Dark Benediction

“So this is the wench,” he muttered at the sergeant. He stared at Marya for a moment, then thundered: “Attention! Hit a brace! Has nobody taught you how to salute?”

Her fury congealed into a cold knot. She ignored the command and refused to answer in his own language. “Ya nye govoryu po Angliiskil” she snapped.

“I thought you said she spoke English,” he grunted at the sergeant. “I thought you said you’d talked to her.”

She felt the sergeant’s fingers tighten on her arm. He hesitated. She heard him swallow. Then he said, “Yes sir, I did. Through an interpreter.”

Bless you, little sergeant! she thought, not daring to look her thanks at him.

“Hoy, McCoy!” the major bellowed toward the door.

The man who came in was not McCoy, but one of the Americanist Blue Shirts. He gave the major a cross-breasted Americanist salute and barked the slogan: “Ameh’ca F’ust!”

“America First,” echoed the major without vigor and without returning the political salute. “What is it now?”

“I regrets to repoaht, suh, that the cuhnel is dead of a heaht condition, and can’t answeh moa questions.”

“I told you to loosen him up, not kill him. Damn! Well, no help for it. Get him out. That’s all, Purvis, that’s all.”

“Ameh’ca Fust!”

“Yeah.”

The Blue Shirt smacked his heels, whirled, and hiked out. The interpreter came in.

“McCoy, I hate this job. Well, there she is. Take a gander. She’s the one with the bacteriological memo and the snap of MacAmsward. I’m scared to touch it. They’ll want this one higher up. Look at her. A fine piece, eh?”

“Distinctly, sir,” said McCoy, who looked legal and regal and private-school-polished.

“Yes, well, let’s begin. Sergeant, wait outside till we’re through.”

She was suddenly standing alone with them, eyes bright with fury.

“Why did you begin using bacteriological weapons?” Kline barked.

The interpreter repeated the question in Russian. The question was a silly beginning. No one had yet made official accusations of germ warfare. She answered with a crisp sentence, causing the interpreter to make a long face.

“She says they are using such weapons because they dislike us, sir.”

The major coughed behind his hand. “Tell her what will happen to her if she does that again. Let’s start over.” He squinted at her. “Name?”

“Imya?” echoed McCoy.

“Marya Dmitriyevna.”

“Familiya?”

“Lisitsa.”

“It means ‘fox’, sir. Possibly a lie.”

“Well, Marya Dmitriyevna Fox, what’s your rank?”

“V kakoin vy chinye?” snapped McCoy.

“Starshii Lyeityenant,” said the girl.

“Senior lieutenant, sir.”

“You see, girl? It’s all straight from Geneva. Name, rank, serial number, that’s all. You can trust us…. Ask her if she’s with Intelligence.”

“Razvye’dyvatyel naya sluzhba?”

“Nyet!”

“Nyet, eh? How many divisions are ready at the front?”

“Skol’ko na frontye divizii?”

“Ya nye pomnyu!”

“She says she doesn’t remember.”

“Who is your battalion commander, Lisitsa?”

“Kto komandir va’shyevo baralyona?”

“Ya nye pomnyu!”

“She says she doesn’t remember.”

“Doesn’t, eh? Tell her I know she’s a spy, and we’ll shoot her at once.”

The interpreter repeated the threat in Russian. The girl folded her arms and stared contempt at the major. “You’re to stand at attention!”

“Smirno!”

She kept her arms folded and stood as she had been standing. The major drew his forty-five and worked the slide.

“Tell her that I am the sixteenth bastard grandson of Mickey Spillane and blowing holes in ladies’ bellies is my heritage and my hobby.”

The interpreter repeated it. Marya snorted three words she had learned from a fisherman.

“I think she called you a castrate, sir.”

The major lifted the automatic and took casual aim. Something in his manner caused the girl to go white. She closed her eyes and murmured something reverent in favor of the Fatherland.

The gun jumped in Kline’s hand. The crash brought a yell from the sergeant outside the bunker. The bullet hit concrete out the doorway and screamed off on a skyward ricochet. The girl bent over and grabbed at the front of her skirt. There was a bullet hole in front and in back where the slug had passed between her thighs. She cursed softly and fanned the skirt.

“Tell her I am a terrible marksman, but will do better next time,” chuckled Kline. “Good thing the light shows through that skirt, eh, McCoy—or I might have burned the ‘tender demesnes.’ There! Is she still cursing me?”

“Fluently, sir.”

“I must have burned her little white hide. Give her a second to cool off, then ask what division she’s from.”

“Kakovo vy polka?”

“Ya nye pomnyu!”

“She has a very poor memory, sir.”

The major sighed and inspected his nails. They were grubby. “Tell her,” he muttered, “that I think I’ll have her assigned to C company as its official prostitute after our psychosurgeons make her a nymphomaniac.”