Red Inferno

CHAPTER 27

After a solid day of intense, ground-shaking artillery bombardment, the first Russians had come by night as paratroops descended behind American lines along the Weser. Thus, instead of being able to concentrate totally on the advancing hordes to his front, Tolliver had to detail a couple of his few remaining men to watch the rear of their defenses as word of the enemy airborne force reached them. Tolliver swore. He didn’t have enough men to fight on two fronts. The paratroops to his rear kept some of his men occupied while darkness and man-made smoke hid the enemy to his front.

With the arrival of dawn, he was able to see what the Russians had accomplished throughout the night’s fighting. Almost oblivious to American shells raining down on them, Russian infantry massed on the other side had pushed a horde of small boats into the water and paddled across. Some of the boats held only two or three men and had apparently been taken from local fishermen, while others held a dozen or more. He was further surprised to see Russians pushing horses into the water and urging them to swim across while other soldiers hung on to their manes and saddles for dear life. There was no apparent organization to their efforts. Wherever they reached the other side was their objective. The effort was crude and insane, but effective.

Many of the Russians died in the attempt, and the Weser, not quite a hundred yards wide where Tolliver’s unit had dug in, was stained red and littered with human and animal debris that slowly drifted away. Tolliver was close enough to the water’s edge that he could hear the screams of wounded horses and men. Despite the carnage, the Russian numbers prevailed and some small beachheads were established.

When this occurred, the Russians manhandled barges into the water. When a barge was safely floating, ramps were connected and a tank loaded onto it. While the barges crossed, other Red Army tanks on the east bank laid down covering fire. Since this was direct fire, it was disconcertingly accurate, and Tolliver and his men had to keep their heads down. Again, the Russians suffered heavily, and Tolliver saw a couple of tanks disappear into the river and sink like stones as the barges were hit. No crewmen emerged alive when this happened.

Tolliver yelled at Holmes to report the situation up the line. Holmes shook his head. “Phones are down, sir. I guess their paratroops cut the line.”

Yeah, Tolliver thought. They probably did, although the phone lines could have been severed by Red artillery as well. They couldn’t go around suspecting there were Russians behind every tree. Hell, he thought bitterly, there weren’t many trees left standing. Holmes used the walkie-talkie and got through to the next platoon, which had already sent the information to the company commander.

In front of them, a Russian tank struck a mine. The explosion lifted the vehicle and sent pieces of tread flying into the air. In a perverse way, Tolliver felt sorry for the men in the tank. They would have to stay where they were until the battle passed them by before they could attempt repairs. All the while they would be vulnerable to American fire. The disabled tank’s main gun barked and the shell hit a few dozen yards to his left. So much for sympathy, he thought bitterly. That tank could still kill.

Tolliver’s men opened fire on the advancing Russians, cutting down about a dozen before the others dropped and hugged the ground.

“Keep it up,” he yelled. “We got ’em stopped.”

Holmes put down the walkie-talkie. “Second platoon is pulling out, sir. Word from the CO is the Reds punched a hole down a ways in G Company and we’re being flanked.”

Tolliver was shocked. They had stopped the Russian advance. An enemy tank was dead and so were a bunch of Reds. “They want us to retreat? You’re bullshitting me, aren’t you, you damned Yankee?”

“No sir, no bullshit. The word is retreat. Now.”

Tolliver swore. A fat lot of good all the defenses the engineers had built had done them. They’d withstood the bombs and the artillery, but after only a couple of minutes against the exposed Red infantry, they were going to have to pull back. At least there were more defenses built and prepared behind them.

“Let’s go,” he ordered, and the handful of men he commanded emerged from their trenches and burrows into the smoke-filled sky. They hunched their shoulders as they trotted back, as if that would protect them from shells or bullets.

There was a short, angry stutter of automatic weapons fire, and Tolliver saw a man in a baggy uniform standing directly in front of them. A Russian, his mind screamed. It was one of the paratroops, and he was fumbling with reloading a deadly looking submachine gun, a look of panic on his face. Tolliver fired his carbine from the hip and a number of his men did the same thing at the apparition, who lurched backward from the sudden storm of bullets and lay still.

“Shit!” Tolliver said. He had never been that close to an enemy soldier before. The Russian had been only a few feet away. “Anybody hit?”

There was a few seconds’ silence while his shocked platoon checked themselves. “One,” said a voice. “Holmes.”

