North Reich (45 page)

      
“Where are you going to take me?” he managed to ask, even though he was losing control of his tongue.
 
He’d been given some morphine and he was slipping off to sleepy-land.
 
      

The German laughed harshly.
 
“There’s a prison camp outside Toronto.
 
Even though it’s run by the SS and the Gestapo, I’m sure they’ll treat you with the respect you deserve.”

      
SS?
 
Gestapo?
 
Oh shit, he thought as the drug finally took over.

Grant and others from Truscott’s staff were in trenches about twenty miles east of Detroit.
 
The Germans were two miles away and their defense line ran from a few miles east of Sarnia on the St. Clair River and Lake Huron and down to Chatham just north of the Lake Erie coast.
 
The Germans had dug deeply in and it was understood that other defensive lines were being built a few miles beyond that.
 
It was clearly understood that piercing this line would be the first of many, a fact that totally infuriated General Patton who wanted a war of maneuver, not a series of set piece battles that consisted of attacks on fortified positions.

      
The night before, Patton had angrily informed Ike and Truscott that bloody, set-piece battles of attrition would ultimately wear down the Nazis, but that the price in American dead and wounded would be enormous.

      
“That kind of fighting is what cost the British control of North Africa,” he raged.
 
“We have to pry the krauts loose and get them on the run.
 
We can’t do it with airborne troops, not just yet, but we can do it with bombers.”

      
Tom had been in the far corner of the room and understood the problem with using paratroops.
 
The two airborne divisions the army had didn’t have armor or heavy artillery.
 
When the time came, their job would be to upset and destroy enemy communications and logistics, holding on until the American heavy forces arrived.
 
Trouble was, nobody could guarantee if and when relief would show up.
 
Therefore, the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions would have to sit and wait.
 
They were not happy either.

      
Tom also thought Patton was too disparaging of British tactics.
 
From what he’d read, the battle of attrition they’d lost had been pushed on them and was not what they’d wanted.
 
Regardless, the swastika now flew over the cities of Alexandria and Cairo, and the Suez Canal was German.

      
Patton would attack with one armored division and one infantry.
 
These would be followed up by two more infantry divisions who would exploit the breach made by the initial assault.
 
Patton had wanted at least one more armored division, but the transition from the M3 tanks to the M4 was taking longer than anybody expected.

      
Patton had grinned at his small congregation.
 
“We’ll make do with what we have.
 
We’ve been hitting them with artillery for days now, and we are now going to pound the crap out of them with bombers.
 
I’ve laid on two hundred B17s and another two hundred P47s to escort them and paste whoever’s left standing.”

      
Truscott hadn’t been so certain.
 
“You’re counting heavily on two things: first that the bombers can hit the target effectively and, second, that the Germans will even be where you expect.
 
If we were so easily able to spot their trench line, maybe it’s because they wanted us to see it and hit the wrong spot.”

      
That had sobered Patton, but only for a moment.
 
“Lucian, you know as well as I do that nothing’s certain in this world, but I am confident that we can hit them and hurt them and push them back.
 
Will we open them up?
 
Probably not, and maybe not the next time or the time after that, but, sooner or later, they will have to crack and then break.
 
They don’t have a choice.
 
Ultimately the Nazi bastards will be overwhelmed.
 
And if they should happen to collapse today, we’ll be ready to chase them all the way to Toronto.”

      
On cue the bombers appeared overhead, the roar of their engines interrupting their conversation.
 
They’d been staged from the Wayne County Airport that was near the Michigan city of Romulus and the Willow Run facility.
 
The men looked up eagerly as the planes continued on from the west and towards the German lines.
 
Colored smoke flares had been ignited to show the air force just where the American lines ended.

      
Grant stared through his binoculars and saw the bomb bay doors open and strings of bombs start tumbling down.
 
In short order, they impacted around the German fortifications, sending up huge debris clouds and making the ground shake.

      
Another wave of bombers followed the first and Tom had the feeling that the bombs were falling closer to where they were watching.
 
When the third wave hit, he and the others were certain of it.
 
The bombers were unloading early and the attack was creeping back to where they were watching.

      
“Down,” Patton screamed.
 
Everyone hugged the earth as the explosions drew closer.
 

“Call off the fucking bombers,” Truscott yelled.
 
Tom heard someone trying desperately to get through to the air force.

Bombs exploded all around them.
 
The concussions lifted them off the ground and slammed them back down.
 
The explosions were deafening.
 
Tom heard screams and realized it was his voice.
 
I don’t want to die, he kept thinking.

The bombing stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
 
Tom staggered to his feet.
 
Patton had a cut on his cheek and his right arm hung limply.
 
Truscott appeared dazed but unhurt.
 
Tom checked himself.
 
He had a bloody nose and there was a ringing in his ears.

A young lieutenant rushed up to Patton and said, “Let me get you to a hospital.”

Patton shook his head angrily.
 
“No goddamn hospital.
 
