All the women in the work brigade were well bundled against the cold. Jane could not remember if Judy had told her how long they had been doing this. No snow lay on the ground right now, but Jane could tell by the way the truck bounced and rumbled on the unpaved road that the mud was frozen solid. At one point, she overheard a woman say that the temperature was about minus twenty centigrade.
Finally Jane saw the ditches appear in the distance. As the convoy turned to run parallel to them, heading for the ends still under construction, Jane looked down at them. She estimated that the nearest ditches were about eight meters wide and three or four meters deep.
When the truck creaked to a halt, Jane jumped to the ground with the others and accepted a shovel from someone. No one told her what to do, so she followed the other women. They walked down an earthen ramp into the middle of the ditch.
Some women stood in the center of the ditch, digging the deepest groove. They moved dirt to an intermediate ledge, where other women shoveled it up to the surface. There, a few more women began arranging the dirt into a ridge on each side of the ditch to make the ditch seem even deeper.
Relatively few men were in the brigade. The ones Jane could see were either too old for the military or else injured in some way. The men took picks to the undisturbed, frozen ground at each end of the ditch and began to break it loose.
Jane could see that the purpose of the brigade was to create a ditch big enough and steep enough that German tanks would go front-down into them so sharply that they could not roll forward to come up the other side. Jane picked out a spot a short distance from the other women and switched on her lapel pin. That way, at least, she would hear Hunter in the unlikely event that he called her, despite their agreement that he should not risk it. Right now, it was her best hope. Then she started to dig. If nothing else, the activity helped her keep warm.
Hunter chose to return at midday following the night he left. As before, he took his team to a spot outside the city to avoid being noticed on their arrival. They landed east of Moscow, on the opposite side of the city from the front. He hoped that would help them avoid army patrols from either side.
“You going to call Jane?” Steve asked. “I’m worried about her.”
“I do not dare, at least until taking the risk becomes justified,” said Hunter. “I am not receiving any sound from her, which means she has either turned off her lapel pin or else she is out of range. I calculate the chance of her being surrounded by other people to be extremely high. Jf her lapel pin is turned off or out of range, calling her will not matter. If it is turned on and within range, I would risk attracting attention.”
“Wait a minute,” said Steve. “She’s been through this long enough to know how it works. If it’s turned on, that means she figures it’s safe to hear from you.”
“At this time I will not take the risk,” said Hunter. “We must walk back to the warehouse and see if she is there.” He pointed toward the city.
“Look that way,” said Judy, pointing north as they began to walk.
Hunter saw a faint, dark line on the horizon, too vague to identify. “Do you know what that is?”
“The Sixteenth and Twentieth Soviet armies are encamped that direction,” said Judy. “They’ll be opening the counterattack soon, to drive the Germans back from Moscow. I think we’re looking at the very southern end of their line.”
“Can they help us in any way?” Hunter asked.
Judy shook her head emphatically. “No. The military has political commissars all through it.”
“They are as unpredictable as the NKVD?”
“Well…let’s just say that the potential exists all through the Soviet system. We should avoid all the authorities as much as possible.”
7
Wayne sat huddled with Ishihara alone in a small two-man tent. The night before, the patrol had taken them to a Leutnant Johann Mohr. Leutnant Mohr had communicated with them in rather limited English. Then he had tried to contact his Hauptmann, who put him off until this morning; Ishihara explained that the Hauptmann was the German equivalent of captain. So Wayne and’ Ishihara had been put into this tent for the night, under guard.
To keep his guests away from the soldiers, Leutnant Mohr had ordered one of his men to bring their breakfast to the tent, maintaining their isolation. Wayne was finishing his bowl of hot gruel. Ishihara had already put his aside. For now, they were simply left to wait. Wayne felt certain that Leutnant Mohr was afraid to take responsibility for making any decision regarding them.
“We’ll have to continue faking our way with some kind of background story,” said Wayne quietly. “Will this be acceptable to you under the Laws of Robotics?”
“Yes,” said Ishihara. “The First Law requires that I keep you safe as I aid your mission. To do so, we must convince our hosts that we belong.”
Finally the flap of the tent was drawn back and Leutnant Mohr leaned down to look inside. He was a tall, slender young man with blondish brown hair. His stained gray uniform was torn in several places but had been brushed free of surface dirt. “Hauptmann Eber will see you now,” he said in heavily accented English. “Come now.”
Wayne crawled out of the tent and wrapped his cloak tightly around him again. As he and Ishihara followed Leutnant Mohr, the soldiers who had been guarding them fell into step around them. Leutnant Mohr had been courteous to Wayne and Ishihara, in case they were telling the truth, but he had taken no chances, either.
As they walked among the rows of tents, Wayne could see that the German army around him was in poor shape. Supplies and equipment were stacked on farm and peasant carts pulled by little horses with fuzzy winter coats. These vehicles, in fact, were smaller and more poorly maintained than the wagons in the Roman baggage train back in A.D. 9.
The soldiers around them had not shaved, mended their clothes or boots, or washed with soap. Many were obviously very ill, coughing and wheezing in the cold air. A large number also had dirty bandages on wounds that had apparently not been sufficiently serious to warrant sending them to the rear. Suddenly Wayne realized that Leutnant Mohr and his men had no winter coats or boots. He turned to look around at the other soldiers in the camp, and saw no sign of winter clothing anywhere.
Leutnant Mohr brought them to an officer standing over a metal barrel, in which a small fire burned. He was a burly man with a full face and several days’ growth of brown beard. His face was taut against the cold wind.
Leutnant Mohr saluted and spoke to his Hauptmann in German, then turned to Wayne and Ishihara. “Hauptmann Uwe Eber.”
Hauptmann Eber spoke to Wayne in German, staring at Wayne grimly. Leutnant Mohr translated into English.
“You are Swedish? Why are you speaking English?” Hauptmann Eber frowned.