The night air over Gibraltar was heavy with the scent of salt and smoke.
From the cliffs, one could still see the wreckage floating in the bay below. Twisted landing craft, blackened oil slicks, and bodies carried away by the slow, pitiless tide.
Searchlights still combed the water, more out of habit than necessity. Nothing living remained out there.
Inside the officers' villa that now served as the temporary command post for the German Eighth Army, laughter rolled between the stone walls. It was not the laughter of joy, but of relief… the kind that followed a narrowly averted disaster.
Generalfeldmarschall Heinrich von Koch sat at the head of the long oak table, posture loose, one arm draped over the back of his chair.
The buttons of his tunic were undone at the collar, and his once-immaculate gloves rested beside an open bottle of brandy.
Around him sat the senior commanders of the three armies that had held the Western Gate, German, Russian, and Spanish alike.
