Foreign Affairs (Short Story)
Foreign Affairs
The bright lights of the Metropolis skyline filtered in through the windows of my hotel room. Such a wonder of the age, it seldom ceases to amaze me. It’s only twilight, and still the glow of the artificial lights burns away the darkness like the noonday sun. This hustling metropolis never sleeps it seems. In the few weeks that I’d been living there, the relentless pace of city live had never once faltered, and tonight it was no different. If anything, the war was only giving new urgency to it all.
The bellhop, a right cocky young Negro man still fresh-faced and boyish, had told me that the city’s central committee had mooted but ultimately rejected implementing total wartime blackouts. It had been decided, apparently, that economic efficiency required leaving some of the lights turned on.
How can a people this soft hope to prevail against steely Prussian militarism? I often wondered. I left my desk, the typewriter paused mid-word, standing to stretch my sore bones. Long cold, half-empty mug of tea in hand, I peered out the window, looking down on the rush of traffic below. Workers, many just leaving factories after long wartime shifts, were congregating at the street corner newsstands. “The universities of the revolution,” they’d been called.
I scoffed just thinking about it. Everyone in this blasted country, from janitors to prostitutes, fancied himself or herself to be an intellectual. Still, on the whole they had exceeded my expectations; their “intellectualism” didn’t seem to be only limited to Marxist dogmatics.
I set my tea aside, as unfinished as my manuscript. I’d been dispatched to New York by The Times to report upon the developing conflict between the Comintern and the German-led Axis Powers, now embroiled in Eastern Europe. That was the publicly stated reason, anyway. But The Times herself had undergone a change of editorial slant recently. E.H. Carr was ascendant, and even the owners of this venerable institution of journalism agreed that the foreign policy of His Majesty’s Government was disastrously short-sighted. I’d agreed with the real purpose of my assignment, to help dismiss any myths about the war and the American state’s involvement in it and thus increase support for intervention and an end to the appeasement of Germany.
I had been selected because I had no great love for Socialism nor America. I neither mourned the passing of the late United States, nor did I champion the coming of this new “Union of American Socialist Republics.” The long and fierce Liberal heritage of my family, which I had done my part to uphold at Cambridge as well as in professional life, coupled with what my employers had flatteringly described as my “natural, if slightly naïve incorruptibility,” had earned me this task.
It was our common enemy that kept us all in common purpose. Were it not for the War, and the disastrous leadership of first Chamberlain and now Lord Halifax, I would not have remained with The Times long enough for it to gain the nickname of the “threepenny Daily Worker.”
I decided against tidying my hotel room. I dumped the cold tea in the washroom sink, leaving the mug on the edge of the bath. I threw on my coat, gathered my keys and pocketbook, and left my dreary room. I decided that my companion and I would head out for the night, for a few drinks and take in the sights. Research indeed. I knocked on his door, just down the hall from mine. “Mister Standfast,” I called out, “It’s Kerrigan! I think it’s time for another research trip.”
I heard a soft voice mumble something, probably something to the effect of “At this hour?” if I knew my old friend well.
Standfast opened the door wearing his usual perpetual frown. “Kerrigan, I know your writing muse is alcohol, but must you bring me along as well?”
“Standfast my old boy!” I cried, “You’re looking as grey and world-weary as ever. Come along now, a few pints might put some colour in your dour mood.”
He cleaned his thick spectacles with the fat end of his crooked tie while chewing it over. Standfast had gone straight from adolescence into his middle age, and I was shocked to learn that this shy little man was only twenty-five years old. “Oh, I suppose there’s no resisting you is there. Fine then, but you’re buying.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way. Come along, I hear that there’s a nice place a few blocks from here we haven’t visited yet, called the Cutty Sark. A good Scottish pub, run by an ol’ Scottish mac from the auld country.”
Standfast almost laughed I think, but his expression remained as morose as ever. “Your attempts at faking a Glaswegian accent haven’t improved,” he remarked as he made his way to the stairs at his usual slow but deliberate pace.
The evening air was cool and refreshing, especially after having holed up in my hotel room for most of the day. The street traffic nearly drowned out our conversation. Though I must admit, it was a rather one sided affair. As we walked, I did most of the talking. Standfast mostly nodded along, occasionally quipping some dry comment to take the wind out of my sails.
