Marching Through Georgia

by S. M. Stirling

  Startled, Eric ran a hand over the cropped yellow surface of his hair. "You know, I never thought of that… you're right." More briskly: "Tell him that I promise to kill a lot of Germans; and that he can kill even more, with my help. After that I promise nothing, absolutely nothing." He pointed to Dreiser, standing beside him. "This man is not a Draka, or a soldier: he is an American journalist. About what happens after this fight, talk to him."

  "Hey, wait a minute, Eric—" Dreiser began.

  Eric chopped down a hand. "Bill, it's your ass on the line, too. Even if the Fritz roll right over us, the Legion will probably be able to hold the next fallback position well enough; we'll delay them, and the maximum risk is from the south, from the Germans in the pocket there trying to break out to the north. But that won't do us any good. Besides… what am I supposed to promise them, a merry life digging phosphates in the Aozou mines in the Sahara, with Security flogging them on? Soldiers don't get sold as ordinary serfs, even: too dangerous."

  "You want me to promise to get them out? How can I?" Dreiser's eyes flinched away from the Russians, from the painful hope in their faces.

  "Say you'll use your influence. True enough, hey? Write them up; your stuff is going through Forces censorship, not Security. They don't give a shit about anything that doesn't compromise military secrecy."

  Dreiser looked back into the pen and swallowed, remembering. He had been in Vienna during the Anschluss. Memories— The woman had been Jewish, middleclass In her forties, but well kept, in the rag of a good dress, her hands soft and manicured. The SS men had had her down scrubbing the sidewalk in front of the building they had taken over as temporary headquarters; they stood about laughing and prodding her with their rifle-butts as others strode in and out through the doors, with prisoners or files or armfuls of looted silverware and paintings from the Rothschild palace.

  "Not clean enough, filthy Jewish sow-whore!" The SS man had been giggling-drunk, like his comrades. The woman's face was tear-streaked, a mask of uncomprehending bewilderment: the sort of bourgeois hausfrau you could see anywhere in Vienna, walking her children in the Zoo, at the Opera, fussing about the family on an excursion to the little inns of the Viennerwald; self-consciously cultured in the tradition of the Jewish middle class that had made Vienna a center of the arts. A life of comfort and neatness, spotless parlors and pastries arranged on silver trays. Now this…

  "Sir…" she began tremulously, raising a hand that was bleeding around the nails.

  "Silence! Scrub!" A thought seemed to strike him, and he slung his rifle. "Here's some scrubbing water, whore!" he said, with a shout of laughter, unbuttoning his trousers. The thick yellow stream of urine spattered on the stones before her face, steaming in the cold night air and smelling of staleness and beer. She had recoiled in horror; one of the men behind her planted a boot on her buttocks and shoved, sending her skidding flat into the pool of wetness. That had brought a roar of mirth; the others had crowded close, opening their trousers, too, drenching her as she lay sobbing and retching on the streaming pavement…

  Dreiser had turned away. There had been nothing he could do, not under their guns. A few ordinary civilians had been watching, some laughing and applauding, others merely disgusted at the vulgarity. And some with the same expression as he. Shame, the taste of helplessness like vomit in the mouth.

  They were pissing on the dignity of every human being on earth, Dreiser thought as his mind returned to the present. He shivered, despite the mild warmth of the mountain spring and the thick fabric of his uniform jacket, and looked at the partisans. The Domination might not have quite the nihilistic lunacy of the Nazis, but it was as remorseless as a machine. I just might be able to bring it off, he thought. Just maybe; the Draka were not going to make any substantial concessions to American public opinion, but they very well might allow a minor one of no particular importance. The military might; at least, they didn't have quite the same pathological reluctance to see a single human soul escape their clutches that the Security Directorate felt. And here… here, he could do something.

  "I could talk it up in my articles; they're already doing quite well," he said thoughtfully. "Russians are quite popular now anyway, since Marxism is deader than a day-old fish." He looked up at Eric. "You have any pull?"

  "Not on the political side; I'm under suspicion. Some on the military, and more—much more—if we win." He paused. "Won't be more than a few of them, anyway."

