“I think I’d better leave,” he said, unsuccessfully stifling a yawn.
“Do I bore you?” Natalie quizzed him impishly. “Put your feet up on the couch and rest for a bit. Take a short nap. If you don’t, I’m afraid you’ll fall asleep while you’re driving and get into an accident.”
“Good thought. Wake me in an hour,” Steve said sleepily as he complied with her command.
When he woke, it was to the smell of coffee and the streaming of sunlight through the window. “What the hell,” he said and sat up, only to become aware that he was in his GI skivvies and covered by a thin blanket.
Natalie entered the room. She was wearing a robe and her hair hung down across her shoulders. She looked lovely. Better, she held out a steaming cup of coffee. “Has Lazarus returned?” she teased.
He flushed and took the coffee. It was both real and excellent. “Did you steal my uniform?”
“It was not a difficult achievement. You were sleeping so soundly I probably could have shaved your head and painted your body green without your noticing. I cleaned your uniform with a sponge and pressed it with an iron. You may put it on after you shower.”
On top of the coffee, the thought of a shower was an outstanding idea. But then he realized something. “Natalie, I’ve been here all night. What will your neighbors think?”
“Thank you, brave soldier, for being worried about my reputation, but, even if someone did see you, I don’t particularly care. In case you haven’t noticed, I am not a child and my life is my own.”
He mulled that over and had a second cup of coffee along with some toast that had been lathered with margarine. Coffee she could get, but not butter.
She gave him a robe. “In case you’re curious, it belonged to an old and very dear friend of mine. He was killed in a battle in the Pacific. Midway. Now go take your shower. Leave your filthy underwear outside the door and I’ll clean them as well.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Steve said.
“I know.” Natalie smiled.
The shower was a luxury and he wallowed in it. After drying, he put the robe on again, absurdly conscious that he had nothing on underneath.
In the living room, Natalie was still in her own robe. “My, my, don’t you look refreshed.”
He laughed. “I do feel like a new man.”
“When do you have to report back?”
“Not until tomorrow. General Marshall and the war will just have to go on without me.”
“I’m glad,” she said, moving so that she stood directly in front of him. Barefoot, she came a little taller than his shoulder. She reached out and caressed his cheek with her hand. “You really are a gentle, sensitive, intelligent man, Steven Burke, and you’re all mine until tomorrow.”
The touch of her finger on his face was electric and he felt himself immediately aroused. She slid her slender body up to him and kissed him softly on the lips, gently pressing her belly and hips against him.
“Now it’s your turn to kiss me,” she said, and he complied. He tried to keep his kiss as soft as hers was, but he was having difficulty breathing. The two of them pressed tightly against each other while she responded and their kisses grew more fervent.
They separated and he became aware that his robe had parted and was open. Natalie looked down and smiled. Then she slid hers off her shoulders, and let it fall on the floor, standing naked before him. He gasped at her beauty. She had firm, full breasts, a slightly curved but still fairly flat belly, gently rounded hips, and the legs of a dancer. Natalie walked behind him and slid his robe down his back. Hand in hand they went into her room, where they fell on her bed and made love with a degree of pent-up urgency that shocked him.
As they lay beside each other, temporarily sated, she ran her finger down his chest and smiled. “Steven, you are so skinny. Doesn’t anyone feed you?”
He chuckled quietly. “And you, Natalie, are so lovely.” He could scarcely imagine this was actually happening to him. Natalie Holt was the most beautiful woman in the world. “I’m afraid I’m going to wake up and you’ll be gone.”
Natalie rolled over on his chest so that she was looking directly at him. “Don’t worry about it. You’re not going anyplace and neither am I.” She laid her head on his chest. “Did anyone tell you I was cursed?”
“No,” he answered, puzzled.
“Yes. Ever since I was twelve, I became aware of the effect I had on men. I could look in a mirror and see that I was what men think of as beautiful. Unfortunately, I also had a brain and that was my curse. Men—and women too—thought of me as a lovely ornament, only to be looked at, and not as an intellect to be taken seriously. I had to do twice as well in school and often I was accused of cheating or trading sex for a good grade. Very few people could accept the fact that I could succeed on my own.”