I had been to New York before, when I was barely a man, involved in some transatlantic business for my father's firm. To tell you the truth, it had not changed greatly in the past ten years. Some of the scars of the civil war still lingered, but on the whole the populace was not much redder than they were before the revolution. They were just in power and triumphant at the moment. The skirts were shorter, the workers' councils more active, and the people more zealous. But on the whole, we should have all seen the revolution coming. The Communists had already won before the first shot was fired. The nucleus of their new system had already been birthed within the body of the old one.
The Cutty Sark was inviting, and I had worked up a considerable thirst. I half dragged Standfast to the bar. After he began to dig his heals in, I relented, and agreed to find a table in a quieter corner of the building. But quiet was a sort of relative thing; it was a Saturday night, and after a long day spent in the dizzying array of assemblies, councils, and committees that make up the skeleton of American civic life, it was popular to go to the pub, and continue to talk shop while slightly inebriated.
The waitress was polite but not overly friendly. I ordered some of the local flavour. Since Standfast seemed paralyzed with indecision, muttering something about whether to see if the porter measured up. So I ordered for him to spare him from the continued agony. The waitress quickly scratched down our order on a little pad, and briskly moved on to the next table.
"Must you be so meddlesome?" Standfast said wearily, as though he already knew the answer.
I didn't see the point in answering. Soon enough, the waitress brought two pints—excuse me, half-litres—of foamy golden lager. And to be perfectly honest with you, while I didn't care for the style, it wasn't half bad. Standfast seemed to enjoy it as well. He seemed so inscrutable to me; he barely talked about his personal life at all, and scarcely talked anymore about world affairs. Why he had taken up this profession baffled me. Journalism, especially foreign correspondence, seemed to be work suited only for adventurous gadflies and incorrigible womanizers.
As far as I could tell, the crowd that frequented the Cutty Sark was mostly the young and fashionable sort. The usual array of strapping young men, with slicked back hair, double breasted leather jackets, and colourful trousers. Some wore more traditional professional dress, sans the neck-tie. A scarf, usually red but occasionally black, was the most usual stand in. For my part, I tried to blend in as well as I could, but I drew the line at goggles and jackboots.
Standfast, on the other hand, remained as resolutely bourgeois as ever, and on some level I admired him for it, even if he did it out tired habit.
It was a mixed crowd too. Plenty of young women, some of them dressed much like the men, but others wore enticingly short skirts. As I contemplated whether or not to eat the house's offerings rather than endure another dismal attempt to cook myself a meal, a group of young coeds strutted by our table. With their chests puffed up proudly in their tight sweaters, it was hard not to get distracted. They sat not far away, giggling loudly. I licked my lips, contemplating how best to approach them.
"On the prowl again, Kerrigan?" groaned Standfast.
"How can I not be? A bachelor has never had it quite as good as here in Metropolis after the revolution. The women here are loose—excuse me—‘liberated,’ and they practically give themselves to the hunter."
Now, I have a fairly high estimation of my abilities. I had quite a list of conquests before accepting this assignment, and it isn't just due to my grooming and rugged good looks. Men more attractive and well-bred than I don't have half my accolades. But I did not become suddenly so much more charming or handsome after one transatlantic boat ride.
"Has it not occurred to you that they're hunting you?"
As if to punctuate his statement, the waitress returned and promptly set a cocktail glass before me. “Excuse me comrades,” she explained, “But it appears you caught the eye of one our out patrons. She says to tell you that she heard your accent, and wished to welcome you to the cradle of our revolution with one of the local drinks.”
I saw her up at the corner of the bar. As I looked up, she was raising her own glass to me. Her short red hair, trimmed close on the sides but longer on the pate caught my eye first. She was…tomboyish to say the least. Her face was girlish enough, definitely no pinup girl though. She didn’t wear a speck of makeup. It took me a moment to realize she was in uniform. An olive drab Revolutionary Army dress uniform. The mandarin collared jacket was unbuttoned revealing the black turtleneck beneath.
The drink was ruddy brown, with a little cherry in the bottom. “Capital. What is it?”
“She said to come ask her yourself.”
It was smooth, I’ll give her that. I made a mental note to remember that line for later. I excused myself from our table. Standfast rolled his eyes as always. I sauntered over to my androgynous mystery woman. She was not my type, but her boldness definitely had my interest.
“It’s not poison, is it?” I said in my best RP, something I found always loosened American women’s morals. It was exotic and dangerous I supposed.