  Dreiser frowned, puzzled. "I thought you said there'd be more than these, still at large."

  "Oh, there are probably hundreds, from the precautions the Fritz were taking. I certainly hope so. There won't be many left." The Draka turned to Sofie. "Ahhh… let's see. Sue Knudsen and her brother. Their family has a plantation near Orenburg, don't they?" That was in northwest Kazakhstan—steppe country and the population mostly Slav. "They probably talk some Russian. Have one of them report here so Bill will have a translator. Get the tetrarchy commanders, hunt up anybody else who does. We're going to need them. Make it snappy," he glanced up at the sun, "because things are going to get interesting soon."

  * * * *

  The pair of Puma armored cars nosed cautiously toward the tumbled ruins of the village in the pass, turrets traversing with a low whine of hydraulics to cover the verges. The roadway was ten meters wide here, curving slightly southwest through steep-sided fields. Those were small and hedged with rough stone walls and scrub brush, isolated trees left standing for shade or fodder or because they housed spirits. Even the cleared zones were rich in cover—perfect country for partisans with mines and Molotov cocktails. Beyond the village the road wound into the high mountains, forest almost to the edge of the pavement; the beginning of "ambush alley,' dangerous partisan country even before the Draka attack. The Puma was eight-wheeled, well-armored for its size and heavily armed with a 20mm autocannon and a machine gun, but the close country made the drivers nervous.

  Too many of their comrades had roasted alive in burning armor for them to feel invincible.

  Standartenfuhrer Hoth propped his elbows against the sides of the turret hatch and brought up his field glasses. Bright morning sunlight picked detail clear and sharp, the clean mountain air like extra lenses to enhance his vision. The command car had halted half a thousand meters behind the two scout vehicles; from here, the terrain rolled upslope to the village. The military highway cut through it, and he could catch glimpses of the mosque and town hall around the central square, more glimpses than he remembered; a number of houses had been demolished, including the whole first row on the north side of town. There was an eerie stillness about the scene; there should have been locals moving in the fields and streets, smoke from cooking fires… and activity by the SS garrison. He focused on the patch of square visible to him. Bodies, blast-holes, firescorch… And there had been nothing on the radio since the single garbled screech at 0500. He glanced at his watch, a fine Swiss model he had taken from the wrist of a wounded British staff officer in Belgium. 0835: they had made good time from Pyatigorsk.

  Raising a hand, he keyed the throat mike and spoke. "Schliemann, stay where you are and provide cover. Berger, the road looks clear through to the main square. Push in, take a quick look, then pull back. Continuous contact."

  "Acknowledged, Standartenfuhrer,"the Scharfuhrer in the lead car replied. The second vehicle halted; for a moment Hoth felt he could sense the tension in its turret, a trembling like a mastiff quivering on the leash.

  Nonsense, he thought. Engine vibration. A humming through arms and shoulders, up from the commander's seat beneath his boots. The air was full of the comforting diesel stink of armor, metal and cordite and gun-oil; even through the muffling headset the grating throb of the Tatra 12-cylinder filled his head. The two cars ahead were buttoned tight; he could see the gravel spurting from the tires of the lead Puma, the quiver of the second's autocannon muzzle as the weapon quivered in response to the gunner's clench on the controls. Fiercely, he wished he was in the lead vehicle him
self, up at the cutting edge of violence…

  * * * *

  "Wait for it, wait for it," Eric breathed into the microphone. He was perched on the lip of the shattered minaret; the trench periscope gave him a beautiful view of the SS officer in the command vehicle, enough to see the teeth showing in an unconscious snarl below his fieldglasses. Yes, it had to be the command vehicle from the miniature forest of antennae the turret sprouted. Details sprang at him: fresh paint in a dark-green mottle pattern, unscarred armor, tires still sharp-treaded… it must be fresh equipment, just out from Germany. His fingers turned the aiming wheels to track the other two cars, one in a covering position, another edging forward down the single clear lane into the village.

  "Let him get into the square," he said. "Anyone opens fire without orders, I'll blast them a new asshole." The positions on the north edge were complete, the first priority, but there was no need to reveal them to deal with light armor like this, and much need to make the enemy commander underestimate the position. Silently, he thanked a God in which he had not believed since childhood for the ten minutes warning the advantage of height and the position northward beside the road had given. Enough to get the Century and the Circassians under cover; it helped that most of them had been in the cellars, of course.

