Bombs Away (23 page)

Gribkov drank, expecting it to be water. It was vodka: fine, smooth vodka, but strong as a plow horse. He got it down without choking. Had Edzhubov wanted to make him splutter, or did the skipper really think he was helping? “Thank you, Anatoly Ivanovich,” Boris said when he could speak again. “That hits the spot—with a grenade.”

“There you go! Good for what ails you, see?” Edzhubov beamed. He had a round, ruddy, peasanty face with several gold teeth he showed in a perpetual smile. He didn't seem the sort who would have tried to make Boris feel worse on purpose, but you never could tell.

The destroyer and the rest of the little rescue flotilla were steaming west now, into the teeth of the swells. Boris dosed his seasickness with more vodka. It helped him sleep, if nothing else. The bunk in the officers' quarters included a belt to keep him from suddenly waking up on the steel deck. He wasn't too drunk to use it.

They changed course two mornings after rescuing the Tu-4's crew. “I'm sorry, Comrade, but we'll be at sea a little longer than I expected,” Edzhubov said.

“What's gone wrong?” Boris asked. The skipper still seemed cheerful, but his eyes had a faraway look.

“Well, we were bound for Petropavlovsk,” Edzhubov answered. “There's…not much point to that any more, I'm afraid.”

“Not much point?” Boris realized what that had to mean as soon as the question was out of his mouth. “Oh! The Americans?”

“Yes, the Americans,” the naval officer agreed. “They gave the place a dose of the same medicine your crew served to Seattle. They got Petropavlovsk and Magadan and Vladivostok. They hit Provideniya, too.”

Provideniya wasn't a port, except for a few months at the height of summer. In this season, the ice ran kilometers out from the land. But the Yankees wouldn't be hitting it because it was a naval base. Colonel Doyarenko had been a good man. He was still a good man if he remained alive, but Gribkov feared he didn't.

Trying not to think about Colonel Doyarenko and what might have happened to him, the bomber pilot asked, “Where will we go, then?”

“I have orders to put in at Korf—or rather, to get as close to Korf as we can,” Edzhubov replied. “It isn't a big city, which is probably why the Americans didn't bother to bomb it.”

“I'm sorry, Anatoly Ivanovich. Please forgive a dumb landlubber, but I have no idea where Korf is.” Tu-4s didn't fly into or out of the place—Boris knew that much.

“It's on the east side of the neck of the Kamchatka Peninsula,” the skipper answered. “You get there by sea, by sled in the wintertime, and these days by air, too. They catch salmon in the river, and there are mines for platinum and brown coal close by.”

“All right.” A town out here would have natives living in it, natives and
zeks
who'd served their sentences but were held near the gulags by the terms of their internal exile. Gribkov grinned a sly grin. “I bet they brew a lot of
samogon,
too.”

“Well, what else is there to do in a place like that?” Edzhubov said. “Not as if a lot of real vodka gets there.”

Boris nodded. Russian moonshine flourished wherever there were Russians but not enough official booze. Some of it was as good as anything the state distilleries turned out. Some was poison, literally. It was cheaper than the official product, because you didn't have to pay the tax that went into the government's pocket. That was the other thing that made it so widespread.

They sailed through a storm. If Gribkov had thought the North Pacific was bad before, now he admitted he hadn't known the first thing about it. Any dog as sick as he was, they would have shot. His fellow airmen suffered with him. Misery sympathized with company even if it didn't love it.

Most of the sailors took it all in stride. A couple of them also puked their guts out, but only a couple. You could get used to anything. You could, or you could die trying. Boris rather felt like it.

Little by little, more news trickled in to the
Stalin.
Radio Moscow went off the air suddenly and without warning. When it came back, several hours later, it had a weaker signal and unfamiliar broadcasters. That alone would have made Gribkov guess something horrible had happened to the station and to the city that housed it.

He supposed it made sense that the Americans would strike the heart of the
rodina
as well as the Soviet Far East. Except for Vladivostok, the Russian cities in this part of the world were small towns compared to the ones along the Pacific Coast of the United States. And supplies for the war in Europe traveled from and traveled through the cities in the USSR's heartland.

