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  Varner reached for a cigarette and recalled that he had given up smoking at the insistence of his wife, Magda, and his fourteen-year-old daughter, Margarete. They said it was a disgusting habit. Varner agreed, especially since the only cigarettes available in wartime Germany were absolute shit rolled in paper. He’d picked up the smoking habit to contain stress while fighting the Red Army outside Stalingrad. Now he needed to combat the stress of listening to Hitler.

  “Here,” said a voice from behind.

  Varner laughed and took a cigarette from a fellow staffer, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. They had met in the hospital while being treated for their respective wounds. The darkly handsome Stauffenberg had lost his left eye, right hand, and two fingers on his left hand when his vehicle had been strafed in North Africa. Varner had been wounded in his upper left arm and shoulder, and doctors were still trying to remove shrapnel that moved and sometimes caused him great pain. Varner was shorter than the lean and aristocratic Stauffenberg. He was stocky, like a tank. This was serendipitous since Varner’s specialty was armor. His dark hair was thinning and he was thankful that Margarete got her pixy looks from Magda, a woman he thought was far above him. Varner would never be mistaken for a blond and blue-eyed Aryan superman.

  Between the two of them, they managed to light up. As always, the cigarettes were awful.

  “Why aren’t you in there with the others?” Varner asked.

  Stauffenberg almost snorted. “Because it’s too crowded and they don’t need me to help them make their mistakes. I think it’s incredible that there’s still doubt as to whether the Allied landings in Normandy are the real thing or are just a feint. The Fuhrer does seem to be coming around, however, and no longer insists that Pas de Calais is the eventual main target instead of Normandy. However, the decision has come too late to throw the Allies out.”

  Varner was surprised at the other man’s candor. Stauffenberg’s comments were dangerously close to a criticism of Hitler, which was not a wise thing to do, especially for a relatively low-ranking staff officer, hero or not. Disagreements had a nasty habit of being interpreted as treason. Some very high-ranking generals had argued with the Fuhrer and were now languishing in obscurity.

  He and Stauffenberg, while friendly and cordial, were not close enough to share intimate thoughts, and Varner wondered just what the other colonel was thinking. Was he being sounded out, and if so for what purpose? Rumor had it that Stauffenberg was not an enthusiastic supporter of either Hitler or the Nazi Party. Well, Varner now had his own doubts.

  Varner decided to make light of it. “I left because it was obvious I wasn’t important enough to stay.”

  Stauffenberg laughed. “Perhaps being unimportant is a good thing. If you’re careful, you can become invisible.”

  Casually, they walked farther from the building where the meeting was taking place. It was in the headquarters complex and command center near the Prussian city of Rastenberg. Hitler liked to come there to be away from Berlin, a city he heartily detested because of its perceived decadence. Hitler had few vices. He rarely drank and ate sparingly. Varner thought Hitler had a mistress, a plump blonde named Eva, but no one was certain. Varner decided he didn’t care.

  Berliners returned the favor and did not appear to love Hitler as much as other parts of Germany did. Most of the field marshals and generals vastly preferred the luxuries and flesh pots of Berlin. Varner would have preferred being in Berlin, but only because his small family was there.

  Sirens went off and antiaircraft guns began to fire.

  Varner automatically looked skyward. “What the devil?”

  A plane appeared, flying low and fast. A bomber. Dear God, he thought. It was an American B17.

  The two men ran to a slit trench and dived in just as the bombs began to explode. The earth shook with the power of the bombs and Varner felt he was back in Russia with Red Army artillery shells raining down on him. He tried to control his fear. Shock waves washed over him and he realized he couldn’t hear. Dirt and debris rained down on them.

  Finally, he sensed there was silence and lifted his head. Stauffenberg lay still in the bottom of the trench. His skull had been crushed by a falling piece of metal, and his one eye was dangling out of its socket. Varner crawled out of the trench and gasped in horror at the desolation. Then one thought occurred to him. What about Hitler?

