The new fish gaped at him as if they'd caught an archbishop celebrating a Black Mass. "But-they're the enemy!" Louis sputtered.
"Very good. Nothing gets by you, does it?" Luc sure did sound like Sergeant Demange, and he didn't have to step away from himself to hear it now. "But they're not the stupid buffoons the papers make them out to be. They wouldn't be so fucking dangerous if they were. You get that, sonny?"
"I… think so, Corporal," the raw private answered.
"You'd better. All of you had better. Otherwise, somebody in the Ministry of War will send your family a wire no one wants to get. And you, you'll be a black-bordered photo gathering dust on the mantel, and you'll never suck on your girlfriend's titties any more or try to talk her into jerking you off. Do you get that?"
Louis nodded. So did Marc and Napoleon. Their eyes were big and round as gumdrops. They looked as if he'd hit them where they lived. He hoped he had. He wanted them to live. He also wanted them to learn the ropes as fast as they could. Troops new to the front did stupid things. That could get them killed in a hurry, and it could bring trouble down on the more experienced men who had to keep company with them. Luc didn't want to get killed for no better reason than that Marc, say, was an idiot.
Come to that, he didn't want to get killed at all.
He gave the new men a last once-over, as withering as he could make it. Louis flinched, so he didn't do too bad. Sergeant Demange would have had every one of them trembling in his clodhoppers. Well, they'd meet the sergeant soon enough-too soon to suit them, Luc was sure. "Let's go, you lugs," he said. "Keep your heads down. Don't let the Germans see you moving. They've got mortars and artillery zeroed in about every ten meters. If they start shooting at you, they can hit you. They can hit me, too."
He wished he could have the last handful of words back. He didn't want them to realize he could get jumpy himself. They heard the words, but they didn't hear the tone that informed them. They probably thought he'd give them all a kick in the slats if he got wounded. They didn't know a wounded man just lay there and thrashed and screamed and bled. Well, they'd find out.
Luc led them through trenches to the ruins of a village. Digging like moles, damming like beavers, the Frenchmen had done a lot to improve the ruins. Unless you were very tall, you could move around freely without worrying about sniper fire. There were underground galleries where you could eat and sleep and shelter from artillery fire. It wasn't the Maginot Line, but Luc had been in plenty of worse places.
Half a kilometer to the east, the German lines boasted about as many comforts. If you weren't advancing or retreating, you settled down and made yourself at home.
The new fish exclaimed at what the soldiers dug in here had done. Luc enjoyed eating well and sleeping soft, too. Unlike Napoleon and Louis and Marc, he knew too well that these good times wouldn't last. The Nazis had almost knocked France out of the war with their winter onslaught. They'd grabbed more of the country this time than they did in 1914, and made it harder for England to send help across the Channel. And, unlike Germany, France hadn't had its heart in the war from the beginning.
It did now. Getting your whole northeast occupied would do that to you. And the Germans were fighting Russia now. A lot of Frenchmen with Red leanings had seen the whole war as a struggle between two sets of oppressive imperialists: as none of their business, in other words. But if Hitler threatened the Soviet Union, the font of world revolution, obviously he was a monster who needed suppressing. The Communists were singing the Popular Front song again, as loud as they could.
So, eventually, there would be big pushes forward. They'd leave this place behind. The people who lived here would come back and try to put the pieces together again. None of the offensives yet had been the real thing. But it was coming. And all the horrors that went with a war of movement would come with it.
"Sweet suffering Jesus, Harcourt, why didn't you wipe your ass before you came back here? Look at the dingleberries you brought with you." Sergeant Demange eyed the replacements as if he'd never seen anything so disgusting in his life. The twitching Gitane in the corner of his mouth only amplified his scorn.
"This is Sergeant Demange, men," Luc said. "He commands the section. You'd better listen to him, or-"
"Or I'll fucking well whale the shit out of you," Demange broke in. "Well, you syphilitic scuts, what do they call you?" One by one, the new men hesitantly named themselves. Demange clapped a hand to his forehead. "Napoleon? Merde alors! Well, I won't forget that-unless you get killed quick. Go round up canteens and fill 'em at the well. Go on-move! You never want me to have to tell you something more than once. Believe it, punk. You don't."
Thus encouraged, Napoleon moved. Marc and Louis gaped till Demange found fatigues for them, too. Luc smiled. He'd been on the other end of those growls not so long ago. This was better. Oh, yes. Much, much better.
Chapter 15
Pete McGill had never figured he would walk into a shop that sold carved jade and other jewels. Then again, he'd never figured he would fall in love with a White Russian taxi dancer. Life was full of surprises. He was enjoying this one a hell of a lot more than, say, getting stomped by half a dozen Japanese soldiers with hobnailed boots.
All the same, he'd come to the Jade Tree Maker out on Yates Road by himself. If he'd had any of his buddies along, they would have told him he was pussy-whipped. They might even have been right. But that would have made him more likely to try to punch them out, not less.
A Eurasian man in a sharp silk suit stood behind the counter. "Good day," he said in smooth English. The way he dipped his head was almost a bow. "How may I help you today, sir?"
"Right now I'm only looking," Pete said.
"Of course." The proprietor or clerk or whatever he was pretended the American Marine didn't exist. He was good at it. A white man would have kept sneaking glances Pete's way. This fellow didn't. He had the Oriental knack for not seeing what lay right under his nose. You needed that knack if you were going to live in the crowded warrens of Peking or Shanghai without going nuts.
If Pete tried to heist something, now… The man in the suit would turn out to have been watching all along. Understanding as much, Pete kept his hands to himself as he examined the merchandise.
Jade trees, sure enough. They came in all sizes from three inches to three feet tall, all qualities of jade-jadeite was a much more brilliant green than the cheaper nephrite-and all degrees of elaboration in the carving. Prices started at a few dollars Mex and went straight up like a mortar bomb.
He thought-he hoped-Vera would like a jade tree. He had cash in his pocket. A corporal's pay was nothing back in the States; in Shanghai, it made him well-off. He had nothing to spend his money on but cigarettes and booze-both cheap-and his lady love. Spend he would.
He picked up a jade tree: not a very big one, but full of detailwork in the carving of branches and leaves, and of peasants and cattle on the base. When he took it over to the counter, the Eurasian man dipped his head again. "You are a man of taste," he said.
Which meant the dicker would be harder. "How much do you want for it?" he asked.
"The price is on the tag here." The man in the silk suit tapped it with his forefinger. "One hundred twenty-five dollars Mex."
That was about forty bucks U.S.-a month's pay, more or less. The exchange rate went up and down, often wildly. Pete didn't get mad or storm out. He'd played these games before. "I know that's what the price tag says," he said patiently. "But how much do you really want for it?"
"You are an American," the Eurasian said. You've got lots of cash. Why do you care about getting gouged? Everybody in Shanghai thought that way, and with some reason. But only some. Even Vera thought that way. Pete might be head over heels, but he wasn't blind. He didn't think so, anyhow.