Hitler's War Read online

  When Sergei ducked into the tent, he was relieved to see no uniformed strangers standing next to Captain Kuznetsov, who sat at a rickety table doing paperwork by the light of a kerosene lamp. Kuznetsov looked up and set down his pen. “Ah. Yaroslavsky.” His tone could have meant anything—or nothing.

  Sergei saluted. “Reporting as ordered, sir.” If he was going down, he’d go down with style. Not that that would do him any goddamn good, either.

  “Da,” Kuznetsov said, again with nothing special in his voice. Then he went on, “Make sure you and your airplane are ready to fly out of here first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Yes, sir!” Sergei couldn’t keep the relief from his voice. An order that was a real order! “Uh, sir…Where are we flying to?”

  “To Drisa, northwest of Polotsk,” Captain Kuznetsov answered. “It’s right near the Polish and Lithuanian borders—and it’s about as close to East Prussia as we can get while we stay in the Rodina.”

  “I see.” Yaroslavsky wondered if he did. “Will we be flying against Germany again, then, sir?”

  “We have no orders for that at the present time,” his superior said. He didn’t go on to say whether he thought it was likely or unlikely. Sergei didn’t presume to press him, either. If you gave an opinion that turned out to be wrong, somebody would make you pay for it. If you kept your mouth shut, no one could pin anything on you.

  Along with the rest of the SB-2s in the squadron (except for one grounded by bad hydraulics), Sergei’s flew out at first light the next morning. Ivan Kuchkov was badly hung over. Yaroslavsky wouldn’t have wanted to fly like that, not with the two big engines throbbing and growling away. Nothing the bombardier could do about it, though, not unless he wanted to try his luck with the stockade—or, more likely, the NKVD. If Kuchkov complained, the engines’ thrum kept anybody else from hearing him.

  Russia scrolled along below the bomber: farmland and forest and swamp, with here and there a town looking all but lost in the vastness of the landscape. Puddles in the Pripet Marshes reflected the gray sky. Mouradian minded the map and made sure the bomber didn’t stray too far west and end up in Polish airspace. Sergei wasn’t afraid of what the Poles would do to him. They flew nothing close to the deadly German Messerschmitts. But what his own superiors would do to him for screwing up didn’t bear thinking about.

  “Drisa’s in Byelorussia, yes?” Mouradian asked.

  “Yes,” Sergei agreed.

  The Armenian sighed. “They’ll talk like the Devil’s uncle, then.”

  Russians didn’t have any trouble following Byelorussian. Russians could follow Ukrainian, which differed more from their language. And of course Byelorussians and Ukrainians had to understand Russian. But Anastas Mouradian had learned it in school. He spoke well, and understood standard Russian well. Its cousins, though, weren’t open books to him, the way they were to Sergei.

  North of the Pripet Marshes, patches of snow started showing up on the ground. It would be colder here. Sergei suspected he would spend a lot of time in his flight suit. Leather and fleece that could keep out the cold at 8,000 meters could do the same against even the Russian winter.

  He landed the SB-2 on a dirt strip outside of Drisa—an unprepossessing place if ever there was one. His teeth clicked together when the plane touched down. The runway was anything but smooth. He didn’t bite his tongue, though. And the SB-2 was built to take it. As he brought the bomber to a stop, he wondered how much it would have to take, and how soon.

  Another gray, damp, chilly day in Münster. Sarah Goldman sat in the rickety bleachers at a soccer pitch and watched her brother break away from the back who was trying to guard him. Both teams were made up of nothing but Jews. Saul was so much better than anyone else on the field, it wasn’t even funny.

  The goalkeeper ran out to try to cut down his angle. Saul got his toe under the ball, lofted it just over the fellow’s luckless, reaching hands, and watched it bounce once and roll into the net.

  “Goal!” Sarah shouted exultantly. Her mother and father clapped their hands. That made it 5-2 with only about ten minutes left in the second half. Saul’s team had the game in the bag.

  But he only shrugged, as if embarrassed at what he’d done. He probably was. This was his second goal of the match, and he’d assisted on two others. The soccer couldn’t be much fun when you outclassed friends and foes alike. Saul might have made a professional in another year or two. It didn’t seem he’d ever get the chance now.