  He could hear the Fritz car now as it entered the village: whine of heavy tires on the gravel, the popping crunch as stones spurted out under the pressure of ten tonnes of armorplate. Below, in the square, the bodies waited—the thirty dead SS men gunned down in a neat line, and as many others hurriedly stuffed in the jackets of Draka casualties. Got to let him get a look at it, Eric thought. He wanted the German commander overestimating the Draka casualties; easy enough to make him think his comrades had taken a heavy blood-price. Not too good a look at those corpses. though—the rest of their uniform was still Fritz, and besides, they were all male. But the view from inside a closed-down turret was not that good.

  "Centurion." Marie's voice. "That second car is only two hundred meters out. We could get him with a rocket gun, or even one of the 15mm's."

  "After we blast the lead car," Eric said. His voice was tight with excitement; this was better even than catsticking, hunting lion on horseback with lances. And these were enemies you could really enjoy fighting. The Italians… that had been unpleasant. Far less dangerous, but how could you respect men who wouldn't fight even at the doorsteps of their own homes, for their families? It made you feel greasy, somehow. This… if it weren't for the danger to the Century, he would have preferred it; he had long ago come to peace with the knowledge that he would not survive this war. At least I won't have to live through the aftermath of it, either, ran through him with an undercurrent of sadness.

  The lead car was in the square. "Position one! Five seconds… Now!"

  Below, the trooper snuggled the rocket gun into his shoulder. This was a good position, clear to the back with a good ledge of rubble for the monopod in front of the forward pistol-grip. Fifteen kilos of steel and plastic was not an easy load to shoulder-fire; still, better than the tube-launchers the more compact recoilless hybrids had replaced. The armored car was clear in the optical sight; no need for much ranging at less than a hundred meters, just lay the crosshairs on the front fender. He squeezed the trigger, twisted and dove back into the safe darkness of the foxhole without bothering to stay and watch the results. He had seen too many armored vehicles blow up to risk his life for a tourist's-eye view.

  The 84mm shell kicked free of the meter-long tube with a whump-fuff as the backblast stirred a cloud of dust behind the gun. At eighty meters there was barely time for the rocket motor to ignite before the detonator probe struck armor. The shell was slow, low-velocity; even the light steel sheathing of a Puma would have absorbed its kinetic energy with ease. But the explosive within was hollow-charge, a cone with its widest part turned out and lined with copper. Exploding, the shaped charge blew out a narrow rod of superheated gas and vaporized metal at thousands of meters per second; it struck the armorplate before it with the impact of a red-hot poker on thin cellophane. Angling up, the jet seared a coin-sized hole through the plate, sending a shower of molten steel into the fighting compartment. The driver had barely enough time to notice the lance of fire that seared off his body at the waist; fragments of a second later, it struck the fuel and ammunition. Shattered from within, the Puma's hull unfolded along the seams of its welds; to watching eyes it seemed for an instant like a flower in stop-motion film, blossoming with petals of white-orange fire and grey metal. Then the enormous fumph sound of the explosion struck, a pressure on skin and eyeballs more than a noise, and a bang echoing back from the buildings, an echo from the sides of the mountains above. Steel clanged off stone, pattering down from a sky where a fresh column of oily black smoke reached for the thin scatter of white cirrus above.

  The twisted remains burned, thick fumes from the spilling diesel oil. Eric nodded satisfaction. "One 15mm only on the second car!" he barked into the microphone. "See the third off but don't kill him."

  * * * *

  Standartenfuhrer Hoth had been listening to the lead car's commentary in a state of almost-trance, his mind filing every nuance of data while he poised for instant action.

  "… bodies everywhere, Draka and ours. No sign of movement. More in the central square; heavy battle damage… Standartenfuhrer, there are thirty of our men here in front of the mosque, lined up and shotl This… this is a violation of the Geneva Convention!"