She had that cocky half-smile that I’d seen in the mirror plenty of times. “Only if you drink too much.” She patted the stool next to her, and I obliged. “It’s a Manhattan; rye whisky and sweet red vermouth with a dash of bitters.”
“My name is Henry Kerrigan,” I said, offering her my hand.
She shook it firmly. “1st Lieutenant Jane Schafer. So tell me, Kerrigan, what brings you to Metropolis.”
I found myself getting a little lost in her wolfish grin. I wondered idly what was making this woman so alluring. I took a quick drink from the Manhattan. It went down smooth. “I’m a journalist actually.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve come all this way to sample the whiskey here.”
“No ma’am, though I must say this drink was worth the trip.” She chuckled softly. Good, I thought, she doesn’t think I’m completely daft. “I’m actually here to report on the war. Specifically, the home front, to give readers back home a more favourable impression.”
“The Times then?”
“You are sharp,” I said, trying to mask my surprise.
“You have to be in my profession.”
“And that would be?”
“That depends. Are you here for business or pleasure tonight, Kerrigan?”
I had finally figured out what was so captivating. It was her voice, low and sultry for a woman. And that unashamed way her eyes seemed to undress me. That damnable Standfast, he was right; I was the one being hunted tonight. “Pleasure,” I said confidently.
“Good. Political commissars shouldn’t make a habit of carousing with foreign journalists. But if you’re just a private citizen right now, then I don’t see any problem.”
My heart jumped a little bit. I felt a wave of nervous excitement. They’d warned all of us on this expedition about StateSec. Somehow, though, the aura of mystique just made her more alluring. If I had been paying more attention, I’d have seen the Party emblem on her collar. “Any problem for what?” I said, finishing my drink.
Jane stood up. She pulled me off my stool, ‘til I pressed close to her body. “Dancing,” she said, as she guided my hands to her hips.
---
I won’t go into great detail about what followed. I am, after all, a gentleman. But suffice to say, we danced for a while in the pub. Then we retired to my hotel room for a more intimate sort of dancing.
After wards, we lay in bed quietly. I do not know if it was the alcohol, the exhaustion from a day spent hammering away at a typewriter, or the night’s other activities, but I started to doze off while she held me close to her chest. We lay cwtched(1) together, for some time, and it seemed like there was no other sound in the world other than her gentle breathing on the back of my neck.
I felt her start to stir, and my eyes fluttered open. The city lights filtered through the Venetian blinds. I turned to see Jane standing at the other side of the bed, beginning to dress. A wave of shame fluttered over me. So that’s what it felt like…
“Hullo,” I groaned, still groggy with sleep.
“Oh, you’re up,” she said flatly, “I was trying to save us an awkward morning.”
“Too late for that.”
“In my defence, I did stay for a few hours. You weren’t exactly an engaging conversationalist.”
Impossible. I checked my pocket watch; it had been at least a couple hours. Where had the time gone? “Ah, my apologies.” I propped my pillow up at the head of the bed. “Still…it was nice. You’re not like any woman I’ve ever known.”
She laughed quietly. “Flatterer.”
It must have worked, since she stopped dressing after putting on that absurd brassiere designed to minimize the profile of the breasts. She stooped over, kissing me on the forehead. “Alright, I’ll stay for a bit. Let me put a kettle on, since I doubt either of us will be getting back to sleep.”
“You’re a sweetheart,” I said.
The match flared brightly, filling the room with the aroma of brimstone. The range lit without difficulty, blue flames dancing. She filled the kettle, and set it on the range. I finally got a good look at her unclothed body. I couldn’t help but feel envy at her physique. It reminded me of the marble sculptures of the great masters.
“Are all women soldiers as athletic as you?”
She tsked. “No. But most are. Are you surprised?”
“To be perfectly honest, yes.”
She slipped into the bed next to me. “You think we’re playing at soldiering,” she accused.
I didn’t answer. Which was probably all the answer she needed. Even in the dark, I could see her disapproval.
“The world is changing, Kerrigan. You can’t stop it. Nobody can.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I hissed, “I am a journalist. I take my profession at least as seriously as you take yours. My assignment here is proof of that.”
“You’re obviously not some starry-eyed British pinko. I’m sure you think of yourself as liberal and oh-so open-minded, but you view every hallmark of our revolution with such disdain. So why are you here?”
“I would like to think we’re fighting the same war. Just one different fields.”