Tolliver whirled and looked at his fallen radio man. The bullets from the Russian’s submachine gun had stitched a hideous pattern across his chest, exposing bone and organs. Holmes’s eyes were open but blank.

“Should we take him with us, sir?” It was Barrie, his senior surviving NCO.

Tolliver thought for only an instant. They were still out in the open with a long way to go. “No,” he said sadly. “We leave him here.”

Tolliver reached down and pulled off one of Holmes’s dog tags. Then he looked down at the Russian. Angrily, he fired several shots into the dead man’s chest. “That’s for Holmes, you motherfucker.”

As they turned to continue their withdrawal, Tolliver noticed some activity around the damaged Russian tank. Were they trying to fix it?

“C’mon, Lieutenant. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Barrie, what are the Russians doing to that goddamn tank?”

Barrie looked for a moment, spat on the ground, and grinned. “Yeah, Lieutenant, I see what you mean. They’re siphoning gas or whatever the fuckers run on.”

Tolliver laughed. The Russians were so short of fuel they were cannibalizing their own disabled vehicles on a red-hot battlefield. Not only that, they were ignoring the fuel drums strapped to the back of the tank, behind the turret. Why? Because they were empty, that’s why.

“Who’s got the walkie-talkie?” One of his men waved a hand as they commenced trotting away. “See who you can raise, and tell them to report back what we just saw. Tell them the Russians are running out of fuel.”

Poor Holmes, he thought, glancing back at the limp body on the ground. You bugged the shit out of me sometimes, but I will miss you. God damn the Russians.

General Adolf Galland searched the empty skies for a target and found nothing. He was not surprised. The Russian planes had paid a terrible price since the assault on the Weser had begun. It had been only three days since the first bomber wave had fallen prey to his jets, and now the Allied fighters almost totally ruled supreme. He alone had accounted for fifteen Russian planes confirmed killed, and several others damaged, and his was not the best total. Some of his younger pilots had double his amount.

The former German jet fighters had more than decimated the ranks of Ilyushin bombers along with Yak and MiG fighters who’d tried to escort them, and even killed a few armored Stormovik tank destroyers. After the first day, the slow, blundering bombers had not been seen again. He was not aware of any ME-262 having been shot down by a Russian. A few had been lost, but he thought that might have been due to equipment failure, and there was one report of a jet colliding with a Yak that was too slow to get out of the jet’s way. If true, that was a shame, but it was also war.

On the dark side, about a third of his planes were grounded because of mechanical problems. The jet was a fairly fragile kind of weapon that needed to be maintained much more carefully than the ground crews were used to. The American P-47s and P-51s, on the other hand, were unfeeling brutes by comparison, needing comparatively little maintenance and repair. The jet, he concluded, was the rapier, while the P-47s, P-51s, and others were the broadswords and battle-axes.

Galland understood that the victory in the skies had not been his alone, and that the Americans would have won it sooner or later. But he did know that the Luftwaffe’s jets had made it possible for that victory to occur with astonishing swiftness. Statistically, the relatively small number of jets had killed an average of twenty Soviet planes each, while the Americans had a four-to-one kill ratio.

The Russians, however, were not totally done. Galland thought they would lick their wounds and hoard their remaining planes and save them for the proper time and place-like last night, he thought wryly. Who would have suspected a Russian attack at night? All their other attacks had come during the day. Thus, the order to scramble from their supposedly secret American-run base had been a surprise, and many of his men had taken far too long to get their planes in the air.

Vectored into the Russian airplane stream by radar, they had chewed on the formations and then watched incredulously as transport planes disgorged hundreds, perhaps thousands of paratroopers onto the American defenses.

Galland had reviewed German airborne operations, such as the disaster on Crete, where an entire German paratroop division had virtually been destroyed, and knew that the attacks by his and American planes, however belated, meant that Russian paratroops would be landing nowhere near their intended drop zone. But was that important to them? Wherever they landed they could spread chaos. Had they misjudged the Russians once more?

Others in his squadron continued to report a lack of targets. In a little while, they would have to return to base. Despite its superiority as a weapon, the ME-262 did have one major drawback. Its maximum range was only 650 miles, and that didn’t leave much time to search for an enemy.