Get the attack going right now and just like we planned.”

Truscott grabbed Patton’s arm.
 
“George, we just bombed our own men.
 
Some of our boys must have been killed or wounded.”

“Don’t you think I know that?
 
All the more reason to attack.
 
We can’t let them die in vain.
 
The first bombs must have damaged the kraut lines.
 
The German shits who survived are doubtless laughing their asses off at us and won’t be expecting the rest of the army to come charging right at them.”

Grant’s head was still buzzing as he turned his binoculars to the scores of Sherman tanks heading towards the Germans.
 
Overhead, P47s streaked in strafing and dropping their own bombs, this time accurately since they were flying lower.
 
Patton let out a whoop and jumped into his jeep.
 
He waited for the combat vehicles and fighters to clear the area and ordered his driver forward.

Truscott and one of his key aides found another jeep, while Tom and Bryce found another.
 
“Why the hell did they drop short?” Tom snapped at the air force major.

Bryce grimaced.
 
“It’s the way they’re trained.
 
The lead bomber drops on target and the rest unload when they seem him do it.
 
Inevitably, the bombs creep back.
 
Since the target would be obscured by the first bombs, nobody knows a much better way of doing it and don’t suggest bombing north-south instead of east-west because that would make the bombers fly over a lot of enemy turf full of people who’d be shooting at them, and then try to hit a thin ribbon of fortifications from high altitude.
 
Any way you look at it, most bombs are going to miss.
 
We just should have had our troops and us farther back.”

And, Grant thought, I almost got killed because Patton and Truscott wanted to be close to the action.
 
Worse, American troops poised to jump off and attack what they hoped would be dazed and confused Germans were now hurt and confused themselves.

      
They had to drive more slowly the closer they got to the German lines.
 
It was quickly apparent that a goodly number of Germans had survived the bombing, which was another lesson.
 
Machine gun and anti-tank fire sliced through American infantry and a number of American tanks went up in flames.
 
Tom stopped and they jumped into a bomb crater.

      
“Please don’t tell me we’re going to retreat,” Bryce said.
 
“That would be a sin after all our boys went through.
 
And where the hell are the generals?”

      
A quick look confirmed that Patton and Truscott were a little in front of them and a hundred yards to their left.
 
Another tank exploded and someone yelled that the place was mined.
 
Grant and Bryce looked around their crater and wondered if they were lying on a mine.

      
They slithered up and carefully crawled back to their jeep.
 
They slowly drove forward, conscious that mines could be just under the earth.
 
They passed several broken Sherman tanks that were burning furiously.
 
The stench coming from them told them that not all the crew had made it outside.
 
More bodies lay on the ground, and most were American.

      
Finally, they were through the German line.
 
In the distance, they could see other enemy vehicles pulling back, while anti-tank and machine guns covered them.
 
This German defensive position had been taken, but at what cost?
 
How many GIs had been killed or wounded by their own planes, and how many others had fallen while taking a thin line of bunkers and machine gun nests? Worse, when the Germans had pulled back, they had taken most of their equipment with them for use at the next site.

      
As if to taunt them, well-hidden German artillery opened fire, again driving them to the ground.
 
“How far is it from Detroit to Toronto?” Bryce asked.

      
“A little more than five hundred miles,” Tom answered.

      
“Christ, Tom, this is going to be a long damned war.”

Canfield looked up from the stack of papers on his desk and glared at Sergeant Dubinski.
 
“Why the hell didn’t you just shoot the little bastard and throw his ass in the lake?”

      
With that, the scrawny young man in handcuffs standing beside Dubinski started to cry.
 
The sergeant slapped him on the ear, “Shut up you little fucking coward.”
      
Canfield was not going to shoot the foolish boy, nor was Dubinski really going to hurt him.
 
What they really wanted to do was get through to the young soldier and make him realize just how close he’d been to getting hanged for desertion.

      
Canfield glared at the private.
 
“Tell me, Private Hipple, just how the hell did you think you could get away with deserting?
 
You didn’t even get twenty miles before the MPs picked you up, did you?”

      
Hipple gulped.
 
“No sir.”

      
“That’s right,” Canfield continued, “and I’ll bet they were real nice and polite while they kicked the crap out of you weren’t they, which means you have no complaints about the way you were treated, do you?”

      
Hipple’s face was bruised and both his eyes were blackened, and his ribs were bruised which made breathing difficult.
 
“No sir,” he managed.

      
“So why the hell did you do it?”

      
“I wanted to get home, sir.”

      
“Where’s home son?”
 
Canfield already knew the answer.
 
He had Hipple’s personnel file on his desk.

      
“Texas, sir.
 
We live on a farm in Hudspeth County and that’s in way west Texas, sir.”

      
Dubinski snickered.
 
“Ain’t anything much farther west than Hudspeth County.
 
And I’ll be there ain’t nothing in Hudspeth County worth coming home to, is there Hipple, unless, of course, you’re partial to rattlesnakes and lizards?”