Upsetting the Balance

Nikolai Vasiliev and Aleksandr German came into the makeshift office, the one black-bearded and stocky, the other red-whiskered and foxy-faced. Before the Lizards came, they’d commanded the First and Second Partisan Brigades in what they called the Forest Republic, harassing the Nazis who’d held Pskov. Now they made up an uneasy triumvirate withGeneralleutnant Kurt Chill, who had led a German infantry division and commanded all German forces in the Pskov area.

“Gentlemen,” Bagnall said in German, and then amended that in Russian: “Tovarishchi-comrades.”

“These are not the same thing,” Aleksandr German said reprovingly. “Russia had gentlemen. The Soviet Union has comrades-we got rid of the gentlemen.” His smile showed yellow, pointed teeth, as if he’d had some of those gentlemen for supper. He was a Jew; he spoke Yiddish, not German, and Bagnall had to struggle to understand him. But Bagnall’s Russian, picked up word by word since he’d come to Pskov, was much worse.

The partisan leader translated what he’d said for his companion.“Da!” Nikolai Vasiliev boomed. He drew his thumbnail across his throat, under his beard, as if to show what had happened to the gentlemen of old Russia. Then he came out with one of the handful of German words he knew:“Kaputt!”

Bagnall and Embry, both comfortably middle class by upbringing, shared a look. Even in the middle of a war, such wholehearted enthusiasm about the virtues of liquidation was hard to stomach. Cautiously Bagnall said, “I hope this command arrangement is working to your satisfaction.”

This time, Aleksandr German spoke to Vasiliev before he replied. Vasiliev’s answer was voluble but unintelligible, at least to Bagnall. Aleksandr German said, “It works better than we had expected, maybe because you Englishmen seem more honest than we had expected.”

When Bagnall translated that for Embry, the pilot said, “General Chill told us the same thing.”

“That’s the idea, old man,” Bagnall told him, and then turned the remark into German for the benefit of the partisan brigadiers. The Reds didn’t want Chill giving orders to their men, and he would sooner have swallowed his monocle than let them command his?but if Pskov didn’t have some sort of unified command, it would damn well fall. Both sides, then, appealed orders they reckoned unsatisfactory to the RAF men, and both sides had agreed to abide by their decisions. So far, both sides had.

“If you can keep the Nazis and us equally dissatisfied, you are doing well,” Aleksandr German said.

“Bloody wonderful,” Ken Embry muttered. Without a moment’s hesitation, Bagnall translated that as“Ochen khorosho — very good.” Here he was willing to sacrifice the spirit to preserve the letter-and good feeling all around.

Vasiliev and Aleksandr German walked over to study the situation map tacked up on the wall. The Lizards were still about twenty miles south of town. They hadn’t tried a big push in a while-busy elsewhere,Bagnall supposed-but the work of building new defensive lines against them went on day and night, not that Pskov had much night during high summer.

Bagnall waited for the Russians to ask something, complain about something, demand something. They didn’t. Vasiliev pointed to one of the defensive positions under construction and grunted a mouthful of consonants at Aleksandr German. The other partisan brigadier grunted back. Then they both left the room, maybe to go have a look at that position.

“That was too easy,” Embry said when they were gone.

“Can’t have disasters every day,” Bagnall said, though he wondered why not as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Given his own experience, disasters seemed almost as common as sparrows. He went on, “Can you tend the shop by yourself for half a moment? I’d like to get outside for a bit and stretch my legs.”

“Go ahead,” Embry answered. “I owe you one or two there, I think, and this is a bloody gloomy room.”

“Too right, and not just because it’s poorly lit, either,” Bagnall said. Embry laughed, but they both knew Bagnall hadn’t been joking.

When he escaped the massive medieval stone pile of the PskovKrom, he let out a long sigh of relief. Now that summer truly was here, Pskov seemed a very pleasant place, or could have seemed such if you ignored war damage. Everything smelled fresh and green and growing, the weather was warm and pleasant, the sun smiled down from a bright blue sky ornamented with puffy little white clouds, linnets chirped, ducks quacked. The only trouble was, you had to go through eight months of frozen hell to get to the four nice ones.

The Lizards had bombed the Sovietsky Bridge (older Russians in Pskov, Bagnall had noted, sometimes still called it the Trinity Bridge) over the Pskova. Their accuracy was fantastically good, as the flight engineer noted with professional jealousy; they’d put one right in the middle of the span. Men could cross over the timbers laid across the gap, but machines couldn’t.