"Makes sense to me," Willi said. "The farther away the enemy stays, the better I like it."
That chilly stare appraised him for a moment. Sure as hell, Willi felt as if he were in the crosshairs. Then Fegelein gave him a smile-a thin smile, but a smile. "Yeah, I've heard a lot of guys go on like that," the sniper said. "Half the time, it's right before they do something that gets 'em a Ritterkreuz."
"I don't want one," Willi said with great sincerity.
Helmut Fegelein only shrugged. "Sometimes you want the medal, sometimes the medal wants you. When the time comes, you'll know what needs doing. That piece of crap you've got for a corporal, now…"
Willi laughed out loud. "You mean Awful Arno?" Sure as hell, Fegelein was a keen judge of character.
The veteran chuckled. "Is that what you call him?"
Belatedly, Willi realized he might have stuck his foot in it. An Oberfeldwebel could land a Gefreiter in all kinds of trouble for badmouthing another noncom senior to him. "Well…" Willi said reluctantly.
"That's what you call him when you don't think anybody'll gig you for it," Fegelein said, which was perfectly true. The sniper reached into his pocket and pulled out the stogies again. He offered Willi one. "Here you go. I don't blab. I remember what I called the jerks who ordered me around."
Next morning, the son of a bitch with the antipanzer rifle potted a captain-knocked him off a motorcycle, in fact. And that evening, as darkness descended, Fegelein did go out into the no-man's-land between the lines. "About time," Arno Baatz said-but not where the Oberfeldwebel could hear him.
Willi didn't see Awful Arno volunteering to go out there. He couldn't say that, but thought it very loudly. Baatz strutted off to do some of the important things corporals did. One of those things was to make sure Willi stood sentry in the middle of the night and broke up his sleep. As always, Willi appreciated it.
Come morning, he saw no sign of Helmut Fegelein. The sniper was out there somewhere, sprawled in a shell hole or under one piece of wreckage or another. He had his rifle and he had a hunter's patience. Somewhere farther off, the enemy sniper had the same patience and an even nastier weapon.
The antipanzer rifle thundered, its report distinctive even though it came from a long way northwest of the trench in which Willi waited. Fegelein's piece stayed silent. Either he didn't spot the enemy or he had no chance to hit him from wherever he hid.
Fegelein came in after dark. He slipped past the German pickets, which was bound to raise officers' blood pressure. If all the Frenchmen out there were as good as he was, they could do it, too. And if cows pissed gasoline, the Reich wouldn't have to worry about running low on fuel.
Some time in the middle of the night, the sniper vanished again. Maybe he was going back to the same hidey-hole, or maybe he changed his lair daily like a hunted wolf. Willi thought he would have if he were doing that job. He thanked heaven he wasn't.
No sign of the Oberfeldwebel when the sun came up. He'd be waiting-or, for all Willi knew, he'd be sound asleep right now. Who was going to tell him he couldn't do that if he felt like it?
Sweat ran down Willi's face. Summer was coming in, all right. When he pushed his way through the Ardennes in the middle of winter, he'd thought the war would be over by now. "Shows what I knew," he muttered.
Then the antipanzer rifle spoke again, seemingly right in front of him. A split second later, a Mauser in no-man's-land answered. Willi's ears told him about where the shot came from, but he still couldn't spot Fegelein.
He couldn't, but the enemy sniper could. That goddamn elephant gun fired once more, as soon as it could have after the man using it worked the bolt. Silence returned, punctuated only by the skrawks of frightened crows.
Helmut Fegelein didn't come back for supper after sundown. Willi guessed he wasn't hungry any more, and never would be again.
Chapter 14
Pussy didn't like tanks, not even a little bit. Alistair Walsh wasn't surprised. The cat had come to take gunfire for granted. Animals sometimes got used to things more easily than people did. Pussy couldn't know what bullets and shell fragments did to soft, vulnerable flesh. She didn't know how lucky she was to be ignorant, either.
Tanks were a whole different business, though. She didn't just hear them rattle and clank. She could see them move. Here was something bigger than an elephant that could-and might want to-squash her flat. Tanks smelled funny, too. No wonder the cat disappeared into the smallest hole she could find.
Regardless of Pussy's opinion, Walsh liked tanks in the neighborhood fine. These Mark I Cruisers seemed a vast improvement over the poor Matildas that had tried to hold off German panzers the winter before. The Matildas mounted nothing more than a machine gun, and a running man could easily keep up with them. They did have thick armor… and they needed it.
These cruisers were a different business. Their turrets packed a two-pounder cannon and a machine gun, while they mounted two more MGs in the front of the hull, one on each side of the driver's position. It was probably crowded as all get-out up there, but enemy infantry in front of them would be very unhappy.
And they could move. They were as fast as anything the Germans had. More than once during the retreat from the Low Countries, English tankers had had to bail out of Matildas, set them on fire, and go back on foot or in a lorry when enemy thrusts outflanked and overran them. If they hadn't, they would have been cut off and killed or captured. In fact, Walsh had seen a Matilda or two in German service, with a prominent cross painted on either side. He suspected he would have seen more if the Nazis liked the clunky little machines better.
Jock's reaction to the Mark I Cruisers was more like Pussy's. "Ah wish the bloody things'd go somewhere else," the Yorkshireman grumbled.
"Why's that?" Walsh asked. "Now that they're here, we can give the Fritzes one right in the slats."
"That's why," Jock said morosely. "Long as we sit tight here, we're safe enough. Oh, not safe, Christ knows, but safe enough. With them buggers around, though, they'll tell us to go forward again, damn their black hearts. Bad things happen when you go forward, by God."
Half a lifetime ago, Walsh had been eager to go over the top-once. Living through that first assault cured him of eagerness forevermore. He was much happier staying in the trenches and letting the Germans come to him after that. Bad things did happen when you went forward. There you were, out in the open, with nothing to protect you but a lousy tin hat that wouldn't keep bullets out anyhow. All these years later, his leg wound still bothered him.
Which meant nothing when the brass hats told you to advance. The Fritzes might rack you up. You own side assuredly would if you didn't follow orders. He was part of that machinery himself. If you didn't go forward because you were battle-wild, you'd damn well go forward because bad things would happen to you if you stayed behind.
"No help for it, Jock," he said, not without sympathy. No, he wasn't eager, either.
Jock nodded. "Oh, Ah know. What'll we do about Pussy, though? Can't take her along-she wouldn't fancy riding in your pack or on your shoulder like a bloody pirate's parrot."
Walsh chuckled. "Chances are she wouldn't," he agreed. "Somebody else will take care of her once we push on, though. Or she'll shift for herself. Cats are good at that, you know. Plenty of birds, plenty of bugs. Plenty of mice, too, with no one setting out traps to keep them down."
"Maybe." Jock still looked gloomy-he often did. "She was mighty peaked when we first started feeding her, though. Mighty peaked."
"We can't bring her along. You said so yourself," Walsh pointed out.
"Ah knows, Sergeant. Don't mean Ah like it," Jock said.
More and more Mark Is came in. Had Walsh been running the show, he would have kept them hidden till the attack went in. Surprise counted. The high foreheads actually in charge of things sent a few of the cruisers forward to see how they did against the German positions most of a mile away.