Unofficially, things in the Ukraine had been very bad before the war. Soviet authorities were bound and determined to liquidate the kulak class. And well they might have been-the richer peasants hadn’t cared to give up their land and flocks and tools and join collective farms. The authorities broke them. Nobody knew how many Ukrainians died-starved or shot-in the collectivization process. Or, if anyone did know, he wasn’t talking.
If some of the survivors didn’t act like good Soviet citizens now, whose fault was that? Theirs, of course, or it would be if the USSR won. Then they’d look down the barrel of another round of retribution. In the meantime, maybe they were getting some of their own back.
Stas did wonder how much. He also heard unofficial things about how the Germans behaved in Soviet territory. Some of those things were hard to believe. If the Nazis acted that way in the Ukraine, they’d wear out their welcome in a hurry. Maybe they wouldn’t be so stupid down there.
Or maybe they would. Stas wouldn’t have been surprised. It wasn’t as if Stalin hadn’t acted like a bloodthirsty monster enforcing his will there.
The Armenian flyer sighed after he got back to his tent. He was alone there-it was safe enough. As safe as anything could be these days, anyhow. No, when Stalin behaved like a bloodthirsty monster, he wasn’t acting. He was showing what he really was. And so was Hitler.
Which one made the worse bloodthirsty monster? Stas was damned if he knew. The English had had an affair with Hitler and decided they would rather dance with Stalin. The French, by contrast, stayed in bed with the Nazis. So did the Poles… but they would have slept with Stalin had Hitler jumped them first.
Stas almost welcomed the next mission. Wasn’t a clean chance of getting killed better than the muddy ocean of doubts that had filled his thoughts lately? He could make himself believe it… right up till the moment when shell fragments slammed into the Pe-2. As soon as that happened, he discovered how much he wanted to live.
The engines still sounded all right. There was no fire. He gave the instrument panel a quick, frightened once-over. The fuel gauge stayed steady. So did oil pressure. He cautiously tried the controls. All seemed in working order. “Bozhemoi!” he said-with feeling. “I didn’t think we’d be that lucky.”
Another German antiaircraft shell burst close to the bomber. The Pe-2 staggered in the air, but no more clangs or rattles warned of another hit.
Ivan Kulkaanen frowned. He fiddled with his earphones. His frown deepened. “Radio’s out,” he reported.
No one was talking in Stas’ earphones at the moment, either. Was that because no one was talking or because nobody could get through? Mouradian did some fiddling of his own. Then he eyed the set’s dials. He hadn’t done that before-he’d had more urgent things to worry about. Sure enough, every needle lay dead against its peg.
“Well, it could be worse,” he said. “We can get back without a radio, and they’ll slap in another one or splice the cut wires or do whatever else needs doing.”
“Sure.” Kulkaanen nodded. “Nobody can order us to do anything stupid now, either.”
“No one would ever do anything like that.” Virtue overflowing filled Mouradian’s voice. He and the young blond Karelian in the other seat exchanged amused looks. Of course their superiors were always wise and careful. Of course.
No one would warn them if Messerschmitts attacked the squadron, either. Stas spent the rest of the flight wishing for eyes in the back of his head. Wishing failed to produce them. He got back to the airstrip anyhow, and put the Pe-2 in the hands of the repair crews.
He hadn’t been down long before the squadron commander summoned him. Saluting, he said, “I serve the Soviet Union!”
“Do you?” Lieutenant Colonel Tomashevsky growled. “Then why didn’t you move up in the formation when I ordered you to, dammit?”
“Sir, I never heard that order.” Mouradian explained what had happened, finishing, “You can check with the groundcrew men. They’ll tell you I’m not making any of this up.”
Tomashevsky eyed him. “I won’t check. But if I ever find out you were lying, you’re dead. No demotions. No camps. No punishment details. Dead.” He spoke without melodrama. Stas might have wished to hear some. That would have left him less than sure the squadron commander meant it. As things were, he had no room for doubt.
Tomashevsky kept looking at him, waiting for him to say something, willing him to say something. So he did: “Sir, if I ever lie, it won’t be about anything where you can catch me.”
“I should hope not,” the senior officer said. “You’d have to be stupid to do something like that. Dark-haired men aren’t stupid. They have other things wrong with them, but they aren’t stupid.”
Russians often lumped Armenians and Georgians and Jews together that way. Stas mildly resented it. So did most Armenians and Georgians and, he supposed, even Jews. With a crooked smile, he answered, “Sir, I didn’t come here to pick your pocket. I came here to blow up Germans.”
“Always a worthy cause,” Tomashevsky agreed dryly. “But if a pocket walks by begging to be picked, will you hold back?”
“Maybe not,” Stas admitted. “But then, would you?” For a moment, he feared he’d cut too close to the bone. But the squadron commander laughed and waved him away. Away he went, before Tomashevsky could change his mind.
Chapter 15
This was the biggest damn fleet Pete McGill had ever seen. If it wasn’t the biggest damn fleet in the history of the world, that sure wasn’t from lack of effort on the U.S. Navy’s part.
It stretched from horizon to horizon. Pete was sure it stretched over the horizon. The destroyers and cruisers and battlewagons and carriers stayed well separated from one another to make sure the Japs couldn’t do too much in any one spot.
That didn’t worry Pete. “If I was that cocksucker Tojo, I’d be shaking in my boots right now,” he declared.
“Got that right, Ace,” Joe Orsatti agreed. The gun chief waved expansively. “All the firepower we’re bringing to the dance, we won’t just lick the fucking Jap navy. We’ll sink their lousy islands, too.”
“There you go!” Pete liked the sound of that.
Planes from the combat air patrol droned overhead. The American fleet hadn’t come far from Oahu yet, but the brass already knew the Japs liked playing with naval air power. The fighters up there were F-4 Wildcats. The Japanese Zero was supposed to be hot shit. It was hot shit; Pete had seen as much in the Philippines. But he had confidence in good old American know-how. If the Wildcat couldn’t mop the floor with the Jap fighter, something was badly wrong somewhere.
And if the American fleet couldn’t mop the floor with the Japanese navy, something was badly wrong somewhere, too. Pete didn’t know the details of the attack plan. Such things were not for Marine sergeants to worry about. Like most of the tens of thousands of other men in the fleet, he did grasp the basic idea. They’d steam west till they ran into the slant-eyed sons of bitches steaming east. Then they’d knock the living snot out of them and clear their garrisons off all the Pacific islands they infested. What could be simpler?
A pair of albatrosses scudded past the Boise. Their wingspan didn’t seem much smaller than a Wildcat’s. Pointing to them, Orsatti asked, “Ever shoot the shit with a guy who was stationed on Midway?”
“I don’t think so,” Pete answered. “How come?”
“That’s where the gooney birds lay their eggs, like. When it’s mating season or whatever the hell they call it, there’s thousands of ’em.”
“Must be something. They’re amazing in the air.”
Orsatti grinned. “You sure as hell never talked with no Midway Marine. Yeah, the gooneys are great while they’re flying. But you know what? Their landing gear’s shot to shit. They come gliding in, they put down their feet-and they crash land every fuckin’ time. Ass over teakettle like you wouldn’t believe. They’re just lucky they don’t carry avgas, on account of they’d burn like mad bastards if they did.”