We are about to embark on a bombing campaign like nothing ever before seen and our goals are going to be accomplished. Perhaps many of us may die trying, but when the day is done, we will succeed.
Respectfully,
General of the Army,
George C. Kenney,
Chief of Staff, Strategic Air Command
“Well… it needs a little revising, but it’s a good start.”
“Screw you, Hal, and the horse you road in on.”
This is an insight as to how terrifying it must have been to work closely with an absolute ruler, sociopath and monster.
“Get in here you fool! Where is Vasily?”
“He just stepped out to relieve himself, Esteemed Comrade. My name is…”
“Be silent and get Beria on the line for me!”
“Yes Esteemed Comrade, I will try, but I do not know the number… wait, I found it here. It is ringing… still ringing… still…”
“ENOUGH!”
“Of… of… course sir. Comrade Stalin, to speak to Comrade Beria… Yes comrade, he is standing right hhhere… please comrade… I beg you… Comrade Beria for you, Esteemed Comrade.”
Stalin snatches the phone from the stammering aide, “Beria, clear the room. I want to talk to you alone… I do not have all the patience I once had, Lavrenti… Contact the British. You will make arrangements to transfer all the British prisoners onto captured freighters and send them to Attlee and Churchill. I don’t care about the details Lavrasha, just complete the task… why are you still talking…? I said NOW, Beria… you really don’t want this conversation to continue. Make this very public. I want the world to see how well you have taken care of our guests and you have taken care of them, haven’t you Lavrenti?… For your sake, I am glad to hear that.”
Stalin hangs up and turns on the hapless secretary, “You were supposed to leave the room. His words are dripping with malice. Now, get me Molotov! And hurry, before I make you a eunuch!”
“Hhhere… sssir…”
“Molotov, contact the British. We are sending all of their prisoners back to them. They are doing us no good but eating our food. Tell Attlee that it is a gift… a token to show sincerity for our former allies… you will know how to say it. We want them thinking about our proposal. Use the carrot and the stick, and that will drive a wedge between the English and the Yankees. If it does not work all we’ve lost is a few more mouths to feed. Yes, yes, Beria has assured me that they were well-taken care of as have been the American prisoners; no, just the British for now.”
Stalin hangs up the phone and walks slowly back to his desk. The aide can see that he is deep in thought and tries to slink out of the office. A creaking board seals his fate. Stalin slowly turns his head and eyes his prey, with all the humanity of a shark. The hapless man urinates in his pants. He has no future.
Sure, the Black Sea was a nice posting but it meant that he was far from his home and hearth, far from the arms of his true love and his reason for living… and he would live no matter what it took. No matter how many Americans he would have to kill… he would live to see his wife and son again. Five years of hell had not killed him yet and he was not going to let his guard down, not for a second.
The sea smelled of dead fish, but no matter. It was better than the rendering plant near his home; and yet, the memory of that smell meant home; it meant safety and happiness. Interesting how the smell of death could remind him of life.
“Hey Lavrenti. I heard we are to move soon to Albania.”
“And why would that be Nikolai?”
“Something about some torpedo ships or subs. We have to protect them on the way to the coast and make sure the little things get in the water. Pretty sophisticated little machines they say. The Germans used them near the end of the war and from what I was told they are pretty hard to detect; almost impossible, in fact. Most of them were lost at sea in the bad storms of the Atlantic. They should do quite well off the coast of Italy. Not too much foul weather there I am led to believe.”
“What would you know Nikolai? You’re from Tula and had never even seen salt-water until just a few months ago. What do you know about toy boats and torpedoes?”
“If you don’t want the latest news then close your ears. Hand me the knife. These potatoes are not going to peel themselves. We have to save the skins now and use them in soup.”
“My mother always did that anyway. It adds to the flavor. You need a little dirt mixed in with your soup to give you that ‘back-to-the-earth’ feeling. I heard they would kill for these potatoes back home. The last I heard food was getting harder to find. Rumor is that they are letting the peasants starve in order to feed the loyal comrades in the city.”
“Yes. Vasily told me he just got back from Poland, where they shipped much needed wheat in order to deceive the Poles that there was plenty of food coming from Mother Russia. Just to keep them still I suspect. He also said there was plenty of food and equipment coming back from France and even Germany. It seems that the German steel mills were still producing even though the Americans and British had bombed them day and night. The lucky bastards in the party leadership are even getting captured American food and goods. They try to change the packaging but you can still tell where they had originally come from.”
“Hell, I don’t care where it comes from just as long as it is here which it isn’t. Those capitalists are good at producing tasty foods and fine little gadgets. Once this war is over we’ll just have to teach them what is paramount and what is just foolishness.”
“We are lucky to be here Lavrenti, away from all the fighting and where it is warm. I do not miss winter in Tula. If I ever see snow again, it will be too soon. Give me white sand instead, eh Nikolai? Yes, white sand, and fresh fish that is not frozen and pulled from a hole in the ice.”
“Have you noticed all the planes leaving from the base? I wonder where they are going in such a hurry? It seems to be mostly the small, single-engine ones.”
“How could I not notice them? They start before dawn and keep leaving all day. We seem to be a kind of transit station. A few leave heading west and just as many land coming in from the west. It really takes time away from my nap time.”
“You do too much of that already Nikolai.”
Yuri was depressed. It had been six months since he had last seen his wife and child. The tracks of the dozer dug deep into the ground. They had to in order for the blade of the massive bulldozer to dig even deeper. Like some kind of giant insect, the bulldozer flattened uneven ground. This uneven ground was in Holland, but it was hard to believe that there was any unleveled ground in all of Holland, but there it was.
The ground he was evening out was needed in order to launch a massive number of aviation regiments’ worth of Soviet planes. These planes were destined to fly to Great Britain and one hoped, back again. Well, one side hoped they made it back, anyway. The other side definitely did not.
There should have been plenty of airfields left over from the last war but there weren’t. Four times the number of planes that took off from these fields in 1940 were scheduled to do the same now. They were going to attempt to clear the skies above the British Isles. They were expected to prevent any RAF aircraft from ever reaching for the skies again. They called it air-superiority.