Last Orders: The War That Came Early (10 page)

He knew the hard way how true that was. In 1917, several French divisions had mutinied instead of making the big attack the clowns in the fancy kepis told them to put in. The government and the Army eventually got things under control again by mixing executions and concessions, but it was close. More importantly, they managed to keep the
Boches
from finding out about the mutiny. The Kaiser’s bastards could have torn a hole in the line kilometers wide, but they never moved.

Louis Mirouze wasn’t around yet in 1917. He might have learned about the mutinies in his training, but they were just school lessons to him. And who ever gave a damn about school lessons? Nobody, not since Cain sneaked away from Adam to play hooky. Abel stuck around for all the classes. No wonder Cain went and murdered him!

“We have to keep the pressure on the enemy,” Mirouze insisted. “It keeps him from sending reinforcements against the Russians.”

“Fuck the Russians. Let them take care of themselves. I’m worrying about us,” Demange said. “Only reason Stalin’s better than Hitler is, he’s farther away.”

“You are of course an expert on this, sir?” Mirouze asked with frigid politesse.

“Hell of a lot more than you are, kid,” Demange said. “I was fucking
in
Russia with our expeditionary force. I’ve seen the place. The only reason more Russians don’t go over to Hitler is, he jumps on ’em even harder’n Stalin does. Proves he’s a damn fool in the end, you ask me. But plenty’d sooner see him than Uncle Joe any which way. Russia! Pah!” He spat out his cigarette butt with the disgusted exclamation and lit a new one.

“I … did not know you had served in the Soviet Union,” Mirouze said slowly.

“All kinds of things you don’t know, aren’t there, buddy?” Demange growled. “And, like I said a little while ago, we do what we’ve got to do, sure, but you won’t win the goddamn war all by your lonesome. This stinking company won’t win the war all by its lonesome, either. So try to keep the guys alive, all right? They’ll like you for it, and you won’t need to worry about getting shot in the back ‘by accident,’ know what I mean?”

Louis Mirouze’s expression said he knew only too well. Such things did happen—usually when you couldn’t pin them on anybody. Then the youngster’s eyes narrowed as he studied Demange. He had to know Demange had won a field promotion. Nobody his age who hadn’t would be just a lieutenant. The French Army’s tolerance for fuckups was enormous, but not limitless—not unless you were a general, anyway.

No doubt Mirouze was wondering whether Demange had shot an officer in the back “by accident” while he was a common soldier or a noncom. Demange hadn’t, not personally, even if there were a good many officers whose untimely demises he’d mourned not a bit. But if the kid wanted to think he had, he didn’t mind.

They got the order to go forward again a week later. This time, they had a couple of Somua S-42s with them. The latest French
char
was almost as good as a long-gunned Panzer IV. It had thicker, better-sloped armor than the German machine, but its cannon wasn’t as powerful. Still, it did stand a decent chance against most of Fritz’s panzers, and it was hell on infantry.

“On les aura!”
Mirouze shouted as he trotted up with the
poilus. We’ll get ’em!
It had been Pétain’s slogan at Verdun. You saw it on posters in the last war. Demange wondered how the puppy had heard of it.

The S-42s sprayed machine-gun fire at the German positions ahead. One thing that made them pretty fair
chars
was that they’d stolen a leaf from the German book. They’d stopped asking the commander to make like a one-armed paperhanger with hives. Now the turret held a gunner and a loader, too, so the commander didn’t have to try to do everything at once.

Then, quite suddenly, there was a noise like a bad accident in a steel mill. One of the S-42s stopped running and started burning. None of the crew got out. As Demange loped past, he saw a hole in the glacis plate you could throw a dog through. A Panzer IV could kill an S-42. He hadn’t thought a Panzer IV could murder an S-42 like that.

A moment later, somebody yelled “Tiger!” and pointed behind what was left of a barn. At a distance, you could mistake a Tiger for a Panzer IV. More often, it worked the other way round
—poilus
thought the medium was the heavy, and panicked because they did. There was a family resemblance. But the big brother was a much rougher customer than his smaller sibling.

