The War That Came Early: The Big Switch

by Harry Turtledove

  Almost all the clothes she brought back she’d bought on the other side of the Atlantic. What she’d brought with her hadn’t been meant for staying away so long. That interested the hell out of the American customs inspectors. Even after she explained what had happened to her— backing everything up with the stamps and visas in her passport—they didn’t want to listen. All they wanted to do was collect duty, and collect they did. The Nazis couldn’t have been more inflexible.

  But she wouldn’t think about the goddamn Nazis now. After all, she’d crossed the Atlantic so she wouldn’t have to think about the Nazis again, or deal with their arrogance. And so she’d dealt with American arrogance at customs instead.

  “Watch yo’ step, ma’am,” a colored porter said as she descended. He touched a callused finger to the shiny brim of his cap. She nodded back at him. She hadn’t seen any Negroes all the time she was in Europe. This chubby fellow was just one more reminder she was back where she belonged.

  Down three wooden steps and onto the platform. Husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, parents and children were all milling around and falling into one another’s arms. They were hugging and squealing and kissing. They were …

  “Herb!” Peggy let out a squeal of her own. She might have been a bobby-soxer getting all excited about the latest skinny crooner from Hoboken, not a respectable woman of middle years running toward a prosperous gent in a gray pinstriped suit and a fedora whose band and brim told the world it wasn’t quite the latest style.

  “Peggy!” He squeezed the breath out of her. He wasn’t usually one for public displays, but then she didn’t usually get stuck in the middle of a world war. He smelled of aftershave and American cigarettes—good smells, familiar smells, she’d almost forgotten about in her crowded time overseas. And he smelled of himself, which was even better and even more familiar.

  “Oh, Lord!” she said when they got done kissing out there in front of everyone like a couple of newlyweds. “I missed you so much!”

  “Well, I’m not exactly sorry to see you back, either, sweetheart.” That sounded more like Herb. He might not have majored in understatement at Villanova, but he sure must have minored in it.

  He took a pack of Pall Malls from a jacket pocket, tapped one against the palm of his left hand, and stuck it in his mouth. As he was lighting it, Peggy said, “For God’s sake give me one of those, will you? I’ve been smoking like a chimney—I mean like a steel-mill chimney— since I got back to New York. What they use for tobacco in Europe shouldn’t happen to a dog.”

  “Here you go.” He lit it for her. She smoked greedily. She hadn’t been kidding, not even a little bit. Herb let her take a few puffs. Then he said, “Come on. Let’s rescue your suitcase, and then we’ll go home.”

  “You have no idea—I mean, darling, you have no idea—how good that sounds.” Peggy charged toward the baggage car like a panzer on the attack. Thinking of it in that particular way told her she wasn’t the same person she had been when shells started falling around Marianske Lazne.

  Herb tipped a redcap to carry the suitcase out to the Packard. When they got to the station door, the man said, “Suh, this here’s as far as I’m supposed to go.”

  Without missing a step, Herb handed him another fat silver half-dollar. “I didn’t hear a word you said. Did you hear anything, Peg?”

  “Who, me?” she said. The porter’s grin showed a mouthful of gold teeth. He lugged the bag out to the car and waved when he trotted back toward the station.

  Philadelphia traffic took getting used to. So did everything else about the city. It didn’t look shabby. People in the street weren’t nervous or fearful. Or, if they were, it was from personal, private concerns, not because they worried that dive-bombers would scream down out of the sky and blow them into ground round.

  There was so much in the shops! Gasoline was so cheap, and so many cars used the roads. “You don’t know how lucky we are,” Peggy said. A cop at a street corner was directing traffic. That was all he was doing. Peggy pointed his way. “Look! He isn’t asking people for their papers.”

  “They’d spit in his eye if he did,” Herb answered. “And who needs papers, anyway? Unless you’re going overseas, I mean.”

  “I was mighty glad to have my American passport. Oh, Jesus, was I ever,” Peggy said. As for the rest of it, though, her husband had the straight goods. If you lived in a free country, why did you need anything that proved who you were? Wasn’t your word good enough? Peggy pointed again, almost at random. “No soldiers! No uniforms! Not one, except for the policeman.”

