Rhineland Inheritance
Read Rhineland Inheritance Online
Authors: T. Davis Bunn
Rendezvous With Destiny, Book Two
Rhineland Inheritance
T. David Bunn
© 1993 by T. Davis Bunn
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansâelectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwiseâwithout the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owners. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-7090-0
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
This story is entirely a creation of the author's imagination. No parallel between any persons, living or dead, is intended.
Cover illustration by Joe Nordstrom
This book is dedicated to
Gil Morris
For the friendship
And the challenge.
Contents
Prologue
The Former Third Reich of National Socialist Germany
O
CTOBER
1945
Jake knew something big was in the air the moment he closed the door in his fiancee's face.
Maybe he knew before. Maybe that was what gave him the strength to leave her photograph taped to the back of his locker. Six months had passed since she had written about her new lover. Yet the tattered photo had remained with him through two more postings and the end of the war. But no more.
Captain Jake Burnes set his cap at the proper angle, hefted his worldly belongings, and marched out to meet his future.
The future stood waiting for him in the form of a new-old buddy, Captain Sam Marshall, head of the local MP garrison. The war had taught both men the trick of making friends fast, then losing them even faster.
“Need a hand?”
“Thanks, I can manage,” Jake replied. “I decided to lighten the load.”
“Come again?”
“Never mind.” Jake started off toward the camp's main gate. To his left sprawled one of the Allies' internment camps,
full to overflowing both with former German soldiers and the never-ending stream of refugees.
Marshall swung in beside him, matching Jake's stride with the unconscious habit borne on a thousand parade grounds. “Got a jeep waiting for you up at the gate.”
Jake hid his gratitude behind pretended surprise. “This the normal treatment for somebody who's just been kicked off base?”
“Just thought a buddy might need a lift, is all,” Marshall replied. “And maybe a little escort duty.”
“You what?”
“You've made some enemies around here,” Marshall said.
Jake's shoulders bounced once in a humorless laugh. “Tell me something I don't already know.”
They walked on in silence for a time before Marshall said, “Got my marching orders this morning. Along with all my men.”
That stopped him. “Connors can't be meaning to send all of you home at once.”
“That's where you're wrong,” Marshall replied. “The good colonel's decided to get rid of all my men. And me. Next week.”
“He plans to guard the camp with those untrained gorillas of his?” Jake glanced over the fence to where one of the newly arrived MPs walked in bored guard duty. The man was built like a full-grown bull, all shoulders and swagger.
“That's what it looks like.” Marshall's eyes followed Jake's. “Another dozen piled in this morning. Drawn from every division in Europe, by the sounds of it. None of them ever pulled MP duty in their lives. Only time they ever saw a stockade was when they were inside.”
Jake shook his head. “Doesn't make sense, sending his only experienced men home all at once like that.”
“There's a lot around here that doesn't make any sense,” Marshall replied. “And more every day.”
“Such as?”
“Heard some of them talking last night, filling in the new boys. Work details, from the sounds of it. Nothing to do with any guard duty I've ever heard of.” Marshall watched the sentry make another pass. “Sounded like a bunch of bandits making ready for the big heist.”
“Then you must have heard wrong,” Jake said flatly. “That whole camp doesn't have two plug nickels to rub together.”
“Maybe,” Marshall said doubtfully. “They kept saying something about orders direct from Colonel Connors. Strange to see a commanding officer take such interest in new MPs.”
Jake resumed walking. “Yeah, well, if I don't ever hear that name again, it'll be too soon.”
“They were talking about you, too,” Marshall went on. “What I heard made me think you might stay healthier if I were to see you off base.”
“Why would they bother with me?” Jake returned the sentry officer's laconic salute. “I'm history.”
“Ever wonder why Connors would be so eager to get rid of his best officer? Not to mention the only man on his staff who speaks passable German.”
Jake hefted his duffle bag into the back of the jeep. “Maybe he's got somebody else in mind for the job.”
“Seems like a lot of trouble to go through over a grudge,” Marshall persisted.
“I gave up trying to figure the colonel out a long time ago.” Jake started to climb in; then something made him hesitate. He turned back around, and spotted a young kid watching through the wires.
The boy was no more than twelve or thirteen, but nonetheless wore the ragged remnants of a uniform. They had come across a lot of such child-warriors in the war's last days. In his frantic final effort, Hitler had sent out whole battalions of the very young and very old. Most had received no training whatsoever. Many had not even been armed.