Galland looked at the ground below. They were almost directly above the river and he could see small, dirty clouds where explosions had already taken place as well as the flashes of new ones. Poor bastards, he thought. Who the hell would ever want to fight down there? Give me a plane and the blue sky anytime. If I have to die, let it be as a bird in flight, not a rodent in a burrow.

Bazarian smiled at his guest and offered the disgusting creature another drink of liberated schnapps. It was readily accepted. The Russian was well on his way to getting totally stinking drunk.

“This is piss” was General Vladmir Rudnev’s response. He had been making the same comment for each of the six very large drinks he had consumed. Rudnev might not particularly care for the German liquor, but he accepted it as an adequate substitute for his normal quart of vodka per day. Either that or, Bazarian thought, the pig actually liked to drink piss.

“Of course it is, dear comrade General.” Bazarian oozed warmth. Even though he slightly outranked Rudnev, he needed him, or at least what Rudnev could bring with him in the coming battle for Potsdam.

Rudnev belched and Bazarian recoiled from the stench of the man’s breath. Rudnev was a short, stocky man in his early forties. He had piggy little eyes and a small, tight mouth. His peasant background was evident in everything he did. His hands were large and coarse and he smelled of unwashed skin and old underclothing. For Bazarian, who considered himself somewhat of an aristocrat, it disgusted him that such a creature could have risen to a position of authority within the Soviet Union. Under normal circumstances, he would not have acknowledged Rudnev’s existence.

But these were not normal circumstances. Rudnev commanded a brigade of armor that was hidden and stalled on railroad tracks a few miles away. Bazarian had told him that the rail lines to the west had been destroyed in a hundred spots, and Rudnev had accepted that as fact and promptly commenced drinking.

Bazarian had not quite told the truth. In fact, it was possible for Rudnev to proceed a good deal farther west toward the climactic battle being fought on the Weser. In all probability, however, many, if not all, of Rudnev’s tanks would have been destroyed by American planes before they arrived, and that would have been a terrible waste. They were fresh, new, fully crewed, and, most important, full of diesel and ammo, although with nothing additional in reserve. Rudnev agreed that he would need more fuel when he left the trains and proceeded overland. Both men understood it was unlikely that he would find any; thus, sooner or later and well before the Weser, Rudnev’s tanks would run dry.

Bazarian smiled. “It is a stinking shame that you are being deprived of the glory that would surely be yours if you were able to reach the war.”

“It is.” Rudnev reached for the bottle and poured some more. Bazarian considered the possibility that the man had an iron stomach. “I long for the right to kill the enemies of the state,” Rudnev stated piously and belched again.

“I know. And, even when the tracks are finally repaired, the battle will doubtless be over before you arrive, if indeed you arrive at all. And, should you decide to go by road, you will not have enough fuel to make it anywhere near the Weser, and there are no reserves to draw from. I have heard that we have crossed the river and are driving on the Rhine. We shall quickly cross over that barrier as well and storm into Antwerp. With that, the Allied coalition will collapse and the war will end. A shame”-Bazarian sighed-“and you will still be here.”

Rudnev slammed down his glass, splashing both men. “I want to fight. I want to kill the fucking Germans-I mean Americans.”

When he glowered, as he was doing now, Rudnev reminded Bazarian of a picture he had once seen of an angry chimpanzee. “Comrade General, let me offer you the opportunity to fight and destroy the enemies of the state.”

Rudnev blinked. He was having difficulty thinking. “How?”

“My orders have always been to first contain and then destroy the American forces in Potsdam. Because of the needs of the other fronts, I have not been given adequate forces to fulfill the second part of my orders. Now, it is almost fate that you are here with your tanks and no means to get them to the main battle. I invite you to join me in the glory of taking the city that has been a boil or a cancer in our side.”

Incredibly, Rudnev took yet another drink. “You make a good point. Everyone is aware of the situation here and your failure to kill the Americans. Frankly, General Bazarian, there are those who laugh at you.”

Bazarian’s temper flared, but he held it in check. It was still another act of Russian arrogance in dealing with non-Russians. Rudnev might be an animal, but he was a Russian animal and, thus, part of the elite. With the greatest of efforts he controlled himself and did not draw his pistol to kill this little shit of an ape.

Rudnev continued, completely unaware of the effect his comment had had on Bazarian. “I was not aware that your failure was due to the fact that you had been deprived of weapons. Considering the circumstances we both are in, I would gladly use my forces to assist you in reducing Potsdam, but I am concerned about American planes.”

