People farther south and east here didn’t seem so ready to prick up their ears and whinny at the sound of a crappy German oompah band, either. They remembered they were Soviet citizens. Maybe the NKVD had left them too scared to forget. Kuchkov wasn’t inclined to be picky. As long as they didn’t give the Hitlerite swine a helping hand, he didn’t care why.
He wished more T-34s would come into the fight. “The Fritzes shit their drawers every time they see one of those fuckers,” he said as his section cooked this and that around a fire built from the planks of a blown-up barn. “The pussies’d all run for home if we had enough.”
His men nodded. For one thing, he was obviously right. For another, arguing with him was a losing proposition. He backed up his words with fists, knees, teeth, a knife he carried in his boot, and anything else that might come in handy. Even the politruk had quit agitating that he should join the Party. In the middle of a war, a political officer could meet an untimely end just like anybody else. And chances were the authorities would be too busy with bigger stuff to ask a whole lot of questions.
Off to the north, a Soviet machine gun fired a couple of short bursts. No German machine gun answered, so maybe the guy at the trigger was shooting at shadows. Or maybe he’d scragged a Nazi. Kuchkov hoped so.
All of his men had cocked their heads in the direction of the gunfire. When it petered out, they nodded or smiled and went back to whatever they’d been doing. So did he. That wasn’t trouble. It wasn’t trouble for his section, anyhow, which was the only kind of trouble he worried about. The smart fuckers with the fancy rank badges on their uniforms cared about how the whole front was going. This tiny piece of it was plenty for him.
One of the soldiers turned coarse tobacco from a pouch and a strip of old newspaper into a cigarette. He lit it with the tip of a burning twig. After blowing out a long, gray smoke stream, he said, “Maybe we’ll get to stay here awhile.”
“Watch your dumb cunt of a mouth, Vanya,” Kuchkov said without heat.
“Huh?” Vanya wasn’t the brightest star in the sky. But even he got it after a couple of seconds. “Oh. Sorry, Comrade Sergeant.”
“ Sorry ’s all right for me. There’s plenty of pricks who’d stick sorry right up your sorry ass, though,” Kuchkov growled, more to make the soldier remember than because he was really angry. Officers went on and on about squashing defeatism wherever it stuck up its ugly head. The NKVD squashed people it imagined to be defeatists, usually for good. If somebody here ratted on poor, slow Vanya… Kuchkov didn’t know there was an informer in his section, but he would have been surprised if there weren’t. Unlike the poor jerk with the roll-your-own, he understood instinctively how the system worked.
He had his own reasons for hoping the Red Army could hold the line in these parts, even if he wasn’t dumb enough to come out with them. There was a village maybe a kilometer and a half behind this campfire, and his eye had fallen on one of the girls there, a cute little blonde named Nina.
She’d smiled back at him, too, damned if she hadn’t. Some women liked handsome. Kuchkov didn’t have a prayer with them. He knew it. He didn’t like it, but what can a guy do about his own mug? Some women, though, some women liked strong. And with those broads he had a fighting chance. He wasn’t pretty and he wasn’t smart, but he could break any two ordinary jerks over his knee like skinny sticks.
A smile, the right kind of smile, was all it took. If he could get Nina alone, especially if he had some vodka along, he knew damn well he’d be able to slide his hand under her skirt. The war was won as soon as you did that.
But if the Germans drove the Red Army back before he got the chance, some Nazi son of a bitch with broad shoulders would end up balling her instead. That would be a waste, nothing else but.
Kuchkov tore off his own strip of Pravda. Or maybe it was Izvestia or Red Star, the Army paper. Since he couldn’t read, he didn’t care. He wiped his ass with newsprint. And he rolled smokes with it. “Let me have some of that makhorka, Vanya,” he said.
“Sure, Comrade Sergeant.” The soldier passed him the pouch. Vanya might be dim, but he was as eager to please as a dog. With deft fingers, Kuchkov formed a cigarette. He lit it the same way the other man had. He had food, he had smoke in his lungs, he might get laid before too long, the Germans seemed pretty quiet… Life could have been worse.
