Zober's eyes might have been cut from blue and white glass, like the ones on an expensive mannequin. "You don't know what you're talking about," he said, and absolute assurance filled his voice. "You don't have the faintest idea. A week in our hands, and you'd beg to fight at the front, even in a punishment company."
Willi licked his lips. He knew about those. Officers and men who'd disgraced themselves by running away or otherwise fucking up got handed rifles and thrown in where the fighting was hottest. If they tried to run again, they got shot from behind. If they lived, they redeemed themselves… or maybe they just won the chance to put out another fire by smothering it with their bodies.
You're a tough guy when you're working over poor bastards who can't hit back, Willi thought. How long would you last up here, though? Not long, I bet. If the bad guys didn't get you, somebody on your own side would arrange an "accident." No one talked about that kind of thing, which didn't mean it didn't happen every once in a while.
You couldn't show thoughts like that, not unless you wanted to find out what camps were like from the inside out. Even if his father had called him a dummy, Willi wasn't that stupid. Wearily, he said, "Look, give it a rest, why don't you? I don't know what happened to Wolfgang, and I wish I did. We were friends. I miss him."
By the glint in Zober's glassy orbs, that was almost a ticket to Dachau all by itself. "He was a criminal. He was an enemy of the Reich, and of the Fuhrer."
"He fucking shot enemies of the Reich," Willi answered. "He was a damn good soldier, and one of the best scroungers I've ever known. I'm still here answering your questions on account of him. The only good thing I can say about what happened to him is, he never knew what got him. I should be so lucky."
"If he did not desert to the enemy," Zober said implacably.
Willi stood up. "I know you're in the SS, sir. But if you say that to the soldiers who know Wolfgang, somebody's gonna punch you in the snoot." He walked out without waiting for leave from the blackshirt.
The funny thing was, he was dead right. Yes, Wolfgang had deserted. As far as Willi knew, though, he was the only guy on this side of the line who knew it. Anybody who didn't know wouldn't believe it. And anybody who heard it from a prick like Waldemar Zober would want to flatten his nose for him.
Only one thing was wrong with walking out on Zober: it didn't get Willi away from his problem. Arno Baatz was also convinced he had something to do with Wolfgang's going missing. Willi couldn't make Awful Arno feel inferior for not being a Landser. Baatz was one-maybe not a good soldier, but a soldier even so.
"You two clowns were asshole buddies," the corporal said. "Don't waste my time telling me you weren't, 'cause I know better. When the SS men told you they were looking for him, what would you do but squeal like a little pink piggy?"
"I didn't do anything like that, goddammit." Willi had told the same lie so many times by now, he was starting to believe it himself. He could feel himself getting angry, which was pretty funny when you thought about it. The anger might be ersatz, but it felt the same as the real thing. "All I did was go to the front line when the shelling started." He looked Awful Arno up and down. "I didn't see you there."
"Well, I was," Baatz said, which might have been true and might have been as big a whopper as any of the ones Willi had come out with. The noncom went on, "And sooner or later you'll tell me one I believe."
"Let's go talk to Captain Lammers," Willi said. "Either he'll jug me or he'll tell you to leave me the fuck alone. Either way, I'll be better off than I am listening to your bullshit all the time."
Baatz blinked. His eyes were dark, and reminded Willi of a mean dog's. Sometimes you could make a mean dog turn tail if you yelled at it and moved towards it instead of running. Sometimes you'd get bitten, though. Willi waited to see what would happen here. "You… want to talk to the captain?" Awful Arno said slowly.
"Bet your ass I do. If it'd get you and that blackshirt out of my hair, I'd talk to the general commanding the division." Willi wondered if he really meant that. Officers with fancy shoulder straps needed to listen to privates' troubles the way they needed getting their headquarters bombed.
But Arno Baatz was also imagining coming face-to-face with a general. By the look plastered across his ugly mug, he wasn't liking it much. He tried to hide that by jeering: "You think the division CO has time for piss-ants like you? Don't make me laugh!"
"The captain will," Willi said. "Let's go find him."
And Captain Lammers would. Awful Arno knew that as well as Willi did. He said something about Willi's mother. Had Willi popped him, they would have visited the captain on the corporal's terms. Willi just stood there. Baatz glowered as fearsomely as he knew how. Willi didn't blink "I've got my eye on you, Dernen," Awful Arno snarled, and he stomped away.
Five minutes later, Willi heard him screaming at some other private for having a dirty rifle. Willi smiled. If you beat up a little kid, he'd turn around and pound on some kid who was smaller yet to make himself feel better. Arno Baatz worked the same way.
Waldemar Zober summoned him one more time. "You'd better watch yourself, Dernen," the blackshirt said. If he'd worn a mustache, he would have twirled it like a villain in an old-time melodrama. "We've got our eye on you."
"Yes, sir," Willi said, in lieu of We? You and your tapeworm? But right after that, Zober went off to inflict himself on some other Wehrmacht men who were just doing their damnedest to win the war for their country.
Arno Baatz kept assigning Willi latrine duty and the other nastiest fatigues he could find. Then the gods of army luck reached down and tapped Willi on the shoulder. A promotion came through. All of a sudden, he found himself a Gefreiter, the lowest of the several grades between private and corporal. He got to wear a pip on his sleeve-not on his shoulder straps, but even so… And, as the rank's name implied, he was freed from the fatigue duties ordinary privates got stuck with. Baatz fumed, but he couldn't do anything about it.
One of these days, you son of a bitch, I'll rank you, Willi thought-a new idea, but a mighty tasty one. See how you like it then. Yeah-just see. SERGEANT DEMANGE LOOKED DETERMINED and disgusted at the same time. "We are going to drive the Germans back," he declared. "That's what the officers say, and so that's what we're going to do." He spat out the microscopic butt of his latest Gitane, ground it into the grass under his bootheel, and lit another one.
The soldiers in his section listened: some eagerly, some impassively, some apprehensively. Luc Harcourt counted himself in the last group. He'd seen too much of the Boches, in defense and in attack. He was anything but thrilled about giving the blond boys in field-gray another chance to ventilate him. He knew Sergeant Demange felt exactly the same way. He also knew that did both of them exactly no good.
"What if the Germans are winding up to take a punch at us?" a soldier asked. The question was very much on Luc's mind, too, but he didn't come out of it. You couldn't ask such things so easily when you were a corporal. Luc didn't much like the responsibility that came with his small rank, but he accepted it.
Sergeant Demange folded both hands into fists and smacked them into each other. "That's what happens then, Louis," he answered. "But the brass doesn't think it'll go like that. They say the Germans have been shipping tanks and shit out of here. They aren't loading up for a punch of their own."