“Makes sense,” the Jew agreed. Like Vaclav, he stared at the French officer as if he had no idea the fellow was talking to them. The Frenchman said something else. Vaclav and Halévy went right on impersonating idiots. The captain tried bad German. Jezek understood that. He also understood the captain did have something dangerous for him to try. He didn’t let on that he understood one damn thing. He was willing to risk his life: as he’d thought before, that was why he wore the uniform. But he wasn’t willing to get himself killed without much chance of hurting the enemy.
“Ah, screw you both,” the captain said in German when the Czechs wouldn’t admit they followed him. They went right on feigning ignorance. The Frenchman gave up. Vaclav had his ammo, and he didn’t have to try anything idiotic. As far as he was concerned, the day was a victory so far.
ONCE UPON A TIME—probably not very long ago—the froggies had had themselves a big old supply dump outside a place called Hary Willi Dernen eyed what was left of it with something not far from disgust. The Frenchmen had hauled away whatever they still had a use for, then poured gasoline on the rest and set fire to it. The stink of stale smoke was sour in his nostrils.
“Come on. Get moving,” Arno Baatz growled. “Nothing worth grabbing in this miserable place.”
“Right, Corporal,” Willi said. Whenever Baatz talked to him these days, he had to fight like a son of a bitch to keep from giggling.
Every once in a while, that showed in the way he sounded. The underofficer favored him with his best glare. “Did I say something funny?”
“No, Corporal,” Willi answered hastily, and bit down hard on the inside of his cheek so the pain would drive mirth from his voice. Awful Arno remembered getting slugged in the tavern back in Watigny. He knew it had happened, anyway—you couldn’t very well not know when you woke up with an enormous bruise on your chin and a knot on the back of your head.
But Baatz showed no sign of remembering that Willi and Wolfgang Storch had been in there to see his piteous overthrow. He also didn’t remember he’d been jealous because Michelle brought drinks to them but not to him. He’d stopped a good one, all right. And that was highly convenient. Since he didn’t remember, he didn’t blame them for the damaged state of his skull.
Lieutenant Erich Krantz had replaced Lieutenant Gross the same way Gross had replaced Neustadt. Gross had kept his arm after all; he might even come back to duty one day. Neustadt hadn’t been so lucky. Krantz was here now—at least till he stopped something. Junior lieutenants seemed to have an unfortunate knack for doing that.
And, if the enemy didn’t get them, they were liable to do themselves in. Krantz stooped and started to pick up a charred board. “Sir, you might want to be careful with that,” Willi said, getting ready to shove the officer aside if Krantz didn’t feel like listening.
But the lieutenant did hesitate. “What? Why?” he asked.
Corporal Baatz butted in: “Sir, Dernen’s right.” He didn’t say that every day, so Willi let him go on: “The French pulled out of here just a little while ago. That’s the kind of thing they might booby-trap.”
“Is it?” Krantz looked surprised and intrigued. “Well, how about that? All right, I won’t mess with it.”
“That’s a good idea, sir,” Baatz said. His narrow, rather piggy eyes said Krantz should have figured this out for himself. Luckily for him, it wasn’t easy to gig a man—especially a noncom—on account of the look on his face. And Baatz looked mean and scornful most of the time, so maybe the lieutenant didn’t notice anything strange.
Krantz was looking south and west. “Now that we’ve driven the French out of here, we should be able to go on to Laon without much trouble.”
We? As in you and your tapeworm? Willi thought. The way it looked to him, the froggies had hung on so hard at Hary because it shielded Laon. They were probably digging in a little closer to the city even now—as well as anyone could in this miserable freezing weather.
Krantz was an officer. Wasn’t he supposed to know stuff like that because he was an officer? He didn’t have much experience, obviously. And if he kept poking around in a gutted supply dump, he wouldn’t live long enough to get any, either. Willi didn’t want to be standing close by when something Krantz was playing with went boom.
