Hitler's war

Chapter Twenty One

Joaquin Delgadillo didn’t know what to make of Major Bernardo Uribe. His new battalion commander was recklessly brave. You had to be, to keep going forward into the shelling the British laid down in their defense of Gibraltar. Uribe hadn’t hung back. He’d even won Sergeant Carrasquel’s grudging respect-and Carrasquel gave no other kind.

But if the major wasn’t a maricon, Joaquin had never seen anybody who was. Uribe smelled of rose water regardless of the hour. He was always shaved smooth as a woman-this among soldiers for whom scruffiness was a mark of pride. And he exaggerated the Castilian lisp into something beyond both effeminacy and self-parody.

If he ever tries rubbing up against me, I’ll break my rifle over his head, by God! Delgadillo thought. But Uribe never did. Virile machismo virtually defined the Nationalist cause. Major Uribe cared nothing for machismo-unless it made him hot-but in his own strange way he was worth more to Marshal Sanjurjo than a lot of hard-drinking, hardwenching officers.

“We are going back to Madrid,” he told his soldiers, flouncing atop a kitchen table he was using for a podium. “We are. We’ll take it away from the Republican beasts once and for all this time. And do you know what I’ve heard? Have you got any idea, my dears?” He waited expectantly, one hand cupped behind his ear.

“What is it, Senor?” the soldiers chorused, Joaquin loud among them.

“I’ve heard the International Brigades are back in Madrid. Isn’t that jolly?” the major shrilled.

“No, por Dios,” Sergeant Carrasquel muttered beside Joaquin. “They may be a bunch of fucking Reds, but they can fight. I ran up against those cocksuckers in ‘36, and once was plenty, thank you very much.”

Up on his rickety platform, Uribe turned the sergeant’s argument upside down and inside out: “People say they make good soldiers, and I guess that’s true. But they’re a pack of filthy, godless Communists. They kill priests and they rape nuns for the fun of it. The sooner we kill every one of them, the sooner we make Spain a clean place to live again.”

Some of the Nationalist soldiers cheered. Most of those, Joaquin saw, were men new to the battalion. How much did they know about hard fighting? Sergeant Carrasquel, who knew as much as anybody in the world these days, did some more muttering: “That’s all great, but how many of us are those assholes going to kill?”

“Victory will be ours,” Major Uribe insisted. “Ours! Spain’s! Germany and Italy have other scores to settle. But we-the honest people of Spain, the pious people of Spain- we will give the Red Republic what it deserves.?Muerte a la Republica!?Viva la muerte! ”

“?Viva la muerte!” the troops shouted back. Long live death! -the battle cry of the Spanish Foreign Legion-sounded ferocious when they yelled it. In Major Uribe’s full-lipped mouth, it seemed more like an endearment.

Uribe, of course, was not speaking for himself alone. He was passing on orders he’d got from the officers above him. If those officers said the battalion was going to Madrid, to Madrid it would go. The only other choice was desertion. And if Marshal Sanjurjo’s men caught you after you sneaked away or-ever so much worse-went over to the Republic…They wouldn’t waste a cigarette on you before they stood you against the closest wall. They might not even waste a firing squad’s worth of bullets on you. Why should they, when they could bash in your skull with a brick or hang you upside down, cut your throat, and bleed you like a stuck pig?

Joaquin didn’t want to go over to the Republic. He hated Communists and anarchists and freethinkers, and he had a low opinion of Catalans, too. Even if he hadn’t hated all those people when the war started, all the fighting he’d done would have turned his heart to stone against them. And deserting was too risky. A healthy man of military age, without papers to prove he really ought to be a civilian, wouldn’t last long.

And so, resignedly, Delgadillo climbed aboard a beat-up train with the rest of the men in the battalion and clattered north from Gibraltar. Sergeant Carrasquel checked the soldiers off one by one as they got on in front of him. Trying to skedaddle with the sergeant’s beady black eyes on you was worse than hopeless. If you started thinking about getting out of line, Carrasquel knew it before you did.

Hillsides were starting to turn green. Down in the south, spring came early. The calendar insisted it was still winter. Up on the far side of the Pyrenees-maybe even up in Madrid-it would be. But the warm breezes blowing up from Africa made the southern coast of Spain almost tropical.

“You wait,” somebody said. “When we get over the mountains, it’ll be raining.” Sure as the devil, it was-and a cold, nasty rain at that. Yes, winter still ruled most of Europe.

