Fox On The Rhine (25 page)

The three wheels of the landing gear rolled easily across the smooth runway as the Swallow slowly increased its speed. He found the aircraft easy to steer, and he quickly aligned himself with the long stretch of pavement leading into the wind. When he released the brakes the plane shot forward, pressing him back into the seat with the force of acceleration. The runway blurred--the whole world faded to an indistinguishable haze--and he was aware of nothing but the roaring engines, the shivering pressure, and this tight cockpit.

Finally his speed was right, and Krueger pulled back on the geared stick, surprised by the ease of the elevator’s movement. In another second all vibration had ceased, the twin Jumo turbines blasting the jet into the sky. Climbing gradually, mindful of Galland’s advice, he retracted the landing gear and gently banked over the carpet of trees.

He was reminded of his earliest days of flying, in the soundless gliders that had wheeled and spiraled with such grace over the bluffs of Bohemia. Never since then--not until now, at least--had he known an aircraft with similar smooth flight characteristics.

Feeding more fuel into the powerful engines, he felt the force of acceleration press him even more tightly into the seat, recalled Galland’s description: “as though an angel was pushing me through the sky.” Now he pulled back hard on the stick, this time grateful for the mechanical advantage of the gearing that allowed him to so easily master the ailerons against phenomenal air pressure. He felt the aircraft soar upward without any appreciable loss of speed.

Conscious of the four cannons mounted in the nose, and mindful of the destruction he had witnessed in crossing Germany, he wished momentarily that an Allied bomber would stray into his sights.

But of course this was a test flight. He banked, again thrilled with the ease of the aircraft’s handling, even at this almost unimaginable speed. Fiery exhaust streamed from the engines as he pushed the throttles to maximum thrust, racing past the field, barely aware of the antlike figures on the ground gawking upward at his fiery image.

An hour later he finally lowered his gear and settled back to the field, rolling toward the massive hangar, and to a future that, once again, gave him hope of victory.

Wehrmacht Hospital, Vesinet, France, 8 August 1944, 1520 hours GMT

The branches of the tree were stark and blackened, but the bark felt smooth against his back as he looked over the grassy lawn. His head still hurt, and the bandage over his left eye masked his vision in its vexing fashion...or perhaps it wasn’t merely the bandage that masked his vision. Somehow, despite the doctors’ assurances, he had trouble believing he would ever see from that eye again.

At least, after too long in the tiny room, Rommel had found the strength to walk outside. The weather was fine, the surroundings peaceful, and for some reason he had gravitated to this blasted oak that had first caught his eye from the window of his hospital room. Though the late summer sun felt good against his skin, and the light breeze was soothing, he found as he leaned against the tree that his thoughts were far away, his mood darkened by uncountable disturbing tangents.

In his hand was a letter from General Speidel, brought to him by von Esebeck as the correspondent had traveled back to Germany from the front. Because of the injury to his eye, it had taken Rommel a long time to read the words--and even then it seemed as if his mind was thickened, unnaturally slowed. Yet the gist of the message was clear.

The Normandy front had collapsed, succumbing to the disaster that every rational military mind had foreseen. The Americans had broken out along the coast at Avranches, and a new army--the Third--commanded by General George Patton was racing east, west, and south across France. Rommel had tried to get in touch with von Kluge, but that field marshal--no doubt overwhelmed by the unfolding disaster on his front--had been unable or unwilling to take any more phone calls from the man he had replaced.

News had reached him from several of his former subordinates during the African campaign, from his chief of staff Speidel and from Fritz Bayerlein, commander of the once-proud Panzer Lehr Division. Even some of the stubborn SS generals like Sepp Diet-rich and Meyer, who had been so proud of his Twelfth Panzer, the Hitler Youth Division, were beginning to see the need for some strategic flexibility. The tactic was obvious--they should fall back, try to preserve as much of their men and materiel as possible. Rommel knew that even von Kluge saw this as the only practical alternative, but would he act in the face of Himmler’s orders to the contrary?

