Hitler’s War

Nigel came up and took the other German weapon. Walsh shared ammunition with him. "This is going better than I expected," the youngster remarked.

"I was thinking the same thing." In lieu of knocking wood, Walsh rapped his knuckles on his own tin hat. Nigel managed a haggard grin. Walsh gave him a Gitane-what he had-lit one of his own, and tramped ahead again.

He found one German fast asleep on what had been some French merchant's bed. The artillery hadn't wakened him; neither had the Allied infantry assault. Walsh knew just how the poor bugger felt: he'd felt that way himself. He carried away the German's Mauser and dropped it in the mud. He left the man alone. Without a weapon, the fellow was no threat to anybody. And this would be Allied ground by the time he woke up.

"Damned if it won't," Walsh said in tones of wonder. Maybe the generals and even that snot-nosed subaltern knew what they were up to after all. And if they did, wasn't that the strangest thing of all? Schmeisser at the ready, Walsh pressed on. GERHARD ELSNER STRODE OVER TO Ludwig Rothe, who was adding oil to his panzer's crankcase. "Still ru

But Rothe answered, "You bet, Captain."

"Good. That's what I want to hear," Elsner said. "Tomorrow morning we smash them. We go through south of Beauvais-between there and a village called Alo

"Here's hoping they're right-whoever they are. That gets expensive fast," Rothe said. He turned to his driver and radioman. "But we'll be ready, right?"

Fritz Bittenfeld and Theo Hossbach both nodded. Then Theo yawned. Everybody was beat. Ludwig was ru

"This is the breakthrough-the breakthrough," Captain Elsner said. He ignored the yawn. He was ru

"Heil Hitler!" Ludwig echoed. He imitated the Party salute. So did Fritz and Theo. If Theo was a beat late-and he was-Captain Elsner pretended not to see that, too. He was a good officer. He cut some slack for any man who was good in the field, and Theo was. As far as Ludwig was concerned, all the Heil-ing was a bunch of Quatsch. But you'd get your head handed to you if you said that out loud. The failed coup against the Fuhrer left everybody jumpy.

Then Theo stopped being dreamy and asked a sharp question: "When we go in, will we have infantry support?"

"As much of it as there is," Captain Elsner answered. Panzegrenadiers in half-tracks and trucks could keep up with armor. Ordinary ground-pounders couldn't. The panzers were supposed to pierce the enemy lines and let the foot-bound infantry pour through after them. Panzers helped infantry enormously. What they'd found out in Czechoslovakia and here in the west, though, was that infantry support also helped panzers. Foot soldiers moving up along with the armor stopped plenty of unpleasant surprises.

The attack was scheduled for 0530. Morning gave attackers the most daylight in which to do what they could. And morning also let the Germans come out of the rising sun, which made them tougher targets. Ludwig approved of that. He knew better than most people how vulnerable his steel chariot was.

As in the attack on Czechoslovakia and the one that launched this campaign, white tapes guided the panzers to their start line in the dark. But this operation wouldn't be anywhere near so strong. Establishment strength for a panzer company was thirty-two machines. They'd been pretty much up to snuff before. After this grinding campaign across the Low Countries and France, Captain Elsner's company had thirteen ru

Well, the enemy's taken his licks, too, Ludwig thought. All through the advance, he'd driven past Dutch and Belgian and French and British wreckage. He'd breathed air thick with the smells of death and burnt rubber and scorched paint and hot iron. That stench was in his coveralls now. Not even washing-not that he'd had much chance to wash-got rid of it.

Behind them, the sky lightened. Gray and then blue spread west. Rothe checked his watch. He'd synchronized it with the captain's before they moved up. Any second now…Now! The eastern horizon blazed with light: not the sun, but muzzle flashes from the artillery pounding the poilus and Tommies up ahead.

"Get a move on, Fritz!" Ludwig shouted into the speaking tube.

"Right you are, boss!" Bittenfeld put the panzer in gear. Tracks rattling and clanking, it growled forward. Because of the crew's experience, they took point for their platoon. Ludwig could have done without the honor. The point man commonly discovered trouble by smashing his face against it.

French 75s and occasional 105s answered the German barrage. Ludwig didn't want to duck down into the turret so soon-he couldn't see out nearly so well. But, with fragments sparking off the panzer's side armor, he didn't want to get sliced up, either. You acquired experience by not getting killed.

"They're alert today," Fritz remarked.

"They would be," Ludwig agreed gloomily.

"I'm going to miss the waitress at that estaminet in Fouquerolles." The driver cheerfully mangled the French word and the name of the village where they'd stayed not long before. "Limber as an eel, she was."

"Can't you think of anything but pussy?" Ludwig asked, knowing the answer was no.

Machine-gun bullets clattered off the right side of the turret. "Guten Morgen!" Theo said from his seat in the back of the fighting compartment.

"I'll give them a good morning, by God!" Rothe said, and then, to Bittenfeld, "Panzer halt!"

"Halting," Fritz responded, and the Panzer II shuddered to a stop. Ludwig traversed the turret. There was the gun, still spitting bullets. Machine gu

Ludwig fired several rounds from the 20mm ca

But Ludwig also saw a burning Panzer II a few hundred meters away. A machine gun couldn't do for one, but anything bigger damn well could. And if an antitank-gun crew was drawing a bead on this stopped panzer…"Get moving!" Ludwig yipped into the speaking tube.

A 135-horsepower engine wasn't supposed to be able to throw 8,900 kilos of steel around like a Bugatti at Le Mans. All the same, when Fritz hit the gas the panzer jumped like one of the many barmaids he'd goosed. Ludwig almost got thrown out of his seat.

He spied armored shapes up ahead. Their lines were rounder than those of Germany's slab-sided panzers. "Get on the horn, Theo," he said. "Tell the captain the enemy's got armor in the neighborhood."

"I'm doing it," Hossbach said, "but I bet he already knows."

Elsner hadn't known when he briefed the company. Maybe one of those French machines had taken out the other Panzer II. They had more armor and bigger guns than most German panzers-they were easily a match for the Czechs' tanks.