“Down!” Demange yelled. “Dig in!” He yanked the entrenching tool off his belt and followed his own order. Yes, if they couldn’t advance, they could at least try to survive.
CHAPTER 5
Getting pulled out of the line for a while felt wonderful to Theo Hossbach. As soon as you got beyond range of the Red Army’s guns, the food improved. You didn’t need to worry about waking up dead in the morning. Well, you didn’t need to worry so much, anyhow. You wanted to keep a Schmeisser handy, in case of partisans.
Mechanics who weren’t hampered by front-line tool shortages and frantic rush went over the Panzer IV from muzzle brake to exhaust pipe. Any time in the field was hard time for a panzer. This one would run a lot better for a while after it went back into combat. When you could count on your machine to do what you needed, you fought more boldly.
Some of the crew visited an army whorehouse. Theo stayed away. Shy among men, he was even more so with women. Adi Stoss didn’t go, either. “I don’t mind buying it, as long as the girl’s there for the money,” he said. “But when they use bayonets to drag ’em out of the village …” He shook his head. “That’s not my idea of a good time.”
“Nope. Not mine, either.” Theo gave forth with a few words.
Instead of fornication, they had football. Some Polish troops were getting in a little rest and recuperation not far from the German encampment. Among their supplies, they had goals and nets-they used football to keep fit. When they challenged the panzer crews to a match, national pride forbade turning them down.
Theo was a goalkeeper-fittingly, the loner on the pitch. And Adi was a center-forward: a striker. A pretty decent player himself, Theo knew Adi outclassed him … and almost everyone else. The Poles didn’t know it yet. Well, they’d find out.
The pitch was the flattest stretch of nearby field they could find. German and Polish soldiers gathered by the touchlines to watch and to bet. A lot of the Poles spoke German (some of the Polish soldiers spoke Yiddish, one of the more interesting complications in a war full of them). To most of the Wehrmacht men, Polish was just as much mooing and barking as Russian was. Not to Theo, who came from Breslau, not far from the border. Lots of Poles lived and worked in Breslau. He would never be fluent in their language, but he understood bits and pieces of it.
He said no more about that than he did about anything else. What the Poles didn’t know wouldn’t help them.
The referee was a German. Both linesmen were Poles. With a little luck, their biases would offset each other. Without that luck, they might turn the spectators and gamblers into brawlers.
No one on either side or in the crowd expected the referee to call the match closely. Army football was a different beast from the game the professionals played on close-cropped grass. You bumped, you shoved, you elbowed, you got away with whatever you could. It wasn’t quite rugby, but you could see rugby from there.
As soon as the match started, the Poles discovered that Adi was faster and more nimble than any of them. They started roughing him up to slow him down. That was how army football worked. Then one of the Poles staggered away from him with blood streaming from his nose.
“Sorry, buddy,” Adi said. “Didn’t mean to do that.” If they elbowed him, he’d elbow them right back. If he claimed he didn’t do it on purpose, well, that was how army football worked, too.
He scored a lovely goal a couple of minutes later-or he thought he did. But the linesman’s flag was up, signaling offside. The goal didn’t count. He thought he’d been onside when the ball was kicked. So did Theo, though he had to admit the linesman was closer and had a better viewing angle than he did.
Even without any one player who could match Adi, the Poles were good. They seemed to have played together more than their German foes. They ran plays: one guy knew where the other guy was going, and did his best to put the ball there. Their greenish khaki uniforms were always down close to the German goal.
A slick pass put the ball at the feet of a Pole in the penalty box. Theo ran toward him, spreading his arms. Make yourself big was a ’keeper’s first commandment. It made the shot harder for the attacker.
“Far post!” another Pole yelled.
Guessing the guy with the ball would follow the advice, Theo flung himself to his left. The ball took a deflection off his hand and bounced wide of the post. The Poles got a corner kick, but not a goal.
“Gowno!” the shooter said loudly, the way a German would have said Scheisse! He sent Theo a suspicious stare. “Did you understand him?” he asked in Polish, as if that would have been cheating. Theo gave him a high-grade idiot stare. The man asked the same thing auf Deutsch. Theo looked just as blank. Shaking his head, the Pole jostled for position for the corner.
When Theo punched the ball away, another German booted it farther down the pitch. The Poles had brought up their backs in hopes of converting the corner; their defense was in momentary disarray. Adi Stoss got to the ball a split second ahead of a Pole. He faked right, went left, and squirted past him. The Pole tried to knock him down, but he jumped over the fellow’s upraised leg.
The Polish ’keeper ran out to close down the angle. Adi softly chipped the ball over the luckless man’s head. It bounced once in front of the goal, then rolled into the net.
Not even the Polish linesman down there could find any way to disallow the score. He looked as impressed as everybody else, in fact. The German soldiers watching the match whooped and cheered like maniacs. Even some of the Poles applauded. The goal was that pretty.
Two Polish forwards stood catching their breath in the German penalty area. “Not bad,” one of them said to the other, “but let’s see the fucker do it again.” His friend nodded.
It was 2–2 at the half. One of the Poles’ scores was an own goal-a cross bounced off a German defender’s behind. It was past Theo and into the net before he could do anything about it.
After the break, they switched ends and went at it again. The Poles scored-that one went right through Theo’s spraddled legs. He was mad, because he thought he should have stopped it. A few minutes later, the Germans leveled. Adi made a sweet pass into the area, and another German headed it home.
There things stuck. Theo made a good save. So did the Poles’ goalkeeper, who jumped as if on springs to tip a rifle shot of Adi’s just over the crossbar. Adi waved to him, paying his respects. The ’keeper sketched a salute in return. He’d seen what he was up against.
As they neared the final whistle, Theo grew just about sure the match would end in a draw. He wanted a win, but a draw wasn’t so bad. Nobody’s national pride would be damaged that way. He did wish he hadn’t let in the last goal.
The Polish ’keeper must also have decided it was safe to relax a little. He took a couple of steps forward, away from the frame of the net. Why not? Safe as houses. The ball was out near the halfway line.
Theo could have told him nowhere on the pitch was safe when Adi was around. He could have, but he didn’t need to. Adi showed the Pole instead. He launched a howitzer shot with his right foot, high and looping and dropping down straight toward the goal. The ’keeper staggered back, desperately throwing up his arms. He got the fingertips of his right hand on the ball. Theo hadn’t thought he could even do that. It wasn’t enough. He couldn’t flip the ball over the bar this time. It went in. Adi’d done it again, all right-in spades.
When the referee blew the whistle a couple of minutes later, the triumphant Germans carried him off the field on their shoulders. He was grinning like a fool and laughing like a lunatic. Part of that might have been triumph, too.