Asbach held his breath. It was a partisan attack for sure. But if Lang moved his two halftracks to support the tiny force at the rear of the formation, he would reveal the position of the unit to the Night Witches overhead. Even as he thought the situation through, a runner slid in the snow beside him.
“Captain’s compliments and he’s leading his reaction force in on foot, doesn’t want to move his vehicles. Says the enemy is attacking in at least battalion strength and there are ski-troops mixed in with Partisans. They have mortars, machine guns and our rifles.”
Asbach nodded. “Tell Lang to drive the enemy back. Keep them away from our main position. If those Partisans have a radio and they report where we are, our friends up there will be having a field day.” The runner nodded and slid off to rejoin his units.
Asbach sighed gently. This was likely to be the final confrontation between him and the men on that accursed train. Once, in Monte Carlo, before the war, he had seen the combination of hope and despair on the face of a man who had placed his last few chips on a single number on the roulette wheel. He had watched that wheel spin with hope despite the odds against him. Against all common sense, he had been shocked when the turn went against him and he lost the last of his small wealth. Now, Asbach knew just how that man had felt.
“Any word from the Finns, Tage?”
“Much news, it will be public soon but we have had warning first. Helsinki, what’s left of it, told Stockholm less than an hour ago and they told me. Risto Heikki Ryti has resigned as President and Marshal Mannerheim is being elected to take his place. Ryti had to go, nobody would believe him, even if he did declare peace. The message from the Marshal is that Finland will accept the Russian peace terms as laid down in our last meeting, harsh though they are. He believes German troops in the north of the country will retreat to Norway but it will be necessary for the Canadians and Russians to deal with those in the South.”
“I am surprised, I’d thought the Finns were certain to reject those terms.” Loki relaxed in his chair, spinning it slightly from side to side as he absorbed the news. “And Finland is out completely?”
“Completely.” Tage Erlander had also found it hard to believe that Finland would collapse. “It was the bombing that did it, that and the way their Motti tactics failed against the Canadians. Their success against the Russians and the lack of any real strikes against the homeland had persuaded Ryti that carrying on the war was risk-free. As he saw it, Finland had everything to gain by carrying on and nothing to lose. Then, the Canadians cut up the Finnish Army and the Americans burned Helsinki down. Win or lose, Finland was going to get hurt and hurt badly.”
“How many died in Helsinki? Anybody know yet?”
“Final total? No, nobody will know for days or weeks. The estimates are rising every hour. It was 10,000 at dawn, now it is 20,000 and still it rises. The Finns had no real air raid precautions in place, not against the sort of raid the Americans launched. Oh, they had antiaircraft guns, searchlights, all those things and sirens to warn people. But all they’d experienced before was some Russian planes scattering a few light bombs. Their buildings had strong cellars and, as usual, people went there to hide from the bombs. They died there, roasted by the fires. The only ones who lived were the ones who started to run early and kept running. It is rumored the American had night fighters over the city and they strafed the refugees as they ran.”
Loki snorted. “Not likely. I’d guess they were attacking the anti-aircraft guns to protect the bombers.” And I know the mind behind this thought Loki, not knowing how completely wrong his belief was. “Doesn’t matter though. Finland’s out, that’s what matters. Tage, we need to get this through to Washington and Moscow as quickly as possible. Does your embassy still have its circuits open?”
“Of course.”
“Good, and I will tell the Swiss government.”
Haven’t I just done that? thought Erlander then dismissed the idea as unfair. The banks weren’t the same thing as the Swiss Government, not even this one. Not quite anyway. “Well, we wanted the Americans to intervene and they did. Just not the way we thought.”
“True Tage. But we wanted them to secure a less severe peace for the Finns, not force the original down their throats. You know, when this is all over, all of the Nordic countries are going to have to think about this very carefully. If the Russian Bear is on the move up your way and the Americans will back those moves, it doesn’t look very good. If you don’t hang together.”
“We will all hang separately.” Erlander half-chuckled at the quotation. “But Danes, Norwegians, Swedes hanging together? That would be a first time. And to have the Finland in there as well. Or what is left of Finland. It will not be a happy or comfortable alliance.”
“So much worse than being Russian provinces?” Loki was irritated. The petty quarrels of his original homeland in the face of impending disaster rankled him. “Look, Tage, we all share much more than our differences suggest, you know that. Scandinavia has to put up a united face when this damned war ends or it’ll get eaten alive. You know that as well.”
Tage Erlander sighed, this strange Swiss banker was right, the times when Scandinavia could remain absorbed in its own petty affairs while the rest of the world ignored it were fading fast. This war would end and Sweden had better be prepared for it. Otherwise, the fate of Helsinki could be repeated many, many times. Then, he asked himself the one question that he had always been afraid to ask. Just how far would the Americans go to bring Nazi Germany down?
Watching him, Loki saw the message sink home. He had tried before to bring Scandinavia to the center of the world stage. His efforts had been a disaster. Because Stuyvesant had played his own game as usual and wrecked everything. The thought seethed through Loki’s mind and made him want to slam his fist down on his desk. It had so nearly worked before …. Then he forced himself to calm down. This time it would be different, this time Stuyvesant owed him for all the intelligence material he was relaying back. This time Stuyvesant was in a war that he couldn’t win without Loki’s help. Now, when Loki tried to get Scandinavia united again, it would work. Because that was the price of his aid to the Americans.
There had been a time when artillerists had fought their guns to the barrel. Gunners would fight cavalry and infantry hand-to-hand around their guns to prevent the disgrace of the artillery pieces being lost. When indirect fire had become the normal way of doing things and the guns had been positioned miles behind friendly lines, it had seemed those days were gone. Russia had quickly dispelled that idea. First tank thrusts that penetrated the defenses and suddenly emerged kilometers behind friendly lines had brought the guns back into the front line. Then had come the partisans whose sudden strikes could turn a safe haven into a battlefield without warning. Gunners had had to fight their guns to the barrel again and know how to use the weapons that kind of fighting required.
Sergeant Heim had been in Russia since the heady days of 1941. Then, the Heer had driven through western Russia, scattering the Soviet Army before them. For a while the huge encirclements brought in prisoners by the tens or hundreds of thousands and cities had fallen with the regularity of a ticking clock. It had seemed like the war really would be over by Christmas. But the Heer hadn’t made it to Moscow by the time the winter arrived. In the snows of that first winter, the Soviet counter-offensive had driven the Germans from the gates of Moscow. That’s when Heim had learned that artillerymen still had to fight like infantry sometimes. The lesson had stayed with him in the years that came next, the fall of Moscow in 1942, the last German drive forward, the arrival of the Americans, the descent of the war into a bloody, futile deadlock. As every year rolled by, the gunners had had to protect their guns. Now they had to do it again.