It had been much the same in North Africa. Newly promoted to lieutenant general after commanding the Seventh Panzers, the Ghost Division, as it swept across France in an amazing blitzkrieg, Rommel was given command of the German forces in Africa. In a series of spectacular campaigns, the Afrika Korps entered into history. There, Rommel acquired the nickname of “the Desert Fox” for his brilliant tactics.

Among Rommel’s favorite mementos was a copy of a memorandum from the British General Auchinleck about him. “There exists a real danger that our friend Rommel is becoming a kind of magician or bogeyman to our troops, who are talking far too much about him. He is by no means a superman--Even if he were a superman, it would still be highly undesirable that our men should credit him with supernatural powers.”

But in the end the Allies had swamped him with so many tanks, such utter control of the skies, that all the maneuvering and courage, all the resourcefulness and planning in the world, hadn’t been enough to hold the field. Eventually his beloved warriors, in the end a full panzerarmee, had fallen prey to the inevitable victory of a stronger foe.

In that final defeat, as now, he felt a complete absence of supernatural powers. He didn’t even have enough power to stand and walk unaided. He even felt his
fingerspitzengefühl
, his special “sixth sense” intuition for which he was famous, had deserted him.

A shadow fell across him, and the Desert Fox looked up, startled by the sight of a tall SS general. The man’s face was marred by twin dueling scars, and he clicked his heels and raised his hand in a formal salute. He looked every bit the Aryan; in spite of himself, Rommel reacted to the sight of such a fine man.
If only he wore a Wehrmacht uniform rather than SS black
, Rommel thought.

“Heil Himmler!” the black-garbed officer declared. The greeting sounded odd. “Field Marshal Rommel?”

Rommel, capless, nodded in response and tried to appraise the man without squinting. Even in the sunlight his eyesight was not so good, though he was fairly certain this was a person he had never seen before.

“I am General Horst Bücher, SS General Staff, and aide to Führer Himmler. I wonder if I may have a moment of your time.”

“Of course.” Rommel was cautious, but curious as well. “Would you like to go inside?”

“If you are comfortable here, that is fine with me. To be truthful, I have had little opportunity to enjoy the sunshine, or a view such as this.”

“I have nothing but time,” came the bitter reply. “While my army is cut to pieces in France, I must sit here and languish under the orders of surgeons and nurses.”

“I understand that you and the rest of the hospital will be evacuated shortly.”

“Yes, before the Americans get here.” The word had come down only a day before, yet another galling feature of his current, impotent circumstances.

“Your recovery is progressing well, I hope. Der führer himself asked me to inquire as to your health.”

“Very well,” Rommel replied. He didn’t mention the constant pain in his head, his fear of loss of mental acuity, nor did he move, which would inevitably have revealed his stiff and awkward gait, disabilities that might cause this haughty, scarred general to regard him as a mere cripple.

“I take it that you do not approve of the way matters are being handled in the west?”

The Desert Fox shrugged. He was not about to blame a fellow Wehrmacht officer in front of this SS fellow. “It is not the handling of the army--it is the circumstances of the battle. Any fool can see that we have to pull back to a defensible position. The Seine, at the very least, or even the Siegfried Line and the Rhine. There we might stand against the Allies. In the open countryside of France, we will be cut to pieces.”

“We still hold most of this country,” Bücher observed.

“With what?” demanded Rommel bitterly. “Now that the Americans have a real tank general in charge, it is only a matter of time--and precious little of that--before Patton has made a wreck of the whole front.”

“And you would recommend a full withdrawal?”

“Immediately,” he snapped, growing irritated as a throbbing headache swelled between his temples. “First, pull Weise’s Nineteenth Army out of southern France. It’s only a matter of time before the Allies land there, and we have no hope of stopping that invasion. Then fall back, if possible faster than Patton can advance.”

“And we can win?” asked the SS general.

“Win? No! The Russians will win, they will win everything.” He was tired and irritated, and so he spoke his beliefs with uncharacteristic bluntness. “If you want to know what I think, we should surrender to the Americans now, invite them into Berlin as quickly as possible--before it is too late!”

“Interesting.” Bücher did not seem disturbed by the forthright pronouncements. “But what if the USSR can be stopped?”

