ALTEN KAMERADEN
by Barry B. Longyear
Marcoing Region, France
24 September 1918
The sky was just beginning to lighten as Kurt Wolff examined the British works, his gaze quickly scanning long stretches of trench then quickly returning to pick out individual features that had become as familiar to him as old friends. He studied his old friends, looking to see if they had changed: The configuration of the endless wire barricades, the four empty tins tossed over the top by some well-fed Tommy, the shattered trees, the gaping craters, the shapes of the trench lines—there. There was a change: A slight rise in the chewed-up ground slightly left of his center that hadn’t been there the day before. In the near dark it looked like earth thrown up by the creation of a nearby crater, but the crater had been there the evening before and the rise in the dirt next to it had not.
The Tommy sniper had killed dozens and knew how to hide. Once he fired, revealing his position, the Tommy would move. Kurt had to smile and give a slight nod in admiration. Everyone would be looking to the works, the sandbagged trench edges, for snipers. It would be insane to take a position forward of his own trench. No one, however, would think to look there. Kurt studied the position as he examined what ifs. The Tommy couldn’t fire, drill his prey, then jump up and flee to the safety of his own trench. If it took him more than a second he’d be ripped apart by a dozen German slugs.
Down into the dirt like a rabbit, that’s how he’d go. The British sniper must have tunneled through the trench wall to his present position, broken through the surface in the dark, spread his dirt-stained blanket overhead, taken his position, and waited—if he was there at all. Kurt didn’t wish to give away his own position, otherwise right now he could pop a round into that rise in the earth. If no one was there, however, it would be a wasted shot and Kurt would have to find a new position himself.
There was a deeper shadow at the edge of the camouflage closest to the German lines. If Tommy was looking at the German trench, that would be where the shot would come from. Kurt glanced back at the slight rise to the rear of his own position. Poorly placed trench. Runners going to and from the rear had to cross that rise, which was why they called it the shooting gallery. A trench was being dug rearward, but it was not yet completed. When they’d come over the rise, the runners would dip and dodge until they managed to drop into the trench. There were exceptions: late at night and very early in the morning. Not so much running and dodging then. That’s what the Tommy sniper was waiting for, some careless fellow going to or coming from regiment, taking it easy before full light.
Again Kurt studied the rise in the soil. The Tommy would be standing in his rabbit hole, nothing but his head and shoulders exposed beneath the blanket. If the muzzle of his rifle was near the edge of the camouflage, his head would be just there. Tommy would be shooting uphill, leaving less exposed. The German eased his right forefinger from the trigger guard to the trigger, placed the crosshairs on the rise where the Tommy’s head should be, and waited.
A murmur of voices from far behind him. A little chuckling, and that guttural “Haw!” the Austrian lance corporal from regimental headquarters always made when he laughed. Kurt and he had both received the Iron Cross First Class at the same ceremony. Another voice—
—The shadow at the near edge of the camouflage changed ever so slowly as the Tommy adjusted his aim. Kurt fired first, the center of the dirt-stained blanket erupting as the Tommy jerked back, his own weapon firing harmlessly wide of its target. Kurt turned from his position, bringing his rifle with him, as a baffling feeling of dread filled him. For a slice of existence it was as though all the world’s dead mounted the edges of their graves at the same time and beckoned him. He couldn’t catch his breath. When he could at last breathe, Kurt rubbed his eyes. Too long on the front, too many kills, and too little sleep; that was what it was, he told himself.
“Wolff, you look white as a sheet,” said Sergeant Zimmerer, both of them on the trench’s step to stay out of the mud and squatting to stay out of the lead rain.
Lowering his hand, Kurt ignored the sergeant and looked back toward the rise. He could see the lance corporal crouching beside a stump, his eyes wide. The runner gave a quick nod and wave in thanks to Kurt, then quickly sprang to his feet and dived for the trench.
Kurt looked at Sergeant Zimmerer, a heavy-set fellow with a red face and graying handlebar moustache. “I need some rest, sergeant. My eyes play tricks on me.”
“They were good enough to make that shot, Wolff. Incredible marksmanship. Turn in for a couple of hours. You earned it. Lance corporal Hitler owes you his life.”
Kurt entered the shelter dug into the ground from the side of the trench, found his bedroll, and stretched out on it. It had been a long night, but he couldn’t sleep. Behind his eyes the dead were still beckoning.
Berlin
30 April 1945
“Herr Wolff? Kurt Wolff? Are you down there, Herr Wolff ? “
The soldier was shouting from the head of the stairs, his bull’s voice barely audible above the din of the Russian shelling. His image was momentarily framed by the flash of an airburst against the night sky, his words chopped short by the explosion. The concussion shook the building’s foundations, raised the dust on everything in the basement, and caused the soldier instinctively to leap through the entrance where he fell on the wooden landing shouting, “My god, Ivan! Enough! Go have a smoke!”
Kurt Wolff, the smoke of the burning city in his scarred lungs, cringed and slid deeper between the old barrels and rubble in the basement. He put his canvas bag of tools and salvaged electrical parts on his lap, reached silently into the bag, and took out the trench knife he had taken from the body of a dead Frenchie on the Somme back in ‘15. Another explosion, then three more in quick succession—much closer. It was like the Great War had never ended—except for the Soviet Katyusha rockets. They screamed through the night like regiments of deranged ghostmakers. They were new. Very new and very close.
The soldier got up from the landing and rushed down the creaking stairs, his solid weight threatening to do to the stairs what the shelling had not. Kurt gripped the knife more tightly.
SS, perhaps, thought Kurt, or some self-appointed son of Siegfried rich with rifles searching for little boys, old men, and cripples to throw beneath the wheels of the Soviet juggernaut.
The man had tracked him here in the middle of the night during the hell of a constant artillery barrage. He looked as though he wouldn’t leave until he’d checked every corner. Persistent. Very thorough. Patient. The fellow was more policeman than soldier.
Kurt started as the beam of a flashlight struck his face, then extinguished almost as quickly as it came on, leaving Kurt momentarily blinded. “Herr Wolff ? Is that you?”
“Yes.”
“My god!” The man crossed the floor, his heavy boots loud against the concrete. He appeared to be alone. Kurt renewed his grip on the trench knife. “I’ve been trying to find you since before midnight. You should see what’s going on up there. How many times can Ivan turn over the damned rubble? It’ll take a steam shovel to clean out my pants. Hurry, Herr Wolff. It will be light soon and the Russian snipers are a hungry lot. Why didn’t you answer me?”
“One can never tell who is calling one’s name on the streets these days,” answered Kurt warily.
“Oh.” He cocked his head toward the entrance. “You mean that business hanging from the lampposts. Street corner gauleiters with too much rope to sell. Forgive me, Herr Wolff. I’m Sergeant Balter. I’m with the RSD.”