But how much of the world would be left in one piece if they kept blowing up city after city? That was a question Boris couldn't begin to answer. It was also a question he couldn't ask anyone else. If he did, the MGB would soon be asking questions of him.

Stalin came on the radio not long before the destroyer that bore his name reached Korf. “The reactionary imperialists have murdered good Soviet citizens by the million,” he said, his Georgian accent flavoring the way he spoke as it always did. “They have done their best to murder me, but their best is not good enough. The struggle for socialism, for Communism, will continue to its final, inevitable triumph against the Americans as it did against the Hitlerites. Forward, progressives of the world, to victory!”

It wasn't a great speech. Stalin seldom made great speeches. But it did show he was alive. Gribkov was amazed how good that made him feel. He'd been a baby when the Revolution came. He didn't remember anyone else at the Soviet Union's helm. He couldn't imagine how the immense country would go on without its leader.

Boats took the bomber crewmen from the
Stalin
to the edge of the pack ice. Dog sleds took them across the ice to Korf itself. The hamlet—it might have held a thousand people, or it might not—sat on a sand spit. People clumped over the snow on skis and snowshoes.

They gave the men from the Tu-4 as much of a heroes' welcome as they could. The toasts they drank, they drank with
samogon,
but it was good
samogon.
The roast they served was enormous, tasty, and, best of all, on dry land. However tasty it was, it didn't seem familiar. “What kind of meat is this?” Gribkov asked.

“Bear,” answered a flat-faced local. “I shot it myself.” The pilot had got hungry enough aboard the
Stalin
that the news hardly slowed him down.

Korf had a rudimentary airstrip. Rudimentary airplanes buzzed down to take away the Tu-4's men. Boris eyed the Po-2s in delight. “I learned to fly on one of those!” he exclaimed.

“Me, too,” Vladimir Zorin said. “I can't imagine a Soviet pilot who didn't.”

These particular wood-and-canvas biplanes sported skis for landing gear. Snow didn't faze the
Kukuruznik,
either. As if he were still a student, Gribkov climbed into the front seat.

The pilot revved the little radial engine. The plane taxied along till it sedately rose into the sky. Icy wind in his face, Gribkov grinned like Christmas. This was what flying was supposed to be!

GUSTAV HOZZEL SPRAWLED
in the ruins of the suburbs west of Alsfeld, forty kilometers northwest of Fulda. He'd never visited Alsfeld in all the time he'd lived in Fulda. He didn't want to be here now, but the Russians had barged through the Fulda gap and were doing their best to overrun all of Western-occupied Germany, plus anything else they could get their grabby mitts on.

The Americans
were
fighting. Gustav had to give them that much. They'd battled the Ivans street by street, house by house, inside Alsfeld. That was why Gustav could still lie here on the outskirts of town. The Amis had smashed a lot of Russian tanks. They'd kept snipers in the cathedral bell tower till Russian artillery leveled it. Those guys had to know they would die if they went up there. They did it anyhow. They were soldiers, in other words.

Even if they were soldiers, Gustav still hated their helmet. It didn't cover enough of a man's head. A few German auxiliaries had put on the
Wehrmacht
's
Stahlhelm
instead. But the Russians didn't take prisoners from men who did that. They killed them in cold blood, and left them on display with swastika placards by the bodies. Gustav got the message, and kept his Yankee pot.

He didn't care for the egg grenades on his belt, either. You could throw a German potato-masher farther. He had nothing against the Springfield the Amis had issued him. It was as good a rifle as a Mauser. But now he carried a PPSh he'd taken off a dead Russian. Close-range firepower was what he wanted, and the submachine gun gave it to him.

He
really
craved a Russian assault rifle. Some
Landsers
on the Eastern Front had carried weapons like that as the war drew toward its end, but never enough to hold back the Russian tide. Keeping the PPSh in ammo was easy: it fired ordinary pistol cartridges. The assault rifle used a special round, halfway between pistol and rifle. Feeding it might prove a chore if he got his hands on one.

In front of him and off to the left, a machine gun opened up. That was a Russian piece; he knew the sound as well as he knew Luisa's heartbeat when he laid his head on her left breast. He hoped his wife was all right. He could only hope right now.

More submachine guns went off. American M-1s answered, a rhythm halfway between a bolt-action rifle and an automatic. They could hit somebody with a PPSh or a PPD before he got close enough to hit them. But if the guy with the submachine gun did get that close, he had the edge.

