The Steel Wave - Jeff Shaara [18]
“I promise you, Friedrich, when all of this has past, when medals and decorations hang over every fireplace in Germany, those concertinas will occupy a special place. Those men will not forget that I chose them to receive a gift so…unmilitary. They might even learn to play the thing.”
There was silence, the car breaking out into open ground, a village in the distance and, to one side, a railroad track, a line of heavy railcars. Rommel strained to see, and his driver seemed to feel the movement.
“Shall I stop, sir?”
“No. We have much ground to cover. I was just observing. Those railcars were carrying a shipment of eighty-eights. Very good. We will need enormous quantities of those along every open beach, especially the Pas-de-Calais. The enemy knows already that we have no better weapon to destroy his armor.” He glanced at Ruge again. “I have tried to explain that to von Rundstedt ever since I arrived here. I have asked that batteries of eighty-eights be interspersed among every one of the larger shore guns.”
“Will the shore guns not be enough?” Ruge said. “Heavy batteries of three-hundred-millimeter cannon will provide all the firepower we would need against enemy ships.”
“Guns that big are too visible from the air. The enemy will send their bombers to target every installation. Despite Colonel Sasser’s good work, we do not have enough concrete to protect every battery, and our outstanding engineering corps seems to believe that we can make do in those casements with half the thickness I have specified. In any invasion, we could lose our most effective shore batteries before the enemy even attempts to land. The eighty-eights are mobile, can be hidden from the bombers, and, should the enemy attempt to land his armor, they can be moved quickly to the greatest point of attack.”
“As usual, Field Marshal, I bow to your experience.”
Rommel saw the familiar smile, felt his own good humor fading away. “It so distresses me. For every Sasser there are ten Colonel Heckners. The British land a squad of commandos right under his feet, and the only way we find out about it is when one of them blows himself up.”
“How dangerous can they truly be? The British are scouting us, determining what kind of strength we have put into place. There was no evidence that the raid this morning had any other intent than to observe. Somewhere in London, mapmakers are drawing furiously, mapping out every meter of our coastline. You and I would do the same thing. And if they come, you know as well as I do that they will come at a place that makes the most strategic sense. If they come, you will know where and when. You are as capable of knowing the mind of the enemy as any British or American strategist.”
“But, Friedrich, I do not make the decisions. No matter what I may believe, I am subject to orders.” He paused. “You saw Colonel Sasser, the man’s hands. He works, he is a soldier’s soldier, he will do his job. Behind us, old men and sycophants hold our future in hands that are fragile and soft, hands that have never held the steel. We are losing this war because of Russia. We have drained Germany of the strength and the power that could so easily have prevailed. The Russians are savages, led by subhuman Bolsheviks. But their numbers are too many and their land is too vast, and they have bled us dry. The British and the Americans know this with complete certainty, so what will they do? It is a question any schoolchild could understand. We are weakened now, and so they will come. They will come here, somewhere on this coastline, and if we do not meet them at the point of attack, if we do not destroy them on the beaches, they will keep coming.”
“Von Rundstedt disagrees with you.”
“They all disagree with me. I know what they believe. We should allow the enemy to land: Then our mighty Luftwaffe and our mighty panzers will strike them and destroy them. Yes, yes. I have heard that too many times. It is wrong. Damn them all, it is wrong.