The Invasion of 1950 (42 page)

“I understand,
Herr Feldmarschall
,” he said, softly. Rommel was probably feeling his age; as a younger man, he could have taken personal command of the division and led it in combat against the British. He’d always tried to lead from the front, and that, too, had endeared him to his men. “We won’t fail you.”

***

Oberst
Frank-Michael Baeck watched dispassionately as Rommel and the Panzer Division officer discussed the precise role of 7
th
Panzer in the coming offensive, and tried to keep the worry off his face. Rommel didn’t really understand the magnitude of what the
Reich
had accomplished, and because of that lack of understanding, it was all-too-possible that he would push the
Reich’s
forces beyond their limits. He’d studied Rommel’s campaigns in the Western Desert, as well as his later fighting in Russia, and knew what Rommel was like; his concern for his logistics was minimal.

Baeck looked down at the map and glowered. It didn’t look
that
big on the map, but they had taken a reasonable bite out of Britain. The British themselves had formed defence lines to the south and west of the German position, but they’d taken care to ensure that the Germans were always bleeding. The
Reich
was used to insurgent attacks from Russia and sullen non-cooperation from Frenchmen, but the British were sitting right on top of the most important – and most fragile – supply line in the
Reich’s
history. Their attacks, often launched with a degree of local knowledge that far surpassed anything the
Reich
possessed, had struck at the supply lines time and time again, and Rommel didn’t understand that. In the Western Desert, it had barely mattered; in Britain, it could be disastrous.

He kept his face totally blank as he mulled over what he knew. They had strained every sinew to reinforce Rommel, and they had done a magnificent job. Thousands upon thousands of Germans had landed in boats or transport aircraft and had been dispatched to the front lines, each one making the conquest of Britain that little bit easier. As new units had arrived, they had been quickly worked up and slotted into their position on the order of battle, but there was no way that they could match the British numbers. They required a stunning success, one caused by breaking through the British lines and marching to London, and that wasn't going to be easy.

Their intelligence sources had been surprisingly quiet on the subject of the British defences, but Baeck had seen enough of them from recon pictures and the reports of probing German commandos to know that the defences were tough. The British Army was dug in and waiting for them, with hundreds of guns and aircraft in support…and, behind them, thousands, of tanks.

The British did have a major problem – once their lines were broken, they would have real problems putting them back together – but they had enough reserves to move them up to any threatened section and close the gap. 7
th
Panzer would have to be very good, and very lucky, to make a breakthrough…and that worried Baeck. There was much more to logistics than merely moving Panzers and guns around. They transported shells, bullets, food, and many more items just to keep the army going. If the link was broken for any length of time, they would lose…and Rommel’s reputation for infallibility would come crashing down.

He grimaced as Rommel moved on to a small storm-trooper detachment and shared a few moments with their commanding officer. Rommel should have waited for longer, until he had more supplies in place, but Berlin had been pushing at him. Someone had seen the red area on the map, marked with a little Nazi flag, compared it to the much larger area held by the British, and demanded an offensive. Rumour had it that the
Fuhrer
was fading fast, his every breath expected to be his last, and that he wanted to walk into London as a conqueror before he finally died. He was confident that the
Reich
could beat the British, but if the battle went badly, Rommel might not be able to recover in time to save the invasion force.

Finally, Rommel separated himself from the admiring soldiers and led the way over to the command building. It was a school before the Germans had arrived to discover that almost all of the population had fled before them. They had taken it over, using the school as a makeshift command post. Rommel had set up his maps, communications equipment and a cot in the basement; his personal autogyro was parked under one of the bike sheds, hidden from the sight of any prowling British aircraft. The
Luftwaffe
swore that any British aircraft that stuck it’s nose into occupied airspace would have it shot off, but Rommel tended to assume that there would be British recon missions that might succeed. He’d seen the value of the Luftwaffe’s
promises before, and that hadn’t always ended well.

He scrutinized the map for a long moment before looking up. The task was daunting for him. The further south they probed, the more built up the area became. Street-fighting on such a scale would decimate the German infantry as well as level most of the buildings, and Rommel didn’t want that. He wanted to present the country to Hitler as intact as possible, and if there was a war through British streets, it would cause untold devastation. It was another worry for Baeck as well; the British would regret the damage to their cities, but they would certainly want to lure the Germans into brutal house-to-house fighting in order to slaughter as many young German soldiers as possible.

“So,” Rommel said, finally. “What do you think of the preparations?”

Baeck forced himself to compose his words carefully. “I think that the different units are as ready as they will ever be,” he said after a moment. He wanted to express himself, but given all the pressure on Rommel, he might not understand or be able to share Baeck’s own feelings. “I think, however, that we will have significant problems with our logistics.”

Rommel frowned. “That depends,” he said. “If we crush the British Army here, and part of the reason for this battle is to lure them onto grounds of our choosing, the long-term supply situation won’t matter. If we destroy their ability to take the offensive, we will win once we have repaired our own damage and push on. If we fail to do so, we will fall back into the lodgement and hold until we are reinforced.”

It sounded good, Baeck admitted, but he still had his doubts. “What happens if our own armoured spearheads are broken?”