And this
was
a Tiger. The surviving S-42 fired at it. The 75mm AP round hit, too. Demange could see sparks fly where hardened steel slammed into hardened steel. But the French
char
’s shot didn’t penetrate the Tiger’s thick armor. The German machine’s long, fearsome gun swung to bear on its new target. It didn’t traverse very fast—that turret was heavy indeed—but the Tiger’s 88 spoke before the S-42 could fire again.

One shot was all it took. With a Tiger, one shot was commonly all it took. Flame blasted out of every hatch in the French
char
. An enormous smoke ring blew from the commander’s cupola, as if the Devil were in there smoking a fat Havana. Ammunition started cooking off inside the steel carapace, with roars from the cannon shells and cheerful popping noises from the machine-gun cartridges. Again, no one came out. The most Demange could hope for was that the poor
cons
in there died before they hurt too much. He feared even that was a forlorn hope.

Then the Tiger started lobbing HE at the French foot soldiers. An 88mm shell was big enough to have a good-sized bursting charge and to throw plenty of knife-edged fragments.

“Down!” Demange yelled. “Dig in!” He yanked the entrenching tool off his belt and followed his own order. Yes, if they couldn’t advance, they could at least try to survive.

Getting pulled out of the line for a while felt wonderful to Theo Hossbach. As soon as you got beyond range of the Red Army’s guns, the food improved. You didn’t need to worry about waking up dead in the morning. Well, you didn’t need to worry so much, anyhow. You wanted to keep a Schmeisser handy, in case of partisans.

Mechanics who weren’t hampered by front-line tool shortages and frantic rush went over the Panzer IV from muzzle brake to exhaust pipe. Any time in the field was hard time for a panzer. This one would run a lot better for a while after it went back into combat. When you could count on your machine to do what you needed, you fought more boldly.

Some of the crew visited an army whorehouse. Theo stayed away. Shy among men, he was even more so with women. Adi Stoss didn’t go, either. “I don’t mind buying it, as long as the girl’s there for the money,” he said. “But when they use bayonets to drag ’em out of the village …” He shook his head. “That’s not my idea of a good time.”

“Nope. Not mine, either.” Theo gave forth with a few words.

Instead of fornication, they had football. Some Polish troops were
getting in a little rest and recuperation not far from the German encampment. Among their supplies, they had goals and nets—they used football to keep fit. When they challenged the panzer crews to a match, national pride forbade turning them down.

Theo was a goalkeeper—fittingly, the loner on the pitch. And Adi was a center-forward: a striker. A pretty decent player himself, Theo knew Adi outclassed him … and almost everyone else. The Poles didn’t know it yet. Well, they’d find out.

The pitch was the flattest stretch of nearby field they could find. German and Polish soldiers gathered by the touchlines to watch and to bet. A lot of the Poles spoke German (some of the Polish soldiers spoke Yiddish, one of the more interesting complications in a war full of them). To most of the
Wehrmacht
men, Polish was just as much mooing and barking as Russian was. Not to Theo, who came from Breslau, not far from the border. Lots of Poles lived and worked in Breslau. He would never be fluent in their language, but he understood bits and pieces of it.

He said no more about that than he did about anything else. What the Poles didn’t know wouldn’t help them.

The referee was a German. Both linesmen were Poles. With a little luck, their biases would offset each other. Without that luck, they might turn the spectators and gamblers into brawlers.

No one on either side or in the crowd expected the referee to call the match closely. Army football was a different beast from the game the professionals played on close-cropped grass. You bumped, you shoved, you elbowed, you got away with whatever you could. It wasn’t quite rugby, but you could see rugby from there.

As soon as the match started, the Poles discovered that Adi was faster and more nimble than any of them. They started roughing him up to slow him down. That was how army football worked. Then one of the Poles staggered away from him with blood streaming from his nose.

