“Down with Hitler!” Alistair Walsh had never heard a toast he was gladder to join.
Rumors always rumors. Vaclav Jezek didn’t like the ones he was hearing lately. “That’s what they’re saying,” Benjamin Halevy told him. “There’s supposed to be talk in Paris about throwing in with the Germans.”
“They can’t do that!” Vaclav exclaimed in dismay verging on horror.
“Tell me about it,” the Jewish sergeant said. “But the trouble is, they damn well can. And the poilus think they’re going to.”
Most of the time, Vaclav found speaking next to no French an asset. If he didn’t understand an idiot officer, he didn’t have to follow idiotic orders-unless the fellow knew German, as some of the bastards did. Now, though, he wished he could pick up the trench rumors at first hand instead of relying on Halevy to pass them along.
“Some of the poilus want to fight. Some of them don’t, though.” Vaclav put that as politely as he could. He didn’t want to offend the sergeant, who was at least as much Frenchman as Czech (and, to Jezek, more Jew than either).
He needn’t have worried. Because Halevy was more Jew than anything else, or Jew first and everything else later, he was all for giving the Nazis one in the nuts. “Too right they don’t. How’d you like to take on the Russians instead?”
“Oh, so it works like that, does it?” Vaclav said. Halevy nodded. Vaclav didn’t need to think it over. “No, thanks. Not me. Russia tried to help Czechoslovakia when Hitler jumped us, and that’s more than anybody else can say-France included.”
Once more, the challenge turned out not to be one. “Yes, I know,” Benjamin Halevy answered. “We did as little as we could to technically honor our treaty.”
“Aren’t there a lot of Reds in the French Army?” Vaclav said. “What’ll they think about fighting for Hitler and against Stalin?”
That made Halevy pause, at any rate. “Interesting question,” he said at last. “I’m not sure. We’ll just have to find out, if that’s what the big wheels decide to do. Most of them would sooner throw in with the Nazis-you can bank on that.”
“Oh, sure,” Vaclav agreed. “France really would have done something when Germany invaded us if your government didn’t halfway wish you were in bed with Hitler.”
He wondered if that would make Halevy angry, but the redheaded noncom took it in stride. His only response was “I’m glad you said ‘halfway.’ ”
“What are we supposed to do while the boys in the cutaways and the striped pants figure out which way to jump?” Jezek asked.
“Ha! That I can tell you: same as we’d do any other time. We keep on killing the assholes in Feldgrau and do our goddamnedest to keep them from killing us.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Vaclav allowed.
The Germans wanted to kill him in particular. They knew too much about him, too: they knew he was a Czech, not a Frenchman. Their imported sharpshooter (or maybe he was homegrown-Vaclav didn’t know for sure) started singling out men who wore the domed Czech helmet rather than the crested Adrian style that made poilus look as if they were still fighting the last war. This was a better Adrian helmet than the old model. It was stamped from a single piece of manganese steel instead of being built up from two pieces of lower-quality ironmongery. But it still looked old-fashioned. And it still was made of thinner metal than the Czech pot.
Not without regret, Vaclav switched to a French helmet. He’d done that before; doing it again didn’t bother him too much. He wanted to hang on to the Czech helmet he was abandoning, but he didn’t. The antitank rifle meant he lugged around extra weight as things were. He didn’t need another kilo or kilo and a half.
Somewhere over there, off to the east, that German sniper lurked in the trenches. Or maybe he wasn’t in the trenches any more. Maybe he sprawled in a shell hole between the lines, or inside the carcass of a dead automobile, or under a smashed-up rubbish bin. You could sneak out under cover of darkness. One shot would be all you needed. Odds were nobody would see where it came from. When night came, back you’d go. In the meantime, you could amuse yourself by carving another notch into your rifle’s stock.
You could if you were a nice, thorough German, anyhow. Vaclav wouldn’t have cared to be captured carrying a rifle that bragged that way. If you were, your chances of seeing the inside of a POW camp ranged from slim down toward none. He chuckled sourly when that crossed his mind. The weapon he carried was a hell of a lot more conspicuous than any ordinary rifle, notched or not.
He began looking with a new eye at possible hiding places out in no-man’s-land. The way he went about it made him laugh once more, on as dry a note as he’d used earlier. Was this how ducks scouted for hunters’ blinds in the marshes at river’s edge as they flew down to land and feed?
There was a difference, though. Unlike the ducks, he could shoot back.
He suddenly laughed again, this time in real amusement. He imagined flocks of mallards or pochards or smews with machine guns under their wings and cannon in their beaks. By God, you’d think twice-three times, if you had any sense-before you went after one of those!
“All right. What’s so funny?” Benjamin Halevy asked. Vaclav explained his conceit. The Jew gave him a peculiar look and found another question: “Are you sure you’re a Czech?”
“Damn straight,” Jezek answered proudly. “How come you’re asking such a stupid thing?”
“On account of Czechs aren’t usually crazy like that. Even Frenchmen aren’t usually crazy like that. You sure you’re not a Yid in disguise?”
“Damn straight,” Vaclav repeated, still proudly. Had someone not a Jew asked him that, he would have decked the son of a bitch. As things were, he added, “Nobody’s gonna get near my dick with the gardener’s clippers.”
“That’s not how it’s done,” Halevy said. “Or I don’t think it is. I was only eight days old when it happened to me, so I wasn’t taking notes.”
“No, huh? Doesn’t it bother you not having a foreskin?”
“Why would it? Does having one bother you?”
“Nope,” Vaclav said. “What bothers me is that Nazi shithead. He’s out there somewhere, and he wants to punch my ticket for me.”
“Do unto others before they do unto you,” Halevy said. “It may not be just what Jesus said, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad advice.”
It was, in fact, damn good advice. Vaclav had already been following it, even if he hadn’t phrased it so well. He decided he’d better head out into no-man’s-land himself. If he didn’t nail the sniper, he’d have a better shot at other German soldiers.
Maybe they’d pick the same nook. Wouldn’t that make for a cheery meeting in the dark?
He spent the rest of the day scouting places to hide. Some of the ones that looked best lay several hundred meters in front of the line Czech and French troops shared. The very best one, or so it seemed, was behind or perhaps under a rusted-out French armored car that had probably been sitting there since the big German advance a year and a half before. The Fritzes would have taken whatever parts and weapons and tires they could use and left the shell to gather dust… and, now, snipers.
When he told Halevy of his plan, the Jew said, “Well, you can do that if you want, but I sure wouldn’t.”
“How come?” Jezek yelped indignantly.
“You already answered your own question: it’s been sitting there the past year and a half. You think the Germans haven’t noticed it? You think they haven’t booby-trapped it six ways from Sunday?”
Vaclav paused to find out what he did think. After a few seconds, he said, “Aw, shit.” After a few more, he added, “Thanks.” Nothing came harder than admitting the other guy was right. But Halevy was, sure as hell. The sergeant nodded back. Vaclav started looking for a different place to hide.
Chapter 12
Peggy Druce had been through things none of her friends and acquaintances in Philadelphia could match. The more she talked about them, the plainer that got. She’d changed, and they hadn’t. She was convinced that she’d changed for the better, and that they needed to move in the same direction as fast as they could. They seemed disappointingly dubious.