  He lurched to the building he’d just left. It was in ruins. There were great clouds of smoke, but little in the way of flames came from it. Survivors were staggering about and a handful of people were trying to pull others from the wreckage. It was utter chaos and he realized that some people were screaming as his hearing returned. Nobody was in charge. He realized that Germany might have just lost her leadership. Whatever doubts he might have about Hitler, he could not allow Germany’s enemies to realize she was leaderless.

  Varner took a deep breath. He would be the man in charge. He grabbed a dazed looking lieutenant and two confused enlisted men. His hearing had largely returned, although his voice sounded tinny to himself. “You. Go to the radio center and shut down all communications. Nothing comes in and nothing goes out. Do it on my authority on behalf of the Fuhrer and if anyone balks, kill them.”

  The three men saluted and ran off to do his bidding. He did the same with a handful of others, sending them to the gates of the compound. Again, his orders were that nobody comes in and nobody goes out.

  Recovery efforts at the devastated building seemed to be progressing. Medics were crawling around through the mound of rubble. One of them was holding a dismembered leg, and there was a row of bodies on the ground. Several survivors walked around in a daze, their uniforms torn to shreds.

  Varner forced himself to look at the dead. Keitel, the man he’d referred to as a toady lay face up with a look of perpetual astonishment on his face. A medic informed him that Jodl was badly wounded, with both of his legs blown off and would be dead within minutes.

  He was about to ask about Hitler, when a desperate shout and howl of emotional pain came from the men searching the rubble. They had found the Fuhrer.

  Debris was removed and a doctor climbed down beside the pale and crumpled body of Adolf Hitler. Varner followed. Hitler’s eyes were open and staring at the sky. He wasn’t moving. “Is he alive?” Varner asked.

  The doctor shook his head sadly. Again it was time for action and Varner realized what had to be done. “Doctor, you are quite wrong,” he whispered. “You will announce that he is badly wounded and must be taken to the clinic. You will do it immediately and without anyone seeing his real condition.”

  The doctor, stunned, was about to argue when he realized what Varner was telling him. “Stretcher!” the doctor yelled. “We need a stretcher now! Get the Fuhrer to the clinic immediately. His life may depend on it.”

  Hitler’s limp remains were put on a stretcher and covered with a blanket that exposed only part of his head, presenting the illusion that he still lived. The bearers almost ran to the clinic with the doctor alongside. Varner was now comfortable that only he and the doctor knew that Adolf Hitler was dead.

  ***

  Jack Morgan, Captain, U.S. Army, wondered just what the hell was so important that the naval officer commanding the LST had summoned him. He also wondered just what the hell he was doing on an LST heading for France in the first place. He was an Army Air Force officer, even though he’d washed out as a bomber pilot, and American air bases were in England, not France. He’d assumed he’d be used by the air force in some capacity, but sent to France? Never. Even more important, why?

  He had no idea what naval protocol was as he approached the bridge and, in the words of Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind, he frankly didn’t give a damn. The LST was supposed to take him from Dover to the beaches of Normandy where he would depart and find a military unit that wanted a washed-up bomber pilot. This was a complete shock. When he’d been first posted to England, he’d logically thought that he would be assigned as a staff officer at an air b
ase. Now he had no idea what was going to happen to him.

  The LST was more than three hundred feet long, and close to five hundred men were jammed in her along with tons of supplies for what was supposed to be a cruise of not more than a few hours from Dover to Normandy. Under those circumstances, the soldiers’ discomfort meant nothing to those in charge. The LST was supposed to land the men after their short journey and that was it.

  The LST’s skipper was a short, plump, and very serious lieutenant commander named Stephens who was far from happy. “Captain Morgan, I’m certain you don’t understand the navy’s rules so I’ll forgive you your transgressions.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Morgan said with only a hint of sarcasm. Both men were standing and Morgan, at just under five-eleven, was several inches taller and much more slender at one hundred and sixty pounds. He also had a full head of short brown hair; Stephens was balding.