She fluffed a pillow and sat beside me at the head of the bead. “Go on, I’m listening.”
“The British nation has become the unwitting co-belligerents of the Germans. While our financiers make truly outlandish loans to the German government, oft rumoured to be underwritten by His Majesty’s Government, some of us still remember the last time German militarism was allowed free reign over the continent.”
The kettle began to boil. She leapt to it immediately. While she asked me how I took my tea (plain), I wondered just how much I should share with this woman. As she passed me the piping hot black tea, our fingers brushed. I looked up to see her smile. Good, she didn’t seem too mad at me, and for a moment I wondered if this would not be a one-time event.
“May I ask how old you are?”
“I’ll be twenty-three soon.”
I felt a little roguish being twelve years her senior. But at least this time I could excuse myself, though I would probably never admit it to my peers, she was the one who had conquered me. “I was young enough there was no danger that I would ever been conscripted in the Great War. But I was my father’s second son. My older brother joined the British Army in 1916, just after his eighteenth birthday. He made it almost to the end; the Germans killed him during the 1918 Spring Offensive.”
“You hate them, don’t you?”
“The Germans?”
She nodded.
“Hate is a strong word. But yes, I do very much blame Germanic militarism for my brother’s death. And I dare say I’ve come to hate all militarism with equal enthusiasm. I’m hardly alone in having lost, and it kills me to see the memory of our fallen desecrated by short-sighted anti-communist alliances. Since then, I’ve never trusted Germans, and I never will.”
She…laughed? I froze, somewhere between anger and confusion. “You’ve been sleeping with the enemy then.” She kissed my forehead so tenderly. “I was born in Berlin. My parents were ordinary German workers. When the war ended, they joined with millions of their comrades to put an end to Junker militarist-capitalism. My father marched with Red Rosa in November 1918. The Freikorps put him—and many others—up against a wall for joining the general strike. My mother left the Old Country to live with relatives in America.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know—”
“The way I see it; it isn’t Germans that you should be hating. It’s fucking Nazis and their Imperial predecessors that are the enemy.”
Before I knew it, she was on my lap, kissing me. There was a lust for life behind her kisses, and instantly I feared the worst.
When she finally gave me a moment to breathe, I whispered, “You’re shipping out to the front soon.”
“Ja.”
“I’ve…grown rather fond of you in the short time we’ve known each other. Don’t get yourself killed.”
“I feel the same.”
We spent the rest of the early morning talking. Mostly politics. I found her strident, if not fanatical, in her devotion to “the cause”, which she often spoke of in such reverent terms. It was not mere youthful conviction; she had earned her battlefield commission fighting in the last campaigns of the Spanish Civil War. She kissed me when we parted.
---
It was almost two years before I saw Jane Schafer again. We had exchanged several letters before falling out of contact in the chaos of the war. In that time, my conviction in the anti-Nazi cause had grown enough for me to shake off my normal aversion to gunfire and artillery, and take the more dangerous assignment of a war correspondent. I had joined up with the International Volunteer Army to serve as a journalist. They still sent me to boot with the rest of the volunteers, even though I was assured that I would not likely need it.
Well, in short, they lied. As I found out very quickly, the Germans did not distinguish between soldiers and non-combatants. Even certified as I was as a medical corpsman, and thus protected under the various laws of war, the Germans shot at me with the same enthusiasm as everyone else.
We learned very quickly that they regarded us all as equally indoctrinated agents of Judeo-Bolshevism. And the Commissar Order gave carte blanche to any Jerry to shoot any of us if he just plain didn’t like our face. So in the six months from when I arrived at the front to my next meeting with Jane, I had pick up a PPSh at least once a month to help my unit fight its way out of an encirclement, each time evading capture by the skin of our teeth.
The winter was cold, and the fighting was brutal. The rain of artillery, both friendly and enemy, became a constant companion. I saw the dynamism of the German Panzer troops up close. The IVA soldiers were disciplined and well-motivated, but we were poorly armed against enemy mechanized forces. The casualties mounted, and I found there was very little I could do to help victims of artillery shrapnel.
In late February 1942 they at last pulled the 11th International Brigade from the front. I learned as we withdrew across the Volga River that only three thousand of the original eight thousand of our muster were still battle ready; the balance had been killed, wounded or captured. Worse, I had learned from our liaison that the Stalingrad area had been considered a lower-intensity theatre. It could have fooled me.
