"Andy Duncan - Fortitude" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Andy)

He gave his head two sideways jerks -- shaking it, I presume.
"Take the shovel, you miserable son of a bitch, or by God I'll kill you
myself," I cried, as I swung the shovel sideways, like a baseball bat, and
slammed the side of his helmet. He howled and fell over, arms over his
face. I raised the shovel high over my head, and he held out his hands and
gibbered:
"I'll do it! I'll do it! Just hand me the shovel, Colonel, I'll do it! I
swear."
"Good man," I said, and dropped the shovel into the dirt at his feet. I
turned away, faced the reassuring geometries of the tank column, watched
the bullets ricocheting off their iron flanks. Rotten coward. Would I have
killed him? Didn't matter; the decision hadn't been necessary. He had done
his duty. But what of my duty?
"Get these wagons ready to move!" I shouted, rapping on the side of each
tank as I strode past. I rapped harder and harder as I went, shouted
louder and louder, tried to clear my mind so that, when necessary, I could
act without thinking, act like a soldier.
When the column started moving again, Private Angelo and I had an awful
time ordering the infantrymen to march alongside. They knew the tanks
would draw all sorts of enemy fire, including artillery.
"Sitting ducks, hell! That's what you'll be if you stay here. Not only are
these tanks going to clean out those kraut nests that are picking you off,
but these tanks are, furthermore, your only real cover, and as you can see
-- " I waved my stick at the Renault rumbling past. " -- that cover is on
the move. So let's get going, and I mean now! Fall in! Follow me!"
So many back-of-the-line command-post generals never realize that on the
battlefield, the most effective order is "Follow me!" Those ashen-faced
troops put their heads down, shouldered their shovels, and trudged along
behind me, hoping against hope I knew what I was doing.
Before, that hope had been sorely misplaced. We had been marching to the
left of the column, and had been cut to pieces by machine-gun fire. But
staying in that damn trench, in the middle of hostile territory, was just
not an option. So this time I led the men to the right of the column, and
hoped that even if I weren't spared, this time at least most of them would
be.
As soon as we set off, I felt a new anxiety clutching me, not fear,
exactly -- no, that had been with me for weeks, and was still there, and
growing, and I hated it -- but a sort of fresh overlay of nausea, of
uneasiness, a feeling not that something bad was going to happen but that
everything was already bad, and I just didn't realize it, though at any
moment I might, and then choke on the newfound ugliness of the world. I
was attempting to change the day's outcome, of course. But I hadn't felt
this way in Mexico, or in the months since, despite occasional ...
adjustments. What was different? I picked my way more carefully through
the sucking soil of the battlefield. There was an ache in my joints, a
seemingly sourceless pang like the one in the jaw that steals up on you,
gradually pulses the news that while asleep you've been grinding your
teeth.
We walked. How much time had elapsed? Two minutes? Three? How much time
did I have left? Up ahead, one of the Schneiders met a 150-millimeter