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.
They wouldn’t let her go to Sweden. They wouldn’t let her go to Denmark. They wouldn’t let her go to Norway or Finland, either-she’d also found out that Oslo and Helsinki were off limits. The bastards wouldn’t let her go anywhere decent, damn them to hell.
She thought about Warsaw. Regretfully, she didn’t think about it long. Maybe she could get to Scandinavia or Romania from there, but she feared the odds weren’t good. The Russians had pushed Poland right into bed with Germany. The Poles probably didn’t want to land there, but what choice did they have when the Red Army jumped them? She wished Stalin such a horrible case of mange, it would make his soup-strainer mustache fall out. That’d teach him!
Then she had a brainstorm-or she hoped it was, anyway. She turned around and went back to the American embassy. The guy across the street scribbled some more. Maybe the Gestapo would have to issue him another pencil.
This time, Peggy didn’t have to be so difficult to get to see the queer undersecretary. Constantine Jenkins eyed her as if she had a case of the mange. “What can I do for you now, Mrs. Druce?” he asked warily.
“Can you help me get to Budapest?” Peggy asked. Hungary wasn’t exactly a nice place these days. Admiral Horthy’s government (and wasn’t that a kick in the ass? a landlocked country run by an admiral) was a hyena skulking along behind the German lion, feeding on scraps from the bigger beast’s kill. When the Hungarian army helped Hitler dismantle Czechoslovakia, England and France promptly broke relations. So did Russia. But she didn’t think any of them had gone and declared war on the Horthy regime. And if they hadn’t…something might be arranged.
“Well,” Jenkins said. “That’s interesting, isn’t it?”
“I hope so.” Peggy sent him a reproachful stare. “Why didn’t you think of it yourself?”
For his part, he looked affronted. “Because chances are the Germans won’t let you go, even if Hungary is an ally. Because getting to Budapest doesn’t mean all your troubles are over, or even that any of them are.”
“If I can get into Hungary, I bet I can get out,” Peggy said. “Romania-”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” the undersecretary warned. “Romanians and Hungarians like each other about as much as Frenchmen and Germans, and for most of the same reasons. Romanians spite Hungarians for the fun of it, and vice versa. But if you’re trying to get out of Hungary, you need to worry about Marshal Antonescu’s goons, not Admiral Horthy’s.”
“Oh.” Peggy knew she sounded deflated. Hell, she felt deflated. She paused to visualize a map of southeastern Europe. “Well, if I could get into Yugoslavia, that would do the trick, too. Anywhere but this Nazi snake pit would.”
“I don’t suppose you want to hear that the Hungarians have territorial claims against Yugoslavia, too,” Jenkins said.
“Jesus! Is there anybody the Hungarians don’t have territorial claims against?” Peggy exclaimed.
“Iceland, possibly.” Jenkins didn’t sound as if he was joking. He explained why: “If you think Hitler hates the Treaty of Versailles-”
“I’m right,” Peggy broke in.
“Yes. You are,” he agreed. “But Horthy and the Hungarians hate the Treaty of Trianon even more-and with some reason, because Trianon cost them more territory than Versailles cost Germany. A lot of it wasn’t territory where Hungarians lived, but some of it was…and they want the rest back, too. They aren’t fussy, not about that.”
“I’m sure.” Peggy sighed. “People couldn’t have screwed up the treaties at the end of the war much worse than they did, could they?”
“Never imagine things can’t be screwed up worse than they are already,” Constantine Jenkins replied. “But, that said, in this particular case I have trouble imagining how they could be.”
“Right.” Peggy sighed. She got to her feet. “Well, I’m going to give it a shot. What have I got to lose?”
“Good luck.” For a wonder, the American diplomat didn’t sound as if he meant And the horse you rode in on, lady.
So Peggy went off to the train station to try to get a ticket to Budapest. When she displayed her passport, the clerk said, “You will need an entry visa from the Hungarian embassy and an exit visa from the Foreign Ministry. I regret this, but it is strictly verboten” -that word again!-“to sell tickets without proper and complete documentation.”
“Crap,” she muttered in English, which made the clerk scratch his bald head. “It’s a technical term,” she explained helpfully, “meaning, well, crap.”
“I see,” he said. By his tone, he didn’t.
Peggy did, all too well. She went off to the Hungarian embassy at 8 Cornelius-Strasse. “Ah, yes-an interesting case,” said the minor official who dealt with her. His native language gave his German a musical accent. Had he spoken English, she supposed he would have sounded like a vampire. Maybe, for once, German was better. He relieved her of fifty Deutschmarks and stamped her passport. So she was almost good to go.
Last stop, the Foreign Ministry. Nobody wanted to come right out and tell her no, but nobody wanted to give her an exit visa, either. And nobody did. Finally, one of Ribbentrop’s flunkies sighed and squared his shoulders and said, “It is not practical at this time.”
“Why the devil not?” Peggy blazed. “I’d think you’d be glad to get rid of me.”
The man shrugged “My orders say this visa is not to be issued. I must, of course, follow them.”
By the way he talked, it wasn’t that something very bad would happen to him if he didn’t-though something probably would. But not following an order was as dreadful to him as desecrating the sacrament would have been to a devout Catholic.
“Aw, shit,” Peggy said, and that pretty much summed things up.
* * *
Vaclav Jezek had never liked quartermaster sergeants. As far as he was concerned, most of them were fat pricks. This miserable Frenchman was sure wide through the seat of his pants. And he was acting like a prick, all right. He thought he personally owned everything in the depot near the village of Hary.
Vaclav had been arguing with him through Benjamin Halevy, because he still hadn’t picked up much French himself. Since that wasn’t getting him anywhere, he fixed the French sergeant with a glare and asked him, “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”
He got exactly what he hoped for: indignant sputters. Then the Frenchman spoke to the Jewish noncom doing the translating: “He wants to know why you think he should speak the enemy’s language.”
“Does he?” Vaclav pounced: “Tell the son of a bitch I figured he would because he’s doing more to help the Nazis by sitting on his ammo till it hatches than he could any other way.”
“Are you sure you want me to say that?” Halevy asked. “He really won’t help you if I do.”
“Fuck him. He’s not helping me now. He’s got rounds for my antitank rifle, and he won’t turn them loose,” Jezek said.
“All right. I’ll try. I just wanted to make sure you knew what you were doing.” In the Jew’s French, Vaclav’s insult sounded less nasty than it would have in Czech or German-French was better for kissing ass than for telling somebody off. No matter what it sounded like, the crack got home. The quartermaster went as hot-and as red-as iron in the forge. He said several things that sounded heartfelt.
“What’s all that mean?” Vaclav asked with clinical curiosity.
“You’d break your piece over his head if you knew,” Halevy said.
Vaclav laughed. “Not this goddamn thing.” Antitank rifles were huge, heavy brutes. The heavier the weapon was, the less it kicked when it spat one of its honking big bullets. Jezek approved of that. As things were, his shoulder was sore all the time. You could stop an elephant with an antitank rifle. Sometimes, you could even stop a tank. Elephants couldn’t grow more armor. Tanks, unfortunately, could. The rifle would be obsolete pretty soon, and you’d need a field gun to deal with enemy armor.