The End of War - A Novel of the Race for Berlin - [World War II 02] (42 page)

“Travel safely, General. We’ll speak anon.”

“All right.” Eisenhower’s tone remains taut. He wants to go brood over Molotov’s insulting letter, maybe write a response.

Churchill reads the Supreme Commander’s mind. In parting, he gentles, “Let it go, General. There’s no surprise in this. None whatsoever. The best response for now is silence.”

Eisenhower nods. “Maybe. I still don’t like it.”

“No. Of course not.”

Eisenhower pats Bradley on the arm, who falls in behind him to depart. Eisenhower tosses a quick look at Simpson and Montgomery and turns to leave. Montgomery calls at his back, “Berlin, Ike. It’s ours for the taking.”

Monty, Churchill thinks, needs to learn to stuff it.

Eisenhower stalks off, trailing cigarette smoke like a plane with an engine out. Bradley follows in tow.

Churchill and Montgomery are alone with General Simpson, commander of the Ninth U.S. Army, assigned to Montgomery. It’s Simpson’s front here. 

“Well,” says Churchill obligingly.

“Well,” answers Field Marshal Montgomery.

Churchill puffs and says, “Looks like two Englishmen and one Yank. Field Marshal, this may be the only time left in the war when we have superior numbers.”

Simpson waves one slender finger in the air. “No, no, no, gentlemen. You heard Ike.”

Churchill sidles beside the tall, gray general. He laps an arm as well as he can around Simpson’s shoulders, reaching far up.

“Yes. I recall him ordering me not to go. But he’s not here right now. And if my memory of military protocol does not fail me, it would seem that you, being the front commander, are in charge, General.”

Simpson does not take this seriously. He laughs.”I see what you’re getting at.”

“And?”

“And no, Mr. Prime Minister.”

“Ah.” Churchill removes his awkward embrace. He walks beside Montgomery. “I do quite dislike doing this to you, General. But, I must appeal now to an even higher authority. Field Marshal?”

“Yes, Prime Minister?”

“The Ninth Army is still under your Twenty-first Group, is it not?”

“It is indeed, Prime Minister.”

Outside, a small U.S. Navy motor launch churns nearby to the mansion’s dock.

“Why don’t we go across and have a look at the other side?”

Montgomery is a jaunty character in his beret and red cravat. He enjoys this bit of rebellion. Churchill considers they should both be more careful about gigging Eisenhower. But crossing the Rhine as part of this great and final invasion of the German heartland, after so much loss and agony, is not something to be missed if there is any way possible.

Montgomery grins. “Why not?”

Churchill catches only a quick glimpse of General Simpson’s gesture of appeal. He races Montgomery for the door to get outside and reach the shore to flag down the motorboat.

On the way through the yard Churchill passes Field Marshal Alan Brooke, his military Chief of Staff.

“Alan, come on! We’re going across!”

Montgomery gains the bank first and gets the attention of the launch’s skipper. Churchill and Brooke arrive while the boat eases to the quay. Simpson arrives seconds behind with four other officers, all bearing sidearms.

He says, “Ike will kill me for letting you go. But he’ll kill me slow if I don’t at least keep an eye on you.”

The skipper of the motor launch and his one-man crew are agog at their passengers clambering over the gunwales.

“Captain,” Churchill addresses the sailor, who is not a captain and can barely close his mouth, “be so kind as to take us to the far shore.”

The boat moves onto the Rhine under a cloudless sky. Churchill chomps on a fresh cigar like a man in a winner’s circle. This is magnificent, he thinks, exhilarating. Surrounded by fighting men, on the forefront of the action, right here at the nib of history’s pen where you can hear the scritching of ink to the page just as history is written. Not obsessing over who attends what meeting, who insulted whom, no ping-ponging back and forth over politics and mongering for votes. No, by God, this day is real. The vibrating deck beneath his feet, the danger, the company! Churchill thinks of the two others who with him make up the Grand Alliance, one confined not only to a wheelchair but by privilege and naïveté, the other imprisoned behind walls of dogma and delusion. Alas, if the President and the Marshal could only be here alongside him, the glare of the sun and of great events would surely open their minds beyond their current limits.

When the war is over, Churchill thinks, those two may indeed have the power. But this,
this
is the glory.

The ride across is smooth and unchallenged by enemy attention. Upon landing, Churchill strides in front of Simpson, who tries with his armed cadre to be the first ashore. The Prime Minister steps on the quay on nimble legs. The rap of artillery and small arms fire bowls out of the hilly plain beyond the small town. Churchill does not hesitate, he heads for it, the cavalryman without a horse. Simpson catches up and stakes a position to block him.

“No, sir.”

“General, why come this far if not to see some of the action?”

“We’ll just have to be satisfied with being close enough to hear it, Prime Minister.”

“Oh, pishposh.”

“We’ll walk around the riverbank as long as you want, but no farther inland.”

“General.”

“Prime Minister, as you say, this is my front.”

Churchill pauses to take this in, but there is no question he will obey. After a moment of good-natured obstinacy, he pops his cigar into his mouth like a dart. He says in a voice warped by the dark tobacco tube, “Right! Quite right!”