  “Well, who needs ’em?” Herb said.

  She remembered Germany, where everybody this side of ragpickers put on an outfit that let him show off who he was and what he did and why everybody else should salute him. And she wouldn’t have been a bit surprised if the Reich had mandated rank badges so people could tell a Ragpicker First Class from a lowly Ragpicker Second.

  They lived not far from the Main Line, on a street that had been lined with elms till Dutch elm disease killed them. They had more house than they needed most of the time.

  Herb parked the car in front of the place. Was he grayer than he had been the last time she saw him? And was he wondering the same thing about her? A year and a half! Lord!

  “You don’t know how good it is to have you back,” he said.

  “You don’t know how good it is to be back!” Peggy said. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “You have no idea. And count yourself lucky you don’t.”

  “Maybe I do, a little,” Herb answered, and left it right there.

  Peggy started to tell him he was talking through his hat. She didn’t do it, though. Maybe making it to middle age meant she thought before opening her big trap. Sometimes, anyhow. Herb had gone Over There in 1918. He’d seen combat; Peggy knew that much. Even after all these years, she knew very little more. Whatever he’d seen and done in France, he’d never talked about it once he came back to the States. This was almost the first time he’d suggested he might have run into an unpleasantness or three while working for Uncle Sam.

  And so, instead of laughing at him, Peggy said, “I could use a drink—and if you want to spell that with a U, I don’t mind.”

  “Motion seconded and passed by acclamation.” Herb got out of the Packard, came around, and opened the passenger door for her. The suitcase stayed on the back seat. Peggy didn’t need anything in it right away, and nobody would steal it, not in this eminently respectable neighborhood.

  Herb opened the front door. He took half a step to one side so Peggy could walk into the foyer ahead of him. When she did, she was greeted by shouts of “Surprise!” and “Welcome home!” and enough cheers for a Sunday doubleheader at Shibe Park. Everybody she’d ever met seemed to be crowding the house.

  She rounded on her husband. “You did this!” she said—half accusation, half delight.

  “Darn right I did,” he answered. “You don’t come back from a war every day.”

  “I’m going to have that drink, or maybe that drunk, any which way,” Peggy declared.

  “Good. I’ll help,” Herb said briskly. She did, and so did he.

  VACLAV JEZEK PUT a helmet on a stick and cautiously raised it up above the level of the trench in which he crouched. That was probably the oldest sniper’s trick in the world, which didn’t mean it didn’t work. The German lines were most of a kilometer away, separated from his position by mines and barbed wire. All the same, a rifle shot rang out over there.

  The helmet rang, too, like a bell. He jerked it down. It was a French model. Now it had a bullet hole a centimeter or two above the French crest soldered onto the front.

  Sergeant Benjamin Halévy eyed that precisely placed hole. “Well, you were right,” he said. “Fucking Nazis have a sniper of their own running around loose.”

  “Happy day,” Vaclav said morosely. “I’ve done this before. I don’t want to do it again, goddammit.” When a sniper annoyed the enemy enough, he di
d his best to get rid of the annoyance. Vaclav had already won a couple of duels with a German sharpshooter. Now the Landsers were back for another try.

  “They must have noticed when you murdered that mortar guy and the armored cars,” Halévy said.

  “Happy day,” the Czech repeated, even more gloomily than before. The pile of dirt and ore and whatnot where the mortar crew had set up was behind the line now, not in front of it. Clearing all the Germans away from it had cost more lives than it was worth. And the boys in field-gray still had plenty more of those industrial hillocks to use as firing positions.

  “Maybe a shell from a 105 will blow that son of a bitch right out of his marching boots,” Halévy said.

  “And then you wake up,” Vaclav said, fumbling in his tunic for a pack of Gitanes. He was wearing a French one; the Czech tunic he’d had for so long had finally gone the way of all fabric. The pockets weren’t in the right places—they weren’t where his fingers automatically went, anyhow. Once he had the cigarette going, he added, “You can afford to be cheerful. The bastard isn’t trying to put one in your earhole.”