  Sarah supposed she ought to count herself lucky the Jews got any chance to play at all. Yes, these bleachers might fall down in a stiff breeze. Yes, she was sitting on a blanket because she’d end up with splinters in her tukhus if she didn’t. Yes, the pitch was bumpy and looked as if it were mown by goats. This had to be the most miserable place to play for kilometers around.

  Which was, of course, the only reason the Jews got to use it. Sarah pictured a plump, blond, uniformed athletic commissioner laughing till his jowls wobbled as he gave the two Jewish teams permission to play here. Maybe he thought a match here would be worse than no match at all. Were the teams involved full of Aryans, he might have been right.

  Ever since 1933, though, Jews had had to take whatever scraps of comfort and pleasure they could find. Even a soccer match on a horrible excuse for a pitch was better than none. It gave people an excuse to get out of the house, an excuse to get together and see one another and gab.

  Yes, a couple of policemen were also watching the game and the little crowd in the stands. What could you do about that? Nothing, as Sarah knew too well. If you were a Jew in the Reich, somebody was going to keep an eye on you.

  She leaned over to her father and asked, “What do they think we’re going to do? Roll up the chalk lines and carry them home in our handbags and pockets?”

  Samuel Goldman shrugged. “Maybe they do. Maybe they think we can turn the lines into bombs or something, and use them to blow up NSDAP headquarters.”

  “Would you blow up Nazi headquarters if you could?” Sarah asked.

  “Of course not!” Father’s reply was too loud and too quick. “The National Socialists have done wonderful things for the Reich. They’ve made Germany wake up.” Deutschland erwache! was a favorite Nazi slogan.

  As Father spoke, his eyes told Sarah she’d been foolish. After a moment’s thought, she knew just how, too. Father couldn’t hope to give her a straight answer, not where anyone else could hear him talking. Yes, the only people in earshot were other Jews. But did that mean they wouldn’t betray one of their own? Fat chance, Sarah thought bitterly. If ratting on fellow Jews would give them a moment’s advantage, plenty of people would do it in a heartbeat.

  Sarah hoped she would never stoop to anything as vile as that. She hoped so, yes, but she admitted to herself that she wasn’t sure. Times kept getting harder and harder. If not for Father’s gentile friends who gave him articles to write, she didn’t know what the family would have done.

  Mercifully, the match ended. The teams lined up and shook hands with each other. Players tousled one another’s sweaty hair. The goalkeeper on the other side mimed chipping the ball the way Saul had, then threw up his hands in mock—or maybe not mock—despair.

  The sparse crowd came down onto the pitch. Practically everybody there was related to one player or another. “You were great, Saul!” Sarah made herself sound enthusiastic, even if she knew her brother wouldn’t be.

  And he wasn’t. “Big deal,” he said. “These guys try, but I feel like a grown-up playing against kindergarten kids.” He sighed. “Any soccer is better than none—I guess.” He didn’t sound sure; not even close.

  “If the Foresters would let you come back—” Sarah began.

  Saul cut her off with a sharp, chopping motion of his right hand. “The Foresters would. They’d take me back like that.” He snapped his fingers. “But if the SS says no…What are you going to do?” His wave took in the sorry excuse for a pitch, the fumbling opponents, and the paltry crowd. “Y
ou’re going to play in matches like this—for as long as they let you, anyhow.”

  “Why would they stop you?” Sarah asked.

  “Why?” Her brother snorted. “I’ll tell you why. They’re liable to realize we’re having fun in spite of everything, that’s why. And if they do—” Saul made that chopping motion again.

  “Oh.” Sarah left it right there. Saul’s words had a horrible feeling of probability to them. The Nazis ruined things for Jews just to be ruining them. That was how they had fun. And since they had the Gestapo and the ordinary police and the Wehrmacht on their side, they could have fun any way they wanted.

  One of Saul’s teammates called to him. The older man thumped the hero of the match on the back and handed him a bottle of beer. Saul swigged from it. He made a face. “Even the beer’s gone downhill since the war started,” he said. “It tastes like…lousy beer.”