The closer they got to Madrid, the more Sergeant Carrasquel fidgeted. “Damned Russian planes shot us up last time I was here,” he said. “They shot us and bombed us, and not a fucking thing we could do about it but pray.”

“Will they do it again?” Joaquin asked. Getting attacked from the air was even more terrifying than moving up under artillery fire. He thought so while no one was shelling him, anyhow.

Sergeant Carrasquel only shrugged and lit a Canaria. Like everything else, the local brand wasn’t what it had been before the war. He blew out a stream of smoke before answering, “I’m sure God knows, amigo, but He hasn’t told me yet. When He does, I promise I’ll pass it along.”

Ears burning, Joaquin shut up. The train rattled along. One good thing about the rain: those gray clouds scudding along overhead meant enemy aircraft couldn’t get off the ground no matter how much their pilots might want to. They also meant Marshal Sanjurjo’s planes couldn’t fly, but that didn’t worry Joaquin so much.

The train came in after dark, so it got closer to the city-closer to the Promised Land, so to speak-than he’d thought it could. Rain still pattered down, but it wasn’t the only reason he couldn’t see the great city he’d come to take. Both sides observed a stringent blackout. If anyone showed a light, someone else would fire at it.

Even in the absence of light, the Republicans’ artillery lobbed a few shells at the train. Somebody asked Carrasquel how they could know where it was. He gave the poor naive fellow the horse laugh. “Did your mamacita tell you where babies come from?” he jeered. “They’ve got spies, same as we do. Sometimes I think every fourth guy in Spain is a spy for one side or the other-or maybe both.”

He was kidding on the square. When the civil war broke out, how many Spaniards had ended up stuck behind the lines in a part of the country ruled by the faction they despised? Millions, surely. And lots of them would do what they could for their side when they found the chance. Early on, General Mola had bragged that he had four columns moving on Madrid and a fifth inside the city ready to help as soon as the Nationalist troops got closer. The same held true all over the country. When the Republicans advanced, as they sometimes did, they could find traitors to help them, too.

General Mola’s four columns hadn’t taken Madrid. The fifth column inside hadn’t given enough help. And the Reds who held the city had massacred all the Nationalist sympathizers they could get their hands on-thousands of them, people said. It wasn’t as if the Nationalist martyrs hadn’t been avenged, either.

Marshal Sanjurjo’s authorities here must have known reinforcements were coming up from the south. Odds were the reinforcements had come because authorities here asked for them. Joaquin was no marshal, but he could see that plain as day. He’d figured the authorities would have barracks ready for the newcomers, or at least tents pitched in a field.

The muddy field was here. So was the dripping night. Along with all his buddies, Joaquin got to wrap himself in a blanket and try to stay dry. “This is an embarrassment,” Major Uribe said angrily. “On behalf of my superiors, men, I apologize to you.”

He apologized because his superiors never would. Joaquin could see that, too. Sergeant Carrasquel said, “This is the kind of shit that makes people go over to the other side. They ought to whale the stuffing out of whoever couldn’t be bothered to take care of us.”

Joaquin whistled softly. Anybody who opened his mouth that wide was liable to fall right in. Carrasquel had to know as much, too. But he didn’t keep quiet. You had to admire him for that.

Rain or no rain, mud or no mud, Joaquin fell asleep. When he woke up, the clouds had blown away and the sun was shining brightly. And he could see Madrid. He took a good look…and winced, and turned away. It was too much like looking at the half-rotted corpse of what had been a beautiful woman. Two and a half years of bombing and shelling left Madrid a skeletal wreck of its former self.

Guns boomed, there in the ruins. A salvo of shells screamed toward the Nationalists’ miserable encampment. They burst well short, but even so…Madrid might not be alive any more, but, like some movie monster, it wasn’t dead, either. Marshal Sanjurjo’s men had to take it and drive a stake through its heart. If they could…

* * *

Samuel Goldman stared morosely at the bandages across the palms of his hands. He was a wounded war veteran. He walked with a limp because he was a wounded war veteran. Except during the last war, he’d never done hard physical labor.

None of that mattered to the Nazis who ran Munster. Jews went into work gangs. That was what they were for. It was so mean, so unfair, it made Sarah Goldman want to grind her teeth and scream at the same time.

You couldn’t scream very well while you were grinding your teeth, but that was beside the point. Instead of letting out a shriek that would have brought the neighbors and the police, she asked, “Do you want to put on more ointment, Papa?”