  “He wouldn’t turn me down if I did something stupid,” Halévy said.

  “No, but you’d just be part of his job. When two snipers tangle, it’s personal,” Vaclav said. That made it worse, as far as he was concerned. When you shot whoever you saw in the enemy’s uniform, it was war. When you tried to kill one guy in particular, it was something different, something even older and more primitive.

  Halévy hit that nail on the head when he said, “Fine. Once you plug this Nazi, cut his liver out and cook it. It’ll probably be fat, like a force-fed goose’s.”

  “Heh,” Vaclav said nervously. The way the French got their nice fatty livers for paté made his stomach want to turn over. The idea of eating a German liver, on the other hand, disgusted him less than he thought it should. Still … “He’s probably some lousy Feldwebel left over from the last war, and tougher than shoe leather.”

  “Wouldn’t be surprised,” Halévy said. “Long pig isn’t any more kosher than regular pig, either. Too bad.”

  “It wouldn’t stop you, not the way you gobble down all the ham you can find,” Jezek jabbed.

  The Jewish underofficer shrugged. “Food is food. When you get some, you eat it. You can be sorry afterwards. I’m always sorry afterwards. I’m usually sorry there wasn’t more.”

  Vaclav snorted. Before he could give Halévy a hard time, a young French officer came up to them and started jabbering away in his own language. Vaclav spread his hands. He really didn’t speak much French. And feigning even more incomprehension kept him from having to do what eager young officers had in mind. A couple of times, that might have kept him from getting killed.

  Halévy could interpret, of course—if he felt like admitting he understood French. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn’t. Sergeants often mistrusted officers’ schemes … and often had good reason.

  But this fellow wouldn’t be put off so easily. “Wait,” he said in nasal German. “I was told you followed the Boche’s tongue.”

  However much Jezek wanted to deny it, he didn’t see how he could, not without landing himself in more trouble. “Ja,” he said resignedly. “Was wollen Sie, mein Herr?”

  “I will tell you what I want,” the Frenchman said. “We have found the spot from which the German colonel in charge of the regiment opposite us is in the habit of making reconnaissance. He is a capable officer. If you eliminate him, very likely his replacement will be less so.”

  “Foie gras,” Halévy remarked. The French officer gave him a look that mingled annoyance and curiosity. The Jew did not explain.

  In his boots, Vaclav wouldn’t have explained, either. “I must see the place, sir, and find a spot from which to shoot,” he told the officer. His own German was rusty, but it served.

  “Aber natürlich,” the Frenchman said. “Come with me.” He started to straighten.

  Vaclav grabbed him before he could. “Be careful, for God’s sake,” he said. “The Nazis have their own sniper over there.”

  “Oh, really? Is that so?” Maybe the young officer was being ostentatiously brave. Then again, maybe he was being ostentatiously stupid. Vaclav took no needless chances. He wanted to live to get old and fat and lazy. If he settled down here and married a Frenchwoman, that wouldn’t be so bad, even if it meant he’d finally have to buckle down and learn the lousy language.

  Antitank rifle clunking against his back at every step, he followed the officer down the trench. He made sure he didn’t show himself. If the German marksman was watching through field glasses or a telescope, he could recognize the rifle’s long, thick barrel. Better—much better—not to let him do anything about it.

  “Here is our lookout position,” the officer said after most of a kilometer. Vaclav lowered the rifle and kept walking. The Frenchman spluttered. “You are insubordinate!” he declared, a word only an officer would bother learning auf Deutsch.

  “No, sir,” Vaclav said stolidly as the Frenchman trailed after him. “Think the Fritzes don’t know where you look from? Maybe a sniper can’t put one through your loophole there, but I don’t want to find out the hard way.”

  The officer grunted. Speaking German, Vaclav sounded as authoritative as he did. Speaking German, anybody could sound authoritative. That was one of the few things the language was good for. With any luck at all, the Nazi with the scope-sighted Mauser would figure he’d stopped at the observation post. Two or three hundred meters farther on, he raised his helmet above the level of the parapet. When no gunshot came his way, he slowly lowered the helmet, put it on again, and peered across toward the German position.