He couldn’t say anything like that to the lieutenant. Yes, the Führef’s Wehrmacht was a much more democratic, easygoing place than the Kaiser’s army had been. Old sweats who’d put in their time in the trenches in the last war all said so. Of course, Hitler was an old sweat himself. He’d fought almost from first to last without getting seriously wounded. The way things were on the Western Front from 1914 to 1918, that was either amazing luck or proof of the Gott mit uns on a Landser’s belt buckle. (But that was just the Prussian buckle the last time around, not the national one. Hitler had served in a Bavarian regiment, and would have had a different motto in front of his belly button.)
Yes, the Wehrmacht was more democratic now. Still, a private couldn’t explain the facts of life to an officer. Not even Corporal Baatz could. A grizzled Feldwebel might have done it. But Sergeant Pieck was wounded, too, and hadn’t been replaced. Krantz would have to learn on his own—if he lasted.
As if to show the platoon commander he wasn’t ready for General Staff Lampassen on the outer seams of his trouser legs, the French put in a counterattack later that afternoon. Whether Krantz had or not, Willi’d been fearing one. He was no General Staff officer, either, but he could see what a long southern flank the Germans held. The Wehrmacht had gone around the Maginot Line to the north, not through it. Evidently, the generals had counted on keeping the enemy too busy up there to worry about down here. Unfortunately, what you counted on wasn’t always what you got.
By the time the 75s started whistling in, Willi already had himself a foxhole. It had belonged to a poilu, who’d dug himself a cave in the northern wall to protect himself from German shells coming in from that direction. Willi hacked and scraped at the nearly frozen dirt in the southern wall of the hole with his entrenching tool to try to make himself the same kind of shelter from French artillery.
No splinters flayed his flesh or broke his bones, so he supposed he’d done well enough. No shells burst especially close to him, so he couldn’t prove a thing. But proof didn’t matter. All that mattered was, he didn’t get hurt.
He wasn’t sorry to let the Frenchmen come at him for a change. Sometimes—mostly when there were panzers around—attackers had the edge. More often, defenders crouched in the best shelter they could find or make and tried to murder the fellows coming at them.
His mouth went dry. He recognized that creaking, clanking rumble. As far as he knew, the Germans didn’t have any panzers in the neighborhood. If the French did, it wasn’t such a good day to crouch in a foxhole.
Boom! The report behind him was one of the sweetest sounds he’d ever heard. A split second later, he heard another one. That unmusical Clang! was an antitank round slamming into a French panzer. And the smaller pops and blams that followed marked ammunition cooking off inside the stricken machine. Willi wouldn’t have wanted to be a French panzer crewman, not right then, not for anything.
He stood up and fired at the foot soldiers loping along with the hastily whitewashed French panzers. The poilus threw themselves flat and shot back at him. Boom! The 37mm antitank gun had found another target—found it and missed it. Behind their steel shield, the German artillerymen frantically reaimed and reloaded. Meanwhile, the French panzer’s turret swung inexorably toward them.
Both guns spoke together, as near as made no difference. The enemy panzer slewed sideways and stopped with a track shot off. But its highexplosive shell ruined the German gunners. Their shield did some good against small-arms fire. If a shell burst behind it…well, tough luck.
But then another antitank gun off to the left fired two quick rounds. The crippled French panzer started to burn in earnest. Behind the line, German artillery woke up. Shells started raining down on the ground sout
h of Hary. Willi ducked back into his hole. Some of those shells would fall short. Your own side could kill you, too—one more lesson he wondered whether Lieutenant Krantz had learned.
Before long, the French attack petered out. The froggies didn’t seem to have had their hearts in it, not that that helped the crew of the antitank gun. Willi knew more than a little sympathy for the sorry bastards in Adrian helmets and worn khaki uniforms. Like him, they were at the mercy of officers who sent them forward and hoped something grand would come of it.
He lit a cigarette and stuck his head out for another look around. The two killed French panzers in front of him would burn for a long time. A few khaki-clad bodies lay on the snow-streaked ground. A raven glided down out of the sky and pecked at one. Scavengers never waited long.
And there was Lieutenant Krantz, peeking out of his own hole in the ground like a Feldgrau marmot. He’d come through another scrap. A few more and he’d start having an idea of what was going on out here. As much as I do, anyway, Willi thought. As much as anybody does. He took another drag and blew out a long, happy plume of smoke. He’d made it again.