We were away from the frontline at least, and with the spring rasputitsa approaching, the front would likely stabilize long enough to let us lick our wounds. The cold and hunger had worn me down to the nub, and I counted myself lucky to still have all my fingers.
It was a warmer day when we were reunited, which still meant it was still below freezing, if only barely. I sat huddled around a campfire late that morning amongst familiar tongues; for the past few months I had been battling alongside a French speaking detachment. But at last I had found IVA soldiers from Britain or her Dominions. They were a hardy lot, all as red as they came save one, who I only knew as “Mad Jack.”
At least I didn’t think he was a red. He didn’t seem to join in the political discussions that were quite common. I was just finishing peeling the potatoes that were to be the main course of our noon meal when “Mad Jack” crouched beside me. He sniffed as he looked at the meagre pot.
“How can I help you, Jack?” I said, not taking my eyes from the knife.
“Wish there were more potatoes. Never liked them much before the war, but by Jove, I’ll take them over that damned black bread the Russians give us.”
I laughed a bit. “It’s growing on me. Like mould.”
“You don’t seem like a Communist, Kerrigan. And you’re very clearly not a military man. Tell me, what brings a man like you to Russia?”
“I suppose I could ask you the same. But yes, I am not nor have I ever been a Communist. I’m actually a journalist. And a fervent anti-Nazi. The battlefields of Russia are the natural venue for this vocation.”
“Indubitably. I’m not here for the cause either; I wasn’t going to miss out on fighting the Hun because some stuffed suits in Parliament can’t see an enemy knocking at the gates.”
I glanced at the basket-hilt broadsword on his hip. There was a reason they called him “Mad Jack,” but I suppose it was nice to have him on our side. I’d heard some tall tales about him already, including one that I still, to this day, don’t know if I can believe, that he killed a German officer with a longbow during the crossing of the Dnieper.
We had set to boiling our potatoes and frying up our meagre rations of pork and vegetables when I heard the rumble of trucks approaching. A few of the more cautious in our group decided to play lookout, climbing to the top of the little draw we’d tucked ourselves in to protect from winds of the steppe.
My curiosity piqued, I made the mount as well. There was a small automotive column, led by a jeep. Two armoured half-tracks followed, along with two hefty Packard “deuce-and-a-half” six-wheeled trucks. All I could think of was I hope they brought cigarettes. It had been several days since we’d run out of tobacco, and my skin itched at the thought of some relief.
When the column closed, I saw the ruddy-haired woman riding shotgun in the jeep, and my heat started jumping. She jumped out a half-second before the jeep slid to a halt in the snowy mud, trodding through the mire with practiced ease. There was no doubt anymore, it was Jane. But not the fresh-faced and lively girl that I had first met in Metropolis. The woman who approached was worn down beyond her years; not physically, but rather mortally tired. Her sombre face lit up a little when she recognized me.
“L’chaim! Kerrigan…I would have never imagined I’d see your face here!”
There was some of the woman I had known. I approached her, and she hugged me. Even through the overcoat I could tell she’d lost none of her strength. But the scars on her face filled me with a rage I couldn’t explain. Somehow, I just knew they weren’t from shrapnel. “Jane…it’s been too long.”
“Indeed. We’ll catch up in a bit, though. Unfortunately, duty calls.”
She gathered the rest of our company to address them. The lieutenant had done well for herself in the military, the red lieutenant bar had been switched for the gold wheat ear of a major. She introduced herself as regimental commissar, 571st Grenadier Regiment. She had a pretty good speech prepared, definitely the sort that would be rousing to the true believers, but I ended up tuning most of it out.
At least until she brought news that our mother country had finally entered the war, and as an ally. We’d heard some rumours about what was going on in France, all of them conflicting. We’d heard first that France had declared war on Germany. But then we’d heard confusing tales that France was actually Germany’s ally, and thus many of our troop were stateless. But now the good commissar set the record straight. The news was a mixed bag; some of all the rumours had been true.
The French Marshal Petain had delivered his “pronunciamiento” against the French Republic for preparing for war against Germany. He and his confederates had overthrown the state with German assistance; most of the military had fallen in line with him. But the loyalists, spurred into action by valiant British resistance, had evacuated the metropole. Apparently Mosley’s gang had tried their own version of the Beerhall Putsch, with similar result. The exact timeline was still confusing as she explained it, but the gist of it was that the French Republic and the United Kingdom had formed a permanent alliance to oppose fascism, and they were now our allies in the struggle.
