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.
Pete emptied his glass. “Hey, Danny!” he called. “Bring me another beer, chop-chop!”
“Right, boss,” the Chinese bartender said. The beer came from Tsingtao. It was pretty damn good. The Germans had run the place before the Great War, and they’d built a brewery there. Hitler was a bastard, yeah, but the squareheads knew what was what with beer. The brewery was under new management these days, of course, but some of the old magic remained.
When the beer came, Pete tipped Danny a nickel. To a Chinaman, a nickel was a big deal. Danny bowed almost double. He folded one palm over the other fist, which was what the Chinese did instead of saluting.
A sergeant named Larry Koenig came and sat down with Pete. He ordered a beer, too. Danny brought it over to him. Koenig lit a cigarette and offered Pete the pack-he was a good guy. “Thanks,” McGill said. He took one and leaned close for a light.
Raising his mug, Koenig said, “Mud in your eye.”
“Same to you.” Pete answered the salute with one of his own. They both drank. After sucking foam off his upper lip, Pete lifted his mug again and said, “Here’s to all the Japs getting the hell out of Peking.”
“Hey, I’ll drink to that, but you’ll be bluer’n your dress uniform if you hold your breath and wait for it to happen,” Koenig said.
“Yeah, I know. It’d be nice, though, wouldn’t it?” Pete said. “They sure are moving a lot of guys through here-moving a lot of guys out of here.”
“They’ll keep Peking garrisoned, though, you bet. Hell, I would in their shoes.” Koenig looked at his mug in mild surprise, as if wondering how it had emptied without his noticing. He waved to Danny for a refill. As he waited, he went on, “They hang on here, what are the Chinese gonna do about it? Not much, not so I can see.”
“Yeah, man, yeah. Looks the same way to me,” Pete said. With Peking in their hands, the Japanese could spill south and west all over the place. They’d done that for a while after overrunning the place. Now the flow was going in the other direction. “What do they need so many troops up in Manchukuo for?”
“Beats me.” Koenig paused while Danny set the beer on the table in front of him. A lot of Marines didn’t like to talk with Chinamen hovering around them. Pete didn’t know whether Danny was a spy or not. He didn’t much care, either. He didn’t know enough himself to make what he said worth anything to anybody. But if the sergeant wanted to be tight-assed about it, he could. After Danny hustled back behind the bar to build somebody a highball, Koenig resumed: “Gotta be the Russians. I’ve figured it every different way I could, and that’s what it comes out to every goddamn time.”
“You really think so?” Pete said. “That’d be one hell of a scrap.”
“Damn Russians have shit closer to home than Siberia to worry about,” Koenig said. “If it was me, I wouldn’t have started fucking with the Polacks when they knew that was liable to bring Hitler down on their necks.”
“Yeah, old Adolf’s bad news, all right,” Pete agreed. “Me, I wonder how much the Russians really do know these days. They’ve been killing off generals like it’s going out of style.”
“Maybe we ought to try that. I don’t know about the Corps, but it’d sure as hell work wonders for the Army and the Navy,” Koenig said.
Pete snorted. Then he giggled. Then he guffawed. He wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but he was damn sure it was funny. “I can see the FBI guys coming up to their desks. ‘You-come with us!’ And out they’d go, and- bang!”
“Plenty of ‘em nobody’d miss,” Koenig said.
“Ain’t it the truth!” Pete nodded. “And you know what else? I bet there hasn’t been an army since Julius Caesar’s day where the noncoms didn’t think it’d go better if some officers got it in the neck.”
“Most of the time we’d be right, too.” Like any sergeant worth his salt, Koenig was sure he knew better than the guys set over him. Since Pete McGill felt the same way, he didn’t argue. Koenig waved for a fresh beer before continuing, “So if the Japs and the Reds bang heads, which way do you bet? My money’s on the white men.”
“Yeah, everybody said the same thing about the time you were born, too, and look how that turned out,” McGill said. Anybody who came to Peking got his nose rubbed in that lesson. You couldn’t come here without paying attention to what had happened in the Russo-Japanese War.
Sergeant Koenig turned red. He waited till Danny gave him his new seidel, then said, “You think the little yellow bastards can take ‘em?” He paid no more attention to the barman than Pete would have.
“I dunno. They’ve sure got more combat experience than the Russians do. Hell, they’ve got more combat experience than just about anybody,” McGill answered. “And it’s way past the back of beyond for the Russians, and they’re fighting somewhere else, and their army’s fucked up. So yeah, I guess maybe I figure the Japs’ll win.”
“I got a sawbuck says you’re full of it,” Koenig declared.
As far as Pete was concerned, the problems with the Marine Corps started with sergeants, not officers. That attitude would probably change the day he got his own third stripe, but he had it now. Taking a sergeant down a peg would be a pleasure-and so would winning ten bucks. “You’re on,” he said.
Koenig stuck out his hand. Pete took it. The clasp turned into a trial of strength that ended up a push. They both opened and closed their hands several times after they let go.
Pete started to laugh. “What’s so funny?” Sergeant Koenig asked.
“We just made a bet on who’s gonna win a war that hasn’t started yet,” McGill answered. “How dumb will we look if it turns out the Japs’re up to something else instead?”
“Dumb enough, I guess,” Koenig said. “What? You never looked dumb before?”
“Not the past ten minutes, anyway,” Pete said, which drew a laugh from the other noncom. He went on, “I tell you, I wish the Japs would get the hell out of Peking and stay out. Town was a lot more fun when the Chinamen were still hanging on to it.”
“You got that right.” Koenig nodded in what might have been approval. “See? You ain’t as dumb as you look.”
“Heh! I’m not as dumb as you look, either,” Pete retorted. They were off duty. He could sass a sergeant if he felt like it. And he did-it wasn’t a pleasure he got often enough.
“Wise guy,” Koenig said, and then something in Chinese that sounded like a cat with its tail caught under a rocking chair. Behind the bar, Danny jumped a foot.
“Wow! What’s that mean?” Pete asked, impressed in spite of himself.
“Can’t tell you,” Koenig answered. “If I said it in English, you’d have to try and murder me.”
“Give it to me again,” Pete urged. “Sounds like it’s worth knowing.”
Koenig repeated it. Pete tried to echo him. He got the tones wrong the first couple of times. He could hear that, but he had trouble fixing it. Danny held his head in his hands. Pete finally said it the right way, which made the bartender even more unhappy.
“What’s it mean, Danny?” Pete called. Danny wouldn’t tell him, either. That made him like his new toy even better.
Chapter Fourteen
When Alistair Walsh saw a road sign saying how many kilometers it was to Paris, he knew things weren’t in good shape. The whole point to the war was keeping the Nazis away from Paris, the same as it had been with the Kaiser’s army the last time around.
They’d done it the last time-done it twice, in fact, in 1914 and then again in 1918. He wasn’t so sure they could now. The BEF stumbled back and stumbled back. People were starting to talk about the Miracle on the Marne in 1914. Well, they were getting too damn close to the Marne again, and they sure could use another miracle.
He yawned. What he could use was sleep. One of the things nobody talked about was how wearing modern war was. You were fighting or you were marching or they were shelling you or bombing you or you were trying to promote something to eat. What you weren’t doing was resting.