Striking the Balance

“We have to do better,” he told his men as they ate black bread and sausage that night. “We got flank targets, but we weren’t hitting them. Can’t make many mistakes like that, not unless we want to get buried here.”

“But,Herr Oberst,” somebody said, “when they move, they can move so damned fast, they’re by us before we have a chance to react.”

“Good thing we had defense in depth, or they would have cracked us wide open,” somebody else said. Jager nodded, pleased at the way the troops were hashing things out for themselves. That was how German soldiers were supposed to operate. They weren’t just ignorant peasants who followed orders without thinking about them, as Red Army men did. They had brains and imaginations, and used them.

He was about to curl up in his bedroll under his Panther when Skorzeny showed up in camp. The SS man was toting a jug of vodka he’d found God only knew where, and passed it around so everybody got a nip. It wasn’t good vodka-the taste put Jager in mind of stale kerosene-but it was better than no vodka.

“Think they’re going to hit us again in the morning?” Skorzeny asked.

“Won’t know for certain till then,” Jager answered, “but if I had to guess, I’d say no. They’d have kept pressing harder after it got dark if that was what they had in mind. These days, they push when they think they’ve found a weakness, but they ease up when we show strength.”

“They can’t afford the kind of losses they get when they go up against a strongpoint,” Skorzeny said shrewdly.

“I think you’re right.” Jager glanced over at the SS man in the darkness. “We could have used that nerve gas here at the front.”

“Ahh, you’d say that even if things were quiet,” Skorzeny retorted. “It’s doing what it’s supposed to be doing, right where it is.” He grunted. “I want your wireless people to be alert for any intercepts they pick up about that, too. If the Lizards don’t burn up the airwaves, I’ll eat my hat.”

“That’s fine.” Jager yawned enormously. “Right now, I’m alert for sleep. You want to crawl in under here? Safest place you can be if they start shelling again. I know damn well you snore, but I suppose I can live with it.”

Skorzeny laughed. Gunther Grillparzer said, “He’s not the only one who snores-sir.” Betrayed by his own gunner, Jager settled in for the night.

Spatters of small-arms fire woke him a couple of times. They picked up at dawn, but, as he’d predicted, the Lizards were more interested in consolidating what they’d gained the day before than in pushing on against stiffening resistance.

Otto Skorzeny hadn’t been kidding when he said he wanted the wireless men to stay alert. He made sure they did, hanging around them and regaling them with what seemed like an endless stream of dirty stories. Most of them were good dirty stories, too, and some were even new to Jager, who’d thought he’d heard every story of that sort ever invented.

As morning gave way to afternoon, Skorzeny’s temper began to wear thin. He paced through the camp, kicking up dirt and sending spring flowers flying. “Damn it, we should have intercepted something from the Jews or the Lizards in Lodz by now!” he stormed.

“Maybe they’re all dead,” Jager suggested. The notion horrflied him, but might ease Skorzeny’s mind.

But the big SS man shook his head. “Too much to hope for. Somebody always lives through these things by one kind of fool luck or another.” Jager thought of Max, the foulmouthed Jew who’d lived through Babi Yar. Skorzeny was right. He went on with a muttered, “No, something’s gone south somewhere.”

“You think the timer didn’t work the way it should have?” Jager asked.

“I suppose it is possible,” Skorzeny allowed, “but fry me for aschnitzel if I ever heard of one of them failing before. They aren’t just foolproof, they’re idiotproof, and the gadget had a backup. We send out a goody like that, we want to make sure it works as advertised.” He chuckled. “That’s what people who don’t like us so well call German efficiency, eh? No, the only way that bomb could have failed would have been-”

“What?” Jager said, though he had an idea as to what. “As you say. If it had a backup timer, it was going to go off.”

“The only way that bomb could have failed-” Skorzeny repeated musingly. His gray eyes went very wide. “The only way that bomb could have failed would have been for that stinking little kike to pull the wool over my eyes, and dip me in shit if he didn’t do it!” He clapped a hand to his forehead. “The bastard! The fucker! The nerve of him! Next time I see him, I’ll cut off his balls one at a time.” Then, to Jager’s amazement, he started to laugh. “He played me for a sucker. I didn’t think any man alive could do that. I’d like to shake his hand-afterhe’s castrated, not before. You thinkstupid kike and you take it for granted, and this is what it gets you. Jesus Christ!”