Vartanov bared his teeth again. “Those men we killed today were beasts.”
To my surprise, someone had already lit a campfire outside the plank shack when we reached it. “I was off duty, so I offered to meet your sniper party,” Lieutenant Kitsenko called, brushing pine needles from his breeches as he rose. “See if you recovered any critical intelligence.”
“You’re avoiding the command post,” Kostia guessed, thumping his friend on the arm as we pressed inside.
“All right, I’m trying to get away from Dromin before I jam the officious little sprat headfirst into a tank turret.” Kitsenko looked to me. “Good hunting today?”
“Not bad.” I grinned, and he grinned back. I could hear Lena’s appreciative whistle in my head: That’s a smile! “You can stand watch, Comrade Lieutenant,” I suggested as my men began making themselves comfortable all around the shack. “We can’t cross back until nightfall, and my platoon needs sleep.”
Kitsenko watched as we all flung ourselves down on the pine needles and stretched out. Fyodor was already yawning hugely and I felt an answering yawn climb up my own throat, the fast-running blood of the long night and tense morning giving way to that sudden familiar exhaustion that fell on my platoon after action like a curtain. “All the waiting and watching you do, staking out a shot.” Kitsenko looked thoughtful. “I hadn’t realized that could be so tiring.”
“The most exhausting thing in the world is being on high alert for hours.” I thumped my pack down, leaning against it for a pillow. “A sniper’s eyes get tired from focusing so much.”
“One eye, or both?”
I laughed. “Good snipers don’t close one eye—you just focus on the dominant one; it fights eye fatigue. But fatigue happens anyway after awhile, and the eye starts slipping in and out of focus.” Like mine were doing now. I yawned. “If you don’t mind, Comrade Lieutenant, I’m going to pass out for a bit.” And I did, until late afternoon when I peeled my gummy lids open and saw that a thick autumn mist like milk had rolled through the trees.
Kitsenko was digging a firepit under Vartanov’s instruction, my other men were rising and yawning, and I couldn’t remember the last time I felt so pleased. My platoon was coming together: we’d had a successful night; no one had died or even been injured. Days like today were days to treasure. I looked over at Kostia, still sleeping an arm’s length away with his head on War and Peace—he took it everywhere, even on hunts—and gave him a poke. “Come on, you. Let’s see what goodies we got off the Germans—unless your officer friend already had a rummage?”
“You think I’d risk annoying a woman who can drill an eye socket at 300 meters?” Kitsenko asked. “I leave the honors to you, Comrade Senior Sergeant.”
All the men gathered round as I opened up the artillery major’s pack, and moans of ecstasy rose. Biscuits, bars of chocolate, tins of sardines, a log of salami the size of my forearm, a liter-and-a-half flask of brandy . . . I looked up to see my platoon gazing at me soulfully like starving puppies and raised my eyebrows at Kitsenko.
He scratched his jaw. “You take that back to the command tent, and it’ll be confiscated. So we clearly have no choice but to—”
“Eat every bite?” I tossed a tin of sardines at Fyodor. “You heard the lieutenant, boys. Eat up.”
Nothing makes a party sing like the knowledge that death awaits you tomorrow, but you’ve dodged it today. In no time Vartanov was boiling water over the fire in a mysteriously procured pot, tossing in pea puree cubes to make soup; hunks of ration bread were being toasted on sticks. Kostia set up a proper table on a big flat rock and sliced the salami. I took charge of the brandy, dividing it into standard-issue tin mugs as we all gathered around the rock and the men looked at me in the dancing firelight. “Well done, lads,” I toasted them, sitting between Kostia and Vartanov. “May we always have such luck.”