Harold Coyle by The Ten Thousand

Author:The Ten Thousand
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-01-01T22:49:20+00:00

CHAPTER 12

18 JANUARY

The mood of the citizens of Niederjossa matched the gray, sullen sky as they trudged through the slush and around piles of old dirty snow that covered central Germany. Few paid attention at first to the German Army Volkswagen staff car, its canvas top down, as it pulled into the town center of Niederjossa without any flourish, without any haste. Like the rest of the midafternoon traffic, the staff car simply negotiated the narrow and winding streets of the small ancient German town built on the banks of the Jossa River. The German Army captain and his driver paid scant attention to the comings and goings of the civilians as they went about their daily routine. He was more interested in making sure that the five medium trucks that were supposed to be following were keeping up. Motioning to his driver to slow down, the captain turned his head around to the right to look for the trucks. As he did, he could not help but notice the stares from the civilians who, shaken from their gloomy preoccupation by the appearance of the German Army, stopped to watch when they saw the small staff car roll by.

As in most towns, there was a look of real concern on the people's faces. While everyone knew what was happening from the nonstop news coverage provided by the television and newspapers, the appearance of real soldiers, armed and ready for battle, on their streets could not be ignored. It had to be dealt with.

Many Germans had no real interest in the arguments put forth by their government. The Americans, they argued, were a benign presence. They had been there for years, one old woman told a reporter, and if they weren't, then someone else would have been. Better the Americans, she said, than the Russians or the English. Like the old woman, many Germans could not really understand why the men in Berlin were being so stubborn, so uncompromising in their dealings with the Americans. Most hoped that it was all a big bluff that, when the final call came, both sides would back down from.

The presence of real soldiers in their streets was to the people of Niederjossa proof that the government was prepared to make good its threats. And if that happened, the people of Niederjossa knew that the clash of arms would be played out in their town, right there in front of their own homes, before their eyes and the eyes of their children. It did not take a great leap of imagination either to picture what would happen when that clash came. Almost as soon as the Americans began flowing into Bavaria, television stations across Germany ran special reports that showed file footage from recent conflicts depicting the carnage that modern war leaves in its wake. Spliced in with older footage from the last war in Germany, the special reports had the effect of reinforcing the positions of those of the political center and left who

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