The Great War of the Quartet (The Imperial Timeline Book 1) (29 page)

At least she was allowed to bring the blanket with her, feeling almost naked with just her long johns, cotton socks, and an undershirt. The three men sitting across from her had big, braided boards on their shoulders with epaulettes she couldn’t recognize. It annoyed her that the color of the Russian uniforms was similar to the color of the uniforms of the Imperial Army, although the tunics were very differently cut so that you could tell the difference. Japanese tunics had lots of pockets and were practical while the Russian tunics looked stiff. Even their clothes were dumb. So typical of stupid, stupid, stupid whites. Soldiers should have practical uniforms like the tunic Daryn had worn in Tekika.

Meryem kept looking down at the floor, humiliated by so many unfamiliar men all around her when she was just wearing underwear with the blanket as her only proper “clothing.” The long, grueling days she had spent in that nasty cell had made her mind wander, and she still feared that she would be defiled and mutilated by the barbaric enemy at any moment—
God willing
she would fight them so they would accidentally kill her. She didn’t expect the whites to treat her body with respect, but at least being defiled while dead would surely not be as awful as it would be if she were alive.

The big room was much nicer than she would have expected with large tables and chairs, and it looked a little like a smaller version of the school auditorium from her childhood rather than the sort of hellish place she would have imagined they would take her to when the guards had come for her. Being out of the basement cell was sure nice, but she was still scared.

She didn’t understand anything the
white ghosts
were saying, but there was a traitor, an ugly, thieving, treasonous man dressed in some sort of alien uniform of the enemy. She ignored what he had to say. She didn’t care. He should ask God for forgiveness and stop helping these evil people.

“The major wishes to know if you are with child, lady,” he said, his tone much too nice for a traitor.

She wanted to denounce him, to tell him that he would suffer all sorts of horrible damnation for being with the Russians, but she just stood there, looking down at the floor at her feet. It was hard to know what she should be doing. As a woman, as a Muslim, as a Japanese, and as a samurai wife, she had no idea what duty asked of her. Was it a good desire to be angry but not speak up? Or was she wicked for her mean thoughts towards these people?

“You will be shot,” he said after exchanging some ugly Russian words with the small panel of officers sitting in front of her. “But you will be reprieved by the law if you are with child.”

God is great, God loves you, nothing bad can really happen if you put your faith in God the Merciful…

She tried not to listen to what she was hearing, and she kept focusing her mind on trying to mold reality after her desires. It should be true that she would be safe, but bad things could happen to good people, and she could only hope that she would be fine. She wanted to see Daryn, but he was nowhere, and she didn’t have the wherewithal to demand to see him. Before this morning, she had only ever seen the man who brought the soup and bread to her cell and the dirty man in the cell opposite hers who had since been taken away so that she could now use the bucket toilet in the cell without being watched. She really wanted to see Daryn, but she couldn’t let these white devils know that. If they understood that the two of them were one, then she might suffer for it. It was better if she just keep quiet and let them do whatever they wanted and maybe she would be fine.
God is great
.

As far as Igor could see, there was no real reason that the court would need to deliberate on the charges. The evidence, primarily the Japanese weapons and the suspicious behavior of the man that had first brought the attention to the two was uncontested, but one of the judges was rather keen on getting his question answered before the court would adjourn with a sentence of death for the female spy too. In practice, it would be Igor’s direct superior’s duty to establish whether the sentence could be carried out or should be suspended since common Christian sense would be violated if an innocent would be harmed. The interpreter from the city police seemed to have no luck, and the dirty little Mongol kept standing there with a dirty blanket around her and facing the floor rather than to answer to the grave charges.

“
This is a waste of time,
” one of the other judges said, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. “
The jailer will sort this out
.
We should simply establish that she is a spy and should die
.”

“
Quite
,” one of the other judges agreed.

“
Very well, but I wish that it is absolutely clear that a sentence will not be carried out if there is any suspicion of an innocent being involved
,” the judge who had pressed the interpreter said.

“
Yes, of course,
” the oldest of the judges said with a dismissive wave.

Did it matter? There were already so many monkeys about, that one more or less would make no difference. If it was so damn important, then someone could just have a look inside, maybe even take a piss and drown the damn thing to get it over with. The first trial had been useful, but this seemed a complete waste of time.

