"What else am I going to do?" The Red pushed himself upright, using his left hand and both feet. Joaquin made him open the good hand-he might have hidden a rock in there. He might have, but he hadn't. A more clever man might have felt foolish at seeing that dirty palm. Delgadillo didn't. Just one more chance he hadn't taken. You had to take too many any which way. Avoiding the ones you could made you more likely to live longer.
"Well, well! What have we here, sweetheart?" That was Major Uribe. That, in fact, couldn't very well have been anybody else. Uribe had been closer to where the 155 went off than Joaquin or his prisoner. Not a smudge, a stain, or a rumpled crease on his uniform suggested that he'd dove for cover. If he hadn't, wouldn't he be ropa vieja right now? (Even thinking of the stew of shredded beef-literally, old clothes-made Joaquin's stomach growl.) Maybe not. He had to be lucky as well as brave, or he would have died long since.
The International stared at him as if he couldn't believe his eyes. Chances were he couldn't. What were the odds of finding not just a faggot but an obvious-no, a flaming-faggot among the Nationalists' officers? Marshal Sanjurjo's whole campaign was about running such riffraff out of Spain, wasn't it? Of course it was-everybody on both sides knew that. But it was about running Reds out of Spain, too. Bernardo Uribe might want to stick it all kinds of places the priests didn't approve of (not that the priests didn't stick it into places like that, too), but he really and truly hated the Reds. Joaquin understood that, having seen him in action. The prisoner hadn't, and didn't.
"Yeah. What have we here, sweetheart?" With that miserable, ugly accent and a deep, rasping voice, the International couldn't coo the way Major Uribe did, but he gave it his best-or maybe his worst-shot.
Joaquin could have told him twitting the major wasn't the smartest thing to do. He could have, but he never got the chance. Uribe didn't even blink. He didn't waste a moment, either. "I'll show you what we have here, darling," he said, and drew his pistol. Raising it, he shot the captive in the face.
Red mist blew out of the back of the man's head. He fell over and scrabbled in the dirt. Uribe watched for a few seconds, then set the pistol by the International's ear and pulled the trigger again. The scrabbling stopped.
"That's what we have here, asshole," Uribe said, holstering the pistol once more.
"?Madre de Dios!" Joaquin crossed himself. "Begging your pardon, sir, but I was taking him back for questioning."
"?Ai!?Que lastima!" Major Uribe exclaimed. And it was a pity-for the International, whose blood still soaked into the thirsty ground. "The One Who questions him now already knows all the answers. And when He gets through with this fellow-it won't take long-the fucker will wish what I did to him was all he got. But he'll have worse, for all eternity."
"Er-yes." Delgadillo also believed in hell. The Bible talked about it, so it had to be true. And he believed Internationals were bound to go there. All the same, he hadn't intended to give Satan this one right then. "I, uh, thought we ought to find out what he knew, Senor."
Uribe flipped his hand, a gesture that magnificently mingled effeminacy and scorn. "I'll tell you what he didn't know, Joaquin: he didn't know how to keep a civil tongue in his head. And I'll tell you something else he didn't know, too: God forgives what you do in bed. He must, or He wouldn't have made it possible to do those things."
"Er," Joaquin said again. Something more seemed called for. "Yes, sir" seemed safe enough, so he tried that. How many priests would have apoplexy if they heard Major Uribe's doctrine? All of them, probably, clear on up to the Holy Father in Rome. If he told Uribe that… He tried not to shiver. He might end up lying in the dirt next to the dead International.
"Don't trouble your head about it, my dear," Uribe said. "Go back up and kill some more of these Communist monkeys. That's all you need to worry about."
"Yes, sir," Joaquin repeated, and he got out of there in a hurry. He'd often been more afraid of Sergeant Carrasquel than he was of the enemy. But Carrasquel would shoot him only if he tried to run away or something like that. The major might do it for the fun of watching him die. If that wasn't a bulge in Uribe's breeches, Joaquin had never seen one.
The Internationals might shoot him, too. He knew that. They'd come too close too often. But it was business for them, not sport. Killing for sport… He'd never been so glad to hurry to the front. Anything, as long as it got him away from Major Uribe. "YOU! Dernen! What the hell do you think you're doing?" Arno Baatz shouted.
"Just working on my foxhole, Corporal," Willi replied. Maybe a soft answer would turn away wrath. If Awful Arno was on the rag-and he sure sounded that way-the odds were against it, though.
Sure as hell, he thought one lousy pip on each shoulder strap made him a little tin god. "Well, cut that crap out and do something useful instead," he snarled. "Go chop up some firewood."
Willi didn't think fixing up his hole so he was less likely to get killed-and so he could sleep without getting all muddy-was crap. Saying as much would only piss Corporal Baatz off worse than ever, if such a thing was possible. They did need firewood; Willi happened to know that. He didn't know how he'd drawn the short straw for chopping it, but that was just Baatz moving in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.
"Right, Corporal," Willi said resignedly, and scrambled out of the foxhole. He had some wood in there, shoring up what would be his sleeping compartment. He kept his mouth shut about it, for fear Awful Arno would tell him to rip it out.
The Frenchies had left a lot of lumber behind when most of them cleared out of this village. Willi didn't particularly blame them for bailing. If his own small home town had got shelled and bombed first by one side and then by the other, he would have wanted to get the hell out of there, too.
They'd also left behind a really lovely axe: light, well balanced, sharp. It almost made chopping wood seem more sport than work. Almost. Imagining that fine steel edge coming down on Baatz's neck instead of blond oak livened up the job, too.
Awful Arno came by after a while to check on how Willi was doing. He eyed the pile of firewood, grunted, and went away again. From him, that was the equivalent of awarding the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds. If Baatz couldn't find anything to piss and moan about, there was nothing to find.
Quitting now, though, would only bring him back and give him the excuse he wanted to come down on Willi. Willi knew as much. He kept chopping for another twenty minutes. By then, the squad had enough wood for the next six months. It did if you listened to him tell it afterwards, anyhow.
He marveled that his palms weren't blistered when he did set down the axe. Part of that was the smooth, fine helve. And part of it was the thick calluses he'd acquired. Sure as the devil, soldiering toughened you up.
It also turned you into an accomplished thief. As soon as he got done, he started going through the houses in the village. Yeah, they'd already been picked over, but you never could tell what you'd find if you poked around a little. Some canned salmon, a little flask of what smelled like applejack, 250 francs somebody'd forgotten when he got out of town… A good scrounger could come up with all kinds of things other people had missed.
He'd share the salmon and the firewater. You didn't want to get greedy with stuff like that. Your buddies wouldn't stay buddies if you did. The French money went into a tunic pocket. You never could tell when that might come in handy. He came out into the late-afternoon sunshine, more than a little pleased with himself.
He came out into that sunshine at the exact moment a black Mercedes about as long as a light cruiser rumbled into the village. Two enormous men in black uniforms jumped out. Willi had been thinking soldiering toughened you. He might be tough, but he wouldn't have wanted to mess with either one of these SS behemoths. Something in the planes and angles of their faces said they not only knew all the dirty tricks but got off on them.