The Baltic War(24)

Thorsten nodded, drained what was left of his own stein, and then contemplated the empty vessel. More to the point, contemplated whether he could afford to order another. The very fact that he even had to think about whether he could do so drove home to him just how quickly his financial situation would become desperate.



Well . . . "desperate," in a sense. Finding a job that would pay enough to keep him fed and sheltered and even reasonably clothed wasn't the issue. Magdeburg was what the Americans called a boom town. If he started looking early the next morning, Thorsten could have a new job by the end of the day. Maybe even by noon. But it would be unskilled labor, almost for sure.



The problem wasn't even the work itself, as hard as it would most likely be. Thorsten was not lazy and, though he was no taller than the average man, was stocky and very strong for his size. In particular, like most people raised to farm work, he had a lot of endurance.



It was the boredom that would slowly—no, not so slowly, not any more—drive him half-mad. Now that Thorsten had had the experience of a job that was interesting and challenging, the idea of going back to spending all day wielding a pick or a shovel was far more distasteful than it would have been a few months earlier. He'd been spoiled, really.



"I'll have to make arrangements," he said, almost sighing the words. "Even though I hate being in debt."



He noticed, suddenly, that Achterhof's earlier sympathetic expression had been replaced by something else. There was now a look on his face that wasn't exactly what you could call predatory. But it reminded him of the way hunting dogs fixed their gaze on something that might be prey.



"Join the army," Gunther said. He nodded toward Krenz. "Like he's going to do."



Surprised, Engler looked at Eric. Krenz shrugged, smiling perhaps a bit ruefully. "Hey, look, Thorsten. They didn't fire me, true enough. But there's not going to be any work for me there until they rebuild the whole factory. Which will take months—and Underwood and Hartmann are not the old-style type of masters who'll pay a man when he's not actually working."



The young repairman looked a bit uncomfortable, for a moment. "Besides. I'd been thinking about it anyway. It's also a matter of patriotic duty."



Patriotic. That was another up-time loan word in Amideutsch. The notions involved in the term weren't completely foreign, not by any means. Any German who had citizenship rights in a town—which many didn't, of course—understood perfectly well that the rights also carried obligations. Including the obligation to serve in the militia when and if the town was threatened. But the Americans gave a sweeping connotation to the notion that was quite different from the traditional one. Almost mystical, in a way. As if such a nebulous thing as a "nation" was as real as an actual town or village, and could make the same claims on its citizens.



Now suspicious, Thorsten looked back and forth between Eric and Gunther. "You set this up," he accused. "The two of you."



Achterhof snorted. "Don't be stupid. Of course we did. The minute Eric told me you were moping around—that was halfway through the morning—I told him to get you down here this afternoon and I'd recruit you into the army. Both of you. That'll solve all your practical problems at one stroke—and you can stop feeling like a worthless parasite feeding on your nation like a louse."



"I wasn't feeling like a worthless parasite," Thorsten said stiffly.



Gunther's eyes widened, almost histrionically. "You weren't? A man as smart as you?"



Thorsten was starting to get a little angry, but Eric's sudden burst of laughter punctured that. His friend had a cheerful outlook on life that was often surprisingly contagious.



"He's only smart about things that he's actually thinking about, Gunther," Krenz said, "and he concentrates his attention to the point of being oblivious about everything else. That can make him as stupid as a mule about something he hasn't really considered."



He took a swallow of beer, then raised the half-empty mug in a saluting gesture. As if he were making an unspoken toast. "Like the war."



A bit defensively, now, Thorsten said: "Keeping the factory going was part of that."



Achterhof nodded. "Yes, it was. That's why nobody from the CoC came by to urge you—pester you, if you prefer—to volunteer. But the factory blew up, and even after they get it rebuilt there's no job for you there. And while I'll admit that if you squint real hard, you can claim that digging a sewer ditch is also a contribution to the war effort, it's pushing it. Not to mention being a complete waste of your skills."