  “In the future, when you come to the bridge you will ask permission before entering.”

  “I was under the impression you called for me, sir.”

  The naval officer was one rank higher than Morgan, which did not impress him. However, Jack did understand enough about the navy to know that the pompous little prick was considered God on his ship. He also decided that he would likely never again be on the damned bridge, so screw Stephens.

  Stephens nodded solemnly. “I called for you because you are the senior officer among the mob the army stuffed in here. Therefore, you are the one who will maintain discipline among the passengers and get them organized and out of the way of the more than a hundred men who will be running this ship. I will not tolerate fights, drunkenness, or gambling. Is that clear?”

  “Perfectly,” Jack said.

  “Then get it done,” Stephens said. Jack saluted and departed.

  He had an hour before the LST was scheduled to depart. The first thing he did was to find any other officers and senior enlisted men. These he had organize the rest of the men into groups of a dozen or so. Some of the officers and NCO’s were reluctant, even wondering why the hell the boys couldn’t have a good time their last few hours before landing in hostile France, and Jack really didn’t have a good answer. Rank, however, ultimately prevailed, and they did what Stephens ordered.

  By the time he accomplished this and was satisfied that the mass of men in the hold of the LST were under at least a semblance of control, darkness had fallen and they were actually pulling away from Dover.

  Stephens approached him on the upper deck by the railing. He had descended from Olympus to deal with mere mortals, Morgan thought.

  “Good job organizing the men, Captain. I know I was short with you, but we were running out of time and I needed things under control. The English Channel is not one hundred percent safe from the krauts. I’ve made a number of trips like this and I haven’t lost a man yet and I don’t want to start now.”

  “Understood, sir.” Perhaps the little man wasn’t such a jerk after all.

  “You know what LST stands for, Captain?”

  “No sir.”

  “Large Slow Target,” Stephens said with a hint of a smile. “It actually stood for Landing Ship Tank, its original purpose, and it’s evolved into a very useful all purpose vessel, but it does make a hell of an inviting target.”

  He explained that the thirty-eight-hundred-ton LST had a top speed of a mere twelve knots, and Morgan doubted she was doing anywhere near that. Other ships, including more LST’s were making the trip and were visible as shadows in the night.

  “Usually we carry supplies to the beaches. This is my third trip with unorganized replacement troops, Captain, and the first two were miserable experiences. The soldiers are going into war and they bitterly resent the fact that my sailors will head back to England and safety, hot meals, and maybe even girlfriends once they’ve dropped them off. This resulted in fights and vandalism. Two of my sailors were stabbed during the last trip and I am now trying to head that off by having you enforce discipline. A number of soldiers got into fights when they decided they’d been cheated at cards, and a larger number got drunk on booze they managed to smuggle in, and a lot of them got sick all over the place. Are you getting the picture?”

  “I guess this isn’t the Queen Mary,” Morgan said with a smile of his own.

  “Not even close. I have to put up with a normal degree of mess and the fact that half of the soldiers will be puking over the rail in a little while is considered normal, but the other stuff will cease.”

  To emphasize his point, a young soldier ran past them to the railing and heaved his guts over the side. Stephens actually laughed. “Another satisfied customer.”

  Morgan made his rounds and saw that all was reasonably well, or at least under a semblance of control. The drunks were quiet and the card players were working seriously at losing their money, but so far without fighting. He walked to the railing and looked over at the Channel and the other ships, which were little more than silhouettes in the night. He saw something in the water. What the hell? A line of white was racing through the water and towards the ship.

  “Torpedo!” he screamed and threw himself onto the deck in an attempt to protect against the explosion. The torpedo struck and the LST shook violently from the impact. Jack was drenched with water and debris. Men screamed and were thrown about. Already prone, Morgan was spared much of it. Still, his head smashed against something and his shoulder was painfully wrenched.