“Hah!” Rommel’s laugh was bitter. “As well as that the sunshine be stopped, so that my tanks can move around without the accursed Jabos buzzing overhead, always ready to shoot them to pieces!”

‘Thank you for your opinion,” Bücher said, clicking his heels and saluting again. “I hope that your convalescence continues to proceed well.” And he was gone.

And what exactly was that about?
Rommel thought. He concentrated through his headache, and could think of only two possibilities. The first was that he was to be returned to his old command.
I’ve certainly ruined that
, he thought ruefully. He had never been comfortable with, nor much good at, politics. The second possibility was that the investigation of the conspiracy had fingered him as someone less than patriotic as a Nazi.
That, on the other hand, I think I’ve just confirmed
. Perhaps he’d sealed his death warrant just then. But better death than watching the slow annihilation of his troops.

Seine River, Fifty Kilometers Northwest of Paris, France, 10 August 1944, 1635 hours GMT

“Danke--but we’ll walk for this part.”

A dozen infantrymen jumped down from the Panther’s hull, and Carl-Heinz didn’t blame them. Looking at the long bridge with its litter of wrecked vehicles and bomb craters, he momentarily wished for a way that he could get the tank across the river without having to drive it.

This was a steel span of modern construction, and it seemed to be holding up well, though it was cratered from countless bomb hits. Now it was a key escape route, and the Germans would cross here until the Americans closed up behind them. Then the engineers would finish the work Allied bombers had started.

The troops stood aside as he drove the Panther slowly down the road and onto the bridge, knowing that the next minutes would be another very dangerous interval in these weeks that had borne all too many life-threatening moments. The river was broad here, and the bridge showed the effects of countless Allied bombs. He thanked God for the cloudy skies but knew from hard experience that the overcast restricted, but did not eliminate, the threat of Allied air power.

He came to a burned-out truck, engine still smoldering, and pushed it out of the way with the Panther’s fender. Several dead men lay in the roadway, and though they were beyond any feeling he nevertheless carefully drove the tank around the stiff corpses.

His hands, stained with dirt and grease accumulated over weeks of desperate retreat, were steady on the big three-quarter round wheel as the battered tank rolled on across the paved span of metal girders. He couldn’t help wondering: how many roads had they traveled down since Lieutenant Schroeder had been killed? They had crossed countless small bridges, but no barrier anywhere near as wide or as deep as this mighty river.

Fritzi and Peltz took turns watching the skies, as they had done during the long retreat across France. Sometimes they had wondered if theirs was the only tank left in the Wehrmacht. Of course, they had seen plenty of them on the sides of the road, inevitably wrecked by the bombs and guns of the dreaded Jabos.

“I’ll get back to you, Yetta,” he murmured, steering between still more burned hulks. “I will, someday.” Odd, how much he had been talking to himself, or to his tank or his distant wife. It had become such a habit that Ulrich didn’t even look up any more. His humming, however, had decreased.

It was the thought of home and family that had kept him going through this long retreat. The division was gone, and their army was coming to pieces around them... so it seemed only natural to think of loved ones back in Germany when he needed a reminder of why he was still fighting, why he must make sure that he stayed alive.

Finally they were off the bridge, climbing the road on the east bank of the mighty river. Another wrecked truck blocked the road, its bed blasted apart by a bomb, and Carl-Heinz used the tank to push it out of the way. More dead soldiers were lined up in a grassy meadow, proof that someone was taking charge of these remnants of a broken army, at least to give the fallen soldiers some semblance of a burial. A field artillery piece lay on its side in the ditch, and two dead horses--swollen grotesquely in the summer heat--lay in their traces where they had fallen.

Halfway up the hill Carl-Heinz pulled the Panther off the road, parking between several large oak trees while he and his crewmates emerged to stretch, to piss, and to take a last look toward western France.

“We’ll have to find some fuel before too long,” he remarked, unconsciously aware that the others had taken to looking to him for leadership.

“I’ll see if I can siphon any from these wrecks,” Peltz offered, taking a petrol can and a hose and starting down the road.