It was chilly and drizzly in the wee small hours, but nowhere near enough rain came down to bog the tanks that had rattled forward under cover of darkness. At 0435, right on schedule, the French artillery roared to life. "See how you like that, cocksuckers!" Luc yelled through high-explosive thunder.
German artillery started shooting back inside of five minutes. Some of the Boches' shells went after the French batteries. Others pounded the front line. The Germans knew their onions. A big barrage meant the French were going to follow it up. The worse the Germans could hurt them, the better… if you were a German.
At 0530, whistles shrilled in the French trenches. "Forward!" officers shouted. Tanks growled toward the German lines, cannon blasting and machine guns braying. Joinville and Villehardouin lugged the machine gun and its tripod ahead. A pair of glum new fish carried crates full of ammunition strips. Luc had his rifle and an infantryman's usual equipment. For the moment, nothing more-rank did have its privileges. But he would turn into a beast of burden in a hurry if one of his crew went down. A machine gun was important in the grand scheme of things, a corporal's dignity much less so.
The French guns increased their range so they didn't land shells on the advancing poilus. The German guns shortened range so they did. A round from a 105 came down right on top of a tank. Fire fountained from the stricken machine. A black column of smoke mounted to the sky. Machine-gun ammo cooked off with cheerful little popping noises.
"Poor buggers," Joinville said.
"Wouldn't even be that much left of us if the shell hit here," Luc answered. The Gascon grunted and nodded.
A German MG-34 the bombardment hadn't silenced started spitting death across the field. Luc envied the Boches their weapon. It was lighter than a Hotchkiss gun, and it fired faster, too. You could carry it and fire it from the hip if you had to. He tried to imagine firing the twenty-odd kilos of the Hotchkiss from the hip. The picture wouldn't form, and for good reason.
Tracers from the German machine gun sparked closer to the Hotchkiss crew. "Down!" Luc yelled. He followed his own order, diving into a shell hole.
"We set up?" Joinville asked.
Anything that gave Luc an excuse not to stand again sounded good right then. "Yeah, let's," he said. Joinville and Villehardouin got the heavy Hotchkiss onto the even heavier tripod. One of the new guys fed a strip into the weapon. Staying as low as he could, Luc peered over the forward lip of the shell hole. The MG-34's bullets had gone past it; now they cracked by again, maybe a meter and a half above the ground: chest-high on an upright man.
Those shapes in the misty, rainy morning twilight were Germans: Germans trying to get away from oncoming Frenchmen. Having been a Frenchman trying to get away from more oncoming Germans than he cared to remember, Luc relished the sight of field-gray backs. He fired a couple of bursts at them. Maybe he'd knock some of them down. He'd sure as hell make the ones he didn't hit run faster.
A French tank shelled the MG-34 into silence. "Come on," Luc said. "Let's get moving again." His crew hid their enthusiasm very well, but they obeyed. Luc didn't want to hit his own countrymen in front of the gun.
Tanks smashed paths through the German wire. Here and there, Fritzes still stayed and fought in their battered holes. One by one, they died or gave up. A Landser with a scared, whipped-dog grin on his face showed himself, hands high. "Ami!" he said.
"C'mere, friend," Luc said, and relieved him of his watch and wallet. Some of these Germans carried fat wads of francs-on their side of the line, French money wasn't worth much. Luc gestured with his rifle. "Go on back."
"Danke! Uh-merci!" the new prisoner said. Hands still over his head to show he'd surrendered, he stumbled off into captivity. He didn't have to worry about the war any more.
Luc did. "Let's go," he said. They pushed on through the shattered German defenses. It couldn't be this easy, could it? It had never been this easy before-he was goddamn sure of that. He had no idea how long it would stay easy, either. As long as it did, he'd go along with it. OF COURSE THE REPUBLICANS set up a radio outside the POW camp in the park in Madrid. And of course they always tuned it to their own stations. Joaquin Delgadillo hadn't listened to those when he fought in Marshal Sanjurjo's army. It wasn't that the Nationalists jammed them, though they did. And the Republicans jammed Nationalist radio. Sometimes the whole dial sounded like waterfalls and sizzling lard.
But this was Radio Madrid, and they were right next to the sender. It overpowered the jamming with ease. The Republican announcer might have been standing right there, reading from a script. "And now the news," he said. "French and English armies have gone over to the offensive against the German invaders. Gains of several kilometers are reported. So are rumors that German commanders in France have been sacked because their troops retreated."
"Sacked? I'm surprised they didn't shoot them," someone behind Joaquin said. He found himself nodding. Both sides in Spain had executed officers who went back when their superiors thought they should go forward. As for common soldiers… That went without saying. Common soldiers always got it in the neck-or the back of the head, depending.
"In Poland, the forces of the workers and peasants, the glorious soldiers of the Red Army, continue to press forward against the Fascists and their sympathizers," the newsreader went on. "Many Germans and Poles willingly surrender to join the Socialist cause."
Nationalist radio continually reported German and Italian triumphs. Somebody had to be lying. Before Joaquin was captured, he would have been certain it was the Republicans. He wasn't so sure any more. These days, he wasn't sure of anything. Maybe both sides were lying as hard as they could. That wouldn't have surprised him-oh, no, not even a little bit.
"American President Roosevelt has proposed an end to the war on the basis of all sides' returning to their positions before the fighting began," the announcer said. "In rejecting this, Hitler likened it to unscrambling an egg. He said Czechoslovakia would never be independent again, and that Germany would fight on to ultimate victory." The man let out a dry chuckle. "How Germany can gain ultimate victory while retreating in both east and west, Hitler did not explain."
Joaquin didn't know what to make of that. Every time he saw the Germans in action here in Spain, they made things go forward. The Italians who came to help Marshal Sanjurjo didn't care about the fight one way or the other. But Germans… Germans made things happen.
He made the mistake of saying that to Chaim Weinberg. The Republic agitator from the United States turned the color of a sunset. "Fuck 'em all," he said. "Fuck their mothers, too, up the ass."
"You hate them so much because they're Fascists?" Delgadillo said.
"Because they're Fascists, si," Weinberg answered. "And because they hate Jews."
A light dawned. Weinberg was a Jew himself. He might have put that reason second, but he meant it first. "Spaniards hate Jews, too," Joaquin said. "Do you hate Spaniards? Why did you come here if you hate Spaniards?"
"It's different here," the American mumbled.
"Really? Different how?" Joaquin asked, honestly puzzled. "Hate is hate, isn't it?"
"With you Spaniards, hating Jews is only a-a tradition, like," Weinberg said. "You don't go out of your way to do it."
"How can we?" Joaquin laughed out loud. "You're the first Jew I ever saw in my life. We threw ours out hundreds of years ago."
"Maybe that's it," Weinberg said. "You people just know you used to hate Jews. There are still plenty in Germany, and the Nazis go to town on them."
That had to be an English idiom translated literally; Joaquin had heard Weinberg do such things before. The American made himself understood, but you never doubted you were listening to a foreigner. After working out what he had to mean, Delgadillo said, "What about the Estados Unidos? Is your country a Jews' paradise?"