The War That Came Early: West and East by Harry Turtledove Page A
Authors: Harry Turtledove
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Mediterranean on the most rickety freighter ever built, just to get another chance to let the Germans kill him.
They hadn’t managed that, either. He’d done some more damage to them, especially after he got his hands on an antitank rifle a Frenchman didn’t need any more. The damned thing was almost as tall as he was. It weighed a tonne. But the rounds it fired, each as thick as a man’s finger, really could pierce armor. Not all the time, but often enough. And what those rounds did to mere flesh and blood … Its bullets flew fast and flat, and they were accurate out past a kilometer and a half. Just the shock of impact could kill, even if the hit wasn’t in a spot that would have been mortal to an ordinary rifle round.
The Germans hadn’t got into Laon, but they’d knocked it about a good deal. Stukas had bombed the medieval cathedral to hell and gone. Nousing those towers as observation points, not any more. The Nazis had blasted the bejesus out of the ancient houses and winding streets up on the high ground, too. The lower, more modern, part of the city was in better shape—not that better meant good. Loaf under his arm, Vaclav trudged past a Citroën’s burnt-out carcass.
He wore new French trousers, of a khaki not quite so dark as Czech uniforms used. His boots were also French, and better than the Czech clodhoppers he’d worn out. But his tunic, with its corporal’s pips on his shoulder straps, remained Czech. And he liked his domed Czech helmet much better than the crested ones French troops wore: the steel seemed twice as thick.
He had the helmet strapped to his belt now. He didn’t want that weight on his head unless he was up at the front. He smiled at a pretty girl coming past with a load of washing slung over her back in a bedsheet. She nodded with a small smile of her own, but only a small one. Vaclav was a tall, solid, fair man. When the French saw him, half the time they feared he was a German even if he did wear khaki. That he couldn’t speak their language didn’t help.
From behind Vaclav, someone did speak in French to the girl with the laundry. She sniffed, stuck her nose in the air, and stalked away. “Oh, well,” the man said, this time in Czech, “they can’t shoot me for trying. She was cute.”
“She sure was, Sergeant,” Jezek agreed.
Sergeant Benjamin Halévy was a Frenchman with parents from Czechoslovakia. Fluent in both languages, he served as liaison between the French and their allies. Parents from Czechoslovakia didn’t exactly make him a Czech, though. His curly red hair and proud nose shouted his Jewishness to the world. Jew or not, he was a good soldier. Vaclav didn’t love Jews, but he couldn’t quarrel about that. And Halévy had even stronger reasons to hate the Nazis than he did himself.
Those German guns in the distance thundered again. Halévy frowned. “Wonder what the fuckers are up to,” he said.
“They aren’t shooting at me right now,” Vaclav said. “As long as they aren’t, they can do anything else they want.”
“There you go. You’re an old soldier, sure as shit,” the sergeant said.Other guns started barking: French 75s. Halévy listened to them with a curious twisted smile. “I wish we had more heavy guns around Laon. We could hit the Nazis hard. They’ve got this long southern flank just waiting for us to take a bite out of it.”
“That would be good,” Vaclav said. Hitting the Nazis hard always sounded good to him. If only he were doing it in Czechoslovakia.
“Of course, by the time the brass sees the obvious and moves part of what we need into place for a half-assed attack, the Germans will have seen the light, too, and they’ll hand us our heads,” Halévy said.
Vaclav wondered if the Jew had been that cynical before he became a noncom. Whether Halévy had or not, what he came out with sounded all too likely to the Czech. “Maybe we ought to move up without waiting for the brass,” Jezek said.
Halévy laid a
They hadn’t managed that, either. He’d done some more damage to them, especially after he got his hands on an antitank rifle a Frenchman didn’t need any more. The damned thing was almost as tall as he was. It weighed a tonne. But the rounds it fired, each as thick as a man’s finger, really could pierce armor. Not all the time, but often enough. And what those rounds did to mere flesh and blood … Its bullets flew fast and flat, and they were accurate out past a kilometer and a half. Just the shock of impact could kill, even if the hit wasn’t in a spot that would have been mortal to an ordinary rifle round.
The Germans hadn’t got into Laon, but they’d knocked it about a good deal. Stukas had bombed the medieval cathedral to hell and gone. Nousing those towers as observation points, not any more. The Nazis had blasted the bejesus out of the ancient houses and winding streets up on the high ground, too. The lower, more modern, part of the city was in better shape—not that better meant good. Loaf under his arm, Vaclav trudged past a Citroën’s burnt-out carcass.
He wore new French trousers, of a khaki not quite so dark as Czech uniforms used. His boots were also French, and better than the Czech clodhoppers he’d worn out. But his tunic, with its corporal’s pips on his shoulder straps, remained Czech. And he liked his domed Czech helmet much better than the crested ones French troops wore: the steel seemed twice as thick.
He had the helmet strapped to his belt now. He didn’t want that weight on his head unless he was up at the front. He smiled at a pretty girl coming past with a load of washing slung over her back in a bedsheet. She nodded with a small smile of her own, but only a small one. Vaclav was a tall, solid, fair man. When the French saw him, half the time they feared he was a German even if he did wear khaki. That he couldn’t speak their language didn’t help.
From behind Vaclav, someone did speak in French to the girl with the laundry. She sniffed, stuck her nose in the air, and stalked away. “Oh, well,” the man said, this time in Czech, “they can’t shoot me for trying. She was cute.”
“She sure was, Sergeant,” Jezek agreed.
Sergeant Benjamin Halévy was a Frenchman with parents from Czechoslovakia. Fluent in both languages, he served as liaison between the French and their allies. Parents from Czechoslovakia didn’t exactly make him a Czech, though. His curly red hair and proud nose shouted his Jewishness to the world. Jew or not, he was a good soldier. Vaclav didn’t love Jews, but he couldn’t quarrel about that. And Halévy had even stronger reasons to hate the Nazis than he did himself.
Those German guns in the distance thundered again. Halévy frowned. “Wonder what the fuckers are up to,” he said.
“They aren’t shooting at me right now,” Vaclav said. “As long as they aren’t, they can do anything else they want.”
“There you go. You’re an old soldier, sure as shit,” the sergeant said.Other guns started barking: French 75s. Halévy listened to them with a curious twisted smile. “I wish we had more heavy guns around Laon. We could hit the Nazis hard. They’ve got this long southern flank just waiting for us to take a bite out of it.”
“That would be good,” Vaclav said. Hitting the Nazis hard always sounded good to him. If only he were doing it in Czechoslovakia.
“Of course, by the time the brass sees the obvious and moves part of what we need into place for a half-assed attack, the Germans will have seen the light, too, and they’ll hand us our heads,” Halévy said.
Vaclav wondered if the Jew had been that cynical before he became a noncom. Whether Halévy had or not, what he came out with sounded all too likely to the Czech. “Maybe we ought to move up without waiting for the brass,” Jezek said.
Halévy laid a
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