before?”
“Ja,”
Vaclav said again.
“I thought so, but I wasn’t sure,” the Pole said. “Well, you will be. You are not a prisoner of war, not here. Poland and Czechoslovakia are not formally at war.”
“No. You just grabbed,” Jezek said bitterly.
With a shrug, the big man in the green uniform answered, “So did you Czechs, after the last war. Otherwise, the coal mines down there would have been ours all along. And then you act like your shit doesn’t stink.”
“Oh, mine does. I know that,” Vaclav said. “But if you are friends with Hitler, he will make you sorry.”
“Better him than Stalin and the damned Reds,” the Pole retorted.
“You find friends where you can. At least the Russians did something for us. More than France and England did,” Vaclav said.
“What did you expect? They’re full of Jews,” the Pole said. No wonder he liked Hitler better than Stalin. He stooped, picked up Vaclav’s rifle, and slung it over his own shoulder. Then he pointed north. “The camp is that way. Get moving, Corporal Jezek.”
Shoulders slumped in despair, Vaclav got moving.
T he night was cool and damp. Most nights were, as October moved toward November. Willi Dernen peered at the Frenchmen who’d nipped off a few square kilometers of German soil.
They were warmer than he was. They’d started a fire and sat around it. From 300 meters, he could have potted them easily. Orders were not to piss them off, no matter what. If they wanted to sit on their asses as if they hadn’t crossed the border, they were welcome to.
If they’d really come loaded for bear…
Willi’s shiver had nothing to do with the weather. He was a blond, stolid watchmaker’s son from Breslau, all the way over on the other side of the
Reich
. He could hardly follow the German they spoke here, and the locals had trouble with his accent, too. But he’d been on the Westwall since France and England declared war. He knew what would have happened had the French put some muscle into a push instead of tiptoeing over the border.
They would have smashed the Westwall as if they were made of cardboard. Not a
Landser
here thought any differently. The Westwall was Goebbels’ joke on the democracies. On paper, and on the radio, it was as formidable as the Maginot Line. For real, construction gangs were still frantically building forts and obstructions. And the Westwall didn’t have nearly enough troops to man what was already built.
Most of the
Wehrmacht
had gone off to kick Czechoslovakia’s ass. What was left…the French outnumbered somewhere between three and five to one. That was the bad news. The good news was, they didn’t seem to know it.
One of the Frenchmen pulled out a concertina and began to play. The thin, plaintive notes made Willi shake his head. How could the guys on the other side listen to crap like that? Horns, drums, fiddles—
that
was music.
Beside Dernen, Wolfgang Storch whispered, “We ought to plug him just so he’ll shut up, you know?”
Trust Wolfgang to come up with something like that
, Willi thought. He whispered back: “Damn you, you almost made me laugh out loud. That wouldn’t be so good.”
“Why not?” Storch said. “Probably make the Frenchmen piss themselves.”
Willi did snort then, not because Wolfgang was wrong but because he was right. Willi had come
that
close to pissing
himself
when he was part of a firefight right after the French came over the border. The guy next to him took one right in the belly. The noises Klaus made…You didn’t want to remember things like that, but you couldn’t very well forget them. When Willi went to sleep, he heard Klaus shrieking in his nightmares. He smelled the other man’s blood, like hot iron—and his shit, too.
One of the Frenchmen looked up. The guy with the concertina stopped playing. All of the men in khaki looked around. Willi pretended he wasn’t there as hard as he could. It must have worked, becausenone of the enemy soldiers got
“Ja,”
Vaclav said again.
“I thought so, but I wasn’t sure,” the Pole said. “Well, you will be. You are not a prisoner of war, not here. Poland and Czechoslovakia are not formally at war.”
“No. You just grabbed,” Jezek said bitterly.
With a shrug, the big man in the green uniform answered, “So did you Czechs, after the last war. Otherwise, the coal mines down there would have been ours all along. And then you act like your shit doesn’t stink.”
“Oh, mine does. I know that,” Vaclav said. “But if you are friends with Hitler, he will make you sorry.”
“Better him than Stalin and the damned Reds,” the Pole retorted.
“You find friends where you can. At least the Russians did something for us. More than France and England did,” Vaclav said.
“What did you expect? They’re full of Jews,” the Pole said. No wonder he liked Hitler better than Stalin. He stooped, picked up Vaclav’s rifle, and slung it over his own shoulder. Then he pointed north. “The camp is that way. Get moving, Corporal Jezek.”
Shoulders slumped in despair, Vaclav got moving.
T he night was cool and damp. Most nights were, as October moved toward November. Willi Dernen peered at the Frenchmen who’d nipped off a few square kilometers of German soil.
They were warmer than he was. They’d started a fire and sat around it. From 300 meters, he could have potted them easily. Orders were not to piss them off, no matter what. If they wanted to sit on their asses as if they hadn’t crossed the border, they were welcome to.
If they’d really come loaded for bear…
Willi’s shiver had nothing to do with the weather. He was a blond, stolid watchmaker’s son from Breslau, all the way over on the other side of the
Reich
. He could hardly follow the German they spoke here, and the locals had trouble with his accent, too. But he’d been on the Westwall since France and England declared war. He knew what would have happened had the French put some muscle into a push instead of tiptoeing over the border.
They would have smashed the Westwall as if they were made of cardboard. Not a
Landser
here thought any differently. The Westwall was Goebbels’ joke on the democracies. On paper, and on the radio, it was as formidable as the Maginot Line. For real, construction gangs were still frantically building forts and obstructions. And the Westwall didn’t have nearly enough troops to man what was already built.
Most of the
Wehrmacht
had gone off to kick Czechoslovakia’s ass. What was left…the French outnumbered somewhere between three and five to one. That was the bad news. The good news was, they didn’t seem to know it.
One of the Frenchmen pulled out a concertina and began to play. The thin, plaintive notes made Willi shake his head. How could the guys on the other side listen to crap like that? Horns, drums, fiddles—
that
was music.
Beside Dernen, Wolfgang Storch whispered, “We ought to plug him just so he’ll shut up, you know?”
Trust Wolfgang to come up with something like that
, Willi thought. He whispered back: “Damn you, you almost made me laugh out loud. That wouldn’t be so good.”
“Why not?” Storch said. “Probably make the Frenchmen piss themselves.”
Willi did snort then, not because Wolfgang was wrong but because he was right. Willi had come
that
close to pissing
himself
when he was part of a firefight right after the French came over the border. The guy next to him took one right in the belly. The noises Klaus made…You didn’t want to remember things like that, but you couldn’t very well forget them. When Willi went to sleep, he heard Klaus shrieking in his nightmares. He smelled the other man’s blood, like hot iron—and his shit, too.
One of the Frenchmen looked up. The guy with the concertina stopped playing. All of the men in khaki looked around. Willi pretended he wasn’t there as hard as he could. It must have worked, becausenone of the enemy soldiers got
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