Very cautiously, Gustav looked out from behind the burnt-out carcass of the Mercedes that gave him cover. The Mercedes sat a good many centimeters lower than it had before fire swept over it. The tires were gone, so it rested on the metal wheels. Whatever color the expensive car had been, it was charcoal-gray now.

Not seeing anything dangerous coming his way, he pulled back. “How's it look where you're at, Max?” he called.

His friend and comrade lay behind an overturned steel file cabinet. The Mercedes probably gave better cover, but that wasn't bad. “I'm smoking a cigarette,” Bachman said. “I think I have time to finish it.”

“Sounds about right,” Gustav said, and then, after a moment, “You know, it's funny that all this doesn't seem funny. We're used to it. We know what to do, and we know how to do it, too.”

“Ja, ja.”
Max sounded exaggeratedly patient. And he had his reasons: “Wait till they start throwing atom bombs around here. See if you know what to do then.”

“Of course I know what to do then. I fucking die,
nicht wahr?
” Gustav said. They both let out black chuckles. The Americans weren't using atom bombs because this was the part of Germany they wanted to protect, not to wreck. The Russians hadn't used them yet because…well, who the hell knew why? Maybe because they were still advancing without them. Or maybe because, with Moscow and Leningrad and Kiev radioactive dust, no one who could give the orders was still alive.

“Do you think it's true Adenauer asked Truman not to use the bombs in the western zones?” Max asked.

“Why wouldn't Adenauer ask? What does he have to lose?” Gustav said. “Whether his asking has anything to do with why they haven't fallen—that, I can't tell you.” Adenauer, at least, had the courage of his convictions. He'd been jailed for opposing the Nazis. That gave him some clout with the Amis. How much? Well, who could say for sure?

The firefight off to the left died away. The Russians' hearts didn't seem to be in it. Maybe all the bombs that had fallen between the front and where their supplies came from meant they didn't have enough. It would be nice to think so, anyhow.

Then fire rippled on the eastern horizon—the other side of Alsfeld. Gustav knew too well what that meant. “Get down!” he shouted to anyone who could hear him. “Flatten out!
Katyushas!
”

Just to make themselves scarier, the rockets screamed when they came in, as if they were Stukas with Jericho trumpets. The whole salvo burst in the space of a few seconds. It could chew up most of a square kilometer. It wasn't an atom bomb, but was in the running for next worst thing.

Blast kicked Gustav around and slammed him into the dead Mercedes, hard enough to hurt but not hard enough to do any real damage. A chunk of sheet iron from a rocket casing gouged a hole in the fender only thirty or forty centimeters from his head. Too often, whether you got up or they planted you depended on luck like that, stuff you couldn't do anything about.

“Urra! Urra!”
That was Russian infantry, probably snockered from the vodka ration, getting ready to charge. If the hair on Gustav's nape hadn't risen for the
Katyushas,
the rhythmic roar would have turned the trick. The Russians would come forward till they got slaughtered or till they cleared out whatever stood in their way.

Gustav felt terrified and exhilarated at the same time. He'd spent most of his youth in the
Wehrmacht
—spent it the way a gunner spent shells. He'd never felt so alive as on the Eastern Front, not least because he always knew life could end at any instant. Going back to Fulda was quiet, peaceful…and just a bit dull. All right, nightmares woke him screaming every so often. Did he feel so intensely about anything in the town, even Luisa?

To his own sorrow, he knew the answer. He hoped she was alive. He hoped she was safe. He hoped she was hiding—as the Russians had proved in 1945, they were swine around defeated women.

Hope was all he could do—hope and fight like hell.

“Urra! Urra!”
The chant got louder, and higher in pitch.

He knew what that meant. “They're coming!” he bawled, and peeped out from behind the Mercedes again.

Coming they were, and just as he remembered from the old days: rank after rank of men, arms linked, greatcoat skirts flapping around their legs, the troops in front firing as they ran. Gustav squeezed off a short burst, then scuttled to the far end of the dead car. Other Germans and Americans were also shooting back at the Red Army men.

