used, large swathes of the fatherland would be contaminated indefinitely. Horst had even heard that the ruins of Jerusalem and Mecca were still radioactive, even thirty-five years after the blasts. But no one had been interested in rebuilding the destroyed cities…
“They couldn’t have,” Kurt said. He sounded as shocked as Horst felt. “Sir…”
“They might have done,” Horst said, cutting him off. “What did they do?”
“They destroyed Warsaw,” the old man said. “The city wouldn’t surrender and they destroyed it.”
Horst nodded slowly, keeping his face under very tight control. It was a lie. It had to be a lie. And yet, there was something about it that bothered him. Volker Schulze wouldn’t use nuclear weapons, but Karl Holliston had already shown he was more than willing to devastate Germany from end to end if it was what it took to put him back in power. And there was no point in spreading such a story unless nuclear weapons had been used.
They want to get ahead of the rumours, Horst thought. And so they’re not denying that nuclear weapons were used, they’re just lying about who used them.
He considered the problem rapidly, hoping that Kurt would have the sense to keep his mouth shut. They couldn’t be seen denying the official version of the story, even if it was utter nonsense. Germany East was vast. Rumours would spread, of course, but Holliston would have plenty of time to shape them. And no one would want to believe that their Führer could unleash radioactive hell on German soil without a second thought.
And Warsaw?
Volker Schulze would not have authorised the destruction of an entire city, certainly not so quickly. Even Himmler hadn’t made the decision so rapidly — and Himmler hadn’t had to worry about targeting German civilians. Warsaw might have surrendered, once it was cut off from Germany East, or it might have been isolated and starved into submission. There was no need — there hadn’t been a need — to destroy the entire city. And smashing Warsaw would damage the road and rail networks the Heer would need for its advance.
No, the story made no sense. But the only reason anyone would spread the story was to explain the use of nuclear bombs.
Holliston must have used them to stop the offensive in its tracks, he thought. And that means our mission to Germany East is more necessary than ever.
“That is horrific,” he said, finally. “We saw the rebels commit many atrocities during the fighting, but using an atomic bomb on an innocent city is a whole new level of horror.”
The small boy — Horst hadn’t picked up his name — looked fascinated. “Is it true the rebel Untermenschen drank the blood of dead stormtroopers?”
“Johan,” one of the older men snapped.
Horst bit down the response that came to mind. Johan — Gudrun had a brother called Johan, he recalled — was a child. Death and devastation were abstract concepts to him, even though he’d been raised in Germany East. He probably wasn’t old enough to realise that death meant death, or that a war wound could destroy a person’s life… or that civilians, caught up in the maelstrom of war, could suffer worst of all.
“I’ll be going to war next year,” Johan continued. “My tutor says I have the best shooting skills in my class.”
“No, you won’t,” one of the girls snapped.
“You’re just jealous,” Johan said. “You don’t get to go to war.”
Horst rolled his eyes as Johan was marched out of the room. Had he been such an enthusiastic little shit when he’d been a boy? Probably — he’d certainly looked forward to the day he could join the Waffen-SS. Johan wouldn’t be fighting next year, Horst hoped; he wouldn’t be joining the SS unless Horst had vastly underestimated his age. But if the war raged forward and swept over the settlement, he feared that Johan would take his rifle and try to fight.
“His father is away at the front,” one of the older men said. “I beg pardon for his conduct.”
“It’s quite all right,” Horst said. “Your grandson?”
“Yes,” the older man said. “And all three of my sons are away.”
Horst felt a stab of pity that left him feeling numb. This was war; not glory, not conquest, but broken lives and dead bodies. Whoever won, countless families would be mourning their dead for decades to come. He knew women back in Berlin who had married their sweethearts before the men marched off to the front, only to discover that they were pregnant — and that their new husbands had been killed, long before their children were born. They wouldn’t face the stigma of being unmarried mothers — they had been married — but they wouldn’t have easy lives. Getting married again wouldn’t be easy.
Polygamy is legal in Germany East, he thought. But it isn’t in Germany Prime.
He shuddered as he peered into the future. Countless war widows, some with children, unable to support themselves as they struggled to bring up their families. Who would support them? The government had nearly bankrupted itself paying bonuses to women who won the Mutterkreuz. And that had been before the war…
Kurt elbowed him. He realised, suddenly, that the old man was still talking.
“I’m sorry,” Horst said. “I lost my train of thought.”
“I was wondering what you made of it,” the old man said. “And what you think we should do.”
“I don’t think this settlement will attract a nuke,” Horst said, after a moment. “It’s too small.”
He shrugged. The Americans were supposed to have millions of nuclear bombs and missiles, according to the Reich Council, but that struck him as rather unlikely. That would be enough tonnage to reduce the entire planet to rubble. No, no one would waste a nuclear warhead on a tiny little settlement in the middle of nowhere. But what would happen when civilians started fleeing the front?
“I think you should tighten your guard,” he added, after a moment. “People are going to start fleeing soon.”
And dying, he added, silently. Winter has arrived.
He shook his head as a middle-aged woman — probably Johan’s mother — carried a tray of bread and cheese into the room. The smells that followed her suggested that it was merely the first course. If the settlement was anything like the one Horst had grown up on, there would always be additional food for unexpected guests. But he couldn’t help wondering just how long that would last. Winter had arrived… and it might not be long before hordes of refugees started battering at the doors.