  “Now,” he said, “tell me where the German colonel looks from. Don’t point or anything. Just tell me.”

  “You know your business,” the officer said, coming up beside him to look east. He sounded surprised, and more respectful than he had before.

  “I’m still breathing,” Vaclav answered, which covered everything that needed saying on that score.

  “Do you see the burnt-out automobile, a little to the right of the broken brick fence?” the Frenchman asked. His right arm twitched, but he didn’t point. “That is where the cochon does his reconnaissance.”

  Vaclav did see it. It was a long shot from here. He wasn’t sure of a kill, but he had a chance. “Sehr gut,” he said. “I will come back before sunup, so I can get ready without the Germans seeing me do it.”

  “You will know what you require,” the French officer said stiffly. He gave Vaclav a jerky little nod, then hopped off the firing step and down into the trench again.

  The Czech did know what he required. By the time the eastern sky started getting light, he’d placed his rifle and covered most of the barrel with branches he tore from bushes. His helmet was covered with leafy branches, too, held in place by a rubber strip he’d cut from an old inner tube. He’d seen Germans use that trick, and he liked it well enough to steal.

  Once he was set, he had nothing to do but wait. Wait he did, and wait, and wait some more. He wanted a cigarette, but he didn’t smoke. He didn’t know if the enemy was watching this spot, and he didn’t want to do anything to draw his notice. A couple of poilus near the lookout post shot at the German line. They drew answering rifle and machine-gun fire. Vaclav smiled. If the Germans got all hot and bothered by those fellows over there, they weren’t worrying about him.

  Halfway through the morning, he was bored. He needed to take a leak. He really wanted a cigarette. He waited. That was half the battle, or more than half, for snipers.

  And he got his reward. Here came a fellow in a Feldgrau greatcoat, with an officer’s peaked cap on his head. He stationed himself near that dead motorcar and began a leisurely examination of the Allied position.

  It seemed to Vaclav that the German was looking straight at him when he pulled the trigger. Did the fellow see the muzzle flash? Did he just have time to realize what it was before the bullet hit him? Because it
did hit him—he went down like a marionette when the puppeteer drops the strings.

  As soon as Vaclav saw that, he ducked and scurried away. The German sniper on the other side of the line would know he’d scored again. The bastard would want to meet him … in a manner of speaking. So many other things could kill or maim him, too. But he was still alive. He might stay that way a while longer.

  ANOTHER MISERABLE SUPPER. Sarah Goldman’s mother was a good cook. When you had so little to work with, though, what could you do? Pharaoh had ordered the Children of Israel to make bricks without straw. Hanna Goldman faced the same problem, thanks to the orders of Germany’s latter-day Pharaoh. When root vegetables and turnip greens were all you could make, when salt was your only flavoring, you were licked.

  After supper, Father turned on the radio. He didn’t usually bother any more. “What’s up?” Sarah asked.

  “I want to hear the news,” he answered.

  “Good God—why?” Sarah exclaimed. “Same old rubbish.”

  “Probably.” Samuel Goldman rolled a cigarette from newspaper and tobacco scrounged from dog ends. It wasn’t a professorial skill, but he had it. Maybe he’d picked it up in the trenches in the last war. More likely, he’d acquired it since exchanging his university post for one in a labor gang. Jews got no tobacco ration of their own any more. After he lit the nasty cigarette, he went on, “I heard something interesting from somebody who said he heard it from someone you can trust. I want to see if the regular broadcast covers it.”

  Sarah had no trouble translating her father’s opaque phrases. He’d been talking with someone who listened to the BBC, or possibly to Radio Paris. That was, of course, against the law, and the Germans jammed enemy stations as hard as they could. People tuned in to them anyhow. The Goldmans would have, even if it was doubly risky for Jews. But, with Saul still on the run from what the Nazis called justice, it was ten times doubly risky for them. If they got caught, they’d go straight to a concentration camp, and so they abstained.