When he looked out at the Russians again, soldiers were falling like ninepins. The ones who still lived closed up, linked arms, and trotted on. You had to admire courage like that. You also had to wonder what inspired it. Were the Russians more afraid of what would happen to them if they didn't advance than they were of what happened when they did? God help them if they were, because this was suicidal.

Staying low, he fired at them again. They were close enough now for him to see his burst tear into them again. Then he wished for the Yankee Springfield and a long bayonet, because here they were, right on top of him. He fired till his magazine ran dry, then struck at the Russians with the PPSh's hot barrel. He waited for someone to shoot him or stab him from behind.

But then the Ivans, the ones who could, were running back as fast as they'd run forward. Even Russian flesh and blood had limits. Sometimes. But you could never count on when or even whether.

Maybe one of the dead Ivans nearby had carried an assault rifle. Gustav wasn't crazy enough to find out now. Later, when things calmed down a little, though…

The tiny, gray-haired Chinese woman sent Vasili Yasevich the fishiest of fishy stares. “You sure you know what you're doing?” she snapped.

He bowed his head and looked down at the muddy ground. “This person does his humble best to follow the training in compounding medicines given to him by his father, who now, sadly, is among the ancestors.”

“Oh, cut the crap.” Her accent and her manner both shouted that she came from Peking. Her husband was one of the commissars charged with getting Harbin back on its feet as fast as humanly possible—or a little faster than that. Still giving him the fishy eye, she went on, “You can fix something to perk up Wang, keep him going?”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said. He didn't know as much as his father had. He hadn't listened so hard as he might have. But that one he could handle. “The wise and distinguished lady will have heard of the herb called
ma huang
?”

“I told you to can the crap,” she said, but Vasili could tell it flattered her at the same time as it annoyed her. The Reds from Peking were often holier-than-thou when it came to aggressive egalitarianism. Almost as often, though, they expected to be treated as rulers. So he wasn't amazed when she giggled before going on, “Yes, I know about
ma huang.
I'm surprised a round-eye would.”

“It's used in our medicines, too,” Vasili said, which wasn't even a lie. From what his old man had told him, the chemical that gave
ma huang
its kick was related to benzedrine.

“Ah. That I didn't know.” The woman's glare sharpened again. “You can get me some in this miserable, bombed-out, backward province?”

She wasn't supposed to say things like that. She wasn't even supposed to think them. He might be able to land her in trouble if he repeated them to the right people. He didn't want to land her in trouble, though. He just wanted to make some money off of her. He wanted her to pass his name on to her friends, too, so he could also sell them drugs.

And so he nodded. “Yes, great lady. I have been lucky enough to secure a supply of the highest quality…. ”

He'd found some in a wrecked medicine shop. He'd tested it by chewing a little. It sped up his heartbeat and made him lose a night's sleep no matter how tired he was. That was
ma huang,
all right.

“Well, what do you want for it?” she demanded.

“You understand how hard it is to bring things in these days—”

She interrupted: “I understand you're going to gouge me.”

He was, too, but politely. When he told her how much he wanted, she called him some things that weren't from the Peking dialect of Mandarin at all. He knew most of the insults that one offered. He wondered where the commissar's wife had grown up, to come out with those catfight-sounding curses. When she ran down, he gave her his politest bow. That inflamed her more, as he'd known it would.

They haggled for a while. He let her beat him down a little further than he'd expected. He didn't want her leaving angry. If she did, she wouldn't tell her friends about him.

She paid him. He gave her the
ma huang,
and told her how much to use. He didn't want the commissar dying of a heart attack or stroke, either. That would be bad for business. “Don't think that if a little is good, more is better,” he warned. “
Ma huang
is strong medicine. You should always respect it.”

“You are not my mother or my father,” she said tartly. A Russian would have told him
Don't teach your granny to suck eggs.
They both amounted to the same thing. He bowed again. He'd done his best.

Away she went. It was the first day of spring—Vasili thought it was, anyhow; he'd been too frazzled lately to keep close track—but her breath smoked. In her shapeless trousers, quilted jacket, and cap with earflaps and a red star on the front, she might have been an undersized People's Liberation Army private—except she carried herself like an empress. He wondered what she would do if he told her so. Probably have him shot. If her husband was who Vasili thought he was, she could arrange that with a word or two.