  He managed to get to his feet. Soldiers and sailors were already pulling wounded from below. Morgan grabbed a sailor who was about to protest until he saw Jack’s captain’s bars.

  “What’s going on down there?”

  “Lotsa men trapped, sir, and water’s coming in like a bandit. You could drive a truck through the hole.”

  Morgan fought his way down against a tide of men coming up. Water was filling the hold. Several bodies floated face down, mangled and clearly dead, but the dead weren’t his concern. The trapped and wounded were. He grabbed some men and had them start passing wounded up top. Most of the men complied, although a few were too scared to do anything but scream. These were useless so he let them scramble up the ladder and out of the way.

  Morgan found a pair of men trapped under debris. They were unconscious and hadn’t been noticed in the darkness and confusion. Their heads were almost under water.

  “Give me a hand,” he yelled. A couple of men started pulling while Morgan held the unconscious men’s heads above the rapidly rising water. One man was quickly freed and carried away. Smoke was coming from somewhere. He wondered if there was ammunition on board and whether it would explode.

  The answer came seconds later and just when the second man had been freed. Small arms ammo began to pop off and fires began around him. Morgan suddenly realized he was alone. Everyone else had fled the fire and the rising water.

  “Damn it to hell,” he said to the unconscious man. He draped the soldier over his good shoulder and began to climb slowly and painfully up to the deck while bullets whizzed and clanged around him. Several struck him, but with not enough force to do much damage. Finally, hands grabbed him and relieved him of his burden. He fell to his knees on the deck. He recognized a very young sailor as of the men who’d run away. “Sorry, I panicked, sir,” the young man said sheepishly.

  Jack nodded and patted the kid on the shoulder. Being scared is one thing. Getting control and coming back forgave a lot. He knew a helluva lot about that.

  Captain Stephens helped him to a chair. “You’re wounded.”

  “I am?”

  Morgan checked himself over and found a gash on his forehead that was bleeding all over his face, and a number of burns and bruises on his arms. His shoulder hurt. It might have been dislocated but it had popped back in.

  “Hell, I never even noticed it.”

  “I’d say you were too busy to think much,” said Stephens, who handed him a cup. “Medicinal brandy. I think you need it.”

  Morgan took a swallow and felt its wa
rmth spread through his stomach. Stephens was definitely not a prick. “We going to sink, sir?”

  “Nah. My men are plugging the hole and the pumps are working. We’ll be low in the water, but we’ll make it. Fire’s being put out, too. That was never a major threat. Bad news is that we’ve got more than a dozen dead and three times that many wounded. So much for my perfect record. Most of my crew were scared shitless for a bit, and that includes yours truly, but we’ll make it to shore.”

  A medic slapped a bandage on Jack’s forehead and wiped the caking blood from his face. “That’s good to hear,” Jack said.

  Stephens grunted. “Oh yeah, welcome to France.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Before he could leave the damaged vessel, Jack was questioned by an American rear admiral about the mine the LST had hit. When Jack insisted that he’d seen torpedo tracks, the admiral had sternly rebuked him. “It was a mine, Morgan. The krauts do not have subs in the English Channel. Do you understand that, Captain?”

  When Jack persisted, Commander Stephens had grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away. “Captain, do you recall the story of the emperor’s new clothes, the invisible ones?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, you are under navy jurisdiction now and the official line is that there are no U-boats in the Channel. If you persist, the navy will send you to someplace north of Iceland for the duration of the war plus eternity while they pretend to sort this out.”

  Jack had a sudden epiphany. He informed the navy brass that, darn, maybe he wasn’t certain it was a torpedo. After all, what did a bomber pilot know about torpedoes and mines?

  The investigation quickly ended and Jack was free to go. Stephens again collared him. “If you’re feeling bad about that little lie, don’t. It’s not like it’s going to change anything and it might just help protect our guys if the Nazis don’t know that their U-boat attack was successful. Regardless, the dead are still dead, and the wounded still hurting. Oh yeah, thanks for helping out.”