Red Inferno

CHAPTER 3

Major General Walter Bedell Smith, “Beetle” to his friends, was a short and belligerent man who some compared to a bulldog with a bad attitude. As chief of staff to Dwight David Eisenhower, he served at Ike’s pleasure and frequently did the tough and dirty jobs that preserved his boss’s benevolent and affable reputation. His input was received and respected. That included this afternoon’s meeting between Omar Bradley, who commanded the huge Twelfth Army Group, and Eisenhower, who commanded all the Allied military forces in Europe except the Russians.

“Shut the door, Beetle.” Smith did as Ike asked.

Eisenhower was grim as he paced the floor of his office. “Brad, what do you think?” Ike asked.

“I don’t like it one bit.” Bradley was tall and lean. He was rarely seen smiling in public. Despite this, he was considered a friendly man, and was delighted when soldiers started calling him the “GI’s General.”

Ike nodded. “Good, so what have you done about it?”

Bradley walked to the map. “I’ve given Simpson orders that he is to do as much as is humanly possible to avoid casualties and unexpected contact with either the Germans or the Reds. The 17th Armored and 54th Infantry divisions have crossed the Elbe above Magdeburg and, unlike the previous crossing, have met almost no resistance. Unless you object, they will be the force that moves on Berlin. They will pick up the autobahn and follow it toward Berlin. However, just south and west of Potsdam, the autobahn branches, with one route going to the Spandau district, which is on the outskirts. We will take the Spandau route and not charge into the heart of the battle for the city.”

Ike nodded and lit a cigarette. For the last year he had been chain-smoking. “Good.”

Bradley continued. “That will put us in Berlin proper, but a long ways from where Hitler is hiding and where the Reds will be making their main assault. The river, the Havel, will help separate us from that battle and any accidental involvement.”

“Are they up to strength?” Beetle asked.

“The 17th Armored is a new division with very little combat experience, and is pretty well up to snuff as far as men and equipment go, but the 54th has been in action since January and has been worn down a bit, but it’s still in good shape. I’m sending Chris Miller from my staff to command. He’s a good, solid man who won’t make any mistakes and who won’t go off like a cowboy.”

Ike liked Bradley’s thinking. It would satisfy the political need to be in Berlin without actually being in the dangerous heart of the city. Hopefully, the Reds would understand the American army was not going to interfere with their vengeance.

Smith stared at the map and smiled. “Gatow?”

This time the corners of Bradley’s mouth did rise in satisfaction. Gatow, along with Tempelhof, was one of the two major airports serving Berlin, and it was in the Spandau district, right along the line of American advance.

“Well,” Bradley said. “I couldn’t see us not having an airport to use if we actually got there. Tempelhof’s on the other side of town and the Russians will own it soon enough, but Gatow could easily be ours.”

“Brad, what if our boys can’t advance? The Germans could slow them fairly easily.”

“Ike, my orders to Simpson and to Miller and those boys are very simple. They go to Spandau safely or not at all. This is not a suicide mission and they are not, under any circumstances, to do anything foolish. If German resistance is too great, they are to stop and dig in. If it looks like they are going to get overwhelmed by the Germans, they are to cut bait and run back to the Elbe as fast as their legs will carry them.”

Smith shook his head. “Truman might not like that.”

“Screw Truman,” said Ike, and Bradley laughed. Eisenhower’s carefully nurtured image as a fresh-faced country boy was not quite correct. Decades of military service had taught him to swear fluently.

Bradley teased. “Ike, you’d better not let the boys from Life magazine hear you talk like that.”

Ike grinned the now famous cheerful smile. “Fuck Life.”

• • •

The ripping screech and clang of bullets hitting metal jarred them from their trancelike state in the truck to one of total animal alert. “Out!” screamed Logan. “Out, out, out!”

The horrifying noise continued, only now it was joined with the sounds of men screaming and crying out in fear and pain. The soldiers in the truck needed no urging as they tumbled to the ground and rolled or crawled to any fold in the earth that might provide some cover from the bullets. As the German machine guns continued, there was still more screaming.

Where the hell was the firing coming from? Logan thought. A Sherman about a hundred yards ahead responded with its own machine gun and Logan saw the tracers arc toward a farmhouse on a low hill a quarter mile away and splatter on its stone walls. In a second, the Sherman’s main gun fired and a section of the house blew away, followed by other pieces of the building as additional tank guns found the target. The machine guns inside responded with a quick burst and then fell silent as the building disintegrated into a pile of burning rubble.

