Halevy gave Vaclav a crooked grin. "Hey, pal, that's why you've got your antitank rifle, right?"
Vaclav told him where he could put the antitank rifle. Halevy would have walked very straight if he'd tried. You could get your behind in a sling for telling off a noncom, but Vaclav's behind was already in a sling because he was up at the front, so what did he care?
He would have expected a Jew to get stuffy about that kind of thing, maybe to threaten him with official regulations. But Sergeant Halevy just laughed and said something about his mother and troopships. From another guy, or under different circumstances, Vaclav would have tried to rearrange his face. He laughed now, too. They'd been through it together. They'd earned the right to zing each other.
"Seriously, we ought to head up that way," Halevy said. "If your rifle can take out those cars, it'll do us some good."
Vaclav was no more enthusiastic about putting his dick on the chopping block than any other soldier in his right mind would have been. But he could see the need. "I'll try it," he said.
"Attaboy," Halevy told him. He clapped another Czech soldier on the back. "Dominik, take point."
"Right, Sergeant." Dominik didn't sound thrilled, but he never did. He was little and skinny and nervous as a cat in a room full of Rottweilers-all of which made him a goddamn good point man. He carried a captured German submachine gun. If he ran into trouble, he could spray a lot of lead at it.
"Let's go," the sergeant said. He moved right behind Dominik. He didn't believe in staying away from trouble. None of the people who said Jews were a bunch of cowards had seen him in action. David had stayed right up there with everybody else, too, till he stopped one. And they both hated Nazis even more than Vaclav did, which he wouldn't have believed if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes.
"Bonne chance," called the Frenchman who'd warned them about Germans. Luck, that meant, or something like it. Vaclav waved to the guy without looking back.
Trees and bushes and rocks. The western part of the Ardennes was as wild and rugged as anything in Czechoslovakia. Vaclav would have bet the Germans couldn't get any armor through here, but he would have lost if he had. He'd already escaped from tanks in these parts: Panzer Is and IIs, and also some captured Czech T-35s. Those infuriated him. Yes, everybody grabbed whatever he could get his hands on-his own antitank rifle and Dominik's machine pistol showed as much. But seeing Czech tanks fight against Czech soldiers made him want to cry.
Dominik waved urgently. Vaclav dove behind the closest bush. He didn't know what was up ahead, and he didn't want to find out the hard way. Sergeant Halevy twiddled fingers at him. Ever so cautiously, Vaclav slithered forward. He swore under his breath every time a knee or an elbow broke a twig.
Then he froze-German voices up ahead. The breeze swung, and he got a whiff of cigarette smoke. "God in heaven, I'm tired," one of the Fritzes said. "I could sleep for a month."
"Just a little going on, Klaus." If those dry tones didn't come from a sergeant, Vaclav would eat his boots.
"Ja," Klaus said, and then, "What the hell was that?"
That was Vaclav's antitank rifle scraping through some dry bushes. The goddamn thing was more than a meter and a half long-almost as long as he was tall. It wasn't just heavy; it was also unwieldy as all get-out. Jezek froze.
"I didn't hear anything," the noncom said.
"I sure thought I did," Klaus replied.
"Want to check it out?"
"Nah. I just want to sit here and grab a smoke."
"Sounds good to me. Let me bum one off you," the sergeant said.
Even more warily than before, Vaclav crawled forward. He spotted an armored car between a couple of chestnuts. Hoping the noise wouldn't give him away, he chambered a round. The Germans didn't have kittens, so he got away with it. A couple of those long, fat rounds through the engine compartment and that armored car wouldn't go anywhere for a while.
He waggled the fingers on his left hand to let Sergeant Halevy know he was in position. The rest of the Czechs opened up on the Germans. His noise covered by theirs, he punched one through the armored car's thin steel side and into the engine.
He was about to shoot at it again when a German with a submachine gun popped up out of nowhere. Vaclav shot him instead. A round designed to pierce armor did horrible things to flesh. It seemed to blow out half the German's insides. The poor bastard fell over with a grunt and never stirred after that. It was over fast for him, anyhow.
Shoulder aching-even with muzzle brake and padded stock, the antitank rifle kicked harder than a kangaroo-Vaclav reloaded. Here came the other armored car. He fired at where the driver would sit, once, twice. The car slid to the left and slammed into a tree.
That seemed to take the vinegar out of these Germans. They either ran off or gave up. "Good job!" Sergeant Halevy called to Vaclav. "Don't you wish it was this easy all the goddamn time?"
"Jesus!" Vaclav exclaimed. "I'm just glad it was this easy once." Halevy laughed, for all the world as if he were joking. LIEUTENANT JULIUS LEMP STOOD AT stiff attention. When a rear admiral reamed you out, you had to stand there and take it and pretend it didn't hurt. The process was a lot like picking up dueling scars, except you had no sword of your own.
"You thick-skinned idiot!" Karl Donitz didn't raise his voice, which only made things worse. "Did you want to drag the United States into this war?"
"No, sir," Lemp replied woodenly He stared straight at a spot three centimeters in front of Donitz's nose.
The round-faced chief of U-boat operations was not a man who stood out in a crowd. Donitz was supposed to be a pretty good guy, too. He had a reputation for sticking up for his captains. But nobody would stick up for you when you screwed up the way Lemp had.
"U-boats brought the Americans in the last time," Donitz said. "We try not to make the same mistakes twice, you know." He waited.
"Yes, sir." Again, something mechanical might have spoken through Lemp.
"I've had to calm down Goebbels and von Ribbentrop and the Fuhrer," Donitz said. "They all wanted your scalp." He waited.
What am I supposed to say now? Lemp wondered. He tried, "I'm honored, sir." In a way, he was. If the Propaganda Minister and the Foreign Minister and Hitler himself noticed you, you'd done something out of the ordinary, no doubt about it.
Rear Admiral Donitz's pale eyes grew cold as the seas off Greenland. "I wouldn't be, if I were you," he said, and his voice was as icy as his face. "Dr. Goebbels had to put together a whole propaganda campaign to shift the blame away from us. Now there's some doubt about who sank the Athenia-but not among us, eh?"
"No, sir. I did it, all right." Lemp still didn't change expression. Yeah, sometimes you had to stand there and take it. This was one of those times.
"I'd run you out of my office if you told me anything else," Donitz said. "If you screw up like this again, I won't be able to help you. Do you understand that?"
"Yes, sir." Men who served on U-boats weren't normally long on military discipline. This was one of those occasions where formality was mandatory, though. You took your abuse by the numbers.
"A notation about your error will go into your service jacket," Donitz said, which meant Lemp would be a long time seeing another promotion.
"Yes, sir," Lemp said one more time. He couldn't get into more trouble as long as he kept saying that, and he was in plenty already.
"Next time we send you out, for God's sake try not to sink anything flying the Stars and Stripes," Donitz said.