THEO HOSSBACH WAS MESSING WITH the Panzer II’s radio set again, methodically taking out one tube after another, replacing each with a fresh one, and trying the radio again. “How’s it going?” Ludwig Rothe asked him.
Since Theo was wearing earphones, it wasn’t surprising that he didn’t follow. It also wasn’t surprising that he didn’t take them off so he could. Ludwig had often thought that Theo cared more about the radio than about either of his crewmates.
Direct action, then. Ludwig yanked the earphones off Theo’s head. The radio operator gave him a wounded look. “What did you go and do that for?” he asked.
“So I could talk to you?” Ludwig suggested.
By the way Theo blinked, that hadn’t occurred to him. “Are you a goddamn blackshirt, so you have to interrogate me right this fucking minute?”
“Gott im Himmel!” Ludwig’s head might have been on a swivel as he looked around the panzer park. Nobody seemed to be paying attention to his panzer, for which he was duly grateful. “Are you out of your mind, Theo? Do you want them to haul you away?”
“Nah. If I did, I would’ve—” But even Theo stopped short, swallowing whatever he’d been about to come out with. He was definitely an idiot, but maybe—just maybe—he wasn’t quite an imbecile.
Would’ve done what? Ludwig wondered. The first thing that sprang to mind was would’ve plugged the Führer when I had the chance. Ludwig didn’t ask him if that was what he meant. For one thing, he feared Theo would say yes. For another, letting Theo know such a thought had crossed his own mind would give the radioman a hold on him.
And so Ludwig pointed to the set Theo was working on and asked his original question over again: “How’s it going?”
“Haven’t found the new bad tube yet.” As Theo spoke, he extracted another one. “They give out faster when we bang all over the landscape, you know.”
“Sure, but what am I supposed to do about it? Keep working. We’re as deaf as the damned Frenchmen till you do.” Ludwig had examined quite a few knocked-out French panzers. Most of them had no radios at all. French panzer leaders signaled their subordinates with wigwag disks. The Germans carried them, too, but only for emergencies. They worked well enough on the practice field. In real combat, with dust and dirt flying, they were much harder to make out. And, of course, a panzer commander who stood up in the cupola to semaphore with wigwag disks was as likely to get shot as any other suicidal damn fool.
Theo grunted and forgot about Ludwig. He put the earphones back on. After a moment, he nodded, not to Rothe but to the radio set. “You finally find the dead one?” Ludwig asked hopefully.
A moment later, he remembered Theo couldn’t hear him any more. He didn’t want to tear the earphones off the radioman’s head again; that was pushing things, even for a sergeant.
For a wonder, Hossbach doffed the earphones of his own accord. “We’re back in business,” he reported.
“Outstanding!” Because Ludwig had given him a hard time before, he made himself sound enthusiastic now. Yes, Theo lived in his old little world and visited the real one as seldom as he could get away with, but he did his job pretty well anyhow. Ludwig had heard plenty of other panzer commanders bitch about their radiomen and drivers in terms that horrified him. All in all, he was more lucky than not.
French artillery came down about half a kilometer in front of the panzer park. Somebody was getting it in the neck—probably a bunch of poor, damned infantrymen, as usual—but the precious panzers stayed out of range of enemy guns when not actually fighting.
Planes buzzed by overhead. Ludwig looked up, more curious than worried. Sure enough, Stukas and Messerschmitts flew west to punish the French and the English. The enemy didn’t use planes against German forces anywhere near so much. Ludwig was damned glad of it, too. He’d seen what air power could do to soldiers. He didn’t want anybody doing that to him.
German 105s opened up. Maybe they were shooting at the French guns. Maybe they were softening up the poilus so the next German thrust could finally break through them instead of just pushing them back. Maybe…Ludwig laughed at himself. Not for the first time, he was pretending he’d joined the General Staff. No Lampassen on the legs of his black coveralls.
Something off in the distance blew up with a hell of a bang. Even Theo noticed. “Ammunition dump?” he said.