“Sorry, buddy,” Adi said. “Didn’t mean to do that.” If they elbowed him, he’d elbow them right back. If he claimed he didn’t do it on purpose, well, that was how army football worked, too.

He scored a lovely goal a couple of minutes later—or he thought he did. But the linesman’s flag was up, signaling offside. The goal didn’t
count. He thought he’d been onside when the ball was kicked. So did Theo, though he had to admit the linesman was closer and had a better viewing angle than he did.

Even without any one player who could match Adi, the Poles were good. They seemed to have played together more than their German foes. They ran plays: one guy knew where the other guy was going, and did his best to put the ball there. Their greenish khaki uniforms were always down close to the German goal.

A slick pass put the ball at the feet of a Pole in the penalty box. Theo ran toward him, spreading his arms.
Make yourself big
was a ’keeper’s first commandment. It made the shot harder for the attacker.

“Far post!” another Pole yelled.

Guessing the guy with the ball would follow the advice, Theo flung himself to his left. The ball took a deflection off his hand and bounced wide of the post. The Poles got a corner kick, but not a goal.

“Gowno!”
the shooter said loudly, the way a German would have said
Scheisse!
He sent Theo a suspicious stare. “Did you understand him?” he asked in Polish, as if that would have been cheating. Theo gave him a high-grade idiot stare. The man asked the same thing
auf Deutsch
. Theo looked just as blank. Shaking his head, the Pole jostled for position for the corner.

When Theo punched the ball away, another German booted it farther down the pitch. The Poles had brought up their backs in hopes of converting the corner; their defense was in momentary disarray. Adi Stoss got to the ball a split second ahead of a Pole. He faked right, went left, and squirted past him. The Pole tried to knock him down, but he jumped over the fellow’s upraised leg.

The Polish ’keeper ran out to close down the angle. Adi softly chipped the ball over the luckless man’s head. It bounced once in front of the goal, then rolled into the net.

Not even the Polish linesman down there could find any way to disallow the score. He looked as impressed as everybody else, in fact. The German soldiers watching the match whooped and cheered like maniacs. Even some of the Poles applauded. The goal was that pretty.

Two Polish forwards stood catching their breath in the German
penalty area. “Not bad,” one of them said to the other, “but let’s see the fucker do it again.” His friend nodded.

It was 2–2 at the half. One of the Poles’ scores was an own goal—a cross bounced off a German defender’s behind. It was past Theo and into the net before he could do anything about it.

After the break, they switched ends and went at it again. The Poles scored—that one went right through Theo’s spraddled legs. He was mad, because he thought he should have stopped it. A few minutes later, the Germans leveled. Adi made a sweet pass into the area, and another German headed it home.

There things stuck. Theo made a good save. So did the Poles’ goalkeeper, who jumped as if on springs to tip a rifle shot of Adi’s just over the crossbar. Adi waved to him, paying his respects. The ’keeper sketched a salute in return. He’d seen what he was up against.

As they neared the final whistle, Theo grew just about sure the match would end in a draw. He wanted a win, but a draw wasn’t so bad. Nobody’s national pride would be damaged that way. He did wish he hadn’t let in the last goal.

The Polish ’keeper must also have decided it was safe to relax a little. He took a couple of steps forward, away from the frame of the net. Why not? Safe as houses. The ball was out near the halfway line.

Theo could have told him nowhere on the pitch was safe when Adi was around. He could have, but he didn’t need to. Adi showed the Pole instead. He launched a howitzer shot with his right foot, high and looping and dropping down straight toward the goal. The ’keeper staggered back, desperately throwing up his arms. He got the fingertips of his right hand on the ball. Theo hadn’t thought he could even do that. It wasn’t enough. He couldn’t flip the ball over the bar this time. It went in. Adi’d done it again, all right—in spades.

When the referee blew the whistle a couple of minutes later, the triumphant Germans carried him off the field on their shoulders. He was grinning like a fool and laughing like a lunatic. Part of that might have been triumph, too.