Harry Turtledove - West and East

“And the Poles’,” Sergei added.

“Fuck the Poles. Fuck their mothers, fuck their daughters, fuck their sisters, and fuck their ugly old aunties, too,” Ivan declared. He was, as Sergei had seen before, a man of limited vocabulary and strong opinions. “The Poles aren’t worth shit. The fucking Germans, they’re the ones we need to worry about.”

He wasn’t wrong. Sergei had seen enough of the Germans to alarm him, too. “They won’t stop us,” the pilot declared. Neither Kuchkov nor Mouradian tried to tell him any different.

Both big radial engines on the SB-2 thundered to life. Sergei ran through the checklist. Everything came up green. Other bombers were jouncing down the runway and flying west. When his turn came, Sergei joined them. Getting up in the air again felt good. Till the shooting started, he could remember what a joy flying was supposed to be.

But the shooting started all too soon. During the winter, Soviet troops had bitten off a disappointingly small chunk of northeastern Poland. A few of them fired at the westbound SB-2s, on the theory that anything in the air was bound to be dangerous. The Chimp’s profanity echoed brassily through the speaking tube that connected the bomb bay and the cockpit.

And the Poles banged away at the bombers for all they were worth. Black puffs of smoke burst among the SB-2s. The antiaircraft fire was so quick and accurate, Sergei wondered if Germans were manning the guns down on the ground. One of the SB-2s had to turn back with smoke and flame coming from the starboard engine. Yaroslavsky hoped the crew got down safely.

That clang was a chunk of shrapnel biting into the fuselage. Sergei eyed the gauges. He tested all the controls. “Khorosho?” Mouradian asked.

“Da, khorosho,” Sergei answered, and everything did seem fine. Part of him that only came out in times of stress wanted to thank God. The New Soviet Man who ruled his mind more often than not told that other part to shut up and go away.

There was the railroad line, stretching off toward Wilno. “Borisov didn’t tell us where he wanted us to hit it, did he?” Mouradian said.

Sergei thought back. “No, I don’t believe he did.” That probably meant some Red Air Force higher-up hadn’t told Borisov. Maybe none of the higher-ups had even stopped to worry about it. Since they figured one length of track was as good as another… “I’m going to start the bombing run.”

He flew straight and level, changing course only as Mouradian aligned them more closely on the railway line. “Now, Ivan!” Mouradian bawled through the speaking tube, and the stick of bombs fell free.

As soon as they did, Yaroslavsky swung the bomber into a hard turn and mashed down the throttle. Even Polish fighters could outrun the SB-2, and if Messerschmitts were in the neighborhood…

Messerschmitts were in the neighborhood. The slab-sided fighters tore into the SB-2s that had pressed deeper into Poland. A blast from the dorsal machine-gun turret said one of them was thinking about coming after Sergei’s plane. “Gutless whore!” Ivan yelled. “He’s running like a prick with the clap!”

“Too bad!” Sergei said. He exchanged a look with Mouradian. They wore identical shaky grins. No matter how the Chimp felt, neither was sorry that German hadn’t kept chasing them. No, not a bit, Sergei thought, and came down on the throttle even harder.

* * *

A groundcrew man walked up to Hans-Ulrich Rudel at what had been a French airstrip till the Wehrmacht overran it. These days, Stukas flew out of it to pummel the former owners and their English allies. “Excuse me, Lieutenant…” the enlisted man said, and stood there waiting.

“What’s up, Franz?” Rudel asked. The mechanic had served in the trenches in the last war. He still recalled the strict and formal discipline of the Kaiser’s army, which made him seem out of place in Germany’s new, more easygoing military.

“Colonel Steinbrenner wants to see you right away, sir,” Franz said.

“What kind of trouble am I in?” Hans-Ulrich assumed he was in one kind or another. He was a white crow in the squadron: a teetotaling minister’s son didn’t mix well with most of the hard-drinking, hard-wenching pilots. They teased him, and he shot back. There hadn’t been any brawls yet, but it was bound to be only a matter of time. Even his rear gunner thought him a queer duck.

But Franz only shrugged. “Sir, you think a colonel tells me anything like that?”

Hans-Ulrich didn’t. He walked over to the colonel’s tent. Everything all around was green. The air was soft and sweet and mild with spring… if you didn’t notice the faint death-reek that lay under the sweetness. Rudel’s nose was used to it, so most of the time he didn’t. This morning, for some reason, he did.

An unfamiliar Kubelwagen was parked next to the tent. The little utility vehicle was built on a Volkswagen chassis. Production of passenger cars, naturally, was on hold for the duration. A Kubelwagen could take four people almost anywhere, and carry a machine gun, too. If you didn’t need armor plate or a cannon, what more could you want?

He ducked into the tent. “Rudel, sir, reporting as ordered.”

“Yes, yes.” Colonel Steinbrenner nodded to the two men standing next to the folding table that served as his desk. “These gentlemen have some questions they want to ask you.”

The gentlemen in question didn’t wear Luftwaffe blue-gray. Instead, their uniforms were somber black, with SS runs on one collar tab. The older SS man said, “So you’re Rudel, are you?”

“That’s right,” Hans-Ulrich answered automatically.

“Good. Come with us,” the blackshirt said.

“What’s going on?” That was also an automatic yelp.

“Just come. We’ll talk about it later,” the SS man answered.

Numbly, Rudel went. Was this what Russian officers felt when somebody from the NKVD came for them? He didn’t know; he’d never been a Russian. He did know people at the airstrip stared as he climbed into the Kubelwagen with Himmler’s hounds. The younger one started up the machine. As it rolled away, Hans-Ulrich wondered if he’d ever come back.

After a little more than a kilometer, the driver pulled off the narrow, winding road and stopped. Everything was very quiet. A couple of black cows grazed in an emerald meadow. Off in the distance, a French farmer guided a horse-drawn plow. He probably would have used a tractor before the war, but where would he get gas for it now? The plow might have been sitting in the barn since his father put it there. But you did what you could with what you had.

What were the SS men going to do with him? The older one lit an Overstolz from a pack he took out of his breast pocket. When he held out the pack, Hans-Ulrich shook his head. “That’s right,” the blackshirt said, as if reminding himself. “You don’t drink, either, do you?”

“What if I don’t?” Rudel said. “Were you going to give me a cigarette before you put one between my eyes?”

The two big men in black looked at each other. Then, as if on cue, they threw back their heads and laughed like loons. A jackdaw flew out of a nearby tree, chattering in annoyance. “That’s not what we brought you out here for,” the younger one said. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. He dabbed at them with his sleeve before dissolving in giggles again. “Oh, dear!” He couldn’t stop laughing-he was helpless as a baby.

And his partner wasn’t in much better shape. Had Rudel needed to, he thought he could have disarmed them both without breaking a sweat. Evidently, though, he didn’t need to. What he didn’t understand was why he didn’t need to. “Well, what did you bring me out here for?” he asked irritably.

“Nice to know our reputation goes ahead of us,” the older one said. Did he mean it? Hans-Ulrich, already at sea, had trouble telling. The SS man gathered himself. He finally went on, “As a matter of fact, Rudel, we wanted to talk to you because you’re known to be loyal.”