He shook his head. “No. I need to toughen up my hands. Pretty soon, they’ll have calluses. Then everything will be all right.”

“No, it won’t!” Sarah exclaimed.

Her father’s chuckle was also a wheeze. “Well, you’re right, sweetheart. But it will as far as that goes, anyhow. I can’t do anything about the rest.”

“Somebody should be able to,” she said.

“What do you want me to do?” Samuel Goldman asked. “Write a letter to the Fuhrer?”

“Why not? What have you got to lose? You were a front-line soldier, just like him. Maybe he’d listen to you. You’ve said it yourself: things aren’t as bad for veterans as they are for other Jews.”

“Mm…That’s true.” For a moment, Sarah thought her father would pull out a piece of paper and start writing. But he shook his head instead. He looked even older and more tired than he had when he first came home from the labor gang. “What have I got to lose? If I were just any Jewish veteran, I think I would send him a letter, because I wouldn’t have anything. But with Saul…With Saul, I would do better not to remind the authorities about us. Or do you think I’m wrong?”

He meant the question seriously. Sarah respected him for that. If she could find a reason to make him change his mind, he would. She respected him for that, too. But she saw at once that she couldn’t find a reason like that. “No. I just wish I did,” she said sadly. “Everything’s gone wrong, and we can’t do anything about it.”

“Not everything,” her father said. “We’re all still here, and three of us are together. And if Saul isn’t, he isn’t anywhere the Nazis are likely to look for him, either. I’ll tell you something else, too.”

“What?”

“The Fuhrer isn’t the first ruler who hardened his heart against the Jews. Pharaoh did the same thing in Egypt more than three thousand years ago, and look what it got him. Pesach isn’t far away, you know.”

Sarah eyed him in something not far from astonishment. She didn’t think she’d ever heard him call the holiday Pesach before; when he said anything, he said Passover. And it wasn’t as if they were a religious or an observant family. They ate pork. They’d never bothered with matzoh during Passover. They didn’t go to the synagogue even on the High Holy Days.

Her surprise must have shown. Samuel Goldman laughed softly. “You’re right,” he said. “I never cared much about being a Jew before. So I was Jewish and Friedrich Lauterbach was Lutheran. So what? We were both Germans, weren’t we?”

“As a matter of fact, no,” Sarah said.

“As a matter of fact, yes. As a matter of policy, no.” Even now, Father was relentlessly precise. “But if, as a matter of policy, the Nazis won’t let me be a German, what else can I be? Only a Jew. And do you know what else?”

“What?” Sarah whispered again, fascinated and intrigued.

Her father smiled a sad, crooked smile. “I find I rather like it, that’s what. I wish I’d been more of a Jew when I had more of a choice. I wish we’d raised you and Saul more in the faith. Hitler made me less assimilated than I thought I was, and part of me wants to thank him for it. Isn’t that funny?”

Sarah bent down and kissed him on the cheek. He needed a shave; his beard was rough under her lips. “Oh, good!” she exclaimed.

“Good?” He looked at her over the tops of his spectacles. “Why?”

“Because that means I’m not the only one who feels the same way,” she said.

“Very often, you don’t understand what something is worth till you run into someone who tries to tell you it isn’t worth anything,” Samuel Goldman said. “And, very often, that turns out to be too late. I can only hope it won’t here. If I thought it would do any good, I would pray, but”-he spread his hands in apology to her, or perhaps to God-“I still can’t make myself imagine it helps.”

“Make yourself believe it helps,” Sarah corrected.

He smiled again, more broadly this time. “Make myself believe it helps,” he agreed. “That’s what I meant to say. I believe I am a Jew, all right. Whether I can believe I am a believing Jew…I am the kind of Jew who enjoys making paradoxes like that, which is probably not the kind of Jew God had in mind when He made us.”

“Well, why did He make us the way we are, then? Why did He make so many of us like that?”

“Stubborn and cross-grained, you mean?” Now Father was grinning from ear to ear, something he hardly ever did. “He made us in His own image, didn’t He? No wonder we’re this way.”

“You’re having more fun playing with this than you ever did with the Greeks and Romans.” Sarah made it half an accusation.

And her father, to her astonishment, went from grinning to blushing like a schoolgirl. “I sure am,” he said. “I didn’t know it showed so much. I’ve even started brushing up my Hebrew, and I haven’t cared a pfennig for it since my father and mother made me get bar-mitzvahed. Know what I’m thinking of trying next?”

“Tell me,” Sarah urged. She was fascinated in spite of herself, and had the feeling her father felt the same way.

“Aramaic,” Samuel Goldman said in a low voice. He might have been someone who dabbled in drugs confessing that he planned to start shooting morphine into his veins.

All Sarah knew about Aramaic was that it was an ancient language. Growing up in a family that prided itself on its secularism, on its Germanness, she hadn’t learned much more about Hebrew. Maybe that was why she blurted, “Teach me!”

“Teach…you?” her father echoed. The idea might never have occurred to him before. No, no might about it: plainly, the idea never had occurred to him before.

But she nodded. “I’m not a blockhead, you know. I could learn it. And you taught from the end of the last war till the Nazis wouldn’t let you do it any more. You liked doing it, too, and everybody always said you were good at it.”

“What on earth would you do with Aramaic, dear?” Samuel Goldman asked. “Or even Hebrew, come to that?”

“Beats me,” Sarah said cheerfully. “What’ll you do with them?”

Father blinked. Then he started to laugh. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know, either. I just thought learning something new would help me pass the time. Of course, pick-and-shovel work is liable to take care of that.”

Sarah nodded. “If you’re able to go on with it yourself. If you’re not too tired.”

“A bargain.” Her father held out one abused hand. She solemnly clasped it. He hesitated, then went on, “I have found one possible use for all this.”

“Oh?” Sarah couldn’t see any, not at first. Then she thought she did: “You mean going to Palestine, if we ever got the chance?”

“Mm, that, too, for Hebrew-if we ever got the chance.” By the way Father sounded, he didn’t think they would. “But that isn’t what I meant. I was thinking that, if I asked God in one of His own languages why He was doing this to us, I might possibly get an answer.” With a sigh of regret-or exhaustion-he shook his head. “Too much to hope for, isn’t it?”

She wished she could tell him no. But, almost of its own accord, her head bobbed up and down. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid it is.”

* * *

Pete McGill listened to Max Weinstein spit out singsong syllables at Wang. Wang answered; damned if he didn’t. McGill stared at Max. Like most of the Marines at the American Legation in Peking, he’d picked up a few Chinese words and phrases himself, most of them foul. But he’d never imagined he’d be able to sling the lingo the way Max did. He’d never imagined he would want to, either.

“What are you going back and forth with him about?” he asked. “Has he got a nice, clean sister?”

“Shit, McGill, drag your mind out of the gutter, why doncha?” Max said. “Me and Wang, we were talking about Mao Tse-tung.”

“About who? About what?” For a second, the name was just another singsong noise in Pete’s ears. Then it rang a bell. He looked disgusted. He sounded that way, too, as he went on, “Jesus Christ on a fuckin’ pogo stick! You go to all the trouble of learning that dumb language, and what do you want to talk about? A lousy Red! My aching back, man! Worry about the important stuff first.” As far as he was a concerned, women and food topped the list, with weapons running a strong third. He was a Marine’s Marine.

Nobody ever said Max couldn’t hold his own in brawling and drinking. He wasn’t big, but he didn’t back away from anybody. “Mao’s no lousy Red,” he said. “Mao’s the straight goods. If anybody in this crappy country can give the Japs grief, Mao’s the guy.”

“Chiang Kai-shek-” Pete McGill began.

“My ass,” Weinstein said, and then, “‘Scuse me. My ass, Corporal. See, the difference is, Chiang’s all about Chiang, first, last, and always. Mao’s about China instead. Ain’t that right, Wang?”

“What you say?” Wang wasn’t about to admit he understood enough English to make sense of that. But Max started spouting Chinese and waving his arms. Even in his own language, Wang answered cautiously. Pete knew why: if Wang sounded like a Red, he’d lose his cushy post at the Legation. He’d have to try to make an honest living instead, if there was any such thing in China these days.

“He’s not telling me everything he’s thinking,” Max complained.

“He’s smarter’n you are, that’s why,” Pete said, and explained his own reasoning.

“Oh.” Max grunted. “Yeah, I bet you’re right. That’s just how the reactionaries who run the Corps would respond to constructive, class-centered criticism.”

