1901

“What time is it?” Blake hissed, unnecessarily quiet. The response came that it was a little past two in the afternoon. Blake sighed and continued to wait. If all had gone well in Brooklyn, that event was already over. Perhaps he should have gone there with his men. No, he reminded himself, this would strike at the enemy’s soul, if the Germans had souls.

A tremble, a murmur, passed through the air. He looked and the others had heard it too. There was the soft exhalation of their own breath. The wondrously punctual Germans were arriving.

Shortly, the sounds took on definition. The bastards were actually singing! A few minutes later he could see them as they approached the bridge, his bridge. His cute little bridge. First came a lead group of ten, a squad. These were followed by a handful of mounted officers and then the remainder of the battalion, hundreds of men in columns of four. They were in step, he noticed. Despite the fact that they were in the country, their commander had evidently continued to insist they march in step rather than walk at a natural pace. What a fool! Did he think the creatures in the meadow were watching his parade? He must be loved by his troops.

Blake’s three men checked for outriders and saw none. It wasn’t a surprise. There had been no outriders yet when the battalions changed positions, as they did every Tuesday at this time. When this battalion reached the encampment a few miles up the road, the one currently out there would return down the same road to the dubious comforts of Brooklyn.

The head of the column reached the bridge and crossed without breaking stride. It didn’t take long. It was such a little bridge.

Blake waited until the officers and the first company of infantry were completely across. The lead squad was near the red-leaved bush he’d arbitrarily designated as the end of the target area. “Now,” he ordered himself aloud and pushed down on the plunger. For the barest second nothing happened. There was the inevitable momentary fear that the device had failed, then the bridge lifted into the air and seemed to come apart, stone by stone, soldier by soldier. Before the Germans had a moment to even blink, lines of additional explosions walked down the dirt road in both directions from the now-atomized bridge structure. Almost immediately, the sound of the explosions and the shock waves engulfed them. Then there was silence.

It was several seconds before the screaming started. Because of the slow-settling clouds of dust, Blake couldn’t actually see what he’d done, but he was fairly certain the battalion no longer existed.

Later, he would meet up with the crew sent to Brooklyn. If all had gone according to plan, a score of the German warehouses had gone up in smoke and flame. His only regret was that they were not ammunition warehouses. Those were kept under tight guard within the inner German perimeter. What he had been able to gain access to were the stores of food and uniforms; thanks to his other crew, these had doubtless been dynamited as well.

The fucking Krauts wouldn’t starve or go cold any more than they would stop coming down the road and crossing the stream. But it would make them think every time they took a step or opened a door.

Tonight when he slept, maybe his wife would come to him and nod her approval. He smiled.

If there was anything more boring than guard duty, Ludwig Weber couldn’t think of it. Even peeling potatoes was more rewarding. Unless, of course, he had to work with Kessel. However, as a corporal and the captain’s aide, he really didn’t have to perform kitchen police and usually got out of pulling guard duty as well.

But this, as Sergeant Gunther calmly explained over Ludwig’s mild protests, really wasn’t guard duty. It was a roadblock and, because of the recent incidents of sabotage and worse, the idea was to check on who was coming up and down the road. So it was that he and a handful of others watched a dusty and largely untraveled route behind the German lines in Connecticut. At least, thanks to his exalted rank of corporal, he was in charge of the little group. Better, Kessel was not with them. Thank you, Sergeant Gunther, for that small favor.

Although not all of the men at the roadblock had been with him during that fateful stay in New York, they all had been touched by it. As far as he and his men were concerned, the whore who had murdered Ulli had not been found. Of that he was certain, even though a woman had been executed for the crime. Perhaps even worse than Ulli’s murder and castration was the fact that some poor woman who fit the general description of the prostitute had been arrested, shown to them, and, over their protestations, shot.