Ragnarok

Chapter Twenty-Four

Front Lines, Germany Prime

4/5 November 1985

Hennecke felt sick.

He had no idea what was wrong with him, but he wasn’t the only man in the trenches to be suffering. He’d thrown up everything in his stomach shortly after the nuclear blasts, then dry-heaved several times through the night; his head hurt, his body felt dizzy and he’d had real problems just getting up after an uncomfortable night’s sleep. There was no food or drink in the trenches, save for snow they’d collected and melted for drinking water. It hadn’t made them feel any better.

“Get up,” a voice snarled. “Now!”

Hennecke glared, but slowly stumbled to his feet. The speaker was a young officer, too young to have seen any real combat. He looked so perfect, as if he’d stepped off a recruiting poster, that Hennecke hated him with an intensity that surprised him. It was all he could do not to stagger forward and try to vomit on the newcomer. But he barely had the energy to stand upright.

“Help the others to stand,” the officer barked. Each word sent a shock of pain through Hennecke’s aching head. “See who can’t stand under their own power.”

His head spinning, Hennecke did his best to obey orders. A couple of dozen men looked as though they could walk, although only two of them looked coordinated enough to march in unison. The others were either too ill to move — he felt a chill running down his spine as he saw them shaking with fever, despite the bitter cold — or dead. He couldn’t help feeling sick himself as he saw a big soldier, a man so large he could practically pass for a gorilla, screaming like a baby as he shuddered violently, then fell silent. By the time Hennecke checked him, he was dead.

He froze in horror as he stumbled across Scharführer Kuhn. The man was lying on the ground, his hair falling out… he stared up at Hennecke, his eyes silently begging for life… or death. Hennecke could do nothing. He’d honestly believed that Kuhn was too tough to be wounded. But now he was dying, poisoned by… what? He didn’t want to think about what happened to those too close to nuclear explosions, but it seemed as though he had no choice.

The water, he thought, feeling a flicker of horror. We collected poisoned water and drank it.

But there was nothing he could do, either for Kuhn or himself. Tottering forward, he carefully removed Kuhn’s pistol and strapped it to his belt, pocketing the two ammunition clips Kuhn had kept in his belt. Kuhn made no protest, something that frightened Hennecke more than one of his savage rages — and beatings. The man he’d seen knock a rowdy stormtrooper down with a single punch was now as weak as a kitten… and dying. Hennecke was torn between giving Kuhn a mercy kill and leaving him to die. What should he do?

“Strip the corpses,” the officer barked. “And then strip anyone too weak to walk!”

Hennecke swallowed hard as he realised the truth. Whatever had poisoned them — radiation or not — those orders made it clear what was about to happen. Soldiers who were beyond salvation were to be left to die — including him, if he collapsed. Gritting his teeth, fighting to make his hands work despite his pounding headache, he forced himself to stagger over to the nearest corpse and start to undress it. But it was nearly impossible to strip the body…

It felt like hours before a team of newcomers showed up, wearing baggy protective outfits that he hadn’t seen — or used — outside training exercises that felt as though they’d taken place a millennia ago. They had radiation poisoning then, he realised; he hadn’t wanted to accept it, but there was no choice. The Führer’s nuclear weapons had poisoned their own men…

“Get some food,” the officer snarled. The handful of walking men hurried over to the food cart, passing a trio of stormtroopers on the way. “And make sure you get back here to continue the work.”

Hennecke was too tired to say or do anything, but sip the broth they’d been provided. It was warm, crammed with pieces of meat and vegetables, yet he couldn’t help thinking that it tasted of manure. Perhaps their food, too, had been poisoned by the sleet of radiation. He wished, suddenly, that he knew more about radiation poisoning, although what he did know was more than enough to make his hair want to fall out. But now, with far too many men losing their hair — or worse — it wasn’t anything like as funny as it seemed. He still giggled helplessly as he finished his broth. Thankfully, the dry-retching had come to an end.

He heard a shot and glanced back, sharply. The stormtroopers were moving from body to body, systematically shooting each and every one of the wounded in the head. Hennecke knew just how ruthless the SS could be — he’d been there when an entire village had been slaughtered for harbouring rebels — but killing their own men so casually was a whole new dimension of ruthlessness. He watched in utter horror as a stormtrooper shot Kuhn, leaving the man’s body to lie on the ground, then forced himself to look away.

They sent us here to die, he thought. And then they killed us.

He found himself torn between the urge to laugh and the urge to start crying. He’d thought he was serving the Reich, but the Reich had turned on him. No rebel had killed him, no rebel had even come close to killing him… he’d been killed by his own side. He didn’t know enough about radiation poisoning to be sure, but he thought it was always fatal. Did he have a hope of surviving long enough to get medical treatments? Would he even be given medical treatments?