  For a moment Hoth wondered if he was hearing some bizarre attempt at humour. Geneva Convention? In Russia? On the Eastern Front? But there was genuine indignation in the young NCO's voice; what were they teaching the replacements these days? Thunder rolled back from the mountains, as the all-too-familiar pillar of smoke and fire erupted from a corner of the square out of his sight.

  Schliemann in the second car was a veteran, and so was the Standartenfuhrer's own crew. They reacted with identical speed, reversing from idle in less than a second with a stamp of clutches and crash of gears. The turrets walked back and forth along the line of rubble that had been the northern edge of the village, 20mm shells exploding in white flashes, machine gun rounds flicking off stone with sparks and sharp ping sounds that carried even through the crash of autocannon fire. Brass cascaded from the breeches into the turret as the hull filled with the nose-biting acridness of fresh cordite fumes. Speed built; Pumas were reconnaissance cars, designed to be driven rearward in just this sort of situation. And they had come for information, not to fight; the luckless Berger had been a sacrificial decoy duck to draw fire and reveal the enemy positions.

  No accident that he had been sent forward, of course. Most of the casualties in any unit were newbies—mostly because of their own inexperience, partly because their comrades, when forced to choose, usually preferred that it was a new face which disappeared. It was nothing personal; you might like a recruit and detest someone you'd fought beside for a year. It was just a matter of who you wanted at your back when the blast and fragments flew.

  Hoth kept his glasses up, flickering back and forth to spot the next burst. It came, machinegun fire directed at Schliemann's car. He kicked the gunner lightly on the shoulder: "Covering fire!" he barked.

  There was a flash from the rubble, a cloud of dust from the tumbled stones above the machinegun's position. A brief rasping flare of rocket fire, and a shell took Schliemann's car low on the wheel well. The jet of the shaped charge seared across the bottom of the vehicle's hull, cut two axles and blew a wheel away to bounce and skitter across the road before it slammed itself into a tree hard enough to embed the steel rim. The cut axles collapsed and the heavy car pinwheeled, caught between momentum and the sudden drag as its bow dug into the packed stone of the road with a shower of sparks. Other sparks were flying as the 15mm hosed hull and turret with fire; even the incendiary tracer rounds were hard-tipped, and the car's armor was thin. Some rounds bounced from the sloped surfaces; others punched through, to flatten and ricochet
inside the Puma's fighting compartment, slapping through flesh and equipment like so many whining lead-alloy bees.

  The radio survived. Hoth could hear the shouting and clanging clearly, someone's voice shouting "Gott-gottgott—", and Schliemann cursing and hammering at the commander's hatch of the car. The impact had sprung the frames, probably, jamming the hatches shut. That often happened. He could see the first puff of smoke as fuel from the ruptured tanks ran into the compartment and caught fire; hear the frenzied screaming as the crew burned alive in their coffin of twisted metal. It went on as the Standartenfuhrer's command car reversed out of sight of the village, into dead ground farther down the pass. Reaching down, he switched the radio off with a savage jerk and keyed in the intercom.

  "Back to Pyatigorsk!" Schliemann had been a good soldier, transferred from the Totenkopf units: a Party man from the street-fighting days, an alte kampfer. And his death had bought what they came for—some knowledge of what they faced. Of course, once they overran the Draka in the village there would be more positions farther up. It depended on how many from the division's motorized infantry brigades had been killed, and what sort of counterattack the units to the south were staging. A thought came to him, and his face smiled under its sheen of sweat; the gunner looked around at him, shivered, turned his gaze back to the sighting periscope as the car did a three-point turn and headed down the road.

  I must take prisoners for intelligence about the Draka fallback positions, the SS officer thought. I will enjoy that. I will enjoy that very much.

  * * * *

  Eric sighed and lowered his eyes from the trench periscope. That rocket gunner had been a little impulsive, but the result suited well enough. No way of concealing their presence from the Germans, but he could hope to make them underestimate the position. Whoever the man in that command car was, time was his enemy. The paratroopers only had to hold until the main Draka force broke through to win; the Fritz had to overrun them and all the rest of the legion, in time to pull their forces back and bring up replacements to block the pass. With only a little luck the German would try to take them on the run with whatever he could round up.