“If it’s like Tobruk, we’ll seal off the enemy positions and carry on around them,” he said. Baeck remembered Tobruk and grimaced. The tough Australians there had held on to the fortress for nearly three years before it had finally fallen and surrendered. It was the largest black mark on Rommel’s record. “If not, we’ll have to adapt and improvise, which is our advantage over the British or the Russians.”

Baeck wondered, grimly, just how long that advantage would last. He’d seen the SS training methods and not all of them encouraged initiative. The SS much preferred robotic obedience to orders, something that was fine in a rear-area unit, but downright dangerous in a front-line unit facing the enemy. The commander on the ground knew much more about what was happening than the commander at the rear; it hadn’t been unknown, during the Russian campaign, for Russian tanks to just keep charging at the German lines despite the fact it was suicide. The handful of prisoners had known that, but they’d been more frightened of their own leaders than they had been of the Germans. Would that happen to Germany?

Night fell slowly, broken only by the sound of hundreds of muffled engines and barked orders; the armoured columns were preparing to advance. The engineers were already out, clearing minefields and traps they’d laid only a few days ago, and ensuring that the Panzers could move up to their jump points in time for the offensive. There was a pregnant moment of anticipation…and then the guns opened fire, this time augmented by rocket launchers in an attempt to hammer the British and clear the way for the Panzer units.

Baeck stared into the distance as the horizon began to glow and said a silent prayer under his breath. The noise of shellfire and explosions was growing louder as more and more guns opened fire. The decisive battle was about to begin.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Near Colchester, England

The ground shook violently as German shells erupted and struck the ground some miles to the north. They were out of
harm’s way, unless the Germans decided to expand their bombardment, but even so, Captain Harry Jackson could feel the ground trembling under the impact of the German shells. The Germans knew how to put on a bombardment, all right; the noise of the shells was deafening even at this distance, and as for the noise of the little rockets…

He shuddered. He'd seen young soldiers shocked by the noise of the rockets when the British had used them in exercises and the howl of the German rockets was even worse. The Germans had designed them to make a terrible shriek while on their way to their targets, and what they lacked in accuracy, they made up for in sheer intimidation. He’d thought he’d known what they were facing, but the Germans had started to hammer the lines…and as he looked to the north, even in the darkness, he could see flashes of light that indicated that shells had detonated. The British troops were dug in and well-prepared for war, but if the Germans kept shelling at their current rate, Jackson feared that they would crush the British forces before the Germans entered engagement range.

I should be there
, he thought, as the noise of the bombardment grew louder. They were several miles back from the lines, guarding Handyman Hall…although against what, General Barron had been unable to tell them. He thought highly of Jackson’s ability to create a new Company from scraps of old military formations – or, rather, the handful of survivors from previous battles – and after the guerrilla raid on the German-controlled railway line, he’d been sent back to the Hall with orders to train up a new unit. He’d dedicated himself to the task as best as he could, but he had wanted to be back up with the lines and join the defence.

The Germans would either punch through or be defeated, but either way, he wouldn’t be there to take part in the fighting. The sounds of combat faded for a moment before returning, louder than ever. A star-shell exploded high above, bathing the area in an unholy glow. He saw, briefly, the dark shapes of German bombers heading south before the explosions began to echo out again, some of them closer to home.

He turned as Sergeant Wilt came up behind him. “The men are in position, sir,” he said. Jackson was, as senior officer,
de facto
commander of the defences, even though there were only four companies of soldiers near Handyman Hall. “They’re also ready for a quick retreat if that should be required.”

Jackson nodded. He’d learnt the value of having a quick line of retreat beforehand, and it had stuck with him. It wasn't likely that the enemy would break through the defence lines and hit them before they were warned, but it was quite possible that the Germans would try to slip an assault force through the lines or even launch a parachute raid on his position. What had happened at London had convinced him of just how dangerous the German paratroopers could be. They could catch him with his pants down at any time.

“Good,” he acknowledged. “I’ll be along in a moment.”

He looked up at the massive shape of Handyman Hall. The caretaker had told him that it had been designed by a member of the family who had been terrified, not without reason, of the French. Later, he had been gently relieved of his responsibilities and placed in an asylum, but by then Handyman Hall was large, ugly, and very difficult to attack. The family had apparently wanted to destroy it or rebuild it, but had been deterred by the cost and the War Office’s interest in the building as a possible redoubt for an invasion. They were making a pretty penny charging the War Office and the Army for the use of the building; personally, Jackson would have volunteered to do the demolition for free. He'd seen much nicer-looking buildings in India.

The thought made him smile as the explosions of the bombardment grew louder. The building was solid stone with ugly gargoyles looking down from every floor, and the caretaker had sworn blind that there was a secret passage somewhere within the building. The only ones the soldiers had been able to find was a passage leading from the main house to a summer house out in the woods, and a second one leading to the servants' building. It hadn’t surprised him to discover that the soldiers had been billeted there; General Barron, at least, shared their discomforts. The main building was being used by his staff.

He strode across the lawn and down towards the bunker. It had been dug during the large war, but one of the conditions of the retainer the War Office had paid the family was that they kept the bomb shelter up to date and large enough to house a large staff for a commanding officer. The caretaker had thought that the War Office had gone mad or someone had used a great deal of influence to convince them to invest in a house they didn’t want, but that foresight was beginning to pay off. He slipped inside, covering his eyes slightly to shield them from the glare of the electric lights, and walked over to General Barron.