I have to get better, he told himself, numbly. But how?

The men were pushed back to work as soon as they finished their scanty meal, digging a large pit and burying their former comrades. Hennecke had plenty of experience digging mass graves, but without the proper tools the job was nightmarish. The newcomers didn’t do anything to help, either. They just killed two men who collapsed on the job and couldn’t even begin to get up. Hennecke thought about drawing his stolen pistol and shooting them — or at least the damned officer — but his hands were too weak. He wouldn’t have a hope in hell of shooting even one of them before they shot him down.

There was no rest even after the mass grave was dug. The remainder of the corpses were stripped and buried, then covered with a thin layer of earth. Hennecke doubted they’d remain buried for very long — there were plenty of animals who’d dig them up even if the rebels didn’t come to see who’d been buried in the grave — but it seemed to be enough for the officer, who ordered them to follow him east. His legs still felt weak as he walked, yet the thought of being killed if he dropped out of line kept him going. The officer didn’t seem to care.

He was probably well away from the blasts, Hennecke thought, savagely. Or perhaps he was just out of training when the war began.

The landscape had been utterly devastated by the blasts. Hennecke had travelled down the roads during the build-up for the first offensive — they’d been typical roads at the time — but now they were badly damaged, bridges knocked down and pavement torn up, leaving them impassable to anything short of a panzer. The trees by the side of the roads had been incinerated or knocked down; a number of burned-out vehicles bore mute witness to the deaths of a number of unfortunate civilians — or soldiers — caught in the open. He wondered, numbly, if the cars had belonged to higher-ups in Warsaw fleeing the war, although he had to admit it was more likely that the vehicles had been commandeered by the military. But he clung to the former thought anyway as bitter resentment gnawed at his soul. It was all that kept him going.

He tried to remember what little he’d been taught about nuclear weapons during basic training, but very little of what he could recall was actually helpful. His instructors had talked about blast effects in some detail, yet they’d said next to nothing about radiation poisoning and nuclear fallout. He wasn’t even sure what they were. But then, no one had seriously expected the Americans to launch a nuclear strike on the Reich. Everyone had known the Americans didn’t have the stomach to start a nuclear exchange…

And they didn’t, he told himself. He had no doubt of it. We dropped the bombs on ourselves.

The small party came to a halt — it felt as if they’d been walking for hours — near a camp by the roadside. Hennecke felt a flicker of relief, mixed with concern, as he saw a set of armed stormtroopers standing by the gates, wearing the same protective gear as the others. He kept inching forward anyway, even though part of him kept insisting that he was going to die in the next few moments. The stormtroopers might have orders to gun them down…

Cold water came out of nowhere, drenching them to the bone. Hennecke barely had a moment to turn his head and see men holding hoses before they were drenched again, water soaking through their uniforms and leaving them shivering helplessly. He saw a man drop to the ground like a sack of potatoes, just as the gates were opened and they were ordered forward, into the camp. Behind him, he heard a single shot.

“You’ll remain in this tent,” the officer said, as he led the way towards a large tent. “Do not attempt to leave without permission.”

Hennecke scowled at his back. The other officers and soldiers in the camp were staring at them, as if they weren’t quite sure what to make of twenty-five stormtroopers dripping water as they marched. They were being isolated, Hennecke saw, and he wasn’t quite sure why. He was feeling better, wasn’t he? But not all of the men looked better. He stepped into the tent, cursing under his breath as he realised there was nothing there beyond a pile of looted blankets. They’d need to undress before they could even think of taking a nap.

His head started to pound again as he struggled to undo his battledress. His fingers refused to cooperate; he started to shiver, helplessly, as he finally managed to get undressed and take one of the blankets to dry himself. He wasn’t the only one to manage it, he saw, but several of the others had just collapsed, either through tiredness or radiation damage. Gritting his teeth, he lay down and closed his eyes. His head was spinning helplessly…

…He started awake, hours later. The tent was dark, the only light coming from a lantern mounted over the flap. And it stank, of shit and piss and vomit and blood. He heard a faint moaning, the sound so close that he wasn’t sure who was moaning. It might have been him… he just didn’t know. His head was pounding like a drum, his body so utterly dehydrated that it was hard, so hard, to roll over and crawl naked towards the tent flap. He needed water, desperately. He’d been told to stay in the tent, but he couldn’t stay in the tent, not if he wanted to live.

