The tent was crammed with the dead or dying.
Field Marshal Gunter Voss gritted his teeth as he took in the horrific sight. The Heer had worked hard to care for battlefield wounded, but there were so many injured after the nukes that the system had broken down completely. Dead bodies occupied beds while men, their faces blackened and burnt, lay on the hard earthen floor, struggling desperately to keep breathing. The handful of doctors and nurses — and a number of volunteers from Berlin — were completely overwhelmed, running from bed to bed in hopes of finding someone they could help before it was too late.
He cursed as he heard a man calling for his mother; no, several men calling for their mothers, as if they knew — on some level — that they were about to die. It wasn’t uncommon, he knew from bitter experience, but he had never grown used to it. Dying men should be allowed to retain some of their dignity, not lose everything in a desperate cry for help that would never come. A young nurse, tears running down her face, tended to a man who couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than her, his eyes hidden behind a makeshift cloth wrap. He would have been blinded, perhaps, simply by being unlucky enough to be looking in the wrong direction when one of the weapons detonated. There was nothing anyone could do for him, Gunter knew. Even before the civil war, the blind had quietly been encouraged to go into isolated nursing homes, their ties with their families broken before they were moved to the camps and killed. Now…
I’m sorry, he thought.
It would take weeks, perhaps, to impose order on the chaos, weeks they didn’t have. He’d been told that the enemy were in just as bad a state; he hoped — prayed — that that was actually true. His forces were in no condition to resist an offensive, even though they’d hastily re-manned the defences around Berlin and summoned reinforcements from further west. If the enemy did manage to mount an attack there would be a bloody slaughter.
He didn’t want to spend any time in the tent, but he forced himself to move from bed to bed, saying a few words to each of the wounded men. It was a duty, he’d learned during his training, that senior officers had to assume… but no one, not even in the worst stages of the South African War, had had to visit so many wounded. There hadn’t been casualty figures so high since the Second World War, when battles had gone on for days or weeks on end. Now… he didn’t even know how many men were dead. The figure kept rising all the time, mocking his dreams of ending the war quickly and cleanly. God alone knew when — or ever — they would be able to resume the offensive.
A nurse gave him a nasty look as he promised a young man he’d get better, knowing it was a lie. Even the best medical treatment in the Reich wouldn’t be able to repair his body or replace his missing legs. Gunter felt a stab of guilt as he took the hint and walked out of the tent, catching sight of a crying nurse being comforted by an older woman. He didn’t really blame her for breaking down. No one had really expected so many casualties in one battle.
And what are we going to do, he asked himself, when the supplies run out?
He knew the answer, even though he didn’t want to admit it. Supplies had to be reserved for the lightly wounded, the ones most likely to recover. It was logical, but it was cold and harsh and thoroughly unpleasant. And who knew if some of the wounded would have a chance, if they received proper care? But there was no time to give them proper care.
His fingers touched the pistol at his belt. It was tempting, so very tempting…
…But he knew his duty. He couldn’t give up, not now. But, in all honesty, he didn’t know what else they could do.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Autobahn #34, Germany East
6 November 1985
“I think we have a problem,” Kurt muttered.
Horst nodded in agreement. The snowstorms had stopped for the last two days, much to his relief, but travel was no safer. They’d been warned, several times, that bandit attacks were on the rise; now, a large checkpoint was blocking the road, forcing all vehicles to slow down and wait to be inspected. And, with nearly forty armed stormtroopers within view, it was unlikely that anyone would try to drive straight through the checkpoint.
“Looks that way,” he said. There was no way to reverse course, even if it wouldn’t have tipped off the stormtroopers that they had something to hide. “We’ll just have to go through it.”
Kurt frowned. “Is this normal here?”
“Sometimes,” Horst said.
He scowled. The radio broadcasts hadn’t been very informative — the official story had changed several times — but it was clear that civilians were being ordered to stay in their homes and avoid travel. Normally, Germanica would have been obeyed without question; now, with the threat of nuclear war hanging over their heads, it was quite possible that people were voting with their feet and heading east. And anyone caught in a checkpoint would be in deep shit. They’d probably be marched off to the labour camps before anyone could protest.
“We’ll just have to hope our papers still pass inspection,” he said, as they inched closer to the checkpoint. “There’s no way out now.”
The stormtroopers were doing more than inspecting papers, he noted; they were searching cars and trucks thoroughly, while keeping a sharp eye on the uneasy passengers. It wasn’t uncommon for people moving from Gau to Gau to carry items for the black market — he had a feeling that they weren’t the only ones who had something to hide. A pair of young men were marched off under armed guard, their vehicle driven through the checkpoint and dumped on the far side of the barricade. Deserters? Smugglers? Or merely people trying to head east without a permit? There was no way to know.
“They’re depressingly professional,” Kurt said. “Is that a bad thing?”
“Probably,” Horst grunted.
He scowled at the thought. Someone more interested in groping young women than inspecting papers would be useful, but Kurt was right. The stormtroopers ahead of them were clearly professional. He glanced back, silently calculating the odds of making a dramatic escape, but it was still hopeless. Even if they weren’t shot trying to escape, the entire country would be roused against them. They’d have to be abandon the car and make their way east on foot, which would be a death sentence when the snow started to fall again.
“Don’t do anything that might attract their attention,” he warned, as the car in front of them moved into the inspection zone. A small family — an old man, two middle-aged women and a trio of young children — clambered out as soon as their vehicle came to a halt. “Let them see us as completely harmless.”
He winced helplessly as he watched the family get searched, followed by their car. He’d often praised life in Germany East, yet the downside was right in front of him. Authority was arbitrary all over the Reich — and corruption a fact of life — but it was worst in Germany East, where bandit attacks were depressingly regular. Gudrun’s protest movement would never have gotten off the ground in Germany East, no matter how difficult it had been to gain traction in Germany Prime. She would have been lucky if she’d only been marched east and married to a farmer along the unsettled zone.
“Here we go,” he muttered. “Be careful.”
The stormtroopers looked alert as he climbed out of the car, but it didn’t look as though they were suspicious. He passed his papers to the leader without comment, then waited patiently as the car was searched from end to end. There was no danger of them finding anything, he knew; there was nothing there to find, save for their picnic lunch and several flasks of hot coffee. Their uniforms were getting alarmingly rank by now, even though he’d had them washed and dried at one of the settlements.