“Christ, I hope so,” Ludwig answered. “Damned Frenchmen have already thrown more shit at us than we ever thought they had. The more we can get rid of, the less they’re liable to hit us with.”
Theo blinked in owlish surprise. “I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
“You’re always off in Radioland,” Ludwig said. “Half the time, I don’t think you even remember there’s a war on.”
“Oh, I remember,” Theo said. “I’d be doing something better than this if they hadn’t stuck a uniform on me. So would you.” He still looked like an owl, but a challenging owl now.
Getting that much of a rise out of him took Ludwig by surprise. “Watch your mouth!” the panzer commander said again. “The way things are, if anybody in the other blackshirts hears you go on like that, you’re down the shitter.” He was proud of those panzer coveralls, but wished the SS didn’t wear the same color.
Theo nodded slowly. He seemed much more…engaged with the real world than he often did. He even looked around to make sure nobody was eavesdropping before he said, “Well, you’re right about that, too. And things shouldn’t work that way, either. You know damn well they shouldn’t.”
“We’ll fix it after the war,” Ludwig said. “We can’t waste time worrying about it now. If France and England beat us again, we’re screwed. Remember how it was when we were kids, when they occupied us and we needed a bushel of marks to get a bushel of turnips? Do you want to see those days back again?”
“Who would? Only a crazy man.” But Theo looked around again. Softly, he added, “The other thing I don’t want is, I don’t want our own side fucking us over. And that’s what we’ve got.”
He’d just put his life in Ludwig’s hands. If Ludwig reported him the way a dutiful sergeant was supposed to, he’d have a new radioman in short order. What would happen to Theo after that was none of his business. He would be better off not wondering about such things. Theo wouldn’t, but he would.
But he didn’t want a new radioman. Theo spent too much time in his own little world, but most days he did a good job. If he doubted whether Germany was always wise…well, so did Ludwig. Gruffly, the sergeant clapped the other man on the shoulder. “We’ll take care of that after the war, too. They’ll have to listen to us then.”
“Nobody has to do anything.” Theo spoke with unwonted conviction. But then he must have realized he’d taken things as far as they could go, or more likely a few centimeters farther. He seemed to shrink back into himself. “Well, we’d better worry about the Frenchies right
this minute, eh?”
“Now you’re talking!” Relief filled Ludwig’s voice. Something else on—he hoped—the French side of the line went up with a hell of a bang. That relieved him, too. He knew how hideously vulnerable to antitank rounds the Panzer II was. As with the previous bang, the fewer of them the enemy could aim at him, the better.
The panzers rattled forward an hour or so later. Foot soldiers in Feldgrau loped along with the armor. One of them waved to Ludwig, who stood head and shoulders out of the cupola. He nodded back. Panzers could do things the infantry only dreamt about. Everybody knew that, and had known it all along. But the war had taught a different lesson: that panzers needed infantrymen, too. Without them, enemy soldiers could get in close and raise all kinds of hell with grenades and bottles full of blazing gasoline and whatever other lethal little toys they happened to carry.
Stukas screamed down out of the sky. Fire and smoke and dirt rose into the air a few hundred meters ahead. Even at that distance, blast from the big bombs rattled Ludwig’s teeth. What it was doing to the bastards in khaki on whom the bombs fell…Ludwig felt a curious mixture of sympathy and hope that nobody up ahead was in any shape to fight any more.
A forlorn hope, and he knew it. Some of them would be dead. Some would be maimed, or too shellshocked to know sausage from Saturday. But there were always some lucky, stubborn assholes who’d…He hadn’t even finished the thought before a French machine gun started banging away.
A Landser toppled, clutching at his chest. Other German foot soldiers hit the dirt. Ludwig was back inside the turret a split second before several bullets rattled off the panzer’s armor. Small-arms ammo couldn’t get through. That never stopped machine gunners from trying.
“Scheisse,” Fritz said. Like Ludwig, the driver must have hoped the Stukas would do all their work for them.
Ludwig swung the turret toward the closest French machine gun. He fired back, hot 20mm cartridge cases clattering down onto the fighting compartment’s floor. The enemy Hotchkiss fell silent. The panzer pushed on.
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