Igor listened as the chair of the court quickly pronounced the verdict, referring to the proper military code and the authority of the court under which the little Mongol was sentenced.

“
As a precaution, the execution of the sentence shall not take place less than ten months from today’s date
,” the chair concluded, turning his head momentarily to look at the major who had been so interested in the contents of the prisoner to confirm that he was pleased with the time period.

Igor led the guards and the prisoner back to the jail after the court was done. The small prisoner looked almost like a little child with a blanket wrapped around her. It was hard to tell Mongols apart, and this pitiful girl was not different from any other. Whenever he saw a Mongol face, he was sure that he had seen it before, and it made for a high incidence of déjà vu when he saw someone he knew he hadn’t seen before but was sure as hell that he had. The yellow girl was the only female prisoner in the small military stockade, and she had been separated from the other prisoner whom Igor had brought to the court right before this one. The sentencing was a formality, since they were clearly spies, and there seemed to be no reason that the court would pass any other judgment since these were enemies who had infiltrated the city to do Lord-knows what.

The Mongol child reminded him a little of his youngest sister, despite her slanted eyes, her round cheeks, and her short stature—and despite the similarity to any other girl of that race. He felt a little sorry for her, despite her serious crimes. He hadn’t expected leniency, and it was surely the humane and Christian thing to let the sentence be executed far into the future, if indeed she had a child. Perhaps that child would then have the opportunity to live a moral and Christian life and redeem the criminal mother. However, there was an instinctive feeling in him against harming girls, even Mongol ones. From the back she could be mistaken for an ordinary girl, and that only added to his natural compassion for the wicked. He could read Dostoyevsky with great approval, and he really believed in moral maturing through faith in God. Perhaps the judges would take mercy on her later to keep from making unnecessary orphans. He hoped so. It was awfully cruel to not give more opportunity for sinners to repent and rehabilitate themselves through God.

Igor heaved a sigh as he locked the door behind the prisoner. The prison reeked of shit and piss, and it was the sort of place which prison reformers would label barbaric, especially since most of the inmates were just spending a day or a couple of days for petty misdemeanors. He had no interest in this godforsaken part of Russia, and he looked forward to leaving it far behind. It was a world away from his native home outside Smolensk, but it was where duty had called him, and he would not complain to anybody but his own mind. He had a duty to do his small part to maintain law and order in the 104th Army, and he would do that until he might again return to his prewar garrison back in Russia proper.

When Meryem sat back down on the bed in her austere cell she wrapped the blanket over her head and curled into a little ball on top of the bed, finally at ease to cry when no
white ghosts
were around to see her. She wanted to see Daryn and find out what the Russians were doing to them. He had to be worried about her, and it was so cruel of the mean Russians to not let them be together at least just briefly—despite how embarrassing it would be to meet him when she was so dirty and unclean from not washing properly. She was sure that he would be proud and tell the judges that their stupid country would never win, that Heaven—God—would never allow it. They would all have to suffer not just now, but also when God would judge them just like they tried to judge Meryem.

“
Virtuous subjects, always fear the Son of Heaven, never ordinary men
.”

She had learned in school about the short command that had been at the end of all decrees proclaimed from the Chrysanthemum Throne in Kyoto which had been a national motto during the Late Kaei Era in the middle of the 19th century, and it was still a popular patriotic slogan—and it had a fascinating double meaning relating to God and the Emperor. She knew that she should be a virtuous subject, and she certainly feared rightful authority like she should, but being without fear of people was downright impossible. How could she be fearless? She had been too afraid to tell the Russians that they were weak little cowards, and that she would be proud to die for His Majesty, that it didn’t matter what they would do because they were just a bunch of stupid… punks. Her mute appearance had not been a result of a decision; it had just turned out that way. Thanks to her stupid, stupid cowardice.

