Victory Road. Mark Bowlin
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and his parents had taken their profits and relocated to a community of Germans near Posen in the Warthegau territory of what was once, briefly, Poland. They had again been told there was plenty of opportunity in the new lebensraum of the Grossdeutsche Reich for someone with connections, but the gathering Bolshevik clouds in the east cast a long shadow on those promises. The Soviets were the true enemy, Gerschoffer believed, but Germany couldn’t fight two wars at once. So his philosophy was to stiff-arm the Americans in order to buy time to deal with the Soviets—and pray that they could be dealt with before they crossed the frontiers.
Captain Gerschoffer waved the waiter over again and handed him the empty decanter. Proper planning required more wine, he informed his boss. “As I was saying, two types of Allied soldiers. The occupiers are going to be the military staffs that’ll headquarter themselves in Naples while they work on seizing Rome—not that they will, of course.”
Grossmann nodded. “Go on. What other military presence can we expect to see in Naples?”
“Once they get the port operational, the majority of supplies will flow through here, as well as through Salerno. The logistics personnel who manage the depots and the depots themselves will be legitimate targets. Also, I would expect the British and Americans to commandeer Italian hospitals for their use—I suppose those ought to be off-limits….”
“Berlin says nothing is off-limits.”
Gerschoffer stared at his commander and shrugged. “OK. I would imagine that they will also commandeer the Italian military facilities—particularly barracks and headquarters buildings, parade grounds, and training camps for their replacement depots.”
Grossmann nodded again. He had come to the same conclusions as Captain Gerschoffer. “Let’s plan for the army staff to headquarter on the palace grounds at Caserta. That’s where I’d set up shop if I were them.”
“Yes sir. I’m not sure it’s in our interests to kill Mark Clark though. They might find someone competent to replace him. Besides, I doubt that we can get access to the palace without giving away our intentions.”
“Maybe. You’re probably right, but we’ll look at it anyway. I want to concentrate on barracks and headquarters for the occupiers. Let’s also target the buildings along the docks—see if we can kill some of their engineers trying to rehabilitate the port.”
“Yes sir. Now, about the sightseers; what do you want to do?”
“Well, let’s think through this. Where are the Americans and British going to congregate?”
“The British are less impressed than the Americans with old stuff. They’ll head straight for the bars and whorehouses, although some might head for Pompeii. Maybe we can plant bombs in the bus depots. The Americans will sightsee first—cathedrals and museums—and then head to the bars and whorehouses.”
Grossmann laughed, “Maybe they’ll wait, maybe not. But that gives me an idea. Let’s lift the quarantine on those Romanian whores down by the docks as we leave. We’ll have to pay off the Italians to leave them alone. Maybe even set ‘em up in a nice house.”
Gerschoffer started laughing as well. “Now that’s a war crime! Those girls are nasty.”
“Ugly and diseased, indeed. Yep, just the ticket for a conquering army. Those whores were quarantined in the first place because that particular strain of gonorrhea is cure-resistant—the sulfa drugs won’t even touch it. We know from Africa and Sicily that the puritans don’t regulate the brothels like we do, so in no time at all, we can take hundreds of soldiers out of action. As virulent as that is, maybe even thousands! They’ll either have to divert penicillin from the field hospitals or send the soldiers back to their bases in Africa or Sicily. Either way, we win.”
“Through the drip?”
“Through the drip.” Grossmann laughed as he reached for the carafe again.
“Talk about unconscionable. What else do you have in mind?”
“Let’s leave churches off the list for now, although maybe we’ll do them if we have enough time. Starting tomorrow, let’s go after the opera house, theaters, cinemas, gelaterias, and open-air markets for a start. I’m gonna think about the hospitals, and if we run out of targets, we’ll get the breweries as well.”
Gerschoffer shook his head, “That’s doin’ ’em a favor. The beer’s terrible here. How about post offices? I understand the Americans bought up all the stamps in Africa while they were there. Who knew there were so many phila…phila…what’s that word?”
“Philatelist. Well, if they don’t get the clap first, we’ll kill them too!”
Both officers started laughing and pounding the table again, and the waiter whose comprehension of English was returning with every shouted word shrunk quietly further into the shadows of his restaurant and prayed silently for the Germans to leave.
Chapter One
November 7, 1943
1435 Hours
Naples, Italy
The tall, lean captain staggered from the blow to his ribs. In years of boxing, including nearly thirty amateur matches, he had never before been hit this hard. He moved back quickly and protected his side before the massive lieutenant could move in on his ribs again. It was notionally a friendly match, but as the captain was finding out, there really wouldn’t be such a thing as a friendly boxing match after the captain had made an ill-fated pass at the girlfriend of the lieutenant’s cousin.
It was much ado about nothing, the captain had thought. He had drunk too much grappa two nights before and the girl, whose name was Gianina, spoke fluent English and had sharply put him in his place. Even the lieutenant’s cousin, a captain himself, was amused when told about the incident and held no ill-will against the boxer.
First Lieutenant Sam Taft was another matter. Taft had taken it upon himself to be the girl’s protector from would-be suitors in the absence of his busy cousin, and while he had been friendly enough to the captain since that Friday night, he intended to impart a little lesson on manners. Sam actually liked John Huston, the captain, immensely—after all, they had been drinking together when the incident occurred—but there were limits to friendship. When Sam had finished with the Hollywood boy from Weatherford, he would buy him a drink and the slate would be clean again.
Huston was a very talented boxer, however, and he no intention of losing even a friendly match. He was confident that he would be able to finish off his friend before the remaining round of the three-round match was over. He had speed and experience over the lieutenant, and a quick jab caught Sam below the eye. It had no effect, and Huston ducked just in time to avoid a left hook and then a straight right aimed at his head. It was thrown with deadly force, not friendly at all, and Huston began to suspect that he was being held accountable for his behavior that night. He also began to get angry. Is he really looking for a fight?
A sharper jab caught Sam in the face again, and then another one. However, Sam was not without experience either—although he had no equivalent boxing history to his credit. Sam had learned to fight on his father’s ranch when he was just a boy. Two of his father’s hands, later his when Sam inherited the ranch, had messed around on the rodeo circuit, where they had also learned to box. From them, Sam had learned the fundamentals of boxing and had refined his technique on the boxing team at Texas A&M. He had a love for the sport as well. When he was twelve, he and his father had taken the train from Texas to Chicago to see Jack Dempsey’s second fight with Gene Tunney, and even though there were more than a hundred thousand spectators at that fight, Sam and his father were only four rows away from the ring. Although Dempsey had lost the long count match, Dempsey’s style was more to his liking than was the cerebral boxer Tunney’s. By virtue of his size and demeanor, Sam was a slugger as well. He liked to finish fights with as much economy as possible, and had his last punch connected with Huston, the