The village was in chaos. Bodies littered the frozen dirt roads, the Russian dead outnumbering the German corpses by more than two to one. Several buildings were on fire, including the Russian Orthodox church, its onion dome blazing like a huge Olympic torch.
Each cottage was its own unique battlefield, Germans fighting in isolation to defend themselves against a band of Red Army soldiers closing in.
“Over there!” Fyodor had moved up beside Petr and was pointing at a two-story building on the edge of town. It was a big log cabin, built from piled tree trunks, and had probably served as a workers’ barracks before the German occupation. The windows on both stories made it an excellent choice for an antitank position.
Petr nodded and moved along the wall to the cottage’s back door. Fyodor took up position on the other side and motioned with his fingers. “One, two, three…” On “three,” he threw open the door, and Petr bolted for the two-story log house.
The cold hit him like a slap. His lungs constricted in pain, but he forced them and his legs to keep pumping. He heard bullets zip near his head and felt Duck beside him, matching his pace like a shadow. He passed a group of Soviet riflemen crouching behind a stone wall, trading fire with Germans trapped in a cottage. He was dimly aware that the helmet of one of the riflemen flew off the man’s head in a spray of red, but then he was beyond them, still running, still alive. The two-story log house loomed ahead, its big wooden door seeming to promise safety inside. But just as he reached it, Petr noticed something strange out of the corner of his eye: Duck had stopped short and fallen to his belly, whimpering.
The dog hadn’t been hit; he wasn’t wounded, but something was wrong. Perhaps the cold had numbed Petr’s brain as well as his arms and legs because it took him another two full strides before he realized that Duck’s actions were a warning. Then he let himself crash to the ground. He landed on top of the PTRD rifle he’d been clutching to his chest, and the force of the fall against the gun’s hard steel knocked the wind out of him. He gasped for breath as Fyodor stomped passed him. Petr tried to yell a warning, but his lungs still weren’t working. His shouted “Stop!” came out as an incomprehensible moan.
Fyodor didn’t stop; he didn’t even hesitate. Bullets still zipped past them both, the lightning flashes of tracer rounds cutting through the air all around them. The door and the log house promised protection from those deadly projectiles, and Fyodor was desperate for that safety. Petr could only watch as Fyodor lifted the wooden latch and threw his shoulder into the planks, breaking the ice that caked the frame and knocking the door wide-open.
A piece of twine was tied to that door—and to six potato-masher grenades bundled together. The violent force with which Fyodor smashed the door ripped the twine from the grenade bundle’s fuse, priming the explosives. Petr’s breath came back to him, along with his voice. “Get down!” he yelled, and Fyodor heard it.
Fyodor and the grenade bundle hit the plank floor at the same time, Fyodor with a soft thump of quilted tunic, the grenades with a metallic clank. The bundle bounced, half turned in the air, and exploded. Fyodor died instantly.
Petr closed his eyes, not in terror but in grief. He couldn’t bear to look at the bloody corpse that had been his friend and his teammate. Duck was grieving, too. The dog was on his feet again, slouching up to Fyodor and trying to lick his bloody face.
Petr saw the danger to the dog. The air still bristled with the zip of bullets and the flash of tracers. Petr struggled back to his feet and ran to the door. He leaped over Fyodor’s body, grabbed Duck’s collar, and dragged the big dog after him into the log house. He stumbled, landed on his side, and kicked what remained of the door shut behind him.
The inside of the log house was oddly peaceful. The crackle of gunfire, the boom of grenades, and the screams of the terrified, the battle mad, and the wounded were muffled by the heavy log walls. Petr rolled onto his back and stared at the gabled ceiling, catching his breath, enduring the pain of the blood returning to his numb extremities.
He’d been right about the log house: it was a communal barracks. He could see discolored patches on the sawdust-covered floor where cots had once stood. The hardwood floor was unevenly laid across the frozen dirt; the absence of a cellar was probably why the Germans had chosen to booby-trap it instead of occupying it. But Petr had been wrong about one thing—it didn’t have two stories. Instead, the tall walls were ringed by a wooden loft accessible by a pair of rustic ladders.
For Petr’s purposes, a loft would do just fine. He lurched to his feet, slung his big PTRD rifle over his back, and climbed one of the ladders. Then he hunkered down next to a window, smashed the glass pane with the barrel of his PTRD, and peered out at the frozen ground, where he saw an untended vegetable garden surrounded by a short wooden fence. Beyond it stretched the ridged surface of a plowed beet field. And beyond that was a rutted dirt road that cut into a boreal forest. Petr knew he was staring west, toward the German lines. Somewhere beyond those spruce, fir, and pine trees was the German artillery and motor pool; beyond that, German field hospitals, supply depots, and ammo dumps. And still farther would be the supply lines, columns of German trucks and horse-drawn wagons stretching to rail heads, and then thousands of miles reaching all the way to Berlin. This was the way the German panzers would come charging like cavalry in an American Western, rescuing the settlers from Indian attacks. Petr and his Red Army comrades were the Indians this time. And this time the Indians would have to win.
Petr heard scratching and whimpering behind him. He turned to see Duck precariously trying to mount one of the ladders. Petr let go of his rifle, reached down, grabbed hold of the harness that held Duck’s mine-dog explosives, and hoisted the big dog into the loft.
Duck, as exhausted from the ordeal as Petr, curled up beside him. Petr welcomed the furry warmth, and he stared at Duck’s chest rising and falling with each breath. How had Duck known about the booby trap? Had he smelled the explosives in the grenades or the latent scent of the German engineers who had rigged them? It was a mystery Petr would never solve. But as he gazed at the dog, he realized he owed Duck his life.
CHAPTER 11
THE CHOIRBOY
Hank Harris was the first casualty of war Bobby knew personally. Hank was a twenty-three-year-old Kansas City native who loved jazz. Hank was the one who convinced Bobby and his fellow flight cadets to spend their valuable evening pass at the Alibi, a Palm Beach bar that was hosting one of Hank’s favorite bands.
“Cool,” Hank had assured them all. “The joint will be jumping, and the whole night will be cool.” That sounded good to Bobby and the other cadets, who were miserable in the stifling heat of their Florida training facility. It was February 1942. Bobby had been in Palm Beach for over a week, and he still hadn’t gotten used to the weather.
The Alibi turned out to be even hotter than their base. It was packed with people who were standing shoulder to shoulder. But that didn’t stop the lindy-hop dancers from swinging in place, kicking up a ruckus with flailing elbows and flying feet. The packed bodies, the swinging musicians, the jumping dancers, and the tropical humidity all thickened the air to make the Alibi feel like a smokehouse. Eventually Bobby and his fellow cadets dragged Hank out of the joint and onto the street. Their uniforms dripping in sweat, they stumbled into Mel’s All You Can Eat for a predawn breakfast.
Mel’s was a railroad car transformed into a diner, but it was not like the polished silver-and-chrome establishments Bobby knew from New York. Mel’s railroad car looked like little more than a heap of junk left on an abandoned side track. Mel wasn’t cashing in on a trend, it seemed. He’d probably only moved into the railroad car because it was empty.