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.
* * *
Hans-ulrich Rudel was getting sick of huddling in muddy slit trenches. This one was in western Belgium. It was two in the morning, and British bombers were overhead again. By the roar of their engines, they weren’t very far overhead, either. RAF Whitleys and Hampdens couldn’t fly very high no matter how much their pilots might wish they could.
And, at night, it hardly mattered. Luftwaffe night fighters found enemy planes more by luck than any other way. When German bombers struck England under cover of darkness, the RAF’s night fighters had the same problem.
Bombs whistled down. Some of them landed close enough for the bursts to make Rudel’s ears hurt. Blast could do horrible things to you even when fragments and flame didn’t. He buried his face against the trench wall. He’d come out looking like the end man in a minstrel show, but he didn’t care. As long as he came out.
More explosions, and the rending crash of something metal going to smithereens all at once. “Goddamn flying suitcases!” somebody a couple of meters away said.
“Ja!” Hans-Ulrich nodded, smelling mold and damp. Hampdens were a lot like Luftwaffe bombers, though more slab-sided than any of them-hence the nickname. Whitleys were bigger, slower, and clumsier, but carried more bombs. They could take a lot of punishment…and needed to, because they got it. Rudel wouldn’t have wanted to fly one in the daytime. The British had tried that, but not for long.
Well, the Luftwaffe wasn’t sending Stukas over England any more, either. Some things cost more than they were worth. Even biplane Gladiators were dangerous to the German dive-bombers. As for Hurricanes and the newer Spitfires…!
The real trouble was, Hurricanes and Spitfires chewed up Bf-110s almost as easily as they mulched Stukas. Bf-109s held their own against the top RAF fighters, but they had short range and couldn’t linger long over England. And, when they had to escort the 110s as well as the bombers, they couldn’t mix it up with the enemy the way they should.
From everything Rudel had heard, nobody in the Luftwaffe higher-ups had dreamt the 110 would show such weaknesses. War gave all kinds of surprises-including the nasty ones.
A few more bombs fell. Then things eased off; the drone of enemy engines faded in the west. Hans-Ulrich spat to get the taste of loam out of his mouth. “Well,” he said brightly, “that was fun.”
Several people in the trench told him what he could do with his fun. Somebody who knew his classics quoted Goethe’s Gotz von Berlichen: “Du kannst mich mal am Arsch lechen.” Even if it was poetry, Lick my ass got the point across.
He climbed out of the trench. Something was burning: a Stuka in a half-blasted revetment. The orange flames sent a dim, flickering light across the airstrip. “Got to put that out,” a flyer said. “If the damned Englishmen see it, they’re liable to come back.”
Groundcrew men started playing a hose in the Ju-87. That would take a while to do any good. Gasoline and oil liked to keep burning. And the ammo in the Stuka’s machine guns started cooking off. The popping seemed absurdly cheerful. “Hope none of those rounds hits anybody,” Hans-Ulrich said.
“Jesus Maria!” somebody said-a Catholic, by the oath. “That’d be all we need.”
Somebody else was exhausted, relentlessly pragmatic, or both: “Only thing I hope is, I can get back to sleep.”
“Amen!” the Catholic said. Sure enough, he sounded like a Bavarian.
The burning dive-bomber gave just enough light to let Hans-Ulrich have an easy time going back to his tent. He lay down on the cot-and then remembered his face was muddy. If he hadn’t been a minister’s son, he might have quoted Gotz von Berlichen himself. Being one, he knew that thinking the words was as bad as saying them. He sometimes swore in the heat of action, but never in cold blood-and he always regretted it afterwards.
When he got up and came out the next morning, the fellow in the next tent greeted him with, “Who’s the nigger?”
“Funny, Manfred. Fun- ny,” Hans-Ulrich said. “You should take it to the movies.”
“Go drink some milk, preacher’s son,” Manfred jeered. “You’ll feel better.”
Hans-Ulrich’s hands balled into fists. He took a step toward the other flyer. “Enough, both of you,” a more senior officer said. “Do you want to get tossed in the clink? Save that Scheisse for the enemy, hear me?”
Reluctantly, Manfred nodded. Even more reluctantly, so did Hans-Ulrich. He was sick of being the white crow in the squadron. He couldn’t even say that: somebody would have told him he was the white crow because he drank so much milk.
If he’d changed his ways and drunk schnapps, everybody would have liked him. The notion didn’t cross his mind.
Other people razzed him about his dirty face, but not so viciously as Manfred had. Some other pilots and rear gunners had also got muddy, though none quite so muddy as Rudel. While they ate, a grunting bulldozer repaired damage to the airstrip.
German bombers-Spades and Flying Pencils-droned past overhead, bound for England. Bf-109s would protect the Heinkels and Dorniers from RAF fighters, and they could protect themselves better than Stukas. All the same, Hans-Ulrich wondered how much longer the Luftwaffe would go over the enemy island by day. Nighttime bombing was less accurate, but also much less expensive.
He wasn’t sorry not to cross the North Sea again. He counted himself lucky to have made it back the times he’d tried it. Maybe the twin-engine bombers would have better luck. Maybe.
His own mission lay to the southwest. The French were bringing materiel up from Paris to the front that still shielded their capital from the Wehrmacht ’ s onslaught. If the Luftwaffe could smash up those trucks and trains, enemy troops would get less of what they needed to keep up the fight.
“Ready?” he asked Sergeant Dieselhorst.
The man in the rear seat looked at him. “Nah. I’ll bug out as soon as we get airborne.”
Rudel’s ears heated. “Me and my big mouth. Let’s go get ‘em.”
“Now you’re talking,” Dieselhorst said.
Bombed up, gassed up, their Stuka rumbled down the runway. Hans-Ulrich pulled back on the stick. The Stuka’s nose lifted. The plane would never be pretty. Though the design was fairly new, plenty of aircraft looked more modern: the nonretractable landing gear made the Ju-87 seem older than it was. But the beast got the job done. Next to that, what were looks?
A few black puffs of smoke appeared in the sky as the Stuka squadron crossed over the front line, but only a few. This wasn’t the kind of barrage that would have greeted the Germans over England-nowhere close. The French didn’t seem as serious about the war as the British. But they hadn’t rolled belly-up yet, either. We just have to keep thumping them till they do, Hans-Ulrich thought.
Was that river glittering in the sun the Marne? Hans-Ulrich thought so: the farthest the Kaiser’s armies reached in the last war. The Wehrmacht was almost there, too, though it had started rolling in dead of winter and had to take out Holland as well as Belgium.
Silver sausages gleamed above Paris: barrage balloons. The English used them over their towns, too. They didn’t keep places from getting bombed. They did keep dive-bombers from stooping on targets. Hans-Ulrich shuddered, imagining what would happen if he tore off the Stuka’s wing against a mooring cable. He’d feel like an idiot…but not for long.
Well, he didn’t have to worry about that, anyhow-not yet. The squadron’s targets lay in front of Paris. Captain Mehler’s voice filled his earphones. “I think that’s what we want down below,” the new squadron leader said. “Let’s hit ‘em.”
“Here we go,” Hans-Ulrich said into the speaking tube, warning Sergeant Dieselhorst.