Outside, it was dark; rain and snow lashing down around the camp, mocking him. What was the snow bringing, but death? It was hard to see the shape of any other tents, even though he knew they were there. The cold gripped him, slicing into his naked body… he was torn between staying where he was and freezing to death or trying to make his way back into the tent. Surely there should be a guard, someone who could help? But there was no one…

“Hey,” a female voice said. “What are you doing outside?”

Hennecke turned his head and stared. His vision seemed to have blurred… an angel was standing there, wearing a white uniform. And it was tight in all the right places, revealing curves a man could stroke and fondle to his heart’s content. A surge of lust flashed through him, only to fade just as quickly. She wasn’t a nurse, he was sure. There was no way she was a nurse. She was probably an officer’s lover… the shithead had brought her with him while his men suffered and died…

“Water,” he croaked. His head was a mess. Part of him wanted to grab her and make love to her, part of him wanted to snap her neck just for daring to exist. It was hard, so hard, to sort out right from wrong. “Please…”

“I’ll bring you water,” the girl promised. She had a voice he would have found reassuring, under other circumstances. Now, he merely found it annoying. “Stay inside.”

Hennecke stumbled back inside and crouched by the tent flap, feeling utterly helpless. He couldn’t even walk. If the girl was an officer’s lover, rather than a nurse… his head kept spinning, tossing up hundreds of possibilities that faded almost before he could get a grip on them. But he was dependent on her now… his body twitched, as if he wanted to cough but couldn’t muster the energy. If she wasn’t a nurse, he knew he wouldn’t live through the night and see morning. Not again…

The tent flap opened. Hennecke looked up as the girl, looking even more angelic than before, stepped inside, carrying a small glass of water in one hand. She knelt in front of him and held the glass to his lips, as if she were feeding a baby. Hennecke sipped gratefully, unable to keep his eyes off the rise and fall of her breasts. His feelings were so conflicted that he couldn’t even keep track of them himself. He wanted her, yet he knew he couldn’t muster the energy to have her. And his head was still pounding.

“Stay still,” the girl advised. “You’ve been through hell.”

Hennecke grunted. It was hard, too hard, to form actual words. He had been through hell for the Reich, risking life and limb so that Karl Holliston could march back into Berlin and sit down in Adolf Hitler’s chair. And then the offensive had failed and he’d found himself penalised, even though the failure hadn’t been his fault. He’d worked as a penal soldier, only to be drenched in radiation by his own side and probably condemned to a long, lingering death.

And it just wasn’t fair!

The bitterness became rage. He stumbled back, thinking of the pistol concealed within his wet clothes. It would be easy to take it and start killing officers, to kill and kill until he was killed himself, but he knew he didn’t have the strength. He looked up at the girl and felt another surge of rage, the desire to throw her down and just take her mingling with the urge to kill her. Here she was, young and pretty, utterly unaware of what he’d done in her name — and in the name of German womanhood everywhere…

“You will recover,” the girl said, quietly.

Hennecke reached out with sudden strength and grabbed her wrist. She gasped in pain, but — even weakened as he was — she couldn’t pull free. He yanked her forward, honestly unsure himself what he intended to do. Force her down or snap her neck? The girl opened her mouth to scream; he clamped his other hand over it, slamming her lips together. She tried to bite him, but it was futile…

“Recover?” He asked. Savage hatred welled up within him. How dare she stand next to him in her clean uniform and mouth such platitudes? “Do you really think I will recover?”

He let go of her wrist and caught hold of her throat. It felt strange to the touch, strong and weak at the same time; he tightened his grip, pulling her closer and closer to him. Her eyes started to flutter helplessly; he felt a surge of sudden power, as if he was draining her strength into his, as she weakened. She couldn’t fight him, she couldn’t stop him, she was utterly in his power.

It was an intoxicating sensation. He’d never known true power in his life; he’d certainly never known true freedom. He could use his uniform to bully civilians — he’d certainly done it — but that wasn’t true power. There had always been others who could break him with a single word, while even civilians could complain if he was too brutal. But now, there was a girl — perhaps an officer’s whore — completely at his mercy. He could do anything he liked to her. There were just too many possibilities…

And then his strength failed him and he fell back to the ground, letting go of her. The girl scrambled backwards, rubbing her throat. There were dark marks on her pale skin, easily visible in the semi-darkness. She let out an odd sound — half-gasping, half-choking — and then jumped to her feet and practically ran out of the tent. Hennecke found himself giggling helplessly, despite the throbbing pain — and the grim awareness that he might be in deep shit, if the girl made a report. The officers might just have him killed…

…And the hell of it, he decided as he crawled back to his blanket, was that it might be a relief.