  What did he almost say? Horse piss? Goebbels piss? Whatever it was, it didn’t come out. As Father had driven home to them again and again, you couldn’t get in trouble for what you didn’t say. Nobody could inform on you for what you were thinking. That might save your life.

  Or it might not. If the Nazis decided to do something to the Jews, or to a particular Jew, they’d just go ahead and do it. They didn’t need any excuses, the way they would have in a country where laws counted for more than the Führer’s will. On the other hand, if a Jew was dumb enough to give them an excuse, they’d grab it in a heartbeat.

  Sarah often wondered what she would do if Hitler or Himmler or Göring or Heydrich or one of those people came to Münster. If she had a chance…If she had a rifle…If she knew how to use a rifle…If pigs had wings…

  Even if she did exactly what she dreamt of doing, what kind of revenge would the Nazis take? Would more than three or four Jews be left alive in the Reich a day after a Jewish girl shot somebody like that? Odds were against it. Too bad. The whole folk were a hostage.

  In small groups, people started walking off toward their houses. No bus or trolley line ran close to this pitch—what a surprise! Buses had almost disappeared since the war started anyhow; whatever fuel Germany had went to the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine. The only private cars that still got gasoline belonged to doctors.

  Well, walking a couple of kilometers was supposed to be good for you. Saul didn’t seem to fret about it. But Sarah was tired by the time she got home. Put together more exercise than she was used to and tight wartime rations—all the tighter because she was a Jew—and she felt as if she were walking uphill both ways.

  There wasn’t much hot water, either. Saul complained loudest about that—after ninety minutes of running up and down the pitch, he needed hot water most. Or he thought he did, anyhow. Staring at his grass-and mud-stained soccer togs, Mother only sighed. Those wouldn’t come clean in cold water, either.

  Staring glumly at black bread and cabbage and potatoes on her supper plate, Sarah asked, “What are we going to do?”

  “If we get through this alive, we’re ahead of the game,” her father said, eyeing his supper with similar distaste. Sarah started to cry. She’d wanted reassurance, but all she’d got was something she had no trouble seeing herself.

  A RUNNER BROUGHT SERGEANT HIDEKI FUJITA’S squad the news: “Radio Berlin says Russia bombed East Prussia last night,” the man reported. He stumbled a little over Russia and Prussia, but Fujita followed him. The sergeant had studied a map. East Prussia was the part of Germany the Reds could reach most easily.

  Fujita glanced west, toward the Halha River and the high ground on the far side. He would have been happy had only Mongol troops prowled there. But, without a doubt, Russians were peering at the Japanese positions through field glasses and rangefinders. Were they listening to some incomprehensible Soviet broadcast telling them that, 10,000 kilometers off to the west, their vast country had just given another punch in the European war?

  If they were, what did they propose to do about it? Would they send more men out to this distant frontier to strengthen their Mongolian puppets? Or would they think the fight against Germany—which was, after all, much closer to their heartland—counted for more than this distant skirmish?

  “Any intercepts?” Fujita asked the runner. The Russians were tough bastards—at least for Westerners—but they had horrible radio security. Half the time, they’d send in plain language what they should have encoded.

  But this time the lance corporal shook his head. “Not that I heard about, anyhow,” he answered.

  “All right,” Fujita said. “Any gossip about what we’ll do on account of this news?”

  “Not that I heard about, Sergeant-san,” the runner repeated.

  “Too bad.” Fujita made himself shrug. “One way or another, we’ll find out sooner or later.”

  Whatever Japan did, the sergeant suspected it wouldn’t happen at once. Fall and winter weren’t the best time for campaigning up here. As if to prove as much, the wind swung around to blow out of the west the next morning, and carried choking clouds of yellow-brown dust from the Mongolian heartland with it.

  It blew hard for three days. Dust from Mongolia blew all the way down to Peking and beyond. So close to the source, the storm was appalling. When the sky finally cleared, when the sun no longer seemed to shine through billowing smoke, the whole landscape had changed. Dunes had shifted. Some had grown, others disappeared. Dust buried the scraggly patches of steppe grass.

