“That’s what screwed us the last time. I just hope it doesn’t screw us again,” Adi said. Maybe he trusted the two new guys further than Witt did. Maybe he had his reasons, too. If Eckhardt or Poske ever reported him to the powers that be, odds were they wouldn’t do it for anything so trivial as a few ill-chosen words. He had bigger things than that to worry about.
“I wouldn’t mind getting the hell out of Russia. I mean, who in his right mind would?” Eckhardt said, a sentiment that certainly had its points. He went on, “I don’t want to get my sorry ass run out of Russia, though, know what I mean? We get run out of Russia, things aren’t going so good.”
Adi nodded. So did Theo; that was plainly true. But Adi said, “You know what this miserable country is? It’s a swamp with no bottom, that’s what. We throw in panzers and planes and people, and then we throw in some more and some more and some more after that, and the swamp just kind of goes glup! and it’s like we never did anything to begin with.”
“Glup!” Theo echoed. He liked that.
“There’s got to be a bottom somewhere,” Hermann Witt said slowly. “The Ivans have to run out of land and soldiers and machines sooner or later.” He grimaced. “Only thing I wonder is whether the Reich ’s pole is long enough to reach that bottom.”
Sooner or later. People had been saying the Russians were bound to run out of people and stuff ever since the Germans started fighting them in northeastern Poland. Now the Germans (and the Poles and Romanians and Magyars and Slovaks, but-dammit! — not the English or French any more) were halfway to Moscow. All the same, sooner or later was looking more and more like later.
The fire dwindled down toward extinction. Like the other guys in the crew, Theo glanced around for more wood to throw on it. He didn’t see any. There wasn’t any to see; they’d burnt the last of it. Sergeant Witt said, “Lothar, go on out to the woodpile in the square and bring back some more fuel.”
Eckhardt picked up his Schmeisser. Everybody kept a weapon handy all the time. You never could tell when some Reds would sneak past the German pickets and raise hell. But the gunner couldn’t go out without pissing and moaning first: “I just fetched firewood like two days ago. Why don’t you send the Hebe instead?”
It hadn’t been noisy inside the hut before. Now silence seemed sudden and absolute. The wind still howled and whined, but that might have been a million kilometers away. “What did you call me?” Adi asked softly. His machine pistol lay beside him. He wasn’t holding it, the way Lothar held his. All the same, Theo would have bet on Adi if shooting started. And shooting didn’t seem very far off at all. Theo glanced down at his own Schmeisser- just in case, he told himself. In case of what, he didn’t want to think about.
For a wonder, Lothar actually got how far he’d stuck his foot into it. “Hey, take an even strain,” he said, making no quick or herky-jerky moves. “I didn’t mean anything nasty by it. Honest to God, Adi, I didn’t. But, so you know, everybody in the company calls you that when you aren’t around to hear it.”
Theo hadn’t heard anyone call Adi that. Which proved… what? Not much, probably. If self-sufficient Adi had a best buddy, it couldn’t be anybody but Theo. People wouldn’t say anything Adi didn’t fancy where Theo was around to overhear it. If it got back to Adi… Theo wouldn’t have wanted him for an enemy. Nobody with a pfennig’s worth of sense would.
“Lothar, first things first. You’ll get the wood ’cause I told you to,” Witt said. “If I wanted Adi to fetch it, I would have sent him. Hear me?”
“Yes, Sergeant,” Eckhardt said, his voice uncommonly solemn.
Witt nodded, recognizing that. “ Wunderbar. Now, about the other thing… If people do call Adi that, tell ’em for Christ’s sake to cut it out. We need the SS sniffing around us like we need an asshole where our mouth ought to be. You hear me there?”
“Yes, Sergeant,” the gunner repeated, more formally yet.
“All right. Now get the hell out of here and bring back that wood before we freeze to death. Go on- scram!”
Eckhardt went. “You didn’t need to make a big deal out of it, Sergeant,” Adi said after a moment. “I shouldn’t’ve got pissed off.”
“People talk too goddamn much,” Witt said, a sentiment Theo heartily agreed with. The panzer commander went on, “That’s a dangerous nickname to have. It’d be dangerous for a fat blond Bavarian.”
He left it there. He didn’t say It’s really dangerous for somebody who kind of looks like a Jew, and who just happens to be missing his foreskin. Adi was no dummy. He could work that out for himself. After another pause, he said, “A while ago, Theo told me the guys knew. I’d kind of got used to that.”
“Knowing is one thing. Blabbing’s something else,” Witt said. “If things were different, you’d probably be a major by now, and ordering all of us around.”
“I don’t want to tell anybody what to do,” Adi said. “I just want people to leave me the fuck alone.”
Words burst from Theo: “No wonder I like you!”
The other crewmen laughed like loons. “No wonder at all,” Adi agreed.
“Enough, you lovebirds,” Witt said, and the panzer men laughed some more. “Getting through the war in one piece-like you said before, Adi, that’s the only thing that counts. The rest is just bullshit. So let’s get through, and if the other stuff needs sorting out we can always do it later.”
Lothar came back with an armload of wood to build up the fire. Theo fed in a few little skinny chunks. When they were burning well, he added some bigger ones. After a while, they caught, too. Like wall lizards basking in the sun, all five panzer men leaned toward the flames, soaking up the wonderful warmth.
