sympathy. Then he said, “Hang on. Take off your belt-nice and slow. Don’t do anything stupid. You can hold up your pants with one hand afterwards.”
“Oui, Monsieur.” The Ivan obeyed. The belt had several grenades on it. Only after it lay on the ground and the prisoner had straightened up again did Luc relax-a few millimeters’ worth, anyhow.
“ Now get moving,” he told the guy, and the Russian did. After a few steps, he asked, “How come you speak such good French?”
“It is the language of culture-and I am, or I was, a student of French history. Yevgeni Borisovich Novikov, at your service.” The POW made as if to bow, but didn’t follow through.
Culture. Right, Luc thought. The so-called student of French history looked like any other captured Russian: dirty, whiskery, in a baggy tunic and breeches. The splatters of blood from his ear were just accents. (But for the blood and the cut of his uniform, Luc didn’t look much different himself.)
After a few steps, he did ask what was on his mind: “If you’re so educated and everything, how come you’re only a crappy corporal and not an officer?” Why should he worry about offending a prisoner he’d never see again?
“Only a corporal?” Novikov barked bitter laughter. “For me, getting promoted was a miracle. I come from a kulak family. Do you know what kulaks are? Were, I should say-not many of us are left alive.”
“Kulaks are rich farmers, right?” Luc hoped he wasn’t confusing the Russian word with something else altogether.
But the captured, cultured corporal nodded. “Rich enough to have a few cows, anyhow. Richer than the ordinary muzhik. Richer because they worked harder than the ordinary muzhik and didn’t drink as much. Rich enough that they didn’t want to get herded into collective farms and give up more than they got. Rich enough to get called enemies of the state and go to the wall.” He grimaced. “I’m lucky to be alive, let alone a corporal.”
He might have thought that would impress Luc. And it did-but only up to a point. “Happy day, buddy,” Luc said. “Doesn’t mean you wouldn’t’ve shot me if you got the chance. I’ve been in this shit since ’38. Tell me about lucky to be alive.”
“It could be, though, that you were allowed to be a human being before the war began,” Novikov replied.
Allowed to be a human being. Luc chewed on that till he spotted Lieutenant Demange. If anyone ever stood foursquare against the notion of letting people be human beings, Demange was the man. He waved to Luc. “What the hell you got there?” he called, as if Luc had brought in some exotic animal instead of an ever so mundane POW.
“Russian who speaks French better’n you do, Lieutenant,” Luc answered sweetly.
Demange said something about Luc’s mother that he was unlikely to know from personal experience. Luc grinned; he’d got under Demange’s skin, which he didn’t manage to do every day. The lieutenant glowered at Yevgeni Novikov. “So what the fuck you got to say for yourself, prickface?”
“I am glad your sergeant here did not kill me when he could have,” Novikov told him. “I hope you will not, either.”
He knew what could happen to captured soldiers, then. Well, who didn’t? And Demange looked comically amazed. “You con!” he said to Luc. “The asshole does speak better French’n me. Better than you, too.”
“I’m not arguing,” Luc said. “The guys who question him won’t have to fuck around with German.” There were French interrogators who spoke Russian, but only a very few. But lots of Frenchmen could get along in German, and so could lots of Russians. Conducting an interrogation in French would be a luxury.
Lieutenant Demange nodded. “You’re right. I bet he speaks better French than the clowns who squeeze him, too.” He chuckled unpleasantly. “And a whole bunch of good that’ll do him. Go on and take him back, Harcourt.”
“Will do.” Luc would have taken Novikov back any which way. Any excuse to move away from the front line where people were liable to shoot at you was a good one. Now I only have to worry about shells and bombs, Luc thought with perfectly genuine relief. Had he tried to imagine that before the war, he would have decided he was nuts.
He had to give Novikov up at regimental headquarters: a scattered handful of tents any self-respecting Boy Scouts would have laughed at. They would, at least, unless a French picket plugged them before they could get close enough to laugh. The picket was invisible till he called a challenge. He’d definitely earned his merit badge in foxhole digging.
Luc didn’t know the headquarters password. A rigid Russian or German might have shot him for that. The sentry laughed at him and then passed him through. The guy could see and hear he was a Frenchman.
The officers at the HQ weren’t thrilled to see Yevgeni Novikov. One more POW-just what we don’t need, their attitude declared. Then he opened his mouth. They fell on him with glad cries after that, especially when they discovered he would sing like a skylark. They even gave Luc a cup of good burgundy-not pinard, heaven forbid; they were, after all, officers-and a pack of Gauloises as the bringer of good news.
Thus fortified, he started up to the front again. He took his own sweet time getting there. If Lieutenant Demange didn’t like it, too damn bad. But Demange wouldn’t care, not about something like this. Back when he was a sergeant, he would have taken his time returning, too. Anybody would. Who in blazes wanted to come straight to the killing zone?
That thought made Luc stop again. When you were heading to the front, any excuse was a good one. So it looked to him, at any rate. But there were a few white crows who were never happier than when they were mixing it up with the Nazis or Reds or whoever the enemy happened to be.
Most of the time, dumb cons like that didn’t last long. They got too eager, and somebody on the other side- probably some scared fuck who would rather have been in an estaminet somewhere with a barmaid in his lap-took them out. Not many people missed them once they were gone, either. They tended to get their comrades killed, too.
Every once in a while, though… By all accounts, Hitler had been that kind of ferocious loner. He’d spent just about all the last war as a runner at the front, and he’d come through with hardly a scratch. You couldn’t begin to figure the odds on that. The way it looked to Luc, God had dropped the ball there.
He laughed at himself. “Fat lot anybody can do about it now,” he said, and lit one of his new Gauloises.
Chapter 20
Instead of flying out of an airstrip in front of Smolensk, Stas Mouradian was flying out of one east of the city. That suggested that the fighting wasn’t going the way the Politburo and General Secretary Stalin had in mind.
Of course, other such hints had appeared long before this. When the war started, Stas had flown out of an airstrip in Slovakia. Slovakia lay a long way west of where he was flying from now. So did Poland. So did Byelorussia. He’d flown from airstrips in those places, too.
Looking at that progression (even if you ignored his detour to the Far East, which also hadn’t turned out well), you might start to suspect that Soviet leadership left something to be desired. As a matter of fact, Stas had started suspecting as much even in Slovakia.
He’d also suspected he’d better keep quiet about it. The enemy could kill you. So could your own side. Defeatism was a capital crime. If the Nazis shot you down, you at least had a chance of getting things over with in a hurry. Once the Chekists started in on you, they’d take their time and really make you sorry.
He wondered how long his squadron would be able to keep flying. Lately, days had been dawning with clouds massing in the northwest and drifting across the sky, covering it ever more thickly. The fall rasputitsa was coming. Airstrips, roads between towns, and everything else would turn to mud.
He also wondered why Red Air Force engineers hadn’t built more paved airfields around here. They might have given the Soviet Union a vital edge in its fight with the Fascists and their allies. Maybe the engineers had had other things to do, things they found more important. What those things might be, Stas couldn’t imagine.
Even saying there should be paved runways near Smolensk, or wondering aloud why there weren’t, was one more thing that might make the NKVD notice you. Stas knew they had a dossier on him. Well, they had a dossier on everybody. But the folder with his name on it would be thicker than most. Every so often, he couldn’t stop himself