Anybody should be happy by the prospect of following in the pioneering footsteps of the great National Martyrs whose sacrifices would live on far longer than any temporal glory ever could. Ten billion years was not even a second to eternity, and that was where National Martyrs would always be praised for their courage. It would be a good way to die, just like the loyal Imperialists she had seen chronicled in motion pictures rushing the Qingists with bayonets and swords to fight and die in holy war for the country like real men. Surely, a patriotic woman too should be willing to die as closely as she could come to dying as a man. She had to steel herself. She had to be strong, and if these white devils were going to kill her, she mustn’t be afraid. Anything they would do to her would mean nothing in the long run. What mattered was that she had to be brave and strong, no matter what.
God willing
…

Erich was
still very anxious about the possibility of a major attack that might disrupt his offensive. Indeed, he considered the whole operation
his
offensive. It was he who had persuaded Field Marshal von Rundstedt, General Kesselring, General List, and General Lutz that it was not just a bold idea to relieve the Russian pressure on their Austrian allies, but also an opportunity to knock out substantial enemy manpower and materiel now when so many Russians had been amassing in Livonia and Courland. It stood a good chance of superseding his previous victory and make him into a virtual reincarnation of Gneisenau or Moltke who had both been so integral to Prussia’s establishment as the centerpiece of Europe—the centerpiece of the world.

He would have preferred
to be given complete command of the operation, but he was confident that as long as the operation was at least successful
enough
, then he would certainly be noticed and remembered as not only the man behind the victory in South Prussia, but also the victory by the Baltic Sea—perhaps the victory that would seal the outcome of the entire war, or at the very least make him a serious candidate for promotion to replace one of the fossilized geezers still allowed to command an army group. While he was looking through the most recent survey of the possible composition of not just the Baltic Front, but also the neighboring 1st White Russian Front, he was annoyed by the sketchy estimations of Russian troop strength from the section of the staff that assembled the intelligence gathered from all available sources.

The operation was not only including the complete or partial transfer of the equivalent of some 18 divisions to bolster Army Group North, but also rehearsals and exercises so that the men would be better prepared for the requirements of t
he operation. Erich toyed with the real possibility of securing Riga and—hopefully—encircling and destroying all Russians trapped by the bay as he hoped they would be. The peninsula that jutted up into the Baltic Sea could perhaps become a prison of at least a handful of divisions, and if they were destroyed… However, he had to remain realistic and not head out into fantasyland. Although it was pleasant to imagine a complete success he preferred to expect much more modest results, and he tried not to oversell his plan since he didn’t want to have to have delivered a minor success and be accused of having suffered a major failure. The Russians had to be forced to transfer even more troops away from Galicia in Austria and to White Russia and the Baltic region to protect further advances towards Petersburg and Smolensk. Relieving the Austrians was the primary necessity that motivated a major offensive, apart from the conviction that all battles would inflict a greater toll on the Russians than the Germans—which experience surely proved.

The Russians had been a mixed bag so far. In South Prussia they had fielded plenty of infantry and guns
and had fought hard and inflicted heavy casualties, but their lack of mobility had made them vulnerable to maneuvering. In the air, the
Luftwaffe
generally had the advantage, but only when it was concentrated in large numbers, and the casualties in both airmen and aircraft prevented the air force from overwhelming the Russians across the board—the damned Russians had managed to mobilize large numbers of fighter planes to contest control of the skies at every turn. High Command had been diverting some resources westwards to the French and Italian fronts, and just as he was kept awake by the fear of a major Russian offensive that would throw off the planning, he was similarly concerned about a French or Italian breakthrough. If the French would punch a hole in the Gneisenau Line he knew that von Rundstedt would immediately veto the operation and call dozens of divisions to the West to help plug the hole and reestablish the Line which had become such a neurotic fixation to the press and the public, and allowing the French to pass even an inch beyond the line in a single spot would send the newspaper editors into the worst housewifely hissy fit imaginable..

There were countless hypothetical scenarios
that could ruin Erich’s offensive even before it had begun, and he looked forward to the final, irrevocable green light that would send off the armor piercing through the Russian lines. Once the battle was on it would be much more difficult to easily just turn off the war machine and reel it back in. Yet there was still all too much damn time for cold feet, and von Rundstedt was under great pressure from the Palace—which in turn was pressured by the press and the people. As much freedom as High Command had, it was still not completely independent of the country, and there was an annoying alliance of incompetent sycophants within the upper echelons of the military who manipulated the Palace into getting involved in Erich’s and his colleague’s affairs.

