Chapter One Thousand Seven Hundred Seventy-One
18th December 1966
Trieste, Austria
Today, Udi Brog had time to reflect on the events of the prior days as he walked randomly through the Medieval potion of the city. The Brass had made a big show of bawling out Brog and his men for exceeding their orders on Santorini and causing the only injury during the operation when one of the Amis had gotten an ass full of grenade fragments. What were they supposed to have done? Sit at the bottom of the cliffs while the actual fight, that wasn’t actually happening, but they didn’t know that, was happening elsewhere? They had not been about to let the Tabbies have all the fun to themselves, orders be damned. The Brass had understood that on some level because as soon as they finished yelling, they announced that Brog was getting promoted to Hauptmann. Kapitän Laninga had said that if they had expected the Marines to sit pat on the pier, they had clearly picked the wrong men. It was because being insane and doing the unexpected was more their speed. That wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement, but they took it as one. They were a detachment from the 3rd Marine Infantry Division, Tilo’s Marines, they had reputation to live down to and a commanding Officer who was Regular Navy casting shade upon them did wonders for that. Someone in Kiel or Cuxhaven must agree.
Prince Louis had just watched the entire thing with detached amusement. Because SMS T35 “Estoc”, a Type 39 Fleet Torpedo Boat, had been shifted to Trieste from the Baltic, he was no longer the ranking Officer in the flotilla. That suited him fine for now, as he had explained everything to Brog because they went way back to when they had both been Cadets on the SMS Brandenburg. Louis had said that the entire operation with the Q-Ships had revealed the weaknesses of the light units of the Flotilla. Having the four 10.5cm guns of the Estoc along was a welcome change for future operations. In the meantime, Louis was happy that he only needed to worry about his own boat. He had also pointed out something that was a bit amusing and worrying at the same time to Brog, an Estoc was a sword with no edge and a reinforced point for punching holes through armor. What did that say about the ship and her crew?
Rounding a corner, Brog saw that he was on the street that led up to the gates of Castello di San Giusto, the old fortress had stood over the city for centuries with portions of it dating back it dating back to the Roman Period. While from a military standpoint it was long obsolete, it still functioned as the administrative center of the defenses of the City of Trieste and the territory around it that Austria claimed. Part of the weird geography of the city meant that much of Slovenia was between it and the rest of Austria. What meant in practice was that even as Ljubljana made a big show of independence, the Slovenes had greater economic and political ties to Vienna than they had while they had been directly ruled by Austria.
As Brog approached the gates of the castle, he saw who was walking out the other way and almost turned and walked back the way he came but it was too late for that. Austria still had conscription and one of the Conscripts who Brog had gotten to know all too well was Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was the son of Gustave Schwarzenegger, a high-ranking Police Official and prominent member of the far-right Austrian Royalist Party. The same political party that pined for the long-lost Austro-Hungarian Empire and saw it as a complete injustice that the Germany had been united under the upstart House of Hohenzollern as opposed to a Hapsburg Emperor. They were also well known to be anti-Semitic and didn’t like Slavs much either which was why Brog, as a Lithuanian Jew, avoided them like the plague.
As a teenager, Arnold had yet to differentiate his views from those of his parents. It was doubtful that he ever would because word was that his father was leaning on him to join the Police when he returned from the Army. When Brog had first met him months earlier, he had not checked to see if Brog had horns and a tail, but it was obvious that was what was swirling around in the back of his mind. Brog also had a hard time imagining him as a Policeman. A term that the Americans had recently told Louis’ sister Kiki that she had in turn told Louis about was “Pencil-necked geek.” That term described Arnold perfectly, tall, rail thin without any fat or muscle on him. He was also prone to pithy one-liners that always had him on the edge of having someone about to kick his face in.
“Hauptmann Brog” Arnold said with smile, revealing the gap between his front teeth.
“Rekrut” Brog replied.
That made Arnold’s smile vanish. His one-year term of service might almost be up, but he still didn’t like being reminded that he remained one of the lowest ranking soldiers in Trieste.
“I heard that your outfit saw some action?” Arnold asked.
“It was hardly what I would call action” Brog replied, “It was a bloody pointless fiasco that failed in the end.”
“That was still more than is going on here” Arnold said.
“Be thankful for that” Brog said, “The things Recon are saying that are happening down south should scare you, boredom is good if that means the war isn’t being fought here.”
Arnold looked at him with some disbelief, some people needed to learn lessons the hard way.