“Do not worry, comrade General. I have planned the attack for night, and I have it on good authority that the weather to the west is worsening. There will be overcast skies when we attack.” Bazarian was lying. Although he would try to attack at night, he knew absolutely nothing about the weather to the west.

“Then I am your man, comrade General Bazarian.”

“I am delighted, comrade General Rudnev.” Bazarian smiled like a salesman, and the two men shook hands. He was also aware that the little ape had said he would assist, not place himself under the command of Bazarian. It was half a loaf at best, but he would take it.

Rudnev stood to leave. He was a little unsteady but otherwise able to navigate his way out of the cottage Bazarian was using as his personal quarters.

Rudnev stopped and turned. “I want a woman.”

“I’ll send a couple over for you to choose from.” Bazarian amused himself by pretending to be surprised. He thought fucking a horse or cow might be more up Rudnev’s alley. The thought of one of his women rutting with the little ape upset him a little. It had taken him several weeks to round up enough young and attractive German women to make life interesting. It hadn’t taken much effort to get them to agree to giving him sex. All he had to do was offer the carrot of food and shelter, and the stick of being turned over to his troops to be gang-raped if they said no.

Well, he thought, let Rudnev screw his little brains out. Bazarian had seen Rudnev’s brigade. Eighty tanks, in all, and sixty of them the giant new JS model. There was nothing in Potsdam to stop Stalin tanks if they were used properly. Finally, he would take that city and still the laughter coming from the arrogant shits in Moscow.

“Dortmund,” General Bradley said. “There’s no doubt about it; not that there ever was. They’ve been driving straight toward the depots at Dortmund and they are not even attempting a pincers movement to reach the Rhine. They’ve given up all attempts at trapping us on this side of the Rhine.”

Ike had earlier come to that conclusion. The lack of an enveloping maneuver had confirmed it. The Russians had used a pincers strategy whenever practicable. They’d done it at Stalingrad and, later, at Berlin. Their change of strategy in the north had come as a slight surprise, although not totally unexpected considering the prize the Russians saw awaiting them at Dortmund.

Bradley frowned. “And they’re moving in great strength. We’ve identified two rifle armies, as well as two tank armies. It also looks like another tank army, the Third, has been moved up in reserve and will be crossing the Weser at any time.”

The 3rd Guards Tank Army had previously been identified as belonging to Koniev. That meant, in the week and a half since the initial assault on the Weser, the Russians had successfully put five armies on the American side, with a sixth about to cross over. It was only seventy-five miles from the Weser to Dortmund; Russians had already taken Paderborn and were more than halfway there. According to intelligence, the Russians, despite the enormous casualties they’d sustained, still had more than a million men thrusting toward that city like some giant convulsive animal.

Yet the attack was on a relatively narrow front with Simpson’s First Army as it’s focus, which left it potentially vulnerable to attacks on its flanks. Inside the Russian attacking front was an immense compression of men and equipment. So far, the U.S. Army had been unable to contain its advance.

Ike puffed on one of the cigarettes he chain-smoked. “It certainly proves that our attacks on their supplies and transportation network have paid off. It looks to me like a move based on sheer desperation. They must be in even worse shape than we dreamed of for them to distort their offensive objectives like they have. I’d say they’ve totally forgotten about Antwerp as their primary objective. At least for the time being.”

Ike’s thoughts were interrupted by a clerk informing him that they had Patton on the line. Ike took the telephone handed to him. “George, how’s it going?”

“Ike, we kicked off just before dawn and are making some gains against damn stiff resistance.”

Patton’s limited counterattack had been reluctantly approved and was planned merely to disrupt the Russian offensive, which was proving far stronger than expected. It was hoped that the Russians would have to shift some troops to defend themselves from being cut off, or that Patton would be allowed to run wild in their rear. All of this supposed that Patton would be able to punch through them. Patton was saying the going was slow, which meant that he was failing.

Bradley slipped Ike a note. He read it and his face turned crimson. He looked at Bradley, who turned away. “George,” he said grimly, “are you using German tanks in your attacks?”

“Hell, yes. Got me a couple hundred Panthers and about fifty Tigers heading up my Shermans. They’re a helluva lot better than anything we have. The kraut tanks were scattered all over southern Germany, and it took us a while to assemble and repair them, and put U.S. designations on them just like the air force did with the jets, but they’re working just fine. Why, is that a problem?”

“I don’t know,” said Ike. “That might just depend on who’s driving them.”

There was a pause. “Aw, hell, Ike, do you really want to know?”

Eisenhower thought that one over. Did he really want to know what the devil his most irrepressible and irresponsible subordinate was up to?

“George, are you using Germans to crew those tanks?”

There was another pause. Finally, “Yes.”

“George, you know we can’t do that.”

“Yeah,” Patton interrupted, “and it makes no sense. We get to use the krauts as pilots for their jets, and as antiaircraft gunners, but not as tank drivers to fight the Russians. And don’t tell me Brad’s not using those German-crewed antiaircraft guns as antitank weapons, either. Hell, I know I am.”

Ike shook his head. Patton had a point. The policy regarding Germans was inconsistent and flawed. And, yes, Bradley was indeed using German-crewed antiaircraft guns to kill tanks. But a promise had been made, both by Ike to Marshall and by Patton to Ike. The Luftwaffe was considered probably clean of war crimes, while the ground troops were the ones more likely to have committed atrocities. Although he realized that most of them probably had not, some doubtless had. The thought of GIs serving alongside some of the people who had butchered Jews and other innocent people was as repugnant to him as it would be to the American people.

Patton continued. “Ike, I won’t bullshit you. I always had every intention of using every weapon I could possibly get my hands on to defeat the Russians. But I’m only using regular German soldiers and not the SS. This isn’t tiddleywinks or football, Ike, this is war, and I don’t give a damn what or how I have to do to win. I will do it.”

Patton actually laughed. His normally high-pitched voice sounded tinny over the phone. “Y’know, I kinda think Marshall suspects what we’re doing. After all, isn’t he the one who conned Truman into letting us use the antiaircraft guns and crews in the first place? Don’t tell me he didn’t know they could be used to kill tanks as well.

“As to Truman? Hell, let him fire me. Ten dollars says he won’t do anything until the war’s over and then he’s going to try to hush it all up. Not even Truman would fire a general whose only crime is cheating to win a war.”

Ike quietly admitted that Patton had a point.

“Hell, Ike, you can never have enough weapons. Besides, if I want to make a real mark on history, this is my only time around.”

Eisenhower hung up. He would deal with Patton later. After all, there was the possibility that Patton would be proven right. Winners are honored and losers face humiliation. It was entirely likely that Patton would get a medal for his act of disobedience. It wouldn’t be the first time. But now he would work with Bradley as he dealt with the main thrust of the Russian armies nearing Dortmund. At the rate they were going, the Russian armored columns would be there in a couple of days.

What would the Russians do when they reached that town? What would their reaction be?

The long barrel of the 88 mm gun was twisted back as if it were a toy destroyed by a large and malevolent child. Beside it were the blackened and torn bodies of its crew. Germans, Suslov thought. Goddamn Germans. They wore American uniforms, but their ID said they were German. They were not the first dead Germans in American uniforms he had seen in the last few days, nor, he surmised, would they be the last.

German ground participation on the American side had come as a bitter surprise to them all. So too had the manner in which the Germans had fought them. The 88 mm guns that had proven so effective against Russian armor in the past had been arrayed against the onrushing Soviet tanks. Flashes of light from their dug-in positions and the crash of hot metal against Soviet tanks brought back terrible memories. He could still hear the screams of crews from those tanks with radios as they cried out for help from the flaming hell their tanks had become.

Yet the Red Army had persevered and punched through still another defensive line. In a little while they would reach the Dortmund area, where they had been told all manner of supplies waited for them to feast on, supplies that they desperately required. Suslov thought it would be heavenly, except there was no heaven in Stalin’s Russia.

First and foremost the tanks needed diesel and the other vehicles needed gasoline. Next, they needed weapons and ammunition. Many of the Russian guns had been destroyed. Some didn’t particularly like the idea of using American weapons, but there was no other alternative.

Food was also in short supply. Much of their supplies were brought up to the front on horseback and, therefore, not a prime target for the menacing planes, but even that flow had slowed down lately as there was little food to bring. A good number of the horses had already been eaten and many men were becoming weak from hunger.

The Yanks had proven to be no fools. While not exactly incorporating a scorched-earth policy, they had made certain that there was little to sustain an advancing army. It was August, and there was no sign that any crops had been planted in the fields they passed, which also meant there would be mass starvation if the war continued much longer.

They drove forward. There was only sporadic resistance. They concluded that the last line of guns they’d confronted and destroyed must have been the final Yank defenses before Dortmund. After a few more miles, they saw evidence of a major military presence in the form of heavily traveled roads and military signs they couldn’t read. They followed one road and soon came to a sight that took their breath away. Thousands of fuel drums and thousands more large wooden crates were stacked in an open area that covered hundreds of acres. For Suslov and the others, it was a vision of paradise.

Almost shyly, Suslov and the other tankers drove toward their salvation. Grinning like children, they stopped, hopped down, and ran to a fuel drum. It was heavy and the contents sloshed.

“Open it and see if it’s diesel,” Suslov ordered. “I can’t read this shit the Americans call writing.”

Latsis and Popov pried open the small lid where the spout would go. Latsis almost stuck his nose inside. He looked up, puzzled.

“What is it?” Suslov said, walking over and looking in.

“I don’t know.” Latsis tilted the barrel so that some of the clear liquid ran out. “Shit, it’s water.”

Quickly, they checked some of the other barrels. They all contained either water or sand. They pried open a number of crates and found them filled with earth or rocks or junk. They heard cries of dismay as other tank crews made the same discovery.

Suslov felt dread. “They fucked us. The Americans totally fucked us. There’s nothing here but shit. We fought all this way to get here and there’s nothing.”

Suslov and the others sat on the ground by their tank. Despair hung over them. There was no food and no fuel. They could not go forward and they wondered if they could go back. Back to what? Suslov wondered aloud, and the others agreed. They looked at the sky.

For the time being at least, they were free of Yank planes. Even the Americans got tired once in a while and had to stop. But the planes would be back. And so too would the American armies that had been retreating all this time. The dummy supply depot meant that the Americans knew how critical the Russian supply situation was.

“Latsis, how much fuel do we have?”

Latsis used a twig as a dipstick to check the tank. The scowl on his face was half the answer. “If we’re real careful, don’t have to detour, and don’t have to ride fast, we might make it back to the Weser.”

“What about the Rhine? We’re actually closer to it than we are to the Weser, aren’t we?”

“Yes, comrade Commander, we are. But the Yanks will probably resist us, which will prevent us from driving in a straight line. Therefore, we will likely have to get out and push before we reach it.”

Disheartened and hungry, they waited through the night. Their only orders told them to capture the supplies that were supposed to be outside Dortmund. They could only guess that higher-ups were trying to figure out their next move.

At dawn, Boris the commissar arrived from brigade HQ. He was riding a mangy-looking horse, and not driving a jeep or staff car. He was also drunk and nearly fell down while dismounting.

“Comrade,” Boris told Suslov in a slurred voice, “because of treachery, we have to stop our attack on the capitalist pigs for the time being. You are to pull back to defensive positions as soon as possible. You will receive more details later. On the way you will double-check every vehicle you find for fuel and ammunition and take whatever you can. Please convey that to the rest of your battalion.”

Suslov was astonished. “My battalion? What happened to the colonel?”

“Oh, you didn’t know? He’s dead. He killed himself this morning. You’re next in line. Congratulations. Of course,” Boris said with a tinge of bitterness, “your entire battalion consists of six tanks.” He checked his watch and blinked. He was too drunk to see the time. “You’d better get started. This retreat has got to be orderly or it could be a disaster.”

Suslov wanted to scream that it already was a disaster. “What else do you know?”

Comrade Boris scoffed. “Do I look like Zhukov?” He gestured and Suslov followed. He put a beefy hand on Suslov’s shoulder. “Seriously, comrade, Chuikov met with our general and others. He said we would hold bridgeheads on the Weser. The fuel shortage is worse than awful, but there is hope that it will be rectified. The people of Russia will not let us down.”

It was Suslov’s turn to scoff. “Really?”

Boris looked around. “Careful.” It was a clear warning that what he said might be held against him once the fighting ended. “Chuikov said the Amis are attacking from the south but that we are holding them off. According to Chuikov, the Amis must attack us because they cannot leave us holding most of Germany. When that time comes, we will crush them.”

“Do you believe that, comrade Boris?”

Boris tried to mount his horse, slipped, and fell into the mud. He wiped the filth from his face and grimaced. “Truthfully, comrade Suslov, I now believe that as much as I believe you have a battalion to command.”