I felt elated, in truth. While it was awful what happened in France proper, I was relieved that I no longer had to fear my homeland joining with the enemy. Jane went on to say that the Stavka was reinforcing our sector for the spring campaign season. We could expect heavy fighting after the rasputitsa relented, though she could not say whether it would be on the offence or defence.
I returned to our little camp to get my portion of dinner. The section’s machine gunner, a Scotsman who I knew only as Robert, had stayed to finish preparing the meat and potato hash. He scooped out small portion of the slightly burnt food into my tin soup mug. Before I could start eating, Jane came to me. Patting me on the back, she told me to come eat with her.
I complied, though I could feel Robert’s eyes boring into me as I walked away. We sat on a fallen log as she pulled out a K-ration from her pack.
“You’re getting too skinny,” she chastised.
“Not really my choice, love.”
She opened up the little cardboard box. After opening the can of meat spread, she quickly tore into the package of hardtack. “I’ve been eating barracks food lately, so we should split this,” she announced.
I wasn’t going to say no. I had already finished downing my food by the time she had the package open. “Not the most romantic luncheon,” I joked.
I could see her crack a thin smile. She kissed me on the cheek, whispering, “I’ve missed you.” To be perfectly honest, I hadn’t spent a single moment reading the rules and regs of the IVA, nor had I paid much attention to seminars on issues like fraternization. At this moment, I really didn’t care.
I ate my half of her dinner more slowly. We mostly ate in silence while the food lasted. For the first time in probably three months, I felt decently full. I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to not be hungry.
“Do you smoke?” she asked.
I nodded. She broke open a four-pack of Lucky Strikes, handing one to me before slipping one into her lips. She was faster on the draw than me, producing a beaten up Zippo before I could find mine.
“I remember you calling smoking a ‘disgusting habit’ during our last visit.”
She grumbled wordlessly as she lit mine first, then hers. I took a long drag, savouring the smoke. It was like finally reaching an itch you just couldn’t scratch.
“I only smoke occasionally,” she protested, “like when I’m with friends who smoke. Usually, I just give my cig ration away.”
Watching her smoke, it was definitely true. She smoked like a complete amateur, puffing but not inhaling. By the time mine was finished, hers was only half-smoked. She gave me the rest of the pack, but told me to save the rest for later.
I was feeling the guilt start to well up. I figured it was time to rip this bandage off clean and get it over with. “Jane, I don’t know how to tell you this except to just state it plainly—there have been other women since you.”
“There have been others since you, Henry.”
I’m not sure what I was feeling. Relieved? Jealous? Relieved jealousy? This was unfamiliar territory for me.
“So what the hell are you doing on the battlefield?” said Jane, “Truly, this is the last place I expected to find you.”
“Sometimes I surprise even myself. But there was a story here that needed to be told, so I came to tell it. Unfortunately, I’ve spent more of the last few months fighting than I have writing. And I haven’t had much opportunity to post what I have been writing.”
“You’re going to turn my hair grey with worry over you, Henry.”
“Sorry, that’s not what I intended. Still, I felt the same about you. The last letter I got from you, you told me cryptically that major fighting was expected. I…feared the worst.”
“I’m a soldier, Henry. And while you’ve done a pretty swell job playing at being a soldier, this isn’t where you belong. There’s a story you said that needs telling; so tell it. I’m being recalled to Moscow next week for new assignment. Come with me, tell the story of these brave men. And don’t get yourself dead.”
“I can’t leave them, Jane.”
“Yes you can. Do you know what the hardest lesson I’ve ever had to learn is? The awful fucking truth about war is that sometimes you have to send men and women to their deaths. And you can’t go into the lion’s den with them. It took me a long time to learn that lesson. My seniors tried to teach to me, and when that failed they tried disciplining it into me. Leading from the front might be romantic, but leaving soldiers disorganized and leaderless is just foolhardy.”
“I fail to see the relevance.”
“I’m saying you’re not going to do your comrades any justice unless you finish what you started.”
I grumbled. It felt like she was just giving me reasons to be a coward. But I couldn’t disagree; I was a second-rate corpsman, and pretty bad shot, even with all the rounds the PPSh gave me to play with. “I’ll consider it.”
“Good.”
She pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her fatigues and pressed them into my hand. It was a full pack, twenty wonderful Chesterfields. She held my hand for a moment, lingering as though there was something she wanted to say but couldn’t find the words. She eventually just ruffled my hair and told me she needed to get back to work.
I pocketed her gift. After cleaning up our mess, I returned to my section’s little camp. Most of the men had left to procure supplies from the trucks. Only “Mad Jack” remained, poking at the coals with a stick.
“I’m making coffee if you’d like some, Kerrigan,” he announced, not taking his eyes away from the coals. I was always more of a tea man, but some coffee sounded like a good idea right now.
The water in the metal can began to boil, submerging the coarse coffee grounds floating on the surface. “I’ll take a cup when you’re finished.”
“So tell me, how do you know Major Schafer?”
“We met back in 1940. I interviewed her before she went to the front; she was just a lieutenant then.”
“Interviewed huh?”
Well he was on to me. “A gentleman doesn’t discuss such things. Do you know her?”
“Only by reputation. I was in Moscow waiting for deployment last summer. Apparently they were giving out medals. Her name came up in the local scuttlebutt. She’s a notable woman officer, the very idea of I’m still getting used to, but also apparently a good soldier as well. They were giving her the Hero of Socialist Labour medal.”
“Is that important?”
“It is the Victoria Cross for godless communists.”
“Ah.”
“The men I heard it from claimed to have served in the same unit as her. I can’t vouch for their veracity, but they called her the Night Witch.”
“That sounds ominous. She counselled me to stop playing at soldier and do what I originally came here to do: report on the conflict from relative safety. Personally, I think it’s a load of bollocks.”
“No, I think she’s right. Don’t get me wrong, lad, you’re brave and dependable enough. But you’re not a soldier. You’ve survived this long, you’ve done your duty, and you know what it means to the men on the ground when the shells are exploding around them and the Panzers are coming to roll over them. You’ve survived that.”
“So?”
“My point is that no one here will think of you as a coward if you leave. You don’t have anything left to prove. Go tell these men’s stories. Tell the world what they were dying for. And while you’re at it, maybe try to get us some proper English food.”
I laughed a little in spite of myself.
Mad Jack pulled the can from the fire. After splashing some cold water to submerge the grounds, he poured some into two mugs. Handing one to me, he toasted “To their world revolution; by God’s grace we seem to have picked the winning side.”
“To rye bread,” I replied, “It is better than starving.”
I ended up accepting Jane’s offer to return to Moscow. It was hard, especially seeing so many green recruits joining the brigade in the next few weeks. Jane convinced me in her own way. The regulars were arriving, but she spent most of her time making sure the Volunteers were taken care of. Most of her time was spent meeting with the many Jewish volunteers.
I watched her meet a young Canadian just arriving, fresh off the train from Vladivostok. He was no older than twenty, dark haired and boyish. Jane noticed the Star of David pennant the hung over his fatigues. She placed a hand on his shoulder as he passed.
“Hey, what’s big—oh is there something I can help you with major?”
“Your pendant; you should find someplace safe to keep it. Safe and far away from you.”
“No offence, comrade major, but I’m keeping it. Last time I checked, atheism wasn’t a requirement for IVA volunteers.”
“You misunderstand me, private. There’s a reason why your dog tags give no religious identification. If the Nazis capture you, and find any evidence at all that you’re Jewish, they will kill you right then and there.”
“But— ”
“Don’t fuck with me on this. This may save your life. You’re not going to do the cause any good if you end up wormfood. Survive, escape if you can, and continue the fight. Don’t wind up dead if you can help it.”
At that point, I guess I knew it was the right decision. It wasn’t romantic, but victory demanded it. Getting out of harm’s way was a relative sort of thing. The bombing raids, the rationing, the constant search for saboteurs ensured that life away from the front was still a dangerous trial. But my reports made the news back home. I’d like to think they made some contribution to the war effort, but in the end I may never really know.
(1) Cwtch: Welsh, literally “safe place”. Pronounced like “cutch”; In this sense, it means to cuddle.
The bright lights of the Metropolis skyline filtered in through the windows of my hotel room. Such a wonder of the age, it seldom ceases to amaze me. It’s only twilight, and still the glow of the artificial lights burns away the darkness like the noonday sun. This hustling metropolis never sleeps it seems. In the few weeks that I’d been living there, the relentless pace of city live had never once faltered, and tonight it was no different. If anything, the war was only giving new urgency to it all.
