Hitler’s War

"What else would they be, if the government arrested them?" Hans-Ulrich exclaimed.

Sergeant Dieselhorst's cigarette jerked again. "That's right. You're the milk drinker." He might have been reminding himself. "Sometimes people get arrested because they tell friends the truth. Sometimes they get arrested because somebody with pull doesn't like them. And sometimes, by God, they get arrested for no reason at all."

"Dirty traitors tried to overthrow the Fuhrer and stab us in the back again!" Rudel said hotly. "Where would we be if they'd got away with it?"

"Better off?" Albert Dieselhorst suggested. Then he held up his hand. "And if you don't care for that, go tell one of the pigdogs in a black shirt about it. You'll have a new gu

"I don't want a new gu

Before Hans-Ulrich could say what he wanted, Dieselhorst did it for him: "You want a good little boy who never makes trouble and never looks past the end of his nose unless he's aiming at the enemy. You want somebody just like you. I wish I were, Lieutenant-you can bet your ass it'd make my life simpler. But I've got pals-better Germans than I'll ever be-in concentration camps or dead because those SS bastards hauled 'em out of bed in the middle of the night. This isn't Russia, dammit. This is a civilized country, or it's supposed to be."

Had a flyer Rudel didn't know well said anything like that, he would have reported the man to the SS without the least hesitation. But he was alive not least because Sergeant Dieselhorst was good at what he did. By any reasonable definition, Dieselhorst was a good German, a patriotic German. If he was talking this way…

"You're upset. You're not yourself," Hans-Ulrich said.

Dieselhorst stamped out the cigarette. "I'm not crazy, if that's what you're trying to say. This whole war is a lot more fucked up than you've figured out yet. And some of the people who're ru

"Don't say any more. I don't want to listen to it," Rudel said. "All I have to do is fly. The same with you, too."

"Christ, Lieutenant, flying is the easy part-any jerk with an airplane can do that," Dieselhorst said. "Trying to steer clear of the shit that pours down from on high, that's where the going gets tough."

"Well, let's see what we have to do, that's all." Hans-Ulrich was grateful for the chance to turn away. As far as Sergeant Dieselhorst was concerned, he was part of the shit that poured down from on high. They'd gone through much too much together for Hans-Ulrich to feel easy about turning in the sergeant now. He'd keep his mouth shut-for the moment, anyway.

"Gisors," Major Bleyle said a few minutes later. "They're pushing supplies through there to the front near Beauvais." He whacked a map with a pointer. "Gisors is about seventy kilometers northwest of Paris. You'll recognize it by the castle and the cathedral. Here are some photos." He passed around the reco

Rudel and Dieselhorst stuck to business as the pilot taxied the Stuka out of the revetment and got it into the air. Hans-Ulrich felt bruised by their earlier encounter. He wondered if Dieselhorst did, too. One more thing he couldn't ask…

Messerschmitt 109s accompanied the Ju-87s as they flew west. Hans-Ulrich hadn't seen a 110 for quite a while. The two-engined fighters hadn't lived up to expectations over the North Sea and England. Maybe they'd gone back to the shop for retooling. Or maybe the idea wasn't as good as the high foreheads in the design bureau thought it would be.

Antiaircraft fire came up as soon as they crossed the front. It was heavy and alarmingly accurate. The Allies had more and more guns shooting at the Luftwaffe. They knew what was at stake here as well as the Germans did. French and British fighters attacked, too. The 109s darted away to take them on. Then more fighters jumped the dive-bombers.

They were French machines, not too fast and not too heavily armed. The 109s outclassed them. Stukas, unfortunately, didn't. Hans-Ulrich threw his all over the sky, trying to dodge the enemy fighters. It was like trying to make a rhinoceros dance. Even when you did it, the result was none too graceful. Sergeant Dieselhorst's machine gun chattered again and again.

"How you doing back there?" Rudel asked him.

"They haven't shot me yet. That's something, anyway," the rear gu

It was a fair question-several bullets had hit the Stuka. "Everything shows green," Hans-Ulrich said. A Ju-87 could take a lot of punishment. The war had shown that the dive-bomber needed to. Rudel's head might have been on a swivel. "Now which way is Gisors?" He'd done so much frantic jinking, he didn't know north from sauerkraut.

He spotted what he thought was the cathedral steeple a moment before Major Bleyle's voice di

"Devil take me if I will," Hans-Ulrich muttered to himself. To Sergeant Dieselhorst, he added, "I have the target. I'm going into my dive."

"What about Bleyle's orders?"

"What about 'em?" Rudel shoved the control column forward. The Stuka's nose went down. Acceleration slammed him back against the armored seat. Damned if that wasn't a truck column on the road. Even if this wasn't Gisors after all-plenty of little French towns had cathedrals-he'd do some damage. He yanked at the bomb-release lever, then pulled up for all he was worth.

In the rear seat, Sergeant Dieselhorst whooped. "What a fireworks show! They must have been hauling ammo!"

"Gut. Sehr gut," Hans-Ulrich said. "Officially, of course, I never heard the major's order to withdraw."

"What order was that, sir?" Dieselhorst said i

But I helped the Reich more than I would have by obeying, he thought. Maybe the conspirators had felt the same way. He shrugged. He was loyal. He knew it. His superiors did, too.

Pretty soon, they'd refill the Stuka's gas tank and bomb her up again, and he and Dieselhorst would go off and try this again. And, if they came back from that run, they'd do it one more time, and one more after that, till the war was won and they didn't have to worry about it any more. As long as you looked at things the right way, they were pretty simple. SOMEBODY KICKED WILLI DERNEN IN the ribs. He grunted and folded up on himself and tried to go back to sleep. After a few seconds, the German marching boot thudded into him again. He grunted once more, louder this time. Reluctantly, his eyes opened.

"There you go," Corporal Baatz said. "Time to get moving again."

"Your mother, Arno," Dernen said. With great determination, he screwed his eyes shut again.

Arno Baatz kicked him yet again, this time with real malice. He knew just where to put a boot to make it hurt most. Willi wondered how he knew. Had he learned in noncom school along with other bastardry, or maybe from an SS interrogator? Or was it just natural talent? It worked the same any which way. Willi sat up, clutching at the injured part. As with Macbeth, Baatz had murdered sleep. "Get it in gear," he snapped. "Nobody put you on leave."

Willi staggered to the bushes to take a leak. He was still yawning when he came back. No one who hadn't been through a campaign had the faintest notion of how exhausting war was. Some men could get kicked almost to death without waking up, let alone marching. The mechanism simply wore down. Willi wasn't there yet, but he wasn't far from that dreadful place.

Maybe breakfast would help. Then again, maybe it wouldn't. He took out his mess tin and advanced on the field kitchen. The cooks spooned the tin full of slop. They called it porridge, but that gave it too much credit. They took everything remotely edible they could find and boiled it all together in a giant kettle. It ended up tasting the way library paste smelled.