She raised her head again and looked at him in wonder, almost shyly. “Everyone wanted to touch my breasts and not my mind, while you, dear Steven, wanted to do both. First, however, you did actually touch my mind by respecting my thoughts and opinions, and doing it so sincerely and so gently. That’s when I started to fall in love with you.”
She stopped talking and began to caress his manhood while kissing his chest. He felt himself stiffen again and, this time, didn’t care if the world knew.
“Steven,” she purred, “you are one in a million and I’ve waited a long time for someone like you.” She guided him back on top of her and into her, wrapping her legs tightly about him. She smiled, biting her lower lip. He was aware of a bead of sweat on her forehead as she moved her hips in response to his thrusts. She took a deep breath.
“Do you love me, Steven?”
“Yes,” he gasped.
“Now that I’ve found you, I have no intention of letting you go. When you go to Europe you will always remember who is waiting here for you, won’t you?”
“Yes,” Steve answered as their bodies moved in primal tune with each other. “Yes, yes, yes, yes!”
TONY THE TOAD squatted alone in the living room of a little house outside the Spandau district of Berlin. He didn’t count the two corpses upstairs in the main bedroom. They didn’t stink too badly yet. For a little while, he had been puzzled, since they didn’t show any signs of wounds. Then it dawned on him—they had taken poison. They’d either been Nazi bigwigs who couldn’t deal with the fall of Hitler and the Third Reich, or they were ordinary Germans who saw themselves dying in agony at the hand of the Russians.
Either way, he didn’t give a shit. They had died and left him with a house that wasn’t too badly damaged, and a storage room full of food they had probably hoarded while other loyal Germans went hungry. Fuck ’em, he thought. They probably deserved to die. Even if they didn’t, it didn’t make a helluva lot of difference.
Tony shifted his rifle to a more comfortable position and again looked out the window for a sign of the returning American army. As usual he saw nothing, only the lengthening of shadows that preceded the coming night. There was no sign of the Russians, either, which somewhat cheered him.
Count your blessings, he told himself. He was alive and unhurt. He was also safe and had a roof over his head. There was several weeks’ worth of food in the basement, maybe more, and he had a rifle with some ammunition. It could have been a lot worse.
Tony stiffened as he heard a noise. It was a soft and gentle scratching. A cat? Possibly. A dog? He didn’t think so. He quietly slipped off the safety on his weapon.
The sound of a window opening in the next room sent a chill down his spine. Should he run? Should he fight? If intruders were inside, they were probably outside the house as well, and, besides, where could he run to? He hunched over and walked to the doorway, took a deep breath, and lunged in, his rifle at the ready.
A small, thin, ragged man sat on the floor while another dangled awkwardly from the window, his head and chest inside the room and the remainder of his body still outside. They were both dirty and emaciated, and his first impression was
that of human rodents. They were wearing what he immediately realized was some kind of prison uniform. The second man slid onto the floor and they both raised their hands stiffly in surrender and glared at him and his rifle in feral anger. Tony had never seen humans who looked so much like tortured animals.
For what seemed an eternity they stared at each other. Finally, the first man inside muttered something at him that Tony didn’t understand but thought was German. The man then followed in what Tony took to be French. Perplexed, Tony asked if either man spoke English.
The man who had just come through the window responded, showing a mouth full of rotten teeth as he looked down the barrel of the menacing rifle. “I do,” he said with a heavy accent that Tony didn’t recognize.
They seemed to relax slightly, although they never took their sunken eyes off Tony’s weapon. Apparently, English-speaking people were not their enemy. “Now,” asked Tony, “who the hell are you and what are you doing here.”
The English-speaker responded, talking hesitantly, as if he was trying to recall the words. “We are refugees. The Nazis forced us to leave our homes and work for the Germans in their factories. We are both from Poland. As is apparent, I speak English somewhat while my friend speaks it only a little. My name is Vaslov and his is Anton. Are you British?”
“American,” Tony answered, and they both looked incredulous, fear immediately disappearing.
“The Americans are here?” Vaslov asked, disbelief evident in his voice.
“We were,” Tony said ruefully, and explained that the Russians had ambushed the column. The information appeared to stun the two Poles.
Vaslov spoke solemnly. “If the Russians and you Yanks are fighting, this war could last a very long time and make our lives very, very dangerous.”
Tony hadn’t thought about the time factor. For some reason he’d felt his ordeal would be a short one. Now he had to rethink his position. “Are you Communists?” he asked.
“No,” they answered quickly. Vaslov explained that they feared the Russians as much as they feared the Germans, as both had taken turns devouring their country. “Either will kill us,” he said. “They are both beasts. One of the reasons the Germans imprisoned us was because we were part of the democracy movement. The Russians would not be gentler. They hate and fear the intelligentsia.”
Vaslov curled his lips. “What’s that smell?” When Tony explained about the bodies upstairs, both Vaslov and Anton smiled grimly. “Good. When it is real bad, no one will come in here. If we can stand it, we can remain here in some safety.”
Tony thought about it and agreed. “Hell, we can always go out and find some more corpses if we have to, to sweeten the joint.”
The two former slave workers chuckled at the macabre thought of dead Germans protecting them from discovery by the Russians. Cautiously, they talked through the afternoon. They decided they were in a fairly strong position. They had a weapon and they had food, although it would now have to be split three ways. They had a house and it would serve as a place to hide. They would stay there until they were either rescued or they thought it might be safe to try and head west from Berlin.
Tony asked, “What do you suggest we do while we are waiting?”
“Well,” said Vaslov. “I would suggest we kill Nazis, although I think they are fast disappearing. It seems that the new enemy is Russia. Would you like to kill them?”
Tony the Toad smiled. He thought about Ernie and his buddies burning to death while trying to get out of the Sherman. Brentwood had died as well. He’d been an asshole, but he didn’t deserve to bake. Killing Russians would be dangerous and they must not be so reckless as to invite discovery, but he thought they might be able to hurt the Commies and get some small measure of revenge.
Yes, he would indeed like to kill Russians.
CHAPTER 8
Outside, the spring sun was bright and warm. This made the air inside the squad bunker stifling and hot, a foretaste of what the summer would bring.
First Sergeant Stan Krenski hunched down and entered the bunker through the low and small entrance in the rear. An angular and raw-boned man, he was not as tall as he sometimes appeared, and was only slightly taller than Logan.
“Jesus, it stinks in here,” Krenski said in mock dismay. “Doesn’t anybody shower anymore?”
Logan looked blandly at the others. He knew they were all pigs. “Why, I bathed just a little while ago. How about you guys?” The remainder of the squad assured Krenski that they had not only bathed but generously doused themselves with cologne in the last hour. It was a running gag. They all were filthy and stank to high heaven.
Krenski laughed and wiped his own dirty, sweaty brow. “Nice job,” he said admiringly as he looked around. The bunker was roofed with metal beams over which there were thick layers of sandbags and earth. The walls were similarly constructed and firing slits faced in all directions in case someone infiltrated behind them. Much of the material for this and the many other fortifications had been liberated from the nearby buildings. There was additional joking that the American army had done more damage to Potsdam than the American air force.
“Thanks,” said Logan. “Now, for God’s sake, Sarge, don’t tell us we’ve got to move someplace else. A helluva lot of work went into making this pleasure palace the beautiful creation that it is.”
Krenski took off his helmet and wiped his forehead. “Nope. I came to tell you that the captain wishes to see you, Sergeant Logan, and right away. I’ll stay here and admire how you put this place together while you and him talk.”
