So were the American men, Jack thought, but declined to add. “When it happens,” Lis continued, “it will be in a lovely room with a real bed and with a man I love very deeply.”
“Anyone I know?” Jack had asked with mock innocence.
“Quite possibly,” she had answered impishly. “I just adore Captain Dimitri. He’s so manly; don’t you think?”
Before he could reply, she had kissed him, fully and deeply.
Then, miracle of miracles, the next mail drop had brought Jack letters from his parents and his brother. All was well on the home front although everyone was shocked by the sudden and tragic turn the fighting had taken. They loved him, they were concerned for him, and they were all praying for him and wanted him to come home. The world knew that, along with the fighting now raging up and down Germany, there was a bunch of lonely GIs in Potsdam and all of America was concerned for them. Potsdam had become a symbol of American pride and resistance. He had sat there and wished there was some way he could tell his family that he loved them as well, but while mail could come in, it could not go out. He had missed so many opportunities in the past. Sometimes he had been such a stupid kid.
Unbidden tears had welled up and he had commenced to cry in a way he hadn’t since he had been a small child. Elisabeth had started crying as well, and they had held each other tightly for comfort and protection from the rest of the world. When they stopped crying, they still held on to each other. Jack had never felt as close to anyone in his life as he had to her in those moments. He knew he would remember them forever. However long that was.
“Lieutenant?” It was Bailey again, snapping him out of his reverie. The binoculars were at his eyes but he wasn’t seeing a thing. Hell, he had been so deep in thought the whole Russian army could have sneaked up on him. At least Bailey had been alert.
“Yeah, Sarge.”
“While you were watching the Russians so intently, we got a message from the captain. We’re being relieved in a couple of minutes.”
Logan wondered if Bailey was being sarcastic about his being intent, and the twinkle in Bailey’s eyes confirmed it. “Sergeant, there are a lot of Russians out there and I didn’t want to miss any.”
“Sure. But we are pulling out.”
Logan scratched his beard. Not shaving was another result of being cut off from the rest of the army. They were out of razor blades and just about everyone was growing a beard. Elisabeth thought he looked like a Viking. She called him Jack the Red. “I don’t think I’ll miss this place.”
“Me either,” Bailey said. “You think Elisabeth will be waiting for us?”
Logan rattled around, gathering his equipment. “I hope so.” He understood what the sergeant meant. Elisabeth and Pauli had started to hang around the platoon, and the boy had been adopted by the soldiers while they all tried to talk with the skinny, dark-haired waif with the bad complexion who always responded graciously. The platoon had adopted her as well, although Logan thought their collective feelings weren’t quite as paternal as they were for Pauli. At any rate, they seemed to like her and weren’t jealous of his much closer relationship with her. Bailey said it was just so nice to be able to talk to a woman who spoke English, even though it was with a screwy Canadian accent.
Relieved, the platoon snaked their way back to the main defensive line and the bunker they had built more than a month ago. At first it had been a chore; now it was their home. He settled his gear in the bunker and exited through the rear door. As Jack had both hoped and expected, Pauli and Elisabeth were waiting, and she had a big smile for him.
True to Soviet military tradition, the headquarters of the Russian field armies was closer to the front lines than its allied counterparts would normally be. Soviet generals felt they had to smell gunpowder to show bravery to their soldiers. This often led to higher than ordinary casualty rates among Russian generals.
The city of Brunswick, only thirty miles from the Elbe River, had fallen two weeks earlier to the Red Army and was still a smoking ruin. It was less than fifty miles from Brunswick to the Leine River, the next natural obstacle the Russians would have to cross on their way to the Weser, the Rhine, and Antwerp. In the distance, the sound of artillery could be heard.
Marshal Zhukov looked at the numbers the report indicated and was appalled. The fight for Brunswick had cost nearly fifty thousand casualties. It was small comfort that they had badly mauled the American 19th Corps. The Soviets had been suckered into a street fight for a city the Yanks had never intended to hold for long. It was the result of his second in command, Vassily Chuikov’s relative inexperience in handling large forces. The city should have been surrounded and left to rot like Potsdam. Chuikov was a good general and he would learn. He would have to. Zhukov was learning as well. The Americans were nasty fighters.
“This cannot happen again,” Zhukov said firmly.
The smaller, darker-haired Chuikov nodded glumly. “I thought we could trap them. I was wrong. But”-he sighed-“ wouldn’t it have been wonderful to have bagged four American divisions, one of them airborne?”
Grudgingly, Zhukov had to agree. It was probably something he might have attempted had he been put in Chuikov’s position. The victory that didn’t happen would have punched a great hole in the American lines and bloodied them terribly, perhaps badly enough to make them pull out of the war. However, it hadn’t worked out that way. The American general had sniffed out the trap and led Chuikov by the nose through the streets of Brunswick while he and his corps escaped largely intact. Even the lightly armed American 17th Airborne Division that Chuikov had so badly wanted to capture had only been wounded, not mortally damaged. It had been a mistake, but Chuikov was an aggressive bulldog who would fight again.
“No more,” Zhukov said. “We cannot afford victories at such cost. A few more of these and we will have no army.”
Chuikov accepted the rebuke in silence.
“Now,” Zhukov said, “we must continue to plan for the future as Stalin and Stavka have defined it. The Americans have found our Achilles’ heel and attacked it with great success. As you are aware, the oil situation has gone from merely bad to critical.”
“Marshal Zhukov, I have already instituted a program of hoarding and rationing. I am confident that we will have enough for this campaign.”
“As am I, but only if dire steps are taken. I have ordered all available fuel reserves shipped to you. Other armies will be allocated enough for defensive actions, but not enough to go on the offensive.”
“Koniev and Rokossovsky will not be happy.”
Zhukov flared. “I do not give a fuck if they are happy or sad! I only care that Operation Red Inferno is a success. I do not care if their soldiers starve or have to walk into battle carrying spears. I only want to drive the Americans out of Germany and take Antwerp!”
Zhukov brought his anger under control. “I am fairly certain that the Americans will withdraw quickly to the Weser when the Leine is crossed. The battles from the Elbe to here have given them ample time to prepare their defenses along the west bank of the Weser. I think you will advance rather quickly for the next few days after crossing the Leine. No, that is not my main concern.”
“Then what is, comrade?”
“The war in the air, Vassily. I am afraid we are losing it. I had feared that would happen. We have been losing planes and men at a faster rate than I thought would occur. Stavka thought, and I agreed, that it would take the Americans far longer to move additional planes from the Pacific than it has. Worse, the fuel situation will be more critical for the air force than it will be for us.”
Chuikov found neither statement hard to dispute. Since realizing that fuel depots were high-priority targets for the Allied planes, he had introduced a system of fuel distribution within his armies, which, although less efficient than depot storage, did have the benefit of disbursing the precious commodity. Some of his commanders had carried it to an extreme. They were reintroducing the expedient used in the early days of the war of strapping fifty-five-gallon drums of fuel to the outside of the tanks as a ready reserve. Many tanks carried more than one drum since no one was really certain when the next shipment would arrive from the scattered division or corps reserves.