Since the Germans stayed quiet through the night, at sunrise the next morning he made up an excuse to go back to the village. No one asked him any questions. An ugly mug and a strong, hairy back made other people mind their own business. He knew what they called him when that back was turned. When he overheard it, he broke some heads. That worked. Let them mock, as long as they feared.
He reached the place just as the peasants were going out to their chores. Waving, he called, “Nina! Come here!” He didn’t go Come here, you bitch! For him, it was the height of suavity.
She waved back, which made his hopes-among other things-rise. “What do you need, Sergeant?”
You. But that would be for later. He pointed to a nearby stand of brushy woods he’d noticed-the best privacy you could find around here. “Let’s talk about you whipping up a big tub of stew for my guys, hey?”
“Where do I get the stuff to put in it?” she asked. The obvious answer was from your village. That would leave the people there hungry.
But he just said, “Well, we can talk about that.” He hopped over a bush and walked into the woods. Nina followed. He offered her his water bottle. “Here. Have a knock of this first, sweetie.”
Calling it a knock warned her. Her eyes didn’t cross when she swigged Red Army vodka. Calling her sweetie probably warned her, too. But she was smiling when she handed back the water bottle. “You should drink some.”
“Fucking right I should.” He titled his head back. Fire slid down his throat and exploded in his stomach like a 105. He held out the vodka. “Have some more.”
“Sure. Best way to start the day.” Nina was a Russian, all right.
“Almost the best way.” Kuchkov grabbed her. She squealed and she giggled and she made a token try at pushing him away, but then they were rolling on the ground together and kissing. When he did reach under her skirt, she laughed again and then she purred. Who ended up on top was a matter of luck. She undid his fly, sucked him for a minute to make him even harder than he was already, and impaled herself on him. His hands clutched her meaty backside while they thrashed. She had plenty to hold on to.
She threw her head back and mewled. A moment later, he grunted as joy shot through him. A moment after that, before he could decide whether to slide out or start again, German shells started landing on the Russian line and reaching back toward the village.
That made up his mind, and in a hurry. He threw Nina off him, even his rude chivalry forgotten. She let out an indignant squawk. He didn’t care. He scrambled to his feet, shoving his cock back into his pants and doing up the buttons. Then he took off on the dead run, back toward his section. Fun was fun, but killing the fucking Fascists really mattered.
He ignored the shell bursts. If one got him, it got him. None did. He wasn’t as fast as an Olympic track man getting back, but an Olympic track man didn’t run in boots and carry a submachine gun. He reached his men before the barrage stopped and the ground attack came in.
“Hold on to your dicks, boys,” he called when the artillery let up. Nina’d sure had hold of his. “We’ll slaughter the clapped-out cunts.”
They didn’t. The Germans were veterans, and didn’t assume the shelling would make their advance easy. They came cautiously, by small groups, firing and moving. Where they met strong defensive fire, they held up and started digging themselves foxholes. They weren’t going to let their officers get them killed if they could help it. If they hadn’t been Nazis, they would have been sensible men.
For a wonder, Russian tanks showed up before the Germans brought up any armor. The Fritzes retreated sullenly. Maybe I can fuck Nina again tomorrow, Kuchkov thought. You never knew till you tried.
Pete McGill passed five-inch shells as fast as he could. The Japs had more dive-bombers than Carter had little liver pills. Sweat poured down his bare back. He’d be sunburned like nobody’s business if he lived, but that was the least of his worries. He’d got way too hot and sticky to stay in his shirt.
Most of the guys at the gun wore nothing but a helmet above the waist. You needed a helmet. You needed one bad. What went up eventually came down, and lots and lots was going up. Fragments rained down all over the Pacific. You’d feel like a jerk if one of them smashed your unprotected skull-but not for long, worse luck for you.
