The patrol passed many Posleen skeletons, but few full corpses. David and the others pushed away thoughts of their families back in lost Israel, pushed away especially thoughts that those families were, most of them, long since rendered like these Posleen corpses and eaten.
Benjamin faintly heard a horrified Rosenblum whisper, “Not even the Nazis…”
Past the broad band of corpse-laden Polish soil the patrol emerged into an area of frozen steppe. Here, Benjamin elected to return to the edge of that band to rest for the day.
Normal camouflage would have been a hopeless endeavor. Instead, staying as quiet as possible, the men created three small shelters of humped-up Posleen corpses and remnants of corpses. Under these, at fifty-percent alert, the six men slept and watched through the short day of Polish winter.
Many times that first day of the patrol they heard the growls and snarls of Posleen foragers. Twice, the foragers came close enough to make out faintly in the fog. On those occasions, sleep was interrupted and the men went to full alert.
“Something is bothering me about them,” whispered Benjamin to Rosenblum.
“What is that, Major?”
Rosenblum thought for a moment, trying to determine just what it was that seemed wrong. Then it came to him, “They are looking for the merest scraps of food, rotten food at that. It is as if they were starving.”
“Well,” answered the sergeant after a moment’s reflection, “it is winter, after all. The harvest…”
“They can eat anything, to include the harvest gathered a few months ago, and to include any winter wheat still standing. They can eat the grass and the trees and Auntie Maria’s potted geraniums. But why should they when there were so many Polish civilians trapped or captured? It doesn’t seem logical somehow.”
Though the increasing light told of a sun risen halfway up to noon, the fog still held the front in its grasp. A few dozen half frozen men had made it back by now, never more than one or two per patrol, though. The men told Hans’ intelligence officer — when they could be made to give forth something like intelligent speech from frost-frozen lips and terror-frozen minds — that it had been hopeless. The Posleen were too thick on the ground, too intent, to penetrate through to their rear and whatever might be lurking there.
As he had for many a day, Hans Brasche cursed the fog in his mind.
The God King’s hand stroked the warm, light blanket covering him. He had not thought to send out counterpatrols. Indeed this whole human intelligence gathering activity seemed to him faintly perverse. It was not the Posleen way to skulk through the night and fog, avoiding detection. Rather, the People rejoiced in the open fight, the deeds done before the entire host for the Rememberers to record and sing of unto future generations.
But, happy instance, on this occasion, necessity had provided what Borominskar’s own brain had not. Searching for scraps of food amidst the slaughtered of the previous battle, his host had inadvertently provided a thick screen against the threshkreen’s cowardly snooping. And, hungry as they were, the scattered bands of the People had every reason to concentrate on the loose bands of threshkreen wandering the steppe. Only thus could their hunger be assuaged given the severe rationing imposed on the host by Borominskar’s decree.
It was nice to see something working for a change.
Well, the Path is a path of chance and fortune, after all…
Fortune favors the bold. Benjamin remembered that as the title of some motion picture he had seen once with his wife, in happier times. It was true then, and was no less so now.
At nightfall the band set forth again to the east. There were fewer Posleen patrols once past the strip of corpses from the prior battle. What bands there were were easily detectable from a distance by the light from their campfires. These Benjamin and his men skirted, taking a wide berth. These diversions David also recorded on his map.
The next sunrise saw the patrol twenty kilometers deep into Posleen-controlled territory, at a desolate and deserted little Polish farming village. Not that the people had abandoned their homes, no. Their fleshless skeletons dotted the town’s streets and littered its dwelling places. But the souls were fled, the food was gone. All of Rosenblum’s scrounging revealed nothing more nourishing than a few bottles of cheap vodka.
Benjamin’s men subsisted that day on their combat rations, German and thus as often as not containing despised pork. Well, many Israelis did not keep kosher. And for those who did? Necessity drove them to eat what was available.
Perhaps the vodka, parceled out, helped overcome their dietary scruples.
Harz drew the duty of feeding the commander. Filling a divided tray with a mix of Bavarian Spätzle, rolls and butter, some unidentifiable greens and some stewed pork, one hand grasping a large mug of heavily sugared and mildly alcohol-laced roggenmehl[46] coffee, he stepped onto the one-man elevator that led to the other topside hatch and commanded, “Anna, up.”
Still listening and peering into the gloom, Hans seemed not to notice as Harz emerged from the automatically lifted hatch and left the tray beside him. Harz stood there for a while, leaving Brasche alone with his thoughts. Finally, he made a slight coughing sound to get the commander’s attention.
“I heard you emerge,” Hans answered.
“Lunch, Herr Oberst,” Harz announced.
“Just leave it there, Unteroffizier Harz. I’ll get to it when I have time.”
“Sir, I must remind you of the wise Feldwebel’s words. ‘Don’t eat… ’ ”
Interrupting, Brasche finished the quote, “… ‘when you’re hungry, eat when you can. Don’t sleep when you’re tired, sleep when you can. And a bad ride is better than a good walk.’ I’ve heard it before, thank you, Harz.”
“Yes, sir. But it is still good advice.”
“Very well, Harz. Just leave it. I’ll see to it in a moment. Return to your station.”
An order was an order. Harz didn’t click his heels, of course. That habit even the reconstituted SS had not readopted. But he did stand at attention and order, “Anna, down.” The hatch eased itself shut behind him.
Alone again, Hans picked up the tray. The Spätzle, the vegetables, the rolls and butter he ate quickly. Then, pulling the collar of his leather coat tighter around him, and grasping both hands around the steaming mug, he peered once again into the fog.
Hans’ earphones crackled with the intelligence officer’s voice. “Sir, they want you down by the river.”
With outstretched hand a cosslain offered Borominskar a fresh haunch straight from the slaughter pens. It was a meager thing, not more than half a meter long, by threshkreen measures. But the God King had decreed no meat for the cosslain and the normals, and scant meat for the Kessentai. The thresh must be saved for the nonce.
Had they looked, the setting sun would have shone bright into the eyes of the traveling group of Posleen. That might have been all that saved the patrol from the keen alien senses. Had the accompanying Kessentai, flying five or six meters above and slightly behind the party, checked his instruments they might have told him there were wild thresh about.
46
Rye meal. For many decades, in war and peace, the Germans made a sort of ersatz, or replacement, coffee out of roasted rye meal. Less popular now than formerly, one could still expect them to fall back upon it in hard times.