The bellhop, a right cocky young Negro man still fresh-faced and boyish, had told me that the city’s central committee had mooted but ultimately rejected implementing total wartime blackouts. It had been decided, apparently, that economic efficiency required leaving some of the lights turned on.
How can a people this soft hope to prevail against steely Prussian militarism? I often wondered. I left my desk, the typewriter paused mid-word, standing to stretch my sore bones. Long cold, half-empty mug of tea in hand, I peered out the window, looking down on the rush of traffic below. Workers, many just leaving factories after long wartime shifts, were congregating at the street corner newsstands. “The universities of the revolution,” they’d been called.
I scoffed just thinking about it. Everyone in this blasted country, from janitors to prostitutes, fancied himself or herself to be an intellectual. Still, on the whole they had exceeded my expectations; their “intellectualism” didn’t seem to be only limited to Marxist dogmatics.
I set my tea aside, as unfinished as my manuscript. I’d been dispatched to New York by The Times to report upon the developing conflict between the Comintern and the German-led Axis Powers, now embroiled in Eastern Europe. That was the publicly stated reason, anyway. But The Times herself had undergone a change of editorial slant recently. E.H. Carr was ascendant, and even the owners of this venerable institution of journalism agreed that the foreign policy of His Majesty’s Government was disastrously short-sighted. I’d agreed with the real purpose of my assignment, to help dismiss any myths about the war and the American state’s involvement in it and thus increase support for intervention and an end to the appeasement of Germany.
I had been selected because I had no great love for Socialism nor America. I neither mourned the passing of the late United States, nor did I champion the coming of this new “Union of American Socialist Republics.” The long and fierce Liberal heritage of my family, which I had done my part to uphold at Cambridge as well as in professional life, coupled with what my employers had flatteringly described as my “natural, if slightly naïve incorruptibility,” had earned me this task.
It was our common enemy that kept us all in common purpose. Were it not for the War, and the disastrous leadership of first Chamberlain and now Lord Halifax, I would not have remained with The Times long enough for it to gain the nickname of the “threepenny Daily Worker.”
I decided against tidying my hotel room. I dumped the cold tea in the washroom sink, leaving the mug on the edge of the bath. I threw on my coat, gathered my keys and pocketbook, and left my dreary room. I decided that my companion and I would head out for the night, for a few drinks and take in the sights. Research indeed. I knocked on his door, just down the hall from mine. “Mister Standfast,” I called out, “It’s Kerrigan! I think it’s time for another research trip.”
I heard a soft voice mumble something, probably something to the effect of “At this hour?” if I knew my old friend well.
Standfast opened the door wearing his usual perpetual frown. “Kerrigan, I know your writing muse is alcohol, but must you bring me along as well?”
“Standfast my old boy!” I cried, “You’re looking as grey and world-weary as ever. Come along now, a few pints might put some colour in your dour mood.”
He cleaned his thick spectacles with the fat end of his crooked tie while chewing it over. Standfast had gone straight from adolescence into his middle age, and I was shocked to learn that this shy little man was only twenty-five years old. “Oh, I suppose there’s no resisting you is there. Fine then, but you’re buying.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way. Come along, I hear that there’s a nice place a few blocks from here we haven’t visited yet, called the Cutty Sark. A good Scottish pub, run by an ol’ Scottish mac from the auld country.”
Standfast almost laughed I think, but his expression remained as morose as ever. “Your attempts at faking a Glaswegian accent haven’t improved,” he remarked as he made his way to the stairs at his usual slow but deliberate pace.
The evening air was cool and refreshing, especially after having holed up in my hotel room for most of the day. The street traffic nearly drowned out our conversation. Though I must admit, it was a rather one sided affair. As we walked, I did most of the talking. Standfast mostly nodded along, occasionally quipping some dry comment to take the wind out of my sails.
I had been to New York before, when I was barely a man, involved in some transatlantic business for my father's firm. To tell you the truth, it had not changed greatly in the past ten years. Some of the scars of the civil war still lingered, but on the whole the populace was not much redder than they were before the revolution. They were just in power and triumphant at the moment. The skirts were shorter, the workers' councils more active, and the people more zealous. But on the whole, we should have all seen the revolution coming. The Communists had already won before the first shot was fired. The nucleus of their new system had already been birthed within the body of the old one.
The Cