“This is true,” Dolger said. “It makes matters more difficult. Even if Russian had the full complement of tenses of a civilized language, however, I am of the opinion that our comrades the partisan brigadiers would be late anyhow, simply because that is in their nature.” A lot of Germans in Pskov, from what Bagnall had seen, had stopped automatically thinking of Russians asUntermenschen. Captain Dolger was not among their number.
Aleksandr German arrived twenty minutes late, Nikolai Vasiliev twenty minutes after him. Neither man showed concern, or even awareness of a problem. With the brigadiers in front of him, Captain Dolger was a model of military punctilio, no matter what he said about them behind their backs. Bagnall gave him points for that; he embodied some of the same traits as were found in a good butler.
Kurt Chill grunted when the Russians and the Englishmen who were supposed to lubricate Soviet-German relations entered his chamber. By the scraps of paper that littered his desk, he’d had plenty to keep him busy while he waited.
The meeting was the usual wrangle. Vasiliev and Aleksandr German wanted Chill to commit moreWehrmacht men to front-line fighting; Chill wanted to hold them in reserve to meet breakthroughs because they were more mobile and more heavily armed than their Soviet counterparts. It was almost like a chess opening; for some time, each side knew the moves the other was likely to make, and knew how to counter them.
This time, grudgingly, urged along by Bagnall and Embry, Kurt Chill made concessions. “Good, good,” Nikolai Vasiliev rumbled down deep in his chest, sounding like a bear waking up after a long winter’s nap. “You Englishmen, you have some use.”
“I am glad you think so,” Bagnall said, though he wasn’t particularly glad. If Vasiliev thought them useful here, Aleksandr German probably did, too. And if Aleksandr German thought them useful here, would he help them get back to England, as he’d hinted he might?
Lieutenant General Chill looked disgusted with the world. “I still maintain that expending your strategic reserve will sooner or later leave you without necessary resources for a crisis, but we shall hope this particular use does not create that difficulty.” His glance flicked to Bagnall and Embry. “You are dismissed, gentlemen.”
He’d added that last word, no doubt, to irk the partisan brigadiers, to whomgentlemen should have beencomrades. Bagnall refused to concern himself with fine points of language. He got up from his seat and quickly headed for the door. Any chance to get out of the gloom of theKrom was worth taking. Ken Embry followed him without hesitation.
Outside, the bright sunshine made Bagnall blink. During the winter, the sun seemed to have gone away for good. Now it stayed in the sky more and more, until, when summer came, it would hardly seem to leave. The Pskova River had running water in it again. The ice was all melted. The land burgeoned-for a little while.
In the marketplace not far from theKrom, thebabushkas sat and gossiped among themselves and displayed for sale or trade eggs and pork and matches and paper and all sorts of things that should by rights long since have vanished from Pskov. Bagnall wondered how they came by them. He’d even asked, a couple of times, but the women’s faces grew closed and impassive and they pretended not to understand him.None of your business, they said without saying a word.
Over on the edge of the city, a few scattered gunshots broke out. All through the marketplace, heads came up in alarm. “Oh, bloody hell,” Bagnall exclaimed. “Are the Nazis and Bolshies hammering at each other again?” That had happened too often already in Pskov.
Gunshots came closer to the marketplace. So did a low roar that put Bagnall in mind of one of the Lizards’ jet fighters, but seemed only a few feet off the ground. A long, lean, white-painted shape darted through the market square, dodged around the church of the Archangel Michael and the cathedral of the Trinity, and slammed into theKrom. The explosion knocked Bagnall off his feet, but not before he saw another white dart follow the course of its predecessor and hit theKrom. The second blast knocked Embry down beside him.
“Flying bombs!” the pilot bawled in his ear. He heard Embry as if from very far away. After the two blasts, his ears seemed wrapped in thick cotton batting. Embry went on, “They haven’t bothered with theKrom in a long time. They must have found a traitor to let them know our headquarters was there.”
A Russian, angry at having to serve alongside the Nazis? AWehrmacht man, captured when trying to help Red Army troops he hated worse than any Lizard? Bagnall didn’t know; he knew he never would know. In the end, it didn’t matter. However it had happened, the damage was done.
He staggered to his feet and ran back toward the fortress that had been the core around which the town of Pskov grew. The great gray stones had been proof against arrows and muskets. Against high explosives precisely aimed, they were useless, or maybe worse than useless: when they toppled, they crushed those whom blast alone might have spared. During the Blitz-and how long ago that seemed! — unreinforced brick buildings in London had been death traps for the same reason.
Smoke began rising from the wreckage. The walls of theKrom were stone, but so much inside was wood… and every lamp in there was a fire that would spread given fuel. The lamps had been given fuel, all right.
The screams and groans of the wounded reached Bagnall’s ears, stunned though they were. He saw a hand sticking up between two blocks of stone. Grunting, he and Embry shoved one of those stones aside. Blood clung to the base of it and dripped. The German soldier who’d been crushed under there would never need help again.
Men and women, Russians and Germans, came running to rescue their comrades. A few, more alert than the rest, carried stout timbers to lever heavy stones off injured men. Bagnall lent the strength of his back and arms to one such gang. A stone went over with a crash. The fellow groaning beneath it had a ruined leg, but might live.
They found Aleksandr German. His left hand was crushed between two stones, but past that he hardly seemed hurt. A red smear beneath a nearby stone the size of a motorcar was all that was left of Kurt Chill and Nikolai Vasiliev.
Flames started peeping out between stones. The little crackling noise they made was in and of itself a jolly sound, but one that brought horror with it. Soldiers trapped in the rubble shrieked as fire found them before rescuers could. Smoke grew ever thicker, choking Bagnall, making his eyes run and his lungs burn as if they’d caught fire themselves. It was as if he was working inside a wood-burning stove. Every so often, too, he smelled roasting meat. Sickened-for he knew what meat that was-he struggled harder than ever to save as much, as many, as he could.
Not enough, not enough. Hand pumps brought water from the river onto the fire, but could not hold it at bay. The flames drove the rescuers away from those they would save, drove them back in defeat.
Bagnall stared at Ken Embry in exhausted dismay. The pilot’s face was haggard and black with soot save for a few clean tracks carved by sweat. He had a burn on one cheek and a cut under the other eye. Bagnall was sure he looked no better himself.
“What the devil do we do now?” he said. His mouth was full of smoke, as if he’d had three packs of cigarettes all at once. When he spat to get rid of some of it, his saliva came out dark, dark brown. “The German commandant dead, one of the Russian brigadiers with him, the other one wounded-”
Embry wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Since one was as filthy as the other, neither changed color. Wearily, the pilot answered, “Damned if I know. Pick up the pieces and go on as best we can, I suppose. What else is there to do?”