“Give it a rest, willya?” Pete said, rolling his eyes. “I bet you even sound like a Communist recruiting pamphlet when you’re getting laid.” He did his best to imitate a pompous Red proselytizer: “The triumph of the waddayacallit, the proletariat, cannot be denied-and wiggle your tongue a little over to the left, sweetheart.”

He laughed himself silly. He thought that was funny whether Max did or not. After a second, the Jewish Marine laughed, too. “Ah, fuck you, McGill,” he said between chuckles. Then he got serious again. “You ever hear of a hooker in the States or here who wasn’t from the proletariat? Gals who can find any other way to make a living…well, they do.”

“You get an extra charge out of feeling guilty when you screw ‘em?” McGill asked. Max couldn’t claim he didn’t lay Chinese whores. If he tried, Pete would call him a liar to his face, even if that started a fight. Weinstein was one of the horniest Marines in Peking, and that was saying something.

He gave Pete the finger. Aside from that, he didn’t try to answer. Wang said something in Chinese. Max replied in the same language. Pete didn’t know just what he said, but it sounded like a phrase that was definitely raunchy. Whatever it was, Wang giggled. Then he said something that set Max snickering.

“C’mon, man-give,” Pete urged.

“He says Mao’s the really horny son of a bitch,” Max answered. “Mao’s gotta be up near fifty, but he likes his broads young-eighteen, twenty, twenty-two, like that. Wang says he likes a bunch of ‘em in bed with him all at the same time, too.”

“What a dirty old man!” Pete said. It wasn’t that that didn’t sound like fun, and it wasn’t that he didn’t like young women, either. But he was young himself. Imagining a Chinaman old enough to be his father in the middle of an orgy made him want to puke, or at least to trade places. After a few seconds, he asked, “Does Captain Horner know about this shit?” Then he started laughing again, this time on account of the captain’s name.

“Well, I never told him-I know that,” Max got out between snickers of his own. He went back and forth with Wang in Chinese again. “Wang says he never talked about it with any other round-eye. I believe him. He doesn’t know enough English to do it, and how many leathernecks speak Chinese?”

“You make one, and everybody knows you’re a queer duck,” McGill said. Max flipped him off again. Ignoring that, Pete went on, “You really ought to pass this stuff to the captain. He picks up as much intelligence as he can on the Chinese and the Japs.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Max said.

Pete knew what that meant, or thought he did. “Listen, I don’t care if you don’t feel like telling ‘cause it’ll make one of your precious Red heroes look bad. But I don’t give a shit about that, so if you don’t pass it on, I damn well will.”

“All right, already. Shut up,” Weinstein said.

Shut up Pete did-then. Three days later, he quietly went up to Captain Horner. The officer listened, then nodded. “I heard some of this from Weinstein, but not all of it,” he said. “It’s interesting. I’m not sure what I can do with it-hell, I’m not sure what the United States can do with it, assuming it’s true-but it is interesting.”

“Yes, sir.” Pete had hoped to get a bigger rise out of him. Maybe what Horner had already heard from Max took the edge off of it.

And maybe the captain had other things on his mind. That didn’t occur to Pete till the following Wednesday, when a bombshell hit the American Legation: more than half the Marines in the garrison would be transferred to Shanghai, effective immediately.

“There are many more foreigners-not just Americans, but also Europeans-in Shanghai than in Peking,” Horner told the assembled leathernecks. “We can be more useful there. Also, Shanghai is a port, with direct connections to the United States.” He paused, looking unhappy. “If the war between Japan and China keeps getting worse, moving our men between here and the coast may prove neither easy nor safe. Better to reduce our presence in Peking now, when we don’t lose face by doing it under duress.”

That sounded to Pete as if the United States had to react to what was going on around it-as if the country had little choice. He would rather the USA dictated circumstances and didn’t have to respond to them. Sometimes, though, you had to play the hand you were dealt even if it was a bad one.

Captain Horner displayed a couple of typewritten sheets of names, several columns’ worth on each. “I shall post these as soon as we finish here,” he said. “If your name is on the list, pack your kit and be ready to move tomorrow. The Japanese authorities have promised there will be no difficulties as we march to the train station.” He looked as if he were biting down on something nasty as he spoke. That American Marines should need Japanese permission to move through Peking-! But they did. At least they had it. “Questions?” the captain asked.

Nobody had any. If the other Marines were anything like McGill, their only question was whether their name had made the list. As soon as Captain Horner posted it, everybody swarmed forward to see.