  Captain Hasegawa, the company commander, shook his head after coming by to survey the outpost. “Can you imagine living your whole life in country like this? Turn your back on it, and half of it blows away.”

  The mere thought was enough to make Sergeant Fujita shudder. “Sir, as far as I’m concerned, the Mongols are welcome to it.” Then he corrected himself before Hasegawa could: “Well, they’re welcome to all of it that doesn’t belong to Manchukuo, anyhow.”

  “Hai. To that much and not a centimeter more,” Captain Hasegawa said. Fujita let out a small sigh of relief—he wasn’t in trouble, anyhow. Hasegawa looked out over the altered countryside. “At least the Russians will have as much trouble seeing what we’re up to as we do with them.”

  “Yes, sir.” Fujita didn’t care to argue, even if he wasn’t one hundred percent convinced. Oh, the captain was right—the Russians wouldn’t be able to operate as usual during dust storms, either. But what about the Mongols themselves? The Japanese in this miserable place were probably lucky the natives hadn’t sneaked through the dust and slit all their throats.

  “You heard the Russians are really going after the Germans?” Captain Hasegawa asked.

  “Oh, yes, sir,” Fujita said. “The runner got here the day before the storm started.”

  “All right,” the company commander said. “Well, you can bet we’ll take advantage of that. We’d have to be idiots not to.”

  And so? Officers are idiots all the time. Fujita didn’t say that. Sergeants might take it for granted, but somebody with more gold and less red on his collar tabs wouldn’t. Fujita rubbed at his eyes, which still felt gritty. His teeth crunched every time he closed his mouth. He found something safe: “Whatever they want us to do, we’ll do it. You know you can count on that, sir.”

  Of course we’ll do it. If we disobey the orders, they’ll kill us. And our families back in the Home Islands will be disgraced. Sergeant Fujita knew exactly how things worked. For common soldiers and noncommissioned officers, the army was a cruel, harsh, brutal place. Officers didn’t have it so bad—but they necessarily looked the other way while noncoms kept privates in line.

  Many Japanese soldiers began coming up toward the front a few days later. Sergeant Fujita would rather have seen them move up during the dust storm, too. Pointing in the direction of the high ground on the other side of the Halha, he complained, “The Russians can watch everything we do.”

  “For now,” Captain Hasegawa said. “Once we get moving, we’ll take their observation posts away from them, neh?”

/>   “Yes, sir.” Fujita said the only thing he could. He wished he were as confident as the company commander—and, presumably, the high command. But the Japanese and the Russians had been banging heads on the border between Manchukuo and Mongolia for a while now. The Red Army had more airplanes, more armor, and more artillery—and had had the better of the skirmishes. Why should anything change now?

  As if plucking that thought out of his head, Captain Hasegawa said, “The round-eyed barbarians will worry more about the Germans than they do about us. This is our neighborhood. They look towards Europe. They can’t help it.”

  Since Fujita had had pretty much the same notion—and since Hasegawa was his superior—he couldn’t very well disagree. All he could do was hope it was true…and hope his own side brought in enough force to win once the serious fighting started.

  Artillery did come forward along with the foot soldiers. So did sleek, modern monoplane fighters. Sitting on the ground, they looked as if they ought to sweep the Soviet biplanes from the sky.

  Armored cars and a few tanks also rattled up to the front line. Fujita was glad to see them, and wished he were seeing more of them. This might be the back of beyond for the Russians, but they had plenty of tanks here.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Captain Hasegawa told him when he cautiously expressed misgivings. “This isn’t the only place where we’ll be facing off against the Russians. We’ll put our tanks where we need them most.”

  And where would that be? Fujita wondered. But a moment’s thought gave him the answer. If Japanese armor would strike anywhere, it would strike at the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Back before the Russo-Japanese War, the Tsar had been able to ship troops down through Manchuria. The Soviets couldn’t do that any more; Japan controlled the railroads in what was now Manchukuo. But, just on the other side of the border, the railroad was Stalin’s key to defending Vladivostok and the rest of eastern Siberia. Break the line, take it away from the Reds, and the port and the whole vast country would fall into Japanese hands like a ripe persimmon.