Harry Turtledove: Hitler_s war

Into the woods. Other panzers were pushing forward, too. Things were better-or seemed better, anyhow-when you had company. There was, of course, the saying about misery.

A bullet struck sparks as it spanged off the panzer’s hull. That left Ludwig with a couple of really unpleasant choices. If he stayed where he was, he was much too likely to get shot. But if he ducked down inside the turret and shut the hatch, he would have the devil’s own time seeing where he was going. All kinds of bad things were liable to happen to the panzer then.

He stayed where he was. Every so often, he fired a short burst from his machine gun. The other panzer commanders were doing the same thing. Foot soldiers banged away, too. With enough lead in the air, the Czechs would be too busy taking cover and dying to shoot back much.

He hoped. Boy, did he!

The Panzer II emerged from the woods onto open ground that had taken a beating from bombs and artillery. As soon as it did, Ludwig wished it hadn’t, because there sat a Panzer I, burning like nobody’s business. The commander had tried to get out of the turret, but he hadn’t made it. Something nasty lurked in the next stretch of trees.

“There it is!” Fritz screamed. “One o’clock! Panzer! Goddamn Czech panzer!”

The Czech LT-35 was a light tank, as its initials suggested. It was still bigger and heavier and better armored than a Panzer II. And the bastard carried a 37mm gun: a real cannon that could fire a real HE round as well as armor-piercing ammo. The Panzer II’s 2cm main armament had decent AP rounds, but they just weren’t big enough to carry a useful amount of high explosive.

One good thing about the Panzer II’s little gun, though: it was an automatic weapon, firing from ten-round magazines. Ludwig traversed the turret toward the LT-35, all the while wishing for a power assist. He’d just about brought the gun on target when the Czechs fired. Their AP round chewed a groove in the field a few meters to his left. They’d be reloading as fast as they could…

His 2.5X sight brought the target a lot closer. The trigger was on the elevating wheel. He squeezed off a four-round burst. Smoke rose from the Czech tank. “Hit!” Fritz yelled. “You hit the son of a bitch!”

“Do you have to sound so surprised?” Actually, Ludwig was surprised he’d hit the panzer at all. The gun was noisy enough to make him glad he was sober. “Come on-put the beast back in gear. We don’t want to hang around in one spot, or some other bastard’ll draw a bead on us.”

He breathed a sigh of relief as the panzer raced toward the cover of the woods. He hadn’t wanted to go into the first belt, but he’d discovered being out in the open was dangerous, too. It was a war, for Christ’s sake. Everything was dangerous. He just hoped it would be more dangerous for the Czechs.

* * *

Bombs started falling on Marianske Lazne-Marienbad, if you liked the old German name better-at six o’clock in the morning. Peggy Druce hadn’t gone to bed till three. Just because you were here to take the waters (which smelled like rotten eggs, tasted almost as bad, and kept you on the pot like you wouldn’t believe) didn’t mean you couldn’t do other things, too. Peggy’d been playing fiery bridge with an English couple and a young man who might have come from almost anywhere.

Everyone thought she was crazy for coming over from Philadelphia with the war clouds thickening by the day. Even after Henlein got shot, she’d pooh-poohed the idea that things would actually go boom. “We already had one war this century,” she’d said. She remembered very precisely, because she was squeezing every trick from a small slam in diamonds. “Wasn’t that enough to teach the whole world we don’t need another one?”

Well…no.

The first explosions might almost have been mistaken for thunder. The couple right after that burst much too close to the Balmoral-Osborne Hotel de Luxe to leave any doubt about what they were. They knocked Peggy out of bed and onto the floor with a bump and a squawk. She said something most unladylike when she scrambled up again, because she’d cut both feet on shards of glass that hadn’t been there a moment before.

People were yelling and screaming and-probably-jumping up and down. Peggy threw a robe over her silk peignoir. She made as if to rush for the door, then caught herself. Her feet would be raw meat and gore if she tried. The only shoes she could grab in a hurry were last night’s heels. They’d have to do.

Out she went-but not without her handbag, which held passport and cash and traveler’s checks. Everybody else in the hall was in the same state of dishabille. People dashed for the elevator: the lift, everyone called it here, in the English fashion. Peggy was almost there when the lights went out.

Shrieks filled the air as darkness descended. She turned around and went the other way, against the confused tide. If the lights weren’t working, the goddamn elevator wouldn’t, either. The stairs were…that way.

Peggy liked to think she looked ten years younger than her forty-five. She hadn’t put on weight, and peroxide kept her hair about the same color it had always been. But, in spite of her misplaced optimism the night before, she had a coldly practical streak. When she was Peggy Eubank, growing up a devil of a long way from the Main Line, her mother told her, “Kid, you’re eleven going on twenty-one.” If Mom had been half as smart as she thought she was, she would’ve been twice as smart as she really was. But she’d hit that nail right on the head.

And so-the stairs. Peggy found the door as much by Braille as any other way. The stairwell wasn’t very light, either. Somebody bumped into her and said, “Excusez-moi.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Peggy said, and then, “C’est la guerre.” And wasn’t that the sad and sorry truth?

Gray early-morning light spilled out of the door that led to the lobby. Three flights of stairs had made Peggy’s feet start to hurt, but more broken glass crunched under her soles. She would hurt worse if she took off the heels.

The lobby looked like hell, and smelled pretty bad, too. It reminded her of a butcher’s shop with a whole bunch of fresh meat. Some of this meat came in trousers and dresses and nightclothes, though. Stewards and bellhops-they had different titles here, but basically the same jobs-were doing what they could to help the wounded. One of them was noisily sick on the floor, which only made the stink worse.

And, in what looked at first like a scene from a Three Stooges tworeeler, a couple of men near the front desk were punching and kicking each other and poking each other in the eye. Even with more bombs going off not terribly far away, they went at it hammer and tongs. But one of them swore in Czech, the other in guttural German. The big war had started, and so had their own little private one.

“Mon Dieu!” exclaimed a man standing next to Peggy. His voice said he was the fellow who’d bumped her on the stairs. “C’est-” He broke off, at a loss for words.

“It’s hell on wheels,” Peggy said. “You understand? Comprenez?”

“Yes. But what am I to do?” He spoke good British English. “I was for two years a prisoner in the last war. If the Boches come here, they will intern me again, as an enemy alien. I do not wish this at all.”

If the Germans came to Marianske Lazne? No, when they came. The border wasn’t more than a long spit to the west. Peggy had her passport. The United States was neutral. The Nazis would treat her better than that poor Frenchman…if they or the Czechs didn’t blow her to the moon while they were bashing each other over the head. Right this minute, that looked like a pretty big if.

“Maybe you can get a train out of town if you hustle,” she said.