Harry Turtledove - Fallout

To give him his due, he knew what he was up to when he fought. Anybody who’d lived through a stretch on the Eastern Front had the soldier’s trade burned into him, whether he made social-democratic noises or not. If you didn’t know how, you died. It was that simple.

You might well die even if you did know how. Especially toward the end, there’d just been too goddamn many Russians. Skill gave some defense against numbers, but only some. The way the Ivans used their guns and rockets, you needed luck on your side, too.

Rolf oiled the bolt and checked the Springfield’s action once he had it reassembled. When he was happy, he lit an American Lucky to celebrate.

“Let me have one of those, will you?” Max said.

“Knock yourself out.” Rolf tossed him the pack.

“Thanks.” Max eyed the red circle on the pack with Lucky Strike in black on it. He took a cigarette and got it going. Then he said, “I know some English. ‘Lucky’ is glucklich. From what they’re saying, the Amis’ luck has run out.”

“Just like Gustav’s,” Rolf said.

“Uh-huh. Just like Gustav’s.” Max’s cheeks hollowed as he sucked in smoke. “He was a good guy, Gustav was. Had a nice wife, too. Pretty gal. I hope Luisa’s all right, and my Trudl. Fulda’s been Russian too long now.”

“Everything west of Russia’s been Russian too goddamn long now,” Rolf said. “And so the Americans had some cities hit? Big deal. They’re-what? Ten times as big as we are? Twenty times? Maybe more, I don’t know. They had some places nailed last year, and some more now. They bombed us harder than that themselves a little while ago, and we’re supposed to be on their side.”

Bachman blew a stream of smoke up into the darkness. “You love everybody, don’t you, Rolf?” he said.

“Just like I love you,” Rolf answered sweetly.

Max chuckled. “Christ have mercy on the rest of the poor buggers, then!”

“Let Him worry about that. I sure don’t.” But Rolf got more serious after a moment. “I love Germany. I love the Reich. The rest of the world? I don’t give a shit about the rest of the world. It can goddamn well take care of itself.”

“It can take care of us, too. It can, and it has. This is three times in less than forty years it’s jumped all over us with hobnailed boots,” Max said. “We would’ve been better off if the Kaiser and the Fuhrer never started their wars.”

“How about this last one?” Rolf said. “You gonna blame this one on us, too?”

“Nah. We were just in the way this time,” Bachman replied. “The first two World Wars, we were a great power. This time, we’re chopped in half and the real powers bump into each other where we are. Ever wonder if that ought to tell you something?”

“It tells me we should have won before,” Rolf said.

“If it tells you how we should have, I’m all ears,” Max said. “After Stalingrad, after Kursk, after the Anglo-Americans made it into France, anybody with his eyes open could see we were fucked. But we kept fighting anyway, you and me and all the other fools.”

“What were we going to do? Surrender unconditionally? I don’t think so!” Rolf said irately.

“Well, we wound up doing it whether we wanted to or not. How many more soldiers got killed on account of that? How many more towns got leveled? How many more women got gang-banged?”

Rolf only shrugged. He ground out the cigarette on half a brick. “We didn’t know that would happen. We thought we’d step on the Ivans. They’re like cockroaches. That’s all they deserve.”

As if to say the Red Army had a different opinion, Soviet guns thundered to life. Rolf cocked his head to one side, gauging the reports and the howl of the shells through the air. He had a foxhole only a jump from the fire, in case he needed it. Max had dug one, too. No wonder he’d made it through the last scrap and into this new one. One of the things that helped you get to be an old soldier was digging a hole wherever you were first chance you saw.

He was listening, too. “Those are 155s. They’ve got more of them and fewer 105s than they did before, I think.”

“I think maybe you’re right. More of them self-propelled, too.” Rolf let out a sour laugh. “Guys who’d gone through the Kaiser’s war would have talked the same way, except with them it would have been 105s taking over for 77s or 75s, depending on which side they were on.”

“Here’s one for you,” Max said. “I wonder if we’ve got anybody who’s been in all three World Wars. A kid in the trenches in 1918, a captain in 1939 who somehow managed to live through it, maybe a colonel or a Generalmajor now.”

“It could be,” Rolf said. “Getting through the second one if you really fought, that’s the hard part. Somebody who was on garrison duty in Norway or Holland would have a better chance.” He hawked and spat. Anyone who didn’t see the Ostfront hardly counted as a soldier to him.

“The Tommies didn’t have as tough a war as we did,” Max said. “They’re bound to have people like that-maybe even a top noncom or two.”

Rolf only grunted. He’d come up through the ranks himself. But the men who stuck at senior sergeant were the ones who didn’t have any imagination. All armies needed people like that. They steadied the show and kept junior officers from doing anything too spectacularly stupid. But routine had a way of ruling what passed for their souls.

American guns fired back at the Russian artillery. Rolf had had to learn their reports during this war, whereas the Red Army’s artillery pieces were almost old friends. He’d known German guns even better, of course, but those hadn’t come to this party.

“It’s a bitch,” he said, “when we turn into a football pitch for two other sides to play on.”

“I told you-that’s what we get for losing twice before.” Max took out a fresh Lucky. “See? I’m stealing another smoke from you. Can I ask you something while I do it?”

“You can always ask. If I want to, I’ll tell you to go fuck yourself.”

“And that’s supposed to surprise me? What I want to know is, what are you doing here? This isn’t the Germany you fought for last time. It never will be, either. You know that, right?”

“ Ja, I know it.” And I hate it, Rolf thought. But that was for him to know and for Max to guess at. He held out his hand for the cigarettes. Max flipped them back. After he’d started one, he continued, “No, it’s not the Fuhrer ’s Germany. All that matters these days is getting by and making money. We want to be America, but we can’t. You know what, though? I don’t care. It’s still Germany, and I still love it.”

“Deutschland bleibt Deutschland,” Max said, and Rolf nodded-Germany did stay Germany. Max sketched a salute. “Well, we aren’t so far apart after all, are we?”

“Not on that,” Rolf said. Now Max nodded. Yes, there were a few-million-other things.

Along with Dolores and the rest of the women who typed and filed and answered the phones in the Shasta Lumber Company’s front office, Marian Staley walked down the long hallway to Mahogany Row. Each of them carried a copy of the ambulance petition from the Weed Press-Herald . Taking all the petitions together, they had several hundred signatures.

Dolores looked at the others. “Well, here goes nothing,” she said, and knocked on Carl Cummings’ door.

“What is it?” the executive said, his voice muffled by the barrier. Thus encouraged, Dolores opened the door. Seeing the crowd in the hall, Cummings raised an eyebrow. “Looks like Grand Central Station out there,” he remarked. “What’s going on?”