Pete’s was there. So were those of most of his buddies. “Misery loves company,” he said, and he wasn’t joking. He had a day to boil everything he’d picked up in Peking into a duffel’s worth of stuff. Some of the residue he could mail back to his folks: jade and enamelwork and the like. The rest…He set it out for the Marines who were staying behind. “Take whatever you want and pitch the rest,” he told them. He wasn’t the only guy saying that, either-not even close. Somebody who stayed in Peking would hit the jackpot with what other Marines thought was junk. Whether he’d get the chance to enjoy it might be a different question.

Japanese and Chinese stared at the leathernecks marching through the city. Some of the Chinamen pointed and exclaimed. The Japs showed better discipline. “Eyes-front!” Sergeant Larry Koenig bawled. McGill’s head went to the front. He kept looking around, though. Koenig wouldn’t catch him at it-and he didn’t.

The train flew American flags and had the Stars and Stripes painted on, and on top of, every car. No one wanted another incident like the gunboat Panay’s misfortune. Pete knew damn well he didn’t. He climbed onto the train. His corporal’s stripes assured him of a seat. The whistle screeched. The train started to roll. In a day or so…Shanghai. Well, it’ll be different, anyhow, Pete thought, and lit up an Old Gold.

* * *

Hideki Fujita would have liked to see better weather before Japan unleashed its attack along the Ussuri. Other sergeants who’d been stationed along this stretch of the border between Manchukuo and the Soviet Union longer than he had laughed at him for saying so. He would have bet even privates who’d been stationed here a while laughed at him. They knew better than to do it where he could catch them, though. He would have made them sorry. He couldn’t thump other sergeants. As long as he didn’t do anything permanent, he could knock privates around as he pleased.

The hell of it was, the laughing sergeants and even the laughing privates might be right. This was the kind of place that had about twenty minutes of summer every year, with a half hour of spring to warn you it was coming and another half hour of fall to warn you it was going. If the army waited for perfect weather in which to strike, it might still be waiting in 1943.

This weather was a lot of things. Perfect it wasn’t, not unless you were a polar bear. One blizzard after another howled down from Siberia. The swirling snow did let the Japanese hide the men and materiel they brought forward for the attack. Of course, it also made bringing troops and guns and munitions forward that much harder. But if you complained about every little thing…

Sergeant Fujita did wonder whether the horrible weather also let the Russians bring up reinforcements and guns. When he mentioned that to Lieutenant Hanafusa, the platoon commander indulged in what seemed to be everybody’s favorite sport: he laughed at Fujita. “Not likely, Sergeant!” Hanafusa said. “The Russians are too busy fighting the Poles and the Germans to even worry about us.”

“Yes, sir,” Fujita said woodenly, and dropped the subject like a live grenade. He wasn’t an educated man or anything. He couldn’t hold his own in an argument against somebody who was. But he knew his own country was up to its armpits in China. That didn’t keep anybody from starting this new adventure. Russia was bigger than Japan, a hell of a lot bigger. Why shouldn’t it also be able to pat its head and rub its stomach at the same time?

After a while, snow started melting faster than it fell. More and more bare ground appeared; white no longer cloaked the pines and firs and spruces on both sides of the Ussuri. Here and there, flowers started blooming. They sprouted with what struck Fujita as frantic haste, as if they knew they wouldn’t have long to do whatever they did. He wouldn’t have called this spring in Japan, but it looked to be as much as the Ussuri country had to offer.

Lieutenant Hanafusa seemed delighted. “Spring comes early this year!” he exclaimed. “Even the weather kami are on our side.”

No one told him he was wrong. Fujita only hoped the spirits in charge of the weather knew what they were doing. No, not only. He hoped the people in charge of the Kwantung Army knew what they were doing, too.

Whenever he got the chance, he peered across the Ussuri with field glasses. He rarely glimpsed Russians. Whatever the Red Army had over there, it was concealed. The Japanese would find out when they crossed the river-no sooner.

He kept hoping the people in charge of things would change their minds. Hope was cheap-no, free. And one of the big reasons it was free was that it was so unreliable. Men and guns kept right on moving up toward the Ussuri. Fujita presumed planes did, too, but the airstrips were farther back, so he didn’t see them.

Superior Private Shinjiro Hayashi said, “Please excuse me, Sergeant- san, but do our superiors believe the Russians don’t know we’re preparing an attack?” His education didn’t keep him from seeing what also looked all too obvious to Fujita.

“If you think our superiors tell me what they believe, Hayashi, you’re dumber than I give you credit for, and that isn’t easy,” Fujita snapped. He quashed the university student without showing how worried he was himself. He hoped he didn’t show it, anyhow. If Hayashi had suspicions, he also had the common sense to keep quiet about them.

The Japanese got a start hour-0530 on 1 April 1939. The last couple of days dragged along. Everybody got ready and did his best to make sure the Red Army went on thinking everything was normal…if that was what the Red Army thought.

“When we detach Vladivostok from the Communists, the Emperor will be proud of us,” Lieutenant Hanafusa told his platoon as they waited for the barrage to begin. Sergeant Fujita imagined marching into Vladivostok. He imagined the Emperor pinning a medal on him with his own divine hand. He imagined his heart bursting in his chest from pride.

The shelling opened right on time. The noise was titanic. The Kwantung Army was firing everything it had, and firing as fast as it could-so it seemed to Fujita, anyhow.

Hanafusa’s whistle shrilled. “Let’s go!” he said. They raced out of the dugouts and ran for the boats waiting on the river. As soon as they got in, got over, and got out, they could start fighting a more ordinary kind of war.

Russian shells were already dropping on the Japanese side of the Ussuri. The barrage hadn’t stunned all the Reds, then. Too bad, even if Fujita hadn’t really believed it would. The Russians were just too good at covering up and digging in. Well, no help for it. He jumped into his assigned boat. The whole squad made it in. He cut the rope that tied the boat to the riverbank. “Come on!” he yelled, and started paddling like a man possessed. The rest of the soldiers paddled with him.

He didn’t want to go into the river. With the heavy pack on his back, he’d sink like a stone. And the water that splashed up onto him said it was bitterly cold even now. Russian machine guns on the far bank yammered out death. Tracers snarled past the boat. Bullets kicked up rows of splashes in the stream. One holed the boat, miraculously without hitting anybody. Water jetted in.

“Stuff something into that!” Fujita shouted to the closest soldier. The man did. Fujita didn’t see what. He didn’t care. As long as the leak slowed, nobody would.

Mud grated under the boat’s keel. The Japanese soldiers jumped out. They ran toward the closest machine-gun nest. The sooner they knocked out those deadly toys, the longer they were likely to live. One of them exploded into red mist fifty meters from the enemy strongpoint. “Mines!” everybody else yelled. Fujita wanted to run very fast and to stand very still, both at the same time. He might have guessed the Russians would use mines to protect their positions, but he didn’t have to like it.

A couple of more men went down before the Japanese chucked grenades into the dugout through the firing slit. Even that didn’t do for all the Russians. One fellow staggered out all bloody, his uniform shredded. He raised his hands over his head. “Tovarishchi!” he choked out. Fujita had heard that in Mongolia. Comrades!, it meant.

He shot the Russian in the face. “You can’t shoot at us and then quit, bastard,” he said. From everything he’d heard, machine gunners everywhere had a hard time giving up. And he might even have done the Russian a favor. He was inclined to think so. What greater disgrace than surrender was there?

Japanese soldiers stormed into the woods. They soon discovered their artillery hadn’t done everything it might have. The Russians had more machine guns farther back from the Ussuri. They had snipers in camouflage smocks high up in the trees. They’d hidden more mines to slow and to channel the Japanese advance. And they had riflemen waiting in rear-facing foxholes invisible from the front, men who stayed quiet till the Japanese went by and then shot them in the back. Those fellows had as much trouble surrendering as machine gunners did.

Airplanes dueled overhead. In among the trees, Fujita couldn’t see how the aerial combat went. When bombs fell on the Red Army positions ahead, he felt like cheering. When explosions came too close to his own men, he swore. He thought the Russians were taking more punishment than they were giving out, but he wasn’t sure. Maybe he was just rooting for his own team.

Halfway through that mad afternoon, a runner told him, “You’re in command of the platoon.”

“Huh?” he said. “What happened to Lieutenant Hanafusa?”

“He caught two in the chest,” the other soldier answered. “Maybe he’ll make it, but…” A shrug said the odds were bad.

Fujita sure wouldn’t have wanted to catch two in the chest, or even one in the toe. But if the platoon was his-at least till another officer showed up-he had to do his best with it. They were still at least a kilometer from the day’s planned stop line. He needed to find out what was up with the other squads, too. “Forward!” he called. That was never wrong.