It was only a short walk to the cemetery, and they left the body with two older women who accepted it without comment. It seemed to Logan that it was so perfunctory it was like mailing a package. Except a package had an address on it. No one had any idea what the child’s name had been. There were a number of fresh graves, and he wondered how many of them contained unidentified bodies.
Then they walked to where Elisabeth and Pauli lived with the other refugees. Pauli was on his hands and knees, solemnly examining the shiny object before him. It was a top, and Pauli was figuring out how to spin it. He was having difficulties, and it occurred to Logan that the boy didn’t really know how to play. Jack thought he would work to rectify that. There were only a few boys Pauli’s age in Potsdam, and most were as confused as he.
Elisabeth smiled. Logan thought he saw the hint of a tear in her eye. “Thank you for the toy. I almost forget when he last had a chance to be a little boy.”
Logan shrugged and grinned. It hadn’t been all that easy rummaging through the abandoned and looted buildings until he found something he thought a child Pauli’s age would like. Now he thought the effort had been well worth it. If Elisabeth was happy then he was ecstatic.
“Yeah, he does seem to be having fun.”
“And it’s the first time he’s let me go without jumping all over me when I return. That is a very good sign that someday he too can live a normal life when we get out of this.”
If, Jack thought, not when. If we ever get out of this stinking mess. All signs indicated that the American army was being pushed farther and farther to the west and away from them. So far there had been no effort on the part of the Russians to overrun Potsdam. Apparently taking the city was something they felt they could do at any time they wished. It was one thing to be an optimist, but he preferred realism, and realism said their stay in Potsdam could be tragically, violently short. It was a thought that nagged him, but what could he do about it?
He checked his watch. “I’ve got to go. Captain Dimitri wants to meet with his officers in a little while. Would it be all right if I stopped by again? I might not be able to find any more toys, though.”
Elisabeth laughed. For a big, bright officer, he could be so dense. “Well then, you will have to be his toy. But yes, you may come back and visit. I would like that. When Pauli goes to bed, perhaps you and I can simply sit and talk.”
“Now would you take some food if I brought it?”
He had brought some “extra” rations for Pauli and the boy had gobbled them down. Despite her protestations that she was receiving enough, he had seen her eyes widen at the sight of what he and his men thought of as tasteless and undesirable C rations, which included meat, instant coffee, lemonade powder, a chocolate bar, hard candy, toilet paper, chewing gum, crackers or canned bread, and cigarettes. Pauli, of course, did not get any cigarettes or coffee. K rations, which were intended to be eaten without being cooked, were even worse, but the boy had no qualms about eating them either.
“I will think about it,” she said softly, then brightened. “Perhaps we can have dinner together.”
CHAPTER 12
Major General Mikhail Bazarian was livid with rage, his lean and handsome face contorted and tears of anger being squeezed out of his eyes. In impotent fury he watched as the American artillery shells chewed up the column of Soviet armored vehicles that had strayed too close to a portion of his lines confronting the Americans in Potsdam. He had warned their fool of a commanding officer that the Americans could see them, and now they were paying the price.
The Soviet tanks had marched down the autobahn as if on parade. They had given no thought to the Yanks who were in Potsdam, only a few miles away. Just because the Americans had been quiet for so long did not mean they would remain dormant forever. The sight of the column of Soviet tanks had been too much of a temptation, and the American shelling had started almost as soon as the Russian vehicles were within range.
“Damnit!” he snarled, and a handful of officers nearby moved farther away from the tall and elegantly uniformed general. Another T34 was hit and tumbled off the roadway. A half mile away, at least a score of vehicles were burning and the remainder of the column was scattered in every direction in an attempt to find safety from the scourging artillery.
“I warned that stupid fucker,” he raged, “but would he listen to me? No! He was a fucking Russian and all I am is a stupid fucking Armenian. I hope the fucking Russian asshole has been blown to hell!”
A gasp from behind him reminded him that such criticisms were frowned upon, could even be fatal.
Bazarian pounded the table in his spartan office. It wasn’t fair. He was a good general, but what help had the Soviet high command given him? None. He had three divisions of second-rate infantry and one brigade of armor to contain the Americans. Worse, his tanks were not first-line. Most of them were light, old, and obsolete.
It would be enough to contain the Americans, he had been told. Bazarian’s orders were to prevent the Yanks from breaking out and rejoining their main army. Now, as the front lines moved farther west, it was less and less likely that any breakout would even be attempted.
Bazarian was in a backwater and the war was moving away from him. He was only a major general when he deserved to be a lieutenant general. If he were Russian and not Armenian he would have had the higher rank. He would also be commanding better-quality troops and would be in the front lines against the Yanks, instead of this military sewer.
Only rarely did a non-Russian achieve any real status in the new people’s government. It sometimes discouraged him that such prejudices still existed, but he presumed that it would take time for them to disappear. The Russians of Moscow and Leningrad neither liked nor trusted people whose skin was swarthier or whose hair was darker, or who thought and spoke differently because they were from different cultures.
He seethed. It wasn’t fair. He had always supported the people’s revolution and had devoted his life to the success of communism. He had even turned in relatives for practicing Christianity in secret. Religion was the opiate of the people and the enemy of the state, particularly the forms of Christianity and Islam that were practiced in the southern republics of the USSR. These religions were not docile, not like the tame Orthodox faith that had failed the tsars. Instead, the religions in and around his homeland of Armenia fomented rebellion and had to be stopped.
Another barrage landed, chewing up the ground around the destroyed column, hurling more metal and bodies into the air. There would be hell to pay for this defeat, and he knew who would be blamed. He would. His guns were returning fire and shelling the Potsdam perimeter, but he knew their effect was minimal. For one thing, he really didn’t know just where in the perimeter the American guns were situated. For another, he could logically presume they were well dug in and impervious to anything but a direct hit.
Nor could he continue firing for very long. He simply didn’t have the ammunition. Stavka, the military headquarters in Moscow, apparently didn’t think he needed much ammunition to hold the Americans at Potsdam. Nor were many of his weapons very good. A familiar shriek told him that his Katyushas were firing their multiple rockets at Potsdam, and that would have been good but for the fact that they were small 3.2-inch rockets mounted on an old Studebaker chassis. They might as well have been firecrackers. Stavka wouldn’t give him some of the 11.8-inch rockets that could really do some damage. Nor did he have any of the marvelous T34 tanks that were now burning in front of him. Instead, he had the older models that were now almost relics.