Jake saw a pair of dark eyes stare at him with the fathomless depths of one without hope. He had seen too many
young eyes carry such expressions as he had trudged and fought his way through the war. Still, the gaze tugged at his heart. It always did.
For some reason he could not explain, Jake lifted his hand in farewell.
The boy remained still as stone for a time, then suddenly thrust both arms out through the wire. Fingers clawed the air, reaching for Jake, begging for what he could not give. The boy's face became a mask of soundless pleading.
“Hey!” An MP with the battered face of a long-time boxer lumbered over. “Back behind the wire!”
Long before the MP reached him, the boy spun and fled into the camp.
Jake stood and watched the vacant space where the boy had been, and wondered why after two years of active duty he still could not stop hurting for the kids. He shrugged it away as best he could, climbed into the jeep, and said, “Let's go.”
Chapter One
To Jake, this new colonel seemed a good joeâat least, as far as any superior officer could be. “Captain Jake Burnes, right?”
“Yessir, reporting for duty.”
“Take a load off, Captain.” Colonel Beecham buried his nose back in Jake's file. “Let's see. Left Officer Training School in October '42, got to the front just in time for the push up through Italy. In the meantime you've earned yourself a silver star, a bronze star, a purple heart, and a string of medals from here to Okinawa. What'd you do, son, decide it was your own private war?”
“Never much liked sitting around, sir.”
“No, it doesn't sound like it.” He flipped over another page. “Don't see any mention of you speaking French.”
“Not a word, sir.”
“So they assigned you as liaison for incoming French troops.” The colonel snorted. “Another example of army logic.”
“Temporary liaison, sir,” Jake corrected.
“That so?” Colonel Beecham searched the file. “When are you due for release, Captain?”
“Seven weeks, sir. Just before Christmas.”
The colonel squinted down an invisible rifle barrel at Burnes. “They assigned me a liaison officer who doesn't know a word of French and is going home in seven weeks?”
“Looks that way, sir.”
“Whose feathers did you ruffle, Captain? General Eisenhower's?”
“Nossir. Only Colonel Connors', sir.”
“Only.” A glimmer of humor appeared in the steely gaze. “That must be Cut-Throat Connors, isn't that what they call him?”
“I wouldn't know, sir.”
“I hear he'd sell his soul and mortgage his own mother for a star on his shoulder. What'd you do, son?”
“Nothing really, sir. Just a difference of opinion.”
“Come on, Captain. Cut to the chase. Sure as gunfire in a battle zone, there's not a friend of Connors in sight. Let's hear it.”
Jake decided the colonel really meant it. “I was responsible for a section of the Oberkirch internment camp.”
“I know that. So?”
“Just before I arrived they'd had a couple of suicides among the former German soldiers. The officer whose place I took spoke some German and managed to get some of the men to talk with him. Seems like they'd been growing despondent over what was waiting for them outsideâcities pretty much destroyed, no food, less work, chaos everywhere. The officer started looking around for some way to improve morale, and decided to train a couple of squads in touch football.” Jake shrugged. “Since I speak German, he asked me to take over where he left off.”
“Connors is awful proud of his football team, isn't he.”
“Yessir.”
Colonel Connors was responsible for security in the region north of Offenburg. It was well known that he was constantly scouting for football material, and any enlisted man who made his team won an MP billet and an extra stripe.
“What'd he do, challenge your German boys to a game? Put a couple of side bets down?”
“More than a couple,” Burnes replied. “From what I heard, sir.”
“And then your boys went out and whupped his pride and joy.” The smile finally surfaced. “Wish I'd been there to see that.”
“It was some game, sir,” Burnes said with evident satisfaction.
“Worth getting stuck with a bunch of foreigners for your last posting?”
Burnes shrugged. “Can't be worse than guarding ten thousand defeated German soldiers.”
Colonel Beecham settled back in his chair. “So you speak some German. How much is some?”
“I guess I can get around pretty well, sir. I was studying it before I got called up.”
“Maybe you'll be of some use, after all. I've got quite a few bilinguals in French and English, but almost no German speakers. Just a chaplain who's almost never here and a young lady who's already too busy by half. Any chance of you changing your mind, maybe signing on for another tour?”
“None at all,” Jake replied flatly. “Sir.”