The danger was unreal. It was all part of an explosive symphony. She had the manna. She could not be harmed. Nothing but vengeance lay ahead. She had only to crawl on.
Was it the drug that made her think like that? Was there an euphoric mixed in the injections? She had felt nothing like this during the raids. During the raids there was only fear, and the struggle to remember whether she had left the teapot boiling while the bombs blew off.
Macbeth. Once she had played Lady Macbeth upon the Moscow stage. How did it go?
But that wasn’t quite it. That wasn’t quite what she felt. It was a new power that dwelt in her bosom. It was something else.
Her guard uniform was caked with mud, and the insignia was torn loose from her collar. The earth scuffed her knees and the brush scratched her arms. She kept falling flat to avoid the raking fire of her own machine guns. And yet it was necessary that she stay on the ridge and appear to be seeking a way across the river.
She was too intent upon watching the other side to notice the sergeant. She crawled over a corpse and nearly fell in the foxhole with him. She had been crawling along with her pistol in hand, and the first she saw of the sergeant was his boot. It stamped down on her gun hand. He jammed the muzzle of a tommy-gun against the side of her throat.
“Drop it, sister!
She gasped in pain—her hand—and stared up at him with wide eyes. A lank young Ami with curly hair and a quid of tobacco in one cheek.
He kept his boot heel on the gun, but let her get her hand free. “Get down in here!”
She rolled into the hole. He kicked the gun toward the river.
“I don’t speak it. No savvy.
Marya was suddenly terrified. He was lean and young and pale with an unwelcome fear that would easily allow him to fire a burst into her body at close range. The Ami forces had been taking no prisoners during the running battle. The papers called them sub-human beasts because of it, but Marya was sufficiently a soldier to know that prisoners of war were a luxury for an army with stretchy logistic problems, and often the luxury could not be afforded. One Russian lieutenant had brought his men to the Ami under a while flag, and the Ami captain had shot him in the face and ordered his platoon to pick off the others with rifle fire as they tried to flee. In a sense, it was retaliatory. The Russians had taken no prisoners during the Ami airborne landings, and she had seen seen Ami airmen herded together and machine-gunned. She hated it. But as an officer, she knew there were times of necessity.
“Please don’t shoot,” she said in English. “I give up. I can’t get across the river anyway.”
“What are you doing on this side?” he demanded.
“My company was retreating across the bridge. I was the last to start across. Your artillery hit the bridge. The jets finished it off with their rockets.” She had to shout to be heard above the roar of battle. She pointed down the river. “I was trying to make it down to the ford. Down there you can wade across.”
It was all true. The sergeant thought it over.
“Hey, Cap!” he yelled again. “Didn’t you hear me? What’ll I do with her?”
If there was an answer, it was drowned by shellfire. “Undress!” the sergeant barked.
“What?”
“I said to take off your clothes. And no tricks. Strip to the skin.”
She went sick inside. So now it started, did it? Well, let it come! For the Fatherland! For Nikolai. She began unbuttoning her blouse. She did not look at the Ami sergeant. Once he whistled softly. When she had finished undressing, she looked up defiantly. His face had changed. He moistened his lips and swore softly under his breath. He crossed himself and edged away. Deep within her, something smiled. He was only a boy.
“Well, what are you cursing about?” she asked tonelessly.
“If I didn’t think you would I mean I wish this gun if I had time I’d but you’d stab me in the back but when I think about what they’ll do to you back there…”
“Jeezis!” he said fervently, wagging his head and rolling his quid into the other cheek. “Put the underwear and the blouse back on, roll up the rest of it, and start crawling down the slope. Aim for that slit trench down there. I’ll be right behind you.”
“She’s quite a little dish, incidentally,” the Ami captain was saying on the field telephone. “Are we shooting prisoners now, or are we sending them back… Yeah?” He listened for awhile. A mortar shell came screaming down nearby and they all sat down in the trench and opened their mouths to save eardrums. “To who?” he said when it was over. “Slim? Oh, to you… Yeah, that’s right, a photograph of Old Brass Butt in person. I can’t read the other stuff. It’s in Russky…. Just a minute.” He covered the mouthpiece and looked up at the sergeant. “Where’s the rest of your squad, Sarge?”
The sergeant swallowed solemnly. “I lost all my men except Price and Vittorio, sir. They were wounded and went to the rear.”
“Damn! Well, they’re sending up replacements tonight; and we’re all going back for a breather, as soon as they get here. So you might as well march her on back yourself.” He glanced thoughtfully at the girl. “Good God!” he murmured.
Marya was surrounded by several officers. They were all looking at her hungrily. She thought quickly.
“You have searched me,” she said cooly. “Would you gentlemen allow me to put on my skirt? I have submitted to capture. As an officer, I expect…”
“Look, lady, what you expect doesn’t matter a damn!” snapped a lieutenant. “You’re a prisoner of war, and you’re lucky to be alive. Besides, you are now about to have the high privilege of lying down with six…”
“Quiet, Sam!” grunted the captain. “We can’t do it. Lady, put on the rest of your clothes and get going.”
“Shut up! Can’t you see she’s no peasant? Christ, man, this war doesn’t make you
“Yes, sir.”
The captain scribbled an order in his notebook, tore out the page, and handed it to the sergeant. “You can probably hitch a ride on the chow wagon part of the way. It’s going to get dark pretty soon, so keep a leash on her. If anybody starts a gang rape, blow his guts out.” He grinned ruefully. “If we are going to pass it up ourselves, by damn, I want to make sure nobody else does it.” He glanced at the Russian girl and reddened. “My apologies, lieutenant. We’re not really bastards. We’re just a long way from home. After we wipe of this Red Disease (he spat out the words like bites of tainted meat) you’ll see we’re not so bad. I hope you’ll be treated like an officer and a gentlewoman, even if you are a commie.” He bowed slightly and offered the first salute.
“But I’m not—well, thank you, Captain,” she said, and returned the salute….
They sat spraddle-legged in the back of the truck as it bounced along the shell-pocked road. The guns had fallen silent, but the sky was full of Ami squadrons jetting toward the sunset. Pilotless planes and rocket missiles painted swift vapor trails across the heavens, and the sun colored there with blood. She breathed easier now, and she was very tired. The Ami sergeant sat across from her and kept his gun trained on her and appeared very ill-at- ease. He blushed several times for no apparent cause. She tried to shut him out of her consciousness and think of nothing. He was a doggy sort of a pup, and she disliked him. The Ami were all doggy pups. She had met them before. There was something of the spaniel in them.
Nikolai, Nikolai, my breasts ache for you, and they burst with your milk, and I must drain them before I die of it. My baby, my bodykins, my flesh torn from my flesh, my baby, my pain, my Nikki Andreyevich, come milk me—but no, now it is death, and we can he one again. How wretched it is to ache with milk and mourn you…
“Why are you crying?” the sergeant grunted after awhile.
“You killed my baby.”
