Jumped-up spymaster, he thought, in the privacy of his own head. It wasn’t something he could say out loud. He had no doubt that someone would report him if he said something unpleasant about the Führer. He has no understanding of the military realities.
But orders were orders. He couldn’t delay any longer, not without being branded a mutineer himself. Holliston wouldn’t listen to any excuses, no matter how firmly they were rooted in military realities. To him, obstacles like rivers and mountains and snowfalls were just lines on a map. And little things like morale meant nothing to him.
And the hell of it, Felix reluctantly conceded, was that Holliston had a point.
The mutineers were desperate. They had to be desperate. And if they were desperate, they might just take themselves — and their equipment, and everything they knew — across the lines and straight into the rebel’s welcoming arms. Felix didn’t want to think about what would happen if the rebels started sweet-talking his men. The war had turned so sour that far too many of them would probably surrender, if they thought they wouldn’t be shot out of hand.
He turned as the flap opened. “Herr Obergruppenführer,” Sturmbannführer Friedemann Weineck said. “The infantry divisions have been readied for their task.”
“Good,” Felix said. It was hard to keep the annoyance out of his voice. Weineck sounded depressingly enthusiastic. Infantrymen shouldn’t be given such a task, one more suitable for butchers like the Einsatzgruppen than stormtroopers. “Order them to proceed as planned.”
“Jawohl.”
Felix shrugged as he turned back to the map. Crushing the mutineers shouldn’t take too long, assuming they didn’t turn and flee. But it wouldn’t stop the Führer from sending reinforcements, men who would probably trigger off the next set of mutinies. And then…
Briefly, very briefly, he considered just leaving and strolling across the front lines himself. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t do it — and he knew enough to convince the rebels that he should be left alive. But he’d sworn loyalty to the SS — and to the Reich — and he wasn’t going to break his oath so easily. He was an officer in the Waffen-SS and he would remain an officer in the Waffen-SS until he died.
I hope you flee, he thought, as he studied the map. He didn’t really hate the mutineers, even though they’d caused him a great deal of trouble. You don’t want to be there when the infantry arrive.
Hennecke honestly wasn’t sure what to do.
The mutiny — and everything that had come afterwards — had blunted his thinking for a couple of days. Eating rations, drinking alcohol, having fun with the nurses… he simply hadn’t had time to think about the future. But now, as the alcohol began to run out, he found himself irritatingly sober as the first light of dawn started to glimmer over the dark sky.
He still didn’t feel well, although he wasn’t sure if that was because of the radiation or the binge-eating. Rations were barely designed for human consumption in any case. His head hurt, although it was a vast improvement over the headache he’d had two days ago; his body throbbed, leaving him feeling as though he had a fever. And to think he was one of the healthiest people in the camp! Even after the guards had been shot or driven away, the wounded continued to die.
Of course they did, he thought, darkly. We are all going to die.
He’d sat one of the nurses down, midway through the second day, and interrogated her about radiation poisoning. Nothing she’d said, after he’d provided proper encouragement, had been reassuring. There was nothing that could be done, she’d explained; no magical cure that would save their lives. Even if they survived the first bout of radiation sickness — and that was unlikely — they’d be walking wounded for the rest of their lives.
He gripped his rifle as he rose, nodding towards the guards at the edge of the camp. Getting them out there had been one hell of a struggle, now that authority had broken down completely; he’d had to point out, as if he was talking to children, precisely what would happen if they were caught by surprise. Some of his mutineers had deserted, heading west to the rebels or east back to their homes, but he knew it was going to end badly. The rebels would kill them for their conduct in Germany Prime, the loyalists would hang them for mutiny.
And yet, here we are, all exposed, he thought.
He peered into the distance, half-expecting to see an armoured force advancing towards him as the day grew brighter. But there was nothing. There hadn’t even been any aircraft flying overhead. It was tempting to believe that they were completely alone, that they were completely cut off from both sides, but he knew better. By now, word had probably spread all the way to Germanica. He knew the Führer would not let their mutiny pass without a harsh response.
A scream echoed on the air, coming from one of the smaller tents. Hennecke shrugged, unconcerned. The nurses had known they were going to die, known right from the start that there was nothing that could be done for any of the wounded. He found it hard to care about their treatment, even if they were decent German girls. Besides, it wasn’t as if the mutineers could be executed more than once. The Führer would have some problems trying to fit all the charges on a single execution warrant, assuming there was an execution warrant.
Stupid bitch, he thought, as the screaming abruptly stopped. No one cares about you.
He shrugged as he started to walk from tent to tent, checking on the wounded. Three more men had died in their sleep, relatively comfortably. He sighed as he called a couple of other men to help drag the bodies out, strip them of anything useful and then dump them away from the camp. They really should dig a grave, he told himself, but he didn’t have the energy to do anything more than leave the bodies in the snow. He and the rest of the mutineers would be dead long before decomposing bodies became a real problem.
His hands started to ache as he turned and strode back towards the command tent. The nurse hadn’t been too clear on the why and how, but she’d been insistent that his aches and pains would only get worse. Unless he was very lucky… and even then, the damage had still been done. He had nothing to look forward to, save for a life of increasing pain and eventual death.
A tent opened. A stormtrooper emerged, buttoning up his fly. Behind him, Hennecke could hear whimpering from inside the tent. It should bother him to pass the women around from mutineer to mutineer, allowing them to slake their lusts before they died, but he had long since lost the ability to care. Death was coming for them, no matter what they did. They might as well have some fun before they died.
“Get some food, then join the guards,” he ordered. “Hurry.”
He turned… and then stopped as he heard a roar in the distance. Engines… coming from the east. He barked a command, then pulled a whistle from his belt and blew it as loudly as he could. The tents opened, revealing all the men who were fit to fight. Hennecke felt his heart sink as he took in the sight — twenty-seven men, half of them barely strong enough to walk — and then he started to bark orders. Any objections were rapidly buried by the sound of approaching engines…