Logan grabbed his helmet and rifle and left the bunker for the short walk to the captain’s headquarters. Shit, he thought as he stepped outside, what the hell did Captain Dimitri want? Was he still pissed off because Lieutenant Singer got hit? Hell, that wasn’t his fault. Wasn’t anybody’s, really. Dimitri, who was usually around all the time, had been conspicuous by his absence for the last day or so. What did that mean?
Logan ducked his head as he entered Dimitri’s command bunker and took off his helmet.
Captain Dimitri was seated behind a makeshift desk made of planks. He did not look up from his papers. “Singer lost his arm, you know.”
Damn, thought Logan, he is pissed. “I’m not surprised, sir, it was pretty well gone when we got him to the aid station. I didn’t think anything short of a miracle was going to save it, and I haven’t seen many miracles lately.”
Finally, Dimitri looked up. Logan saw sadness in his face, but not anger. “Singer could have been a good officer. Now he gets to go home the first time we figure out how to get people out of here.”
“I liked him,” Logan said sincerely. “You’re right. He wanted to learn and to do the right thing.”
Logan felt a little guilty that he had not had an opportunity to visit Singer in the hospital. He made a mental note to rectify the problem. While the last few days had consisted of a lot of work, there still had been some free time during which he could have gone.
Dimitri nodded. “Sit down.” Logan pulled up a crate and complied. “But that’s not why I called for you. By the way, you stink and look like shit. Starting tomorrow we will be offering showers on a rotation basis and, with luck, you’ll be getting one about every week or so. The engineers have figured out a way to pump, strain, and somewhat purify the water from the river so we can bathe in it, but for Christ’s sake, tell your men not to swallow it or cook with it. That damn river is still stuffed full of corpses.”
“Yes, sir.”
Logan knew all about boiling the water for drinking and cooking, and had seen the swollen and rotting bodies of people and animals float slowly by. The news about showers would definitely cheer up his platoon. Maybe they could even do laundry. Maybe they could even get real food instead of rations. He never thought he would long for the dubious pleasures of a mess hall, but he did now.
Dimitri started speaking again, ending Logan’s thoughts. “For the second time in two months, your damned platoon nee
ds an officer, and it’s highly unlikely we are going to get one from outside. I made a proposal and it went all the way up and everyone concurs. Congratulations, Jack, you are now an officer and a gentleman.”
Logan was stunned. “You’ve got to be joking, sir.”
Dimitri grinned. “I never joke. You know that.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the gold bars of a second lieutenant. “Here, these used to be mine. Just don’t go wearing them until we get our asses out of this place. Snipers are attracted to shiny things.”
Logan took them, his mind awhirl. “But what about Sergeant Krenski. He’s the most senior NCO in the company.”
“Don’t worry about Krenski, Sergeant—I mean Lieutenant Logan—I’ve taken care of him.”
“Captain, I don’t understand. With all of Krenski’s experience, he’d be a great officer.”
“Disagree, Jack. He’s a great NCO. He’d be a shitty officer. He’s not officer material.”
Logan was puzzled. “Can I ask why? What you said almost sounds elitist, and I know you’re not that way.” Dimitri had commented several times on the fact that his parents were poor immigrants from Greece and how hard they had worked to achieve what they felt was success.
Dimitri chuckled. “I’m disappointed in you, Jack. You’ve been working with the man for months and you really don’t know a thing about him. Tell me, what’s the first thing he does when he gets a written order?”
“Uh, he usually fumbles for his reading glasses, which he can never find. He lost them a while ago, so he gives the papers to someone else to read for him.” Logan paused as the truth dawned. “Oh shit, he can’t read, can he?”
“Bingo,” said the captain. “Krenski’s thirty years old and has been in the army since he lied his way in at sixteen. He can read a little, very damn little, but he’s pretty much illiterate. That, my new lieutenant, is why he will not take over the platoon. In case you’re curious, he came to me when he thought I might promote him and told me his story. Bottom line, the man was terrified we’d make him an officer. He’ll be delighted that you got it instead, and he can stay as my senior NCO.”
Robert Conroy Page 9