Read Online The War That Came Early: The Big Switch by Harry Turtledove - Free Book Online

Unteroffizier!”
he said.
“Zu befehl, Herr Unteroffizier!”
    Baatz went right on screaming at him. Baatz screamed at people for the fun of it. Willi didn’t think screaming at people was much fun, but he’d known plenty of noncoms who did. Awful Arno had the disease worse than most.
    And he had the rank that gave him the right to be a pain in the ass. After he finally made Klaus Metzger eat enough crow to keep himself happy, he stomped off to inflict himself on soldiers farther down the trench.
    Metzger stared after him. “Wow! That was fun,” the new fish said. “Is he always so bad?”
    Willi shook his head. “Nah. Sometimes he’s worse.”
    Awful Arno whirled. Willi’d forgotten he had rabbit ears. “What was that, Dernen?” he shouted.
    “Nothing, Corporal.” Willi was ready to lie to save his own skin, or just to save himself grief.
    “
Ja, ja
. Tell me another one.” But Baatz must have picked up tone rather than words, because he left it there. Willi celebrated by lighting a Gitane from a pack he’d taken off a captured Frenchman.
    “Can I have one of those?” Metzger asked.
    “Sure. Steady your nerves now that he’s done fucking you over.” Willi gave him the smoke, and a light.
    Metzger’s cheeks hollowed as he inhaled. Then he coughed. He eyed the Gitane with sudden wary respect. “What the hell do the Frenchies put in there? Tastes like I’m smoking barbed wire.”
    “That’s real tobacco, kiddo, is what that is,” Willi answered. “We mix ours with God knows what to stretch it further. You taste the straight goods again, you’re not used to it any more. You forget how strong it can be.”
    “Strong? I hope to shit! One of these things could win the Olympic weightlifting medal if they ever hold the Games again,” Metzger said.
    “Not this year,” Willi said. “We’re playing a different game now.”
    The other
Landser
nodded. “Isn’t that the sad and sorry truth?”
    A mortar round came down a few meters in front of the trench. Willi hated mortars as much as anything in this different game. You could hear ordinary artillery coming, often soon enough to have a good chance to duck. If the shell didn’t land right on top of you, you were probably fine. But only a faint whistle betrayed a mortar bomb before it burst. And ducking after it burst was what the Tommies called tough shit.
    Metzger stared when Willi threw himself flat. He didn’t know what to listen for yet. Come to that, Willi wasn’t consciously aware of why he hit the dirt. He only knew he needed to. The bang and the snarl and screech of fragments slicing by overhead filled in the wherefores.
    A moment later, Klaus Metzger stretched out beside him. “You all right?” Willi asked. Metzger wasn’t screaming, but wounds didn’t always hurt right away.
    “Ja,” the other soldier answered. “Took me by surprise. How’d you know it was coming?”
    Willi shrugged horizontally. “There’s a little noise. You’ll get the hang of it pretty quick—especially if they keep this shit up.”
    More French mortar bombs were falling on or near the German entrenchments. Down the trench, from the direction in which Corporal Baatz had gone, someone started squalling like a stuck shoat. Was it Awful Arno? Too much to hope for, Willi supposed.
    “Be ready when they stop,” he shouted in between explosions. “That’s when the froggies’ll hit us on foot if they’re going to.”
    “Right,” Metzger said. “With all this goddamn snow, they’ll be on top of us before we know they’re here.”
    “More fun when a girl gets on top of you before you know she’s there,” Willi agreed. Klaus made a face at him. Willi went on, “Why d’you think they’d pick now to try it? I just hope like hell our machine gunners aren’t off playing skat or something.”
    “You’re a funny fellow, aren’t you? Funny like the cholera, I mean,” Metzger said.
    “That’s me,” Willi said, not without pride.
    The mortar bombs quit