He kept down a yawn as he put aside the brief, typed report. The estimation of the resources directly available to the enemy
just in the area west of Riga was still around half a million troops and between 1,200 and 2,000 tanks and self-propelled guns. For such a relatively narrow front, it was a big concentration, but it was not surprising that the Russians would keep so many troops lined up against Army Group North to check any more progress into White Russia or towards Smolensk. After all, drawing a line northeastwards from the Baltic Front was the capital city of St Petersburg, and White Russia and Smolensk were essential industrial regions. Like any country, Russia would strive to defend its capital at all costs, and the war so far seemed to be a question of seizing cities. That was how the papers chronicled the war, and the cities held economic and psychological capital that was important to the war effort. When Warsaw had been threatened to fall before the Russians had been completely removed from South Prussia there had been discussions within the civilian government to evacuate the vital factories there. As much as soldiers preferred not to think about it, they had already expended the prewar munitions stockpiles several times over, and steel, coal, oil, aluminum, and other materials were necessary to continue the war. It was only thanks to factories that Germany still had guns, ammunition, and tanks to keep on fighting, and the same was true for everybody else. Seizing Russian industrial cities in White Russia, the Ukraine, and other parts of western Russia would surely make it harder for the enemy war effort, and Russia’s industrial heartland was close enough to the front for it to be within realistic reach.

The table serving as Erich’s
desk was a bit shaky, but he did not particularly mind things like that given the circumstances. The town hall had been converted into the staff headquarters of Army Group North, and just outside the large doors leading into Erich’s office the intelligence section was analyzing the reports from the aerial, land, and signal reconnaissance to keep information as accurate as possible for the hopefully impending operation. There were liaisons from High Command as well as the Austrians’ Imperial-Royal General Staff attached to the section, and they were in close cooperation with the personnel, operations, strategic, and logistics sections. The whole staff was focused on two objectives at the moment: Preparing for the offensive and overseeing the ongoing maintenance of the army group’s section of the frontline.

Erich wanted to keep himself close to most important details. Army Group North would contribute the bulk of forces from its
three armies, the 1st Armored Army and the 17th and 22nd Armies. General Hoth’s 1st Armored Army would not merely have its eight divisions but would be reinforced by the four divisions of the XX Armored Corps and three independent divisions from separate commands. That enlarged army would storm up towards Jelgava and—if possible—envelop the Russian 15th, 23rd, and most of the 11th Armies to the west of Riga. Model’s 17th Army would apply pressure directly against the Russian armies while Busch’s 22nd Army along with the substantial reinforcements from the neighboring army group, including the 9th Armored Army, would keep Hoth’s right flank and engage the Russian 11th and 7th Armies on both sides of Riga.

Although it was useless to ponder the prospective outcomes too far, Erich was hoping that within a few short weeks, the army group would have largely shattered the Baltic Front and would force the Russians to launch counterattacks and supportive attacks in other places along the front
rather than continue to apply too much pressure on the Austrians in Galicia. Along with the needed reorganization to reform the frontline, the operation was meant to provoke such responses from the enemy. The Russians had been surprisingly unwilling to adapt to the increased mobility of mechanized war, and their slow infantry and artillery had been far more ineffective offensively compared to when they dug in with deep defenses that took a great toll on the German troops. Forcing the Russians to go on the offensive to retake strategic positions would help deprive them of blood and munitions, particularly against the well-armed and trained German troops—there were suspicions that the Russians were having supply problems of heavy artillery shells.

Still, the worst enemy
for now was Erich’s own High Command. If they had a good—or bad—reason to cancel the operation, then the opportunity to open up for a possible offensive against Minsk before autumn might be lost. Erich was optimistic about the potential if the line was moved farther into Russia which would allow for a bigger concentration of German troops along a slightly narrower front, but he had to accept the worries of some of his superiors about the many points of exposure to enemy attack and the reliability of Germany’s allies. There were just so many things that people insisted on taking into account, many of which Erich found irrelevant. The slow progress in Italy was a perfect symptom of High Command’s lack of confidence in itself since Italy should already have been knocked out of the war. A single additional German field army would probably have been enough to quickly get rid of Italy as well, and that would leave more troops available to be deployed against France and Russia. Instead, there was a lack of big, new thinking, and the war ground on much slower and inefficiently than if High Command would have pursued a stronger, more decisive posture on all fronts. To Erich, it seemed like it was only in Russia that the German leadership really was performing on par with what should be expected of German officers. After all, they were supposed to be the spiritual descendants of Moltke, Gneisenau, Clausewitz, and a host of other great military thinkers, military administrators, or commanders.