Lieutenant Hanafusa looked surprised, as if the possibility had never crossed his mind. It probably hadn't. He'd got the order from above, and hadn't thought twice about it. After a few seconds, he said, "I suppose it will keep that long."
"Yes, sir," Fujita repeated. He couldn't say Thank you again; he would have meant it this time. Scooting forward at night, he and his men had at least a chance of coming back in one piece.
It started raining before the squad set out. Fujita didn't know whether to take that for good luck or bad. It would make finding Russians harder. But it would also make it harder for the Reds to hear his men coming. Nothing he could do about it either way. He just had to hope for the best.
"Stick close together," he told the Japanese. "We'll grab the first couple of men we catch and head on back." He made it sound easy. Whether it would be…
He had a compass that glowed in the dark. Without it, he probably would have blundered around in circles. Even by daylight, you couldn't see very far in these woods. At night, in the rain… He wondered what Lieutenant Hanafusa would say if he came back and told him the squad couldn't find any Russians. Nothing good. He was sure of that.
He walked right into a tree. "Zakennayo!" he snarled. It would have been worse if he weren't wearing his helmet. He would have mashed his nose instead of scratching his cheek. Muffled-and sometimes not so muffled-curses from his men said they were having their troubles, too.
How were you supposed to walk straight when you couldn't see where you were putting your feet? Only luck nobody sprained an ankle, or maybe broke one. And the lieutenant was back somewhere warm and dry. Of course he was. He was an officer.
Then somebody bumped into him. Before he could call his own man a clumsy idiot, the other fellow growled, "Metyeryebyets!"
Fujita didn't quite know what the endearment meant. He did know it wasn't in Japanese. "Grab him, boys!" he said happily.
The Red Army man didn't want to get grabbed. Fujita hit him in the side of the head with his entrenching tool. The Russian was wearing a helmet, but it rang his bell anyhow. If he hadn't had the helmet, Fujita might have smashed in his skull. That would have been a waste of some good luck.
Hanafusa wanted a couple of prisoners. If they didn't nab somebody else… Maybe I can blame it on the rain, Fujita thought. Or maybe not. Officers looked for results. If you didn't give them what they told you to get, whom would they blame? Themselves, for giving idiotic orders? Fat chance!
And than Senior Private Hayashi whooped, "I've got another one!" By the shouts and scuffle that followed, who had whom wasn't obvious. The Russians must have sent out their own patrol, and it had blundered straight into Fujita's. Sometimes luck counted more than skill. The Japanese snagged the second Red Army man.
A Russian opened up with a submachine gun, but none of the bullets came anywhere close to the the Japanese. The Red was firing blind. "Let's get out of here!" Fujita said. He'd never had an order obeyed with such alacrity.
Japanese sentries almost fired on the patrol before Fujita convinced them he was on their side. He hadn't come in where he thought, and had to make his way back to Lieutenant Hanafusa. "All right-you got them," Hanafusa said, eyeing the battered, unshaven, miserable-looking Russian captives. "Not so bad, neh?"
If Fujita used the entrenching tool on Hanafusa's skull, they'd kill him a millimeter at a time. He knew that, but his hand twitched all the same. He made it hold still. "No, sir," he said expressionlessly.
Chapter 12
Photographs and posters made Marshal Sanjurjo look tall and stern and heroic. He always wore splendid uniforms. Joaquin Delgadillo liked that. If you were somebody, you should look as if you were.
In the flesh, Sanjurjo was less imposing. He had a lot of flesh-were those three chins or four? He was shorter and wider than the posters made him out to be. He was also at least fifteen years older. He looked like a village druggist just on the point of retiring.
He still wore a fancy uniform. And, whether he was a hero or not, he had cojones enough to come up to the front on the northwestern outskirts of Madrid. If some traitor-and there were always traitors-had let the Republicans know he was coming, they could smash up these trenches with mortar bombs and cut off the Nationalist state's head. Or a lucky sniper could take care of it. The enemy's trenches lay almost a kilometer off, but even so…
Sanjurjo eyed Sergeant Carrasquel, who stood at stiff attention. A slow smile spread across the marshal's face. He set a hand on Carrasquel's shoulder. He knew what kind of creature he had before him. "So tell me, Sergeant, how are things here? Tell me the truth," he said. Digame la verdad. He made the last three words a caressing invitation.
"It's fucked up, sir. But it's always fucked up, so what can you do?" the sergeant answered. "The Republicans are as stubborn as we are, and the Internationals over yonder, they're damn good troops. We need more of everything if we're gonna shift 'em."
"You get what we have," Sanjurjo said, no anger in his voice.
"Yes, sir. But we don't have enough," the sergeant said. "Just so you know, the rations suck, too." The look in his eye said he'd noticed Sanjurjo wasn't missing any meals. Not even Carrasquel seemed ready to come out with that, though.
"You said it-things are fucked up." The crude phrase sounded much more elegant in Marshal Sanjurjo's mouth. The marshal turned to Delgadillo. "Is this a good man, Sergeant?"
"I've got plenty worse, sir," Carrasquel replied.
That was the kindest thing he'd ever said about Joaquin. Sanjurjo's pouchy eyes were clever, also like a village druggist's. "How is it with you, soldier?" he asked. "Speak freely. I didn't come here to listen to polite bullshit." He used the English word with a certain sour relish. Delgadillo had heard it from the Republicans often enough to know what it meant.
"It's war, sir," he said. "How is it supposed to be?"
"That's a fair question, son," Sanjurjo said. "It's supposed to be a lot like this. Sometimes it's worse, eh, Sergeant?"
"It can always get worse." Carrasquel spoke with deep conviction. "I was in Morocco, fighting against the Rifs. If it gets much worse than that, I don't want to know about it, by God!"
"That was bad," Sanjurjo agreed. "Maybe the Western Front in the last war was worse. So much slaughter, and for nothing. But maybe it wasn't worse, too. When you fought the Rifs, you knew they really meant it."
Sergeant Carrasquel nodded. "Oh, are you ever right there, sir!"
All Delgadillo knew about the Rifs was that they were savages and the Spanish army had beaten them. He'd been a little kid when that fight ended. So Carrasquel had been in Morocco, then, had he? He didn't look old enough. Maybe vipers aged slower than ordinary human beings.
"I hoped our friends would go on supplying us after the European war started, but"-Sanjurjo spread his plump palms-"asi es la vida. The Republicans have the same worries. We can still beat them. We will still beat them, eh?"
"Absolutamente, your Excellency!" Delgadillo said quickly. Was he going to tell the marshal the Nationalists would lose? Not likely! Sergeant Carrasquel might be convinced he was a dope, but he wasn't that big a dope.
"Bueno," Sanjurjo said, and stumped down the trench. A gaggle of aides in almost equally gaudy uniforms followed him. They ignored Joaquin but edged away from Sergeant Carrasquel. They knew a dangerous man when they saw one.
"Well, kid, you can tell your grandchildren you talked with a big shot once upon a time," Carrasquel said gruffly.