Terrific, Tom thought. He started with a big one: “How do you see things in Germany now?”
“We’re making progress,” Eisenhower said. “Rubbish getting cleared. Power and sewage works coming back. Industry starting up again. People getting fed. We are making progress.” He repeated it, as if to reassure himself.
“How much trouble are the fanatics causing?” Tom asked.
“More than we wish they were. Less than they wish they were,” Ike answered. “They can’t go on forever. Sooner or later, they’ll run out of men willing to die for a dead cause.” How could he know that? Was he whistling in the dark?
Instead of asking directly, Tom said, “How much support do they have among the people?”
“Well, some Germans aren’t sorry they fought the war. They’re only sorry they lost,” Eisenhower said. “They wouldn’t mind getting in the saddle again-I’m sure of that. But I’m just as sure it won’t happen.”
“What do you think about the movement in America to bring home the occupation troops?” Tom asked.
The room wasn’t warm to begin with. The temperature suddenly seemed to drop twenty degrees. “I’m a soldier. I’m not supposed to have political opinions. But I think that would be a poor policy,” Eisenhower snapped.
“In spite of all the casualties we can’t seem to stop?”
“Yes.” Ike bit off the word. He cut the interview short, too. Tom Schmidt was disappointed but, on reflection, again not surprised.
VIII
Bernie Cobb swore as he tramped through the woods and fields outside of Erlangen. Fog puffed from his mouth and nose at each new obscenity. When he looked back over his shoulder, he could see his footprints in the snow.
“Fuck this shit,” he said. “I was doin’ this same crap a year ago, when the krauts hit us in the Bulge. That’s how-”
“You got frostbite in your feet,” Walt Lefevre finished for him. “We heard it before, Bernie.”
“Yeah, well, this is still a crock,” Cobb said. “War’s been over since May, for cryin’ out loud. So how come I’m still lugging a fucking grease gun around and making like there’s bandits in the woods?”
“On account of there are bandits inna woods.” Sergeant Carlo Corvo talked out of the side of his mouth. He’d never said he had Mafia connections, but he’d never said he didn’t, either. Connections or no, he was a bad guy to screw around with. “We gotta make sure the cocksuckers stay hid and don’t come out an’ make trouble, see?”
“Good luck,” Bernie said. Sergeant Corvo gave him a dirty look. But he couldn’t say Bernie was wrong, not when the fanatics had kicked up so much trouble already. Warming to his theme, Bernie went on, “I wish I had my Ruptured Duck, goddammit. I didn’t sign up to chase diehards through the boonies after the war was done.”
“You signed up to do whatever the fuck Uncle Sam tells you to do,” Sergeant Corvo said. “If he wants you to dig latrines from now till 1949, you’ll fuckin’-A do that. And you’ll like it, too, ’cause he’d find somethin’ worse for ya if ya didn’t. Right now he wants you to go asshole-hunting. You oughta be good at it.”
Experience taught you how much you could argue with a noncom. Corvo took less kindly to backtalk than most. He isn’t Uncle Sam, even if he thinks he is, Bernie thought bitterly. But Corvo’s three stripes made him a more than unreasonable facsimile.
“Look for tracks,” Corvo went on. “That’s what we gotta do. With the snow on the ground and the leaves off the trees and the bushes, those Nazi shitheels can’t hide out here no more. We’ve already found a buncha bunkers on account of that.”
At least one of those bunkers had blown sky-high while American soldiers were searching it, too. Maybe more than one. If Bernie were in charge of things, he would keep stuff like that as hush-hush as he could. But he’d known one of the guys who went up in this particular blast. Pete would never try and draw to an inside straight again.
“Something moved over there.” Walt pointed towards a stand of trees a couple of hundred yards away.
“A bird? A deer, maybe?” Bernie didn’t want it to be anything worse.
Lefevre shook his head. “I don’t think so. It ducked back behind a trunk, like.”
“Fuck,” Sergeant Corvo said. For once, Bernie agreed with him completely. “Spread out, youse guys,” Corvo went on. “If that asshole’s got one o’ them automatic rifles, it’s like goin’ up against a BAR, ’cept the German piece only weighs half as much.”
Two grease guns and an M-1. Not impossible odds, but not good, either, not against a weapon that fired full automatic out to…farther than this. How come the krauts made the good tanks and the good guns? Bernie wondered. We’re fuckin’ lucky we won…. Or did we?
He had a finger on the trigger as he slowly approached the trees. He felt all alone. Hell, he was all alone. One burst wouldn’t get everybody that way. But one burst could sure chop him down. When the surrender came, he’d thought he’d got free of this kind of dread. He licked dry lips. No such luck.
Something stirred behind one of those skeleton-branched trees. “Halt!” Bernie yelled. “Hande hoch!” His accent was horrible, but at least he remembered to use German, not English.
He hit the dirt while he was yelling. A good thing, too, because three or four bullets cracked past the place where he’d stood a second earlier.
He started shooting-not aimed fire, but plenty to make the diehard keep his head down. Walt and Carlo were banging away, too. If the fanatic was a kid, maybe he wouldn’t know which way to answer. If, on the other hand, he was a Waffen-SS vet who’d swing for war crimes if they caught him, he damn well would.
He fired at Sergeant Corvo, who had the M-1. That could hit from farthest away, so it was the right move. Wanting to run, Bernie scuttled forward instead. He could smell his own rank fear. The Jerry headed back to another tree. Bernie squeezed off a burst of his own. At least one round caught the kraut in the back. He pitched forward onto his face in the snow.
“Good shot!” Corvo called. He was up and cradling his rifle, so the fanatic hadn’t done anything too drastic to him. “Let’s see what we got. Careful, now-liable to be trip wires for mines around here. You don’t want your balls bounced, watch where you put your clodhoppers.”
With so much free and almost-free pussy over here, Bernie took good care of his balls. He raised and lowered his booted feet with utmost caution. The Germans used a trip wire so thin you could barely see it even when you were looking for it.
The fanatic was still twitching when Bernie came up to him, but he wouldn’t last. He’d caught the whole burst: one in the lower left part of his back, one as near dead center as made no difference, and one just below the right shoulderblade. He turned his head to look at the American. “Mutti,” he choked.
“Your mama ain’t gonna help you now, kid,” Bernie said roughly. The other two GIs came up behind him. He bit down on the inside of his lower lip, hoping he wouldn’t heave. The diehard was a kid: with those smooth cheeks, he couldn’t have been more than fifteen. Well, he wouldn’t see sixteen now.
“Fuckin’ good shooting, Cobb,” Sergeant Corvo said. “They’re all the same size when they pick up a gun.” Just to be on the safe side, he grabbed the fanatic’s piece. Sure as hell, it was one of those nasty new automatic rifles. It looked ugly as sin, all plastic and rough metal, but it was very bad news. That big, banana-shaped clip held what looked like a week’s worth of ammo.
“Mutti,” the German said again, on a weaker note now. No, he wouldn’t last long. Well, good riddance. But even so…