Hitler's War Read Online Free Page B

Vaclav ran the world, he would have shipped them out or shot them to nip that crap in the bud. But would the big shots listen to a corporal who drove a taxi in Prague before he got called up? Fat chance!
    The air might be cool and moist, but he smelled burning bridges all the same. Diplomats were going home by plane and train. Armies that hadn’t been mobilized were getting ready for the big plunge. The Poles, damn them, were concentrating opposite Teschen (spelled three different ways, depending on whether you were a German, a Czech, or a Pole). Didn’t they see they were the next course on Hitler’s menu? If they didn’t, how stupid were they?
    “Got a smoke on you, Corporal?” asked Jan Dzurinda, one of the soldiers in Vaclav’s squad.
    “Sure.” Jezek held out the pack. Dzurinda took a cigarette, then waited expectantly for a light. With a small sigh, Vaclav struck a match.
    Dzurinda leaned close and got the cigarette started. He took a deep drag, then blew out two perfect smoke rings. “Thanks a bunch. Much obliged.”
    “Any time,” Vaclav said. Dzurinda puffed away without a care in the world, blowing more smoke rings. Just hearing his voice made Corporal Jezek worry. Jan was a Slovak, not a Czech. Czech and Slovak were brother languages, but they weren’t the same. Czechs and Slovaks could tell what you were as soon as you opened your mouth.
    And Czechs and Slovaks weren’t the same, either. Czechs thought of Slovaks as hicks, rubes, country bumpkins. Before the World War, Slovakia had been in the Hungarian half of Austria-Hungary, and the Hungarians made a point of keeping the Slovaks ignorant and down on the farm. Things had changed since 1918, but only so much. The Czechoslovakian Army had something like 140 general officers. Just one was a Slovak.
    If Slovaks were rubes to Czechs, Czechs were city slickers to Slovaks. A lot of Slovaks thought the Czechs, who were twice as numerous, ran Czechoslovakia for their own benefit. They thought Slovakia got hind tit, and wanted more autonomy—maybe outright independence—for it.
    Vaclav had no idea whether Jan belonged to Father Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party, the main nationalist outfit. Hlinka had died six weeks before, but another cleric, Father Tiso, was heading the party now. The Nazis had brownshirts; the Slovak People’s Party had Hlinka Guards.
    If the shooting started, how hard would Jan Dzurinda and thousands more like him fight for Czechoslovakia? A lot of Slovak People’s Party men figured Berlin would give them what they wanted if Prague didn’t. If you thought that way, how loyal would you be toward your nominal country?
    Since Vaclav didn’t know and didn’t want to ask straight out, he lit a cigarette of his own. The harsh smoke relaxed him…a little. He said, “At least we’ve weeded most of the Germans out of the Army.” The Sudetens damn well
weren’t
loyal. They’d made that plain enough.
    “Well, sure,” Jan Dzurinda said, which might mean anything or nothing.
    Corporal Jezek decided to push a little harder. If the Slovaks were going to run off or give up first chance they got, how could the army hope to defend Czechoslovakia? The noncom said, “Now we have to run off the buggers on the other side of the frontier, eh?”
    “Reckon so.” Dammit, Dzurinda
did
sound like a hick. He went on, “Anybody tries to shoot me, I expect I better nail him first.”
    “Sounds good to me.” Jezek decided he had to be content with that. He could have heard plenty worse from a Slovak. Up and down the lines, how many worried Czech noncoms and lieutenants and captains
were
hearing worse from Slovaks right about now? How many who weren’t hearing worse were being lied to? He muttered to himself and lit another cigarette and wished his canteen held something stronger than water.
    “FORWARD!” SERGEANT LUDWIG ROTHE CALLED softly. He laughed at himself as the Panzer II crawled toward the start line through the darkness of the wee