Marx said Communism’s doctrine should be From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. But what if your abilities were of the sort that made your superiors nervous? You’d be sorry, that was what. Or you’d turn into a chameleon, so they’d look right at you without seeing you, or at least without noticing you were any different from the rest.
Was that what Kulkaanen was up to? Stas didn’t think so, but he hadn’t imagined even the possibility till now. And something else occurred to him. Was that something he should be doing more of himself? He knew he was brighter than most of the other pilots in the squadron. His superiors likely did, too. All of a sudden, he wondered whether that was good or dangerous.
No NKVD men waited to haul him off to a fate worse than combat when he landed the Pe-2. The Chekists had plenty of other things to worry about. If he was on their list, he hadn’t yet come to the top. Since his own side didn’t feel like killing him yet, the Germans would get another chance one day soon.
To an Englishman, Egypt, even in what should have been autumn, came with only two settings on the thermostat: too hot and much too bloody goddamn hot. Alistair Walsh donned khaki drill shorts that showed off his pale, hairy legs. Even in tropical uniform, he sweltered.
He started out wearing a solar topee: a fancy name for a pith helmet. But another veteran sergeant who’d had a go at the half-arsed desert warfare with the Eyeties set him straight about that. “Go any place where they might shoot at you and you want a proper tin hat, pal,” the other man said. “That ugly thing you’ve got on your head-”
“You mean my face?” Walsh broke in. They were pouring down pints in a makeshift sergeants’ club somewhere between Sollum, which was in Egypt, and Tobruk, which was in Italian-owned Libya. Just a big tent, actually, and the beer came from bottles, but it could have been worse.
The other sergeant laughed. “I’ve seen worse mugs. My own, for instance. But you do want a tin hat. Even if it’s already khaki, paint it again and throw sand on the paint while it’s still wet. That kills sun glare better than anything else we’ve found.”
“Nice.” Walsh nodded appreciatively. “I wouldn’t have thought of that.”
“Nor I,” his drinking partner said. “I’ve heard we nicked the notion from Musso’s boys, but I can’t swear to it.”
“Interesting. How much in earnest are they, really?”
“Well, it depends,” his new chum answered.
“It often does,” Walsh agreed, his voice dusty.
The other fellow chuckled. “And isn’t that the bloody truth? They were brave enough against the Austrians the last go-round.”
“Not exactly the first string on either side in that match,” Walsh said.
“Too true. They haven’t covered themselves with glory in Spain. By all accounts, most of them never wanted to go there, and they’ve fought that way. Here… It depends more on the unit and the officers with the Eyeties than it does with the Fritzes,” the other sergeant said.
“With the Fritzes, they always mean it,” Walsh said with feeling. “You know what you’re getting with them, same as with Navy Cuts.” In aid of which, he lit a cigarette and offered his new friend the packet.
With a nod of thanks, the other man took one. “I’m Joe Billings,” he said, and stuck out his hand.
Walsh shook it and gave his own name. “And just as much a Taffy as you’d expect from the handle,” he added. If he said it first, the other fellow couldn’t use it against him.
But Billings only nodded. “Heard it in the way you talked,” he said, and no more. By his own accent, he came from England’s industrial Midlands. He went on, “Some of the Italian regiments, they aren’t worth tuppence ha’penny. Others… Others’ll give you everything you want and more besides. For a while, I should say. They’re all short of staying power.”
“Not the men, by what you say.” Walsh was trying to put pieces together.
“Not in those outfits. Some damn fine soldiers there,” Billings said. “Rifles, machine guns, grenades, that kind of thing, one bloke’s kit is about as good as the other’s. But they’re short on artillery, they’re woefully short on tanks, and the ones they’ve got are old-fashioned junk.”
“Heh.” Walsh drained his pint. “Back in France, I would have said the same thing about ours. The Germans chased us a deal more than we chased them, and that’s the truth.”
“You aren’t fighting the Germans any more, though,” Billings said. “This is a different business.”
How different it was Walsh discovered anew when he ducked out of the tent to ease himself. A million stars blazed down on him. The Milky Way was a pearly mesh cast across black, black sky. You never saw night skies like this in England or France. Too much moisture in the air, and, till the blackouts, too many lights sullying the darkness. Oddly, the only place he’d ever known the heavens like this before was in Norway, on a few of the rare clear winter nights.
But this wasn’t Norway, either. He’d frozen his ballocks off there despite a sheepskin coat. Nights got cold here-you did want your greatcoat-but not cold like that. The wind smelled different. You didn’t breathe in ice and pine trees here. You smelled sand and dust and petrol and exhaust. English forces here were far more motorized than they had been in Norway.
Walsh sniffed again as he did up his trousers. He didn’t know what he was sniffing for. Camel shit? Something like that, he supposed. He’d seen a few camels since he got to Egypt. The natives used them. So did the English and the Italians-when they ran short of lorries. You could also eat them if you had to. Walsh hoped like hell he’d never have to. Could anything that ugly possibly taste good?
He went back into the tent. Joe Billings had bought them both fresh pints while he was outside. Pretty soon, he’d buy a round himself. They’d both be pissing all night long.
He was nursing a headache the next morning. That didn’t keep the personnel wallahs from sending him up to his new slot: senior underofficer for an infantry company. All the young lieutenants eyed him as if he were a leper. And well they might. They had the seniority of rank, but he had that of experience. They could order him around, and they didn’t have to do what he told them to do-not by military law they didn’t. But they might land in worse trouble for ignoring him than he would for ignoring them.
One of them asked him, “Did you go through it the last time around?”
“Yes, sir.” Walsh tapped his leg. “Bought part of a plot, but not the whole thing.” He grinned crookedly. “Weather’s better for it here than it is back in Blighty-I’ll tell you that. Hardly aches at all.”
The subaltern nodded. His name was Wilf Preston. He had a sunburned, wind-chapped face full of freckles, and he looked hardly old enough to have escaped from public schooclass="underline" his posh accent said he’d likely gone to one. He hesitated before continuing, “Speaking of Blighty, were you, ah, in London when the government, ah, changed?”
“Yes, sir,” Walsh repeated. By the way Preston asked the question, he already knew the answer. That’s… interesting, Walsh thought. My reputation goes before me. They aren’t leery just because staff sergeants are supposed to eat second lieutenants without salt.
He wasn’t used to having that kind of reputation. For the rest of his life, he would be the man who’d brought in Rudolf Hess, the man who’d known Winston Churchill, the man who’d helped topple Horace Wilson in a military coup. He might be a lowly staff sergeant, but people with far more power than lowly lieutenants would look sidelong at him from here on out. Who are your friends? they’d wonder. What can you do to me if I cross you?
If he shouted “Boo!” young Wilf Preston would probably jump right out of his skin. It was tempting-damned if it wasn’t. Instead, he pointed west and asked, “Could you tell me what Musso’s lads are up to, sir?”
“They’re just patrolling for the time being,” Preston answered with transparent relief. “So are we, mainly. They haven’t shown a great deal of push since we drove them back over the border. We have the feeling that the only reason they attacked at all was so Benito could show Adolf he was strafing us for ducking out of the alliance against Russia.”