Harry Turtledove (Editor) - Alternate Generals II

I was at the.50 on the tank, and cut the bastard in half, swung the big machine gun and slashed through a formation of his fellows.

There was another Tiger coming through the smoke behind the bodies, its commander in the open hatch. Our gunner fired, and his cannon shell hit the solid forward plate of the Tiger, ricocheting off as the Tiger fired.

It took us in the bow, and I was flipped backward off the Sherman as it slewed to a halt, smoke wisping from its hatches.

I looked around for Custer, saw him as he jumped off the side of the destroyed tank, the tank commander's Thompson gun in hand.

"Come on, George," I heard him shout… I think.

The Tiger's turret swung toward him as Custer fired, and the German tank commander slumped. Custer staggered, and an SS officer came from behind the tank, submachine gun firing.

Custer's tommy gun was empty, and he clawed out his antique.45 six-gun, and shot the German down.

Another bullet hit him, and he turned, lifting his pistol, as the monstrous Tiger turret swiveled on him.

Insane, goddamned insane, and he fired at the tank, completely unafraid, and the Tiger's coaxial machine gun chattered, and Custer sprawled in the mud.

The turret swung, looking for another target. I saw a dead panzergrenadier in a doorway, his Panzerfaust beside him.

I ran to it, not letting myself look, not letting myself see that huge turret aim at me.

I had the Panzerfaust, spun, didn't need to aim, pulled down on the firing lever, and nothing happened. I was very calm, able to look down the 88mm barrel as I realized the rocket launcher still had the safety clip in, yanked it out, and pressed the lever down again.

The rocket hit the driver's slit, exploded into the Tiger's interior, and the blast knocked me back into the ruined house. There was no smoke, no flame, only a blackened hole on the front of the Tiger, but it was dead.

I ran to Custer's body. He was very dead, most of his upper body missing from the machine-gun bullets. Rounds whistled past my head, and I grabbed his pistol, rolled twice, saw an M1 rifle in the street, had it and dropped the German who was busy reloading his Mauser for another shot at me.

Then I was up, limping, not knowing when or how I'd been hit, moving back. I shoved Custer's pistol in my belt, found a bandoleer of ammo, shoved clips into the M1, fired when I saw a field gray target.

We pulled back, out of that village, as more and more German tanks, SP guns, and halftracks rumbled toward us along the country lanes.

Custer's luck had finally run dry.

More than Custer's CCA and CCR took a beating that day and the next few. The Tenth Armored Division was bloodied by Second SS Panzer, and CCB was hit hard by First SS Panzer. We couldn't hold, but fell back on Bastogne, Dietrich's Sixth Army on our heels.

They captured our fuel tankers for desperately needed gas, came on.

The 101 stAirborne and its allied units, the bravest of the brave, could only take so much after the siege. The SS hit them hard, and the Division shattered.

They were forced to break up, and escape and evade. There were about 15,000 men still in and around Bastogne. Of those, 8,000 were captured, 3,000 were casualties, and the rest escaped in ones and twos.

Most of the officers, including the acting commander, General McAuliffe, were killed or captured.

In addition to General Custer, Third Army lost General Gaffey, Colonel Abrams, Colonel Harkins, and other fine officers.

Other units in the Bulge were hit very hard, particularly Ninth Division. Its command post was overrun, and the Division Commander, General Craig, and the promising Chief of Staff, Colonel Westmoreland, were killed.

However, Custer's arrogance and disobedience may have actually shortened the war.

Sixth SS Panzer, and other units around Bastogne, including Panzer Lehr and the Fifth Parachute Division, turned northwest again, toward the Meuse, and there was almost no one to stop them.

But then the weather broke, and the Royal Air Force Tempests and American Army Air Force Mustangs went after the German supply lines around St. Vith.

Custer was not the only one who remembered the «mistake» at Falaise. Montgomery noted the extended German lines, and brought the 21 stArmy Corps down, and other American units stopped the SS in their tracks.

Now there would be no suggestion of escape. Tactical air swept the roads and forests, and almost all of the German Panzers and their transportation, support and artillery were destroyed.

Sepp Dietrich was killed in one air raid, and his replacement, Herman Priess, ordered the remnants of the army to fall back toward Germany, in spite of Hitler's raving. But the soldiers trudging through the snow still fared badly.

There were fragments of the 101 stin the forests, and they tore at the Nazis like wolves, getting the last drop of bloody revenge. More than ten Germans moving in a group were asking to be strafed.

Of the twenty-four German divisions ordered into the Watch On Rhine offensive of the Bulge, all were obliterated, and their names stricken from the German rolls. Only a few thousand of the Germans who marched west ever came back to Germany. While not as disastrous as the collapse of Army Group Center in Russia, this debacle definitely shortened the war.

German losses were over 120,000; American just under 100,000.

Other effects of Custer's disaster are fairly well known.

Montgomery, who was almost as incautious in his words as Custer, commented loudly and repeatedly on how, once again, it took the few British divisions in the ETO to save the Allies.

That was the final straw for Eisenhower. He declared it was either Monty or him. Roosevelt went to Churchill, who reluctantly relieved Montgomery. However, Eisenhower was forced to resign as well, and Omar Bradley became Supreme Commander.

There are those historians, particularly recently, who see the effect of Custer's death ranging even further.

They blame Custer for the 1948 Republican presidential debacle, when Vice President Harry S. Truman and his running mate, Omar Bradley, demolished Senator Dewey and Eisenhower.

Still further, they say this positioned Bradley to run in 1952, when he publicly shamed the Republican candidate, Eisenhower, for not squelching the ultraconservative right for, among other things, calling Eisenhower's mentor, General Marshall, a Communist.

This sparked Taft, McCarthy and others of their ilk to flee the party to form the Constitutionalists, and shatter the Republicans so badly that, from Roosevelt's era to the turn of the century, only one Republican has gone to the White House, and that for a single term.

Perhaps.

But I think not.

I don't think any single man can affect history that deeply. Even if Custer had not been in the position he was, and, say, George Patton had lived to see the Second World War, and there had been no disaster in the snow, I don't think matters would have been changed that much.

History, in spite of the popular phrase, is, in fact, a rather constant jade.

The man who would be President in half an hour hopped into the open carriage with boyish energy and eyed the still figure who sat waiting for him. The big, somberly dressed man was as quiet as a cat, a relaxation that was complicit of motion, ready without tension.

"Are you ready, Senator?"

"Can anybody ever be ready for something like this?" The soft accent of the southern desert was still strong in his voice. "Twenty thousand people staring at the son of a mule driver while he takes the oath that means he is one heartbeat away from the Presidency?"

The Vice President flashed his famous grin, and the Senator noticed a few more gray hairs in his bushy reddish mustache. "We faced nearly that many at San Juan Hill, or at least it seemed so at the time. The Spanish were better armed, and considering the acumen of Senator Bryan, I should say they were also better led. Buck up, Francisco."