He calls to the others, Field Marshals Montgomery and Brooke, ”There we are, men. Let’s take a stroll about the riverbank, shall we? Marvelous!”

For half an hour the coterie tramps about, with Churchill in the lead, narrating: “Hah! Yesterday there were Nazis here! Masters of Europe, my hat! Where are they now, what? Blighters!”

On the return voyage, Churchill remains luminous with enthusiasm. In the middle of the Rhine he appeals to be taken downriver to Wesel, the town at the center of the offensive. Simpson shrugs in reply, he’s only along on guard duty. Montgomery stands and points the way for the still-awed sailors running the launch. He seems proud of his Prime Minister’s urging and pugnacity. The boat turns with the current. In minutes a chain across the river stops them from reaching the town.

Churchill chomps his cigar in disappointment until Montgomery slips close and says, “Don’t worry, PM. We’ll go have a look at Wesel in my car. What do you think?”

Returning to Büderich, the party climbs into three cars, Churchill with Montgomery. They take off for Wesel. After a ten-minute ride Montgomery pulls up to the remains of a railway bridge at the outskirts of town. Churchill steps from the car and climbs into the piles of twisted girders and masonry. He marvels at the force of the Allied bombs which fell here just this morning, pretends to feel the heat of them emanating from the rubble. He plays alone in the wreckage and does not mind.

A mile away, an artillery shell lands in the river and explodes on contact with the bottom. Churchill stops his meandering and goes wooden like a hunting dog, his nose and cigar pointing at the report. In seconds two more rounds break the river into fountains of spray, the impacts come closer to the bridge.

Churchill stands his ground, though he senses Simpson shoving through the morass of material to fetch him. More shells whoosh in, one flies directly over their heads to detonate within a hundred yards of their parked cars. The blasts send a thrill into Churchill’s abdomen. He catches sight of Montgomery and Brooke. The two soldiers are in crouches, looking like their next move will be to the ground and their bellies. Simpson reaches Churchill in the ruins.

“Prime Minister. There are snipers in front of you. They are shelling both sides of the bridge. And now they’ve started shelling the road behind you. I can’t accept responsibility for your being here and must ask you to come away.”

Churchill wraps his arms around a protruding steel beam. He lets go only when General Simpson makes it clear that he will pry the Prime Minister from it.

~ * ~

March 28, 1945, 2245 hours

Küstrin, Poland

in his life ilya has never thought much on god.

He was raised in a military family with those traditions, of honor and country. God hovered over everything, but thinly, like the glow from candles.

From a hilltop on the east bank of the Warta River, Ilya watches the aerial bombardment of another citadel. Invisible Red Air Force planes ruffle the night sky, moving between him and the stars to make the pinpoints of light wink. Bombs whistle unseen in their fall, until they strike the fortress to erupt flashes and sailing sparks which are embers of burning logs and hot concrete into the air. The explosions weave a vaguely religious fabric in Ilya’s head. The ancient citadel of Küstrin stands on an island formed by the confluence of the Warta and Oder Rivers. The blasts and flaming debris reflect in the water, making the scene appear even larger. Ilya recalls that hell stands across a river. Hell burns, there is darkness even beside the fire, there is pain and struggle without end.

It’s a surprise that God tries to come to him like this, unbidden, in blotted-out stars and a detonating enemy fortress. He’s had plenty of other moments to enter Ilya, quieter moments, why pick now with this magnified cacophony going on?

Ilya remembers what little he was taught as a child of God. God rules heaven and all the angels. God created the earth. He gives and takes life.

This last bit troubles Ilya.

Stalingrad first made him doubt; the citadels have made Ilya certain. God only gives life. He has delegated to man the task of taking it.

Ilya takes a swig of vodka from a cool bottle. Always on the nights before attacks, jiggling, ringing cartons of vodka are laid out in plenty for the men. Ilya has never been a drinker, not on the scale of most Soviet soldiers. But tonight he is thoughtful, and the bottle seems a willing and quiet partner. He will not get drunk, the bottle serves just to fill his hands. He can’t tolerate much smoking. He thinks he’ll quit and leave that vice to Misha.

Beside him Misha gazes through binoculars at the besieged citadel. The little man’s lips move beneath the goggles the whole time the bombs fall, his voice drones with the propellers of the fighters and bombers flying low and uncontested.

“... are bombing the main fortress, see? This way, the Germans will head out into the field fortifications. Then, tomorrow morning, we’ll bomb the center again, I bet. The Germans will think they’re smart, but what we’re really doing is flushing them out from behind the walls where we can get at them with infantry and artillery. Oh, man! Look at that one go up!”

Ilya listens with half an ear to Misha’s intelligence and projections of strategy. Misha is another reason Ilya is convinced God does not kill. God could not be so enthusiastic about it, reduce it to such science, as man.

Misha will be right. He’s always right in these matters. In the morning the war will happen just as the little man says. Ilya thinks sometimes the scar has given Misha another, almost occult, power to know what will happen. Sometimes the scar seems to do the talking.

More hours into the night pass like this. The fortress stays under assault from above. Misha narrates as though Ilya cannot see the citadel for himself. Ilya contemplates against this backdrop. They share a white blanket over their shoulders. Ilya is so much larger than Misha that the two appear to be a mother swan with a wing draped about her gosling.