"I only wish I didn't," the driver answered. He pounded his hands some more, staring down at the ground between his feet. When he looked up again, his face seemed ravaged and old. "Here's hoping our guys were dead before the Russkis went to work on 'em."
"Yeah. Here's hoping." Witt scowled. "If I thought they were going to do that to me, I'd shoot myself first."
"Christ, who wouldn't?" Stoss cupped his hands in front of his crotch. "Fun old war, ain't it?"
"Fun… Aber naturlich." The corners of the sergeant's mouth turned down even farther. "How the hell are you supposed to fight against people who do that kind of shit? They aren't people, not really. Nothing but savages."
"How do you fight 'em? You kill 'em, that's how. And you make goddamn sure they don't take you alive." Adi slapped his hip. "I never let loose of my pistol these days."
"Makes sense to me." Witt turned to-turned on-Theo. "How about you, Hossbach?"
"Huh?" Theo said in surprise. A blush heated his face. He couldn't leave it there. A few more words came out: "Adi usually makes sense."
"Fat lot of good it does him, too," Witt said. "Sorry son of a bitch is stuck in Poland just like the rest of us."
"Oh, there are worse places," Adi said lightly.
"Yeah?" Witt challenged. "Name two."
"Dachau. Belsen." All at once, Stoss' tone wasn't light any more. The names came off his tongue flat and hard as paving stones.
He didn't just kill the conversation; he shot it right behind the ear. Witt got very busy-almost theatrically busy-heating meat-and-barley stew in his mess tin. The cooks coyly declined to tell their customers what kind of meat it was. That made Theo suspect it would whinny if you poked it with a fork. He'd eaten horsemeat in the field before. This had the same strong flavor and gluey texture. He didn't worry about it. A full belly beat an empty one any day of the week.
Like Adalbert Stoss, he preferred Poland to a concentration camp inside the Reich. That didn't mean bad things couldn't happen to you here. The Russians announced that they weren't shutting down for the Christmas season by shelling the hell out of the position the Wehrmacht and the Poles were holding. Shouts of "Urra!" and the rumble of enemy panzers coming forward said they weren't kidding around, either.
As soon as the first shells burst, all the German panzer crewmen raced for their machine. Theo slammed his hatch shut behind him. A moment later, fragments clanged off the Panzer II's hull. Theo gave the interior wall a happy pat. He pitied ground-pounders.
"Why aren't you starting this lousy cocksucker?" Witt shouted at Adi.
"What the fuck do you think I'm trying to do?" the driver shouted back. Behind Theo, the starter motor clicked and whined. The main engine didn't want to catch. "It's cold outside," Stoss added.
"Well, the Ivans sure as shit have theirs going," Witt said. That wasn't good news, which was putting it mildly. Sitting in a panzer that didn't want to move made Theo stop envying the infantry.
"Fine, Sarge," Adi said with what sounded like patience stretched very thin. "You can go jump in a Russian panzer, if that makes you happy." He didn't say You can go jump in a lake, but if Theo could hear the words hanging in the air the panzer commander was bound to be able to hear them, too.
"If you don't get us started, we'd better bail out, because one of those assholes is heading our way." Witt's patience was also pretty frayed. "We don't want to be here when he starts shooting."
"Right," Adi said tightly, and then, to the Panzer II, "Come on, you-!" He hadn't been in the army very long, but he cussed like a twenty-year veteran. The starter motor ground once more-and then, with a coughing roar, the main engine caught.
"There you go!" Witt yelled. "Get us moving! Make for those bushes. And for God's sake step on it!"
Adi must have stepped on it, because the Panzer II jumped forward. Theo couldn't see what was going on outside. How far away was the Russian panzer the commander'd been having a fit about? How soon before it opened up? The Ivans weren't great gunners, but a hit from anything bigger than a machine-gun round would hole this thin armor.
The Panzer II's little turret traversed. The 20mm gun fired three rounds in quick succession. These Russian panzers weren't so tough, either. Unlike this one, their cannon could fire useful high-explosive shells and give foot soldiers something new to worry about, but the 20mm could get through their armor as easily as they could penetrate a German machine's.
"Ha!" Witt said. "Nailed that fucker, anyhow. Now go forward. We'll see what kind of friends were keeping him company."
"Forward," Adi agreed.
Forward they went. Theo's inner ears and the seat of his coveralls would have told him so much, even absent the order. So would the radio traffic dinning in his earphones. Through the voice tube, he told Witt, "Scads of Ivans. This looks like a big push."
"Happy day," the panzer commander said, and then, "Thanks, Theo." He sounded grateful that Theo was talking at all, even to relay the tactical situation. That he did announced that he was getting to know his radioman pretty well. A moment later, he told Adi, "Put us behind that stone fence. We can give them plenty of grief from there."
"Will do," Stoss said. The panzer stopped a few seconds later, so he'd presumably done it. The turret traversed. The main armament fired several rounds. Witt's exultant whoop said one or two of them had done what he wanted. Then the coaxial machine gun chattered. Witt knew how to handle the MG-34: he squeezed off one short burst after another, giving the barrel time to cool between them.
More urgent shouts in Theo's earphones. He said, "Sergeant, we're ordered to pull back. They're breaking through."
"My ass they are!" Witt said indignantly. "I've wrecked two of their panzers and scared off the foot soldiers. And we've got enough infantry of our own-well, Poles, too-to keep them from flanking us out."
"We're ordered," Theo repeated. "They've already torn a hole in our position south of here. We've got to retreat so we can organize the counterattack."
"All right. I'll do it. I'm only a fucking sergeant-I have to follow orders." Witt couldn't have sounded more disgusted. He added, "I sure wouldn't want to be the dipshit officer who gave those orders, though. When the Fuhrer finds out about it, that sorry sucker'll be lucky if he's still a corporal. Put it in reverse, Adi-somebody with embroidered shoulder straps has the vapors."
"I'm doing it," the panzer driver replied, and matched action to word. Theo knew what he thought of the Fuhrer's military judgment (among other things). He would have been very surprised if Adi Stoss didn't share his views: Adi probably had stronger reasons for such opinions than he did himself.
None of which would matter if the Ivans set this perambulating coffin on fire. As it did so often, the local got in the way of the general. Once they freed themselves from this mess, Theo could worry about other things. Once they did… If they did… He wished the damned panzer would go faster. SARAH GOLDMAN HAD GOT USED to the Gestapo and the rest of the SS in Munster. Even when the blackshirts weren't harassing her or her family, she had a feel for how often she'd see them. They'd become a familiar if unwelcome part of the local fauna, like rats or cockroaches. The comparison wasn't hers: it came from her father in a low voice when they were both out on the street and away from any likely microphones. Once she heard it, she couldn't get it out of her mind; it fit too well.