Logan rolled over to where Singer lay staring wide-eyed at the house, or what was left of it. “Hey, Lieutenant, so how’d you like your first taste of battle?” Despite the apparent casualness of the question, Logan was shaking from the suddenness of the attack.

“Jesus, Logan. I was just looking at that particular house when I saw the krauts open fire from a window. God, it was so sudden!”

And so violent, Logan thought.

“And how the hell did they get inside our patrols?” Singer asked, his hands shaking too.

“Not difficult at all for a couple of Nazi fanatics who want to commit suicide. Our patrols can’t be everywhere, so they probably just hid in a basement or a closet until our men passed by.”

Logan checked his men and found them all unhurt except for a couple who complained about being trampled in the mad rush to get out of the truck. They were still alive and there was nervous joking about it. Logan looked forward a couple of trucks and grabbed Singer’s arm.

“Come on.”

Unceremoniously, he pulled the lieutenant to the truck that had recently passed them on the other side of the divided road. It had borne the brunt of the raking fire by the gunner in the house, and a half-dozen bodies lay sprawled about it, horribly torn and bleeding profusely. Medics had separated the dead and dying from those who might live, and were attempting to stop the blood that seemed to flow like thick red water from fire hydrants.

Singer paled at the sight and the stench of the smelly gore, which was already darkening and beginning to congeal. “It’s awful, Logan,” he said and tried not to gag.

“I know, Lieutenant, that’s why I wanted you to see it. That’s what could happen if you fuck up when you’re in charge. In this case, no one did anything wrong and certainly these guys did nothing to deserve to be shot to pieces like this. Hell, it could have been us as easily as them.”

Logan turned toward the now totally destroyed building. The actions of those few Nazi soldiers had slowed the entire column.

Dimitri’s loud voice penetrated their thoughts. “Singer, Logan, take some men up there and check it out.”

They gathered the platoon and moved up the hill, weapons at the ready. The farmhouse had been flattened and was smoking, but death could still be hiding in the ruins. They fanned out and approached it from three sides. Once close, it appeared that nothing was alive in the rubble. A charred body stuck grotesquely out of the ruins, but that was it. A blackened arm slowly moved. Someone yelled that it was still alive. A couple of men fired at the body, blowing it to bits. Satisfied, they turned and returned to the stalled column.

Attacks had happened before, but never so close. Always it was a distant chattering of machine-gun fire from up ahead or way behind, or maybe the threat of mines in the road. But never anything like this. Never right beside them. Along the way they had passed a couple of burned-out buildings and a destroyed truck, but everything human had been picked up before they arrived.

Logan shook his head grimly. “Y’know what’s worse, Lieutenant. I’m damn glad these guys weren’t from D Company. I don’t feel guilty about it. It’s like them being from another unit makes it easier to deal with.”

Singer understood. “Yeah, like they’re not even in our army and this really didn’t happen.”

They returned to their own truck and the men gathered about it. “Like I said, Lieutenant, now what do you think of combat?”

“It’s shit, Sergeant Logan, really, truly shit.”

Logan nodded. “Now will someone tell me just what the hell we’re doing here? Everybody says we’re going to fall back to the Elbe when the krauts surrender, so why did our guys have to get killed and wounded when they should have been safe and happy on the other side of that damn river? Whose idea was this?” he said angrily. “Who the hell is trying to prove a point with Stalin?”

Singer nodded. Captain Dimitri had read a letter from a general named Miller in which he spelled out the goals and objectives of what he referred to as Miller Force. It didn’t make anybody happier. The war was almost over and they were sticking their necks out. It wasn’t fair.

Elisabeth Wolf lurched, seemingly drunkenly, as she forced her aching and weary legs to move. Walking more than a couple of hundred feet was something she’d been unable to do for several weeks, and the inactivity had made her soft. The lack of proper food-or any food at all, for that matter-had made her weak, and her young and once nimble joints were racked with pain. Her head pounded from pain as she and her young nephew Pauli followed the bearded and one-legged man who was going to save them. Save them from what? she wondered as her eyes tried to focus. From the Russians, she remembered. From death.

If only she knew his name, Elisabeth thought dizzily. She had been brought up to believe in God, and she wondered if the one-legged man was a saint or an angel. Maybe he was the Archangel Michael? A few feet away, the man hobbled along on his crutch, crippled in body but leading them through strength and force of will.

Behind her, she heard the rumble and thunder of the battle for the city of Berlin, the center of Nazi Germany. For several days, the artillery had been incessant and the bombing had been a nonstop drumming that shook the earth and caused buildings to disintegrate on top of their occupants, burying and crushing the people inside. It would seem a miracle if anyone was alive. Yet there were many people still hiding in their basements and shelters while others, like Pauli and herself, attempted to flee westward from the burning city.

A sharper noise intruded as something large exploded in the distance. She resisted the urge to turn around and gaze at the billowing black clouds that sometimes blotted out the sun. In her confusion, she thought she would be like Lot’s wife and be turned into a pillar of salt for her sin of inquisitiveness.

There were about fifty refugees. They stopped and she looked up ahead to see what the cause was. It was another roadblock, and the jackals from Himmler’s SS were searching for deserters. The slack body of a young man hung from a telephone pole, and she tried in vain to keep a wide-eyed Pauli from seeing it. The corpse’s eyes were open and his purple tongue stuck out.

A golden-haired and well-fed SS officer in his late twenties, clad in a shockingly clean black uniform, walked through the little crowd and sniffed at them in dissatisfaction. There were no deserters here. Only the old, the lame, a few women, and a couple of children. He stood in front of Elisabeth and stared, and she looked back at him although her eyes continued to have a hard time focusing. In her condition she was physically thin and shapeless and was wearing the clothing of a small man. She also probably looked quite mad.

“And what is this,” the officer sneered. “Male or female?”

A couple of soldiers snickered, and the officer ran his hand down the outside of her shirt, searching for breasts. Once she had had a nice petite figure. Now she was a shapeless stick.

“I can’t tell,” the SS man pronounced to his men in mock confusion. He laughed at his own joke and his men laughed along. Then he jammed his hand down Elisabeth’s slacks and grabbed her crotch so hard that she yelped in pain and shock. “Female!” the officer proclaimed triumphantly. “But so wasted she isn’t worth fucking.” He waved to the one-legged man who was glaring at him. “Cripple, get these people out of here. Heil Hitler!”

Elisabeth stood transfixed by the brutal actions of the SS officer until the one-legged man limped up to her. Steadying himself with his crutch, he patted her cheek with his hand. She was almost in shock from the incident.

“It’s all right, little girl. It is all a bad dream that will soon be ending.” He looked at her sunken cheeks and pale skin. “When did you last eat?” he asked.

“She feeds me,” Pauli chirped with the innocence of his six years.

“Ah,” the man said, understanding. The girl had been giving her scant supply of food to the boy. “What is your name?” he commanded her, and Elisabeth told him.

“Good,” he said. “I am Wolfgang von Schumann. Once I commanded a brigade of tanks. Now I shepherd this little flock. Do you understand me?” Elisabeth nodded dreamily. She was almost out of energy and the world was starting to revolve. Von Schumann continued. “In a few minutes, I am going to call a halt for the night. We will distribute what food we have. I will see that the boy has his share and you will eat yours and not give it away. Do you understand? If you love this boy, you will help yourself stay alive for him.”

Elisabeth blinked and started to cry. “Yes,” she whimpered. She saw that von Schumann was about the same age as her late father, maybe fifty. He had a stern face, but his eyes were sad, not cruel.

Von Schumann gestured for a couple of women to help Elisabeth, who was about to collapse. “Perhaps we can even find some extra food to help you regain your strength.”

As the women led Elisabeth and Pauli away, motion in the distance caught von Schumann’s eye. A line of military vehicles, including tanks, was driving on the autobahn a couple of miles away. His military experience and his excellent eyesight told him the tanks were not Panzers and the silhouette was not that of a Russian T34. It was too high. He sucked in his breath. Was it possible they were American Shermans? From this distance, he couldn’t be certain. But what if they were? God in heaven, what would happen now? The Russian army was on both sides and behind his group. In front of him was the once lovely city of Potsdam. When the two forces did link up, he wanted to be on the American side.

He felt a tug at his sleeve. “Sir, what’s wrong with Aunt Lis?”

Von Schumann sighed. The girl had fainted and was being half carried, half dragged into a building by the women who had been holding her up. She was young and presumably healthy. Some food, rest, and water would help immeasurably. He remembered that the boy’s name was Pauli.

“Pauli, I’m sure all she needs is a little rest and some food.”

“Was I bad for eating her food?” the boy asked.

Von Schumann laughed at the innocence of children. It felt good to laugh. “No, Pauli, your Aunt Lis was very good for sharing it with you.”