A gray-haired French peasant watching sheep in a meadow stared at him with no expression at all. Chances were the fellow'd gone through the mill in the last war. Would he sneak off to tell the poilus where the Germans were? He might.
The froggies had been polite, even friendly, while the Wehrmacht had the bit between its teeth. And why not? They'd figured they would stay German a long time, the way they had after 1914. Now they were wondering. That would mean more trouble down the line, sure as hell it would.
Something else moved. Willi's scope-sighted rifle swung that way as if it had a life of its own. But it wasn't a poilu. It was Corporal Baatz coming out of the bushes. Reluctantly, Willi lowered the rifle's muzzle. Tempting as it was, he couldn't go and plug Awful Arno. He didn't suppose he could, anyhow. The unloved corporal was his lord and master again. He'd been reattached to his old unit within hours after Oberfeldwebel Puttkamer got his head blown off. He was still surprised they hadn't made him turn in the fancy Mauser. Somebody'd slipped up there.
Baatz saw him, too, and waved. He didn't raise his hand too high. You never could tell what would draw a sniper's eye. Willi wondered what had happened to the goddamn Czech with the antipanzer rifle. He was probably still busy nailing Germans. Puttkamer wasn't around to quarrel with him any more, that was for sure.
"Wie geht's?" Awful Arno asked.
Willi shrugged. "I'm still here. If I get hungry, I'll shoot me a sheep." He paused, considering. Hell with it, he thought, and went on, "War's pretty goddamn fucked up, though, isn't it?"
He might have known Baatz wouldn't admit what was as plain as the nose on his piggy face. "You can't talk like that," the noncom insisted.
"Why the hell not?" Willi said. "It's true, isn't it?"
"It's disloyal, that's what it is," Baatz answered. "I knew the Gestapo guys knew what they were doing when they started sniffing around you and your asshole buddy Storch."
And they had, too. All the same, Willi said, "Oh, fuck off, man. If you can't tell we screwed the pooch, you're too dumb to go on living."
Awful Arno turned red. "Watch your big mouth, before you open it so wide you fall in and disappear. You keep going on like that, I'll report you-so help me God I will."
"Go ahead," Willi said wearily. "Maybe you'll get me yanked out of the line. If you do, I'll be better off than you are."
That only made Baatz madder. "You don't know what the devil you're talking about. Wait till they chuck you into Dachau. You'll wish you only had machine guns to worry about."
The blackshirts had said the same thing. Willi wasn't about to take it from Awful Arno. "Give me a break. If telling the truth is disloyal, then I guess I am. Jesus Christ, the war is screwed up. Even a blind man can see it. Even you should be able to."
"You're not just talking about the war," Baatz said. "You're talking about how we're fighting it. And if you say that's gone wrong, you're saying the Fuhrer's leadership isn't everything it ought to be."
"Yeah? And so? He's the Fuhrer. He's not God, for crying out loud. When he takes a crap, angels don't fall out of his asshole," Willi said.
Awful Arno's eyes widened. He looked like an uncommonly sheltered child hearing about the facts of life for the first time. "He's the Fuhrer," he said, on a note as different from Willi as could be.
"Ja, ja, and the Grofaz, too," Willi said: the cynical contraction of the German for greatest military leader of all time. "But if he's so goddamn great, how come we're retreating? How come Paris is way the hell over there?" He pointed west.
Before Baatz could answer, a mortar bomb burst a hundred meters behind them. They both threw themselves flat. More bombs came down, some of them closer. Fragments whined and snarled overhead. Willi looked around without raising his head. Sure as hell, that Frenchman had bailed out. And a couple of sheep were down and kicking. Spit filled his mouth. Mutton chops!
Arno Baatz shielded his face with his arm, as if that would do any good. "So Dachau is worse than this, is it?" Willi said.
The corporal nodded without raising his head. "You'd better believe it is. And everybody who doubts the Fuhrer will end up in a place like that." Conviction filled his voice.
"Scheisse," Willi said. "If he messed up the war-and he damn well did-somebody needs to doubt him, don't you think? I hope to God I'm not the only one, or Germany's even more screwed up than I figured."
"He's the Fuhrer. If we live through this, Dernen, I will report you."
"Go ahead," Willi said, wondering if he would have to make sure Awful Arno damn well didn't live through it. He would if he had to, but he didn't want to. Killing someone on his own side in cold blood wasn't what he'd signed up for. He went on, "I'll call you a motherfucking liar and say you always had it in for me-and that's the truth, too. You think the officers don't know what kind of asshole you are, Baatz? Yeah, report me. It's your word against mine. I bet they believe me, not you, and you end up in the concentration camp."
"You don't get it, do you?" Baatz sounded almost pitying. "This is security we're talking about. Of course they'll believe me."
"They'd believe somebody with a working brain, maybe, but not a fuckup like you," Willi retorted. "Like I said, they know better. Go ahead, report me, cuntface. You'll find out." Maybe he was right, maybe he was wrong. Maybe nobody'd take any chances, and they'd both wind up in Dachau. If they did, he was willing to bet he'd last longer than Awful Arno.
And maybe they wouldn't live through this, and it would all be moot. Willi lifted his head a few centimeters. Something that wasn't a sheep moved atop the next little swell of ground to the west. Willi brought his rifle to his shoulder and snapped a shot at it. It disappeared down the back side of the hillock.
"What was that?" Baatz asked.
"Well, it might have been a hippo escaped from the zoo. Or it might have been a Frenchman." Willi chambered a fresh round. "Odds were it was a Frenchy. So if you want to live long enough to rat on me, get your empty ostrich head out of the sand and start acting like a soldier." He'd never had the chance to tell off a noncom like this. It was fun. It might almost be worth getting shot. Almost. If Baatz got shot, too…
Two French soldiers came over that hillock. They were more cautious than the first fellow had been-they knew there were Landsers on this side, which he hadn't. Willi fired at one of them. Then he rolled away from Baatz and into the bushes. Once the shooting started, you wanted as much cover as you could find.
Awful Arno fired at the poilus, too. He was a decent combat soldier; even Willi, who'd despised him for a year now, would have admitted as much. He headed for something that might be cover, too. Off to the left, a German MG-34 started sawing away. A small smile crossed Willi's face. He loved machine guns-his own side's machine guns, anyhow. They were the best guarantee a poor ordinary ground pounder had that he'd go on pounding ground a while longer.
The MG-34 didn't just knock over enemy soldiers. It made them concentrate on it, so they forgot all about Willi and Baatz. He got a clean shot at a fellow crawling along in a khaki greatcoat. The fancy Mauser thumped his shoulder. The poilu doubled up. Sorry, buddy, Willi thought, but you would have done the same thing to me.
They held the French in place till the late afternoon. By then, Willi had a well-positioned, well-protected foxhole-but no sheep carcass to keep him company, dammit. Even so, he was ready to stay a while, but a runner came up to order the line back half a kilometer. The Germans withdrew under cover of darkness.