Sniper's Honor(108)

The Teacher checked his as yet unfired Sten gun, positive that it was cocked, the bolt free and not engaged in the safety notch, sure that in one burst he could kill at least a few of the beasts, maybe get rounds into all six before they were on him. Then maybe he could pull the 6.35mm Frommer that had been his only protection until recently and kill or wound the others. But he knew he would be so slashed and bitten, and there was no way he could—

A screaming came across the sky.

It was a chorus of banshees or other dead creatures or ghastly apparitions: high-pitched, full of vibration, a howl, the yell of death, the fall of civilization, the hungry screaming of the harpies as they tore something into shreds. Then the high pitch went away, buried in a lower, more sibilant roar that spoke of fire and death.

The Teacher recognized it. It was the sound of a battery of seventy-two Katyusha rockets blasting from their truck-borne carriers to obliterate whatever resided in their scatter of random hits. The shriek was so intense it traveled for miles, a pronunciamento for the Red Army, a signifier of battle for the German. To the dogs, with their more refined hearing, it would be hideously loud.

The Red offensive had begun.

If the Teacher knew, the dogs did not. To them it signaled the approach of another predator, a mythic predator; it meant they were to be swept up in dinosaur jaws, crushed, ripped, gobbled. Their brains could not handle the fear.

Thirty meters shy of the quarry, they hit a wall. It seemed to be made of glass, but it was made of terror. They lost their grace and focus, they slid, slithered, slipped, rolled, each pounding into the other, each in the abyss of pure animal panic. And just that fast, they were gone, seeking survival in the cover of the deep woods.

Meanwhile the artillery, a thousand guns at least, maybe two thousand, commenced, a rush of noise swallowed in detonation, a whistle of shells obeying the laws of gravity and descending from their rainbow arcs to vaporize all that lay within their blast zones. It was so loud that the dust fell from the trees, the ground shivered, and the world seemed on the tippy-tippy edge of destruction.

But the Teacher understood it was still miles away to the south, as far as Kosiv, which had been the closest Russian strong point and clearly would be the offensive step-off site; it simply proved an old point—destruction is loud. He turned, hoping to see something through the screen of trees that stood between him and the valley four thousand feet beneath, but he could see nothing.

He turned and headed up the path. Without dogs, the Germans would be helpless. He would catch up with the woman, and the two of them would diverge from this path to the brush, where tracking them by eye would be impossible. Maybe in time the Germans would round up the dogs, get them calmed down, but it would be hours before they found the scent again.

He rounded a slight turn and saw the sniper walking ahead. She turned, feeling his eyes on her, and waved. He raced to her, breathing hard in the thinner air.

“You’re alive!” she said.

“Scoundrel’s luck once again. The noise of the Katyushas. It terrified the dogs.”

“It scared the hell out of me,” she said.

“Come on, this is our golden opportunity. We must get off the path, we must progress overland, through the brush and trees. It’ll take hours to find our trail.”

“Yes.”

“But dump that rifle. It slows us.”

“No, no. You can never tell. Come on, we’re wasting time.”

It took another two hours, but in all that time, they heard no sign of their pursuers. The journey quickly resolved itself into pure ordeal, the two fighting through thorns and bracken and the needles of the pines, some very sharp, all at an uphill angle, going primarily on faith. They were washed in sweat, which drained into their eyes, as the branches whipped backward to catch them in the faces, or roots tugged and twisted their ankles.

“I think it’s just ahead,” said the Teacher.

They reached a familiar glade.

“COMING IN!” yelled the Teacher, and he and Petrova eased ahead.



* * *



“Why can we not stay here?” asked the Peasant in Ukrainian. “Our army will arrive soon, a day or two. We can just wait and—”

“No, no,” said the Teacher in the same language. “The Germans will gather their dogs in a while. They’ll come after us. Eventually they’ll pick up the scent. They’ll find this cave. We must be long gone when they get here.”

That was true. But there was more. What the Teacher didn’t say was that he wasn’t eager to simply walk to the Red Army with hands upraised. He had no idea how good these troops would be and if they were of poor quality—many were—they might shoot anything that moved. Then there was the issue of Mili Petrova, quite possibly hunted by her own people. He had to get that settled.