Hitler's war
- Автор: Тертлдав Гарри Норман
- Серия: The War that came early #1
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Альтернативная история
Электронная книга - «Hitler's war». Краткое содержание книги:
Now, in this thrilling, provocative, and fascinating alternate history by Harry Turtledove, another scenario is played out: What if Chamberlain had not signed the accord? What if Hitler had acted rashly, before his army was ready-would such impatience have helped him or doomed him faster? Here is an action-packed, blow-by-blow chronicle of the war that might have been-and the repercussions that might have echoed through history-had Hitler reached too far, too soon, and too fast.
Turtledove uses dozens of points of view to tell this story: from American marines serving in Japanese-occupied China to members of a Jewish German family with a proud history of war service to their nation, from ragtag volunteers fighting in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion in Spain to an American woman desperately trying to escape Nazi-occupied territory-and witnessing the war from within the belly of the beast.
A novel that reveals the human face of war while simultaneously riding the twists and turns that make up the great acts of history, Hitler's War is the beginning of an exciting new alternate history saga. Here is a tale of powerful leaders and ordinary people, of spies, soldiers, and traitors, of the shifting alliances that draw some together while tearing others apart. At once authoritative, brilliantly imaginative, and hugely entertaining, Hitler's War captures the beginning of a very different World War II-with a very different fate for our world today.
“Let me see your papers,” the other one yelled. “Immediately!”
“Sure.” Peggy took out her American passport and brandished it like a priest turning a crucifix on a couple of vampires.
The SS men recoiled almost the way vampires would have, too. “Oh,” one of them said disgustedly. “All right. We can’t give you what you deserve for buying there. But we can make the Jew sorry for selling to you.”
“And we will,” the other added, gloating anticipation in his voice.
“He didn’t know I was an American.” If Peggy sounded appalled, it was because she was.
“He knew you weren’t one of his regular kikes. He’ll pay, all right.” The SS men stormed into the butcher’s shop. A moment later, Rothstein cried out in pain. Peggy burst into tears. Dammit, you couldn’t win here.
Harry Turtledove
Hitler's War
People were saying the Maginot Line would save France. People were saying it would have to save France. Luc Harcourt didn’t give a damn about what people were saying. All he knew was, he was getting sick of being marched backward and forward and inside out.
He’d been bombed and shelled and shot at in the retreat from the German frontier. He’d been bombed in the encampment behind the Maginot Line where raw reinforcements filled out the regiment. Fortunately, those little billets-doux had fallen from planes flying high above, not from the Boches’ nasty dive-bombers. They landed all around the camp, but hardly any on it.
Now he and his surviving buddies and the strangers in their clean uniforms who’d just joined them were moving up toward the front again. This time, from what Sergeant Demange said, they’d end up in southern Belgium. If we get there in one piece, Luc thought.
That wasn’t obvious. Hell, whether they’d get there at all wasn’t obvious. They’d started out from the transit camp in trucks. Luc hadn’t much cared for that-as if his opinion mattered a sou’s worth. But if German planes shot up your truck, wouldn’t you roast like a pork loin in the oven? Of course you would-and your meat would end up smelling like burnt pork, too.
No German planes harried the trucks. That didn’t mean they carried Luc and his comrades very far toward the front. German bombers had done their worst to the roads leading north and east. If a truck couldn’t get through, if it sank to the axles when it tried to use the muddy fields instead of the cratered roads…
If all that happened-and it did-you got out and you damn well walked. “Here we are, back in 1918,” Sergeant Demange said, the cigarette in the corner of his mouth twitching as he talked.
“This isn’t so bad, Sarge,” Luc said. “Back then, you wore horizon-blue. Now you’re in khaki.”
“Oh, shut up, smartass. Once they get muddy, all uniforms are the same color,” Demange said. “The only thing you know about a guy in clean new clothes is that he doesn’t come up to the front much, so you can’t trust him.”
Ahead, the rumble of artillery got steadily louder. The Frenchmen were heading its way-and it was heading theirs. And behind them came a rumble of engines- something had got past the unholy mess the Nazis had made of the roads. “Move to one side, damn you!” someone yelled.
When Luc saw French tanks, he was only too glad to stand aside and let them go by. The officer who’d shouted, a tall colonel with a small mustache and a big nose, stood very straight in the cupola of the lead machine. The French tanks were larger and had smoother lines than the German machines Luc had already seen too closely. By the determined look on the colonel’s face, he didn’t want to stop till he got to Berlin.
“He’s a fishing pole, isn’t he?” Luc remarked.
“Two fishing poles,” Sergeant Demange answered. That was what Luc thought he heard, anyway: deux galles. But Demange went on, “Colonel de Gaulle knows more about tanks than anybody else on our side, I think.”
“Is that who he is?” Luc had heard of de Gaulle, though he hadn’t known him by sight. The tall officer did indeed advocate tanks so tirelessly-and tiresomely-that he infuriated his superiors. “Did you serve under him last time?”
“Nah. Wish I would have.” Sergeant Demange spat out a tiny butt and ground it into the mud with his boot. He lit another Gitane, then continued, “If I remember straight, he got wounded and captured early on last time around, and sat out most of the war in a POW camp.”
“Lucky stiff,” muttered somebody in back of Luc. He almost turned around to find out who let his mouth run ahead of his brain like that. A tiny bit louder, and Sergeant Demange would have heard it, in which case God help whoever it was. On second thought, Luc didn’t want to know. If he didn’t, the ferocious little sergeant couldn’t squeeze it out of him.
The last tank growled past. None of the other commanders looked to be within ten centimeters of Colonel de Gaulle. Maybe that was just as well for them. They couldn’t have much room inside the turret when they needed to duck down and fight.
Luc’s company stopped at a field kitchen as daylight leached from the sky. A cook with a double chin-cooks never went hungry-shoveled potatoes and cabbage and stewed pork into his mess tin. He stared at his supper with resigned dismay. “Which side are we on, anyway?”
“Funny guy,” the cook said. “I’ve only heard that one five times in the past half-hour. You don’t want it, you can go hungry. You think I give a rat’s ass?”
Luc prodded a pale piece of pork with a forefinger. “I thought that’s what this was.” The cook swore at him in earnest then.
Washed down with vin extremely ordinaire, the stew wasn’t bad. Luc smoked a cigarette, then wrapped himself in a blanket inside what had been somebody’s house till a bomb blew out most of one wall. His buddies had a makeshift brazier going: a bucket half full of hot coals hung from a scrap-metal tripod so it didn’t set the floor on fire. It gave off less heat than Luc wished it would, but it was better than nothing.
He slept like a hibernating animal. Not only were nights endlessly long, but he’d never been so worn in his life. Some of the guys in his company fell asleep while they marched-and they kept going, too. He envied them-he didn’t seem able to do that himself.
Some time in the middle of the night, a hard hand shook him awake. He groped for his belt knife. Sergeant Demange’s low-voiced chuckle stopped him. “Take it easy,” the noncom said. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be holding a lily by now. But no. Go out and stand watch for a couple of hours.”
“Do I have to?” Luc asked around a yawn.
“Damn right you do. Suppose German parachutists came down out of the sky? What would we do without a warning?”
“At night?” Luc didn’t believe it. But the Fritzes had done all kinds of nasty things with parachutists. Maybe they’d make a night attack behind the French line. And no maybe about what Sergeant Demange would do if Luc gave him any more lip. With a martyred sigh, Luc got out of the blanket and put on his boots and his helmet. He was already wearing everything else, including his greatcoat.
His breath smoked inside the battered house. It smoked more when he stepped outside. The night was mostly clear. Stars glittered frigidly in a sky blacker than dried blood. Carolers would have loved a night like this. Right now, Luc would have bet nobody in Europe loved anybody else.
The war hadn’t gone to bed. Off to the northeast, the thunder of artillery went on. He could see flashes against the horizon. Ours or theirs? he wondered. After a moment, he decided it was probably both.
Just ahead lay towns whose names brought back thunderous memories of the last war’s early days: Charleroi and, a little farther east, Namur. The Germans were swarming this way again, like field-gray ants towards an enticing picnic feast. They’d fallen short of Paris the last time around. Either they would again or…
Luc didn’t want to think about or. He didn’t want to think about anything. He wanted to go back to sleep, or to fall asleep out here. Fear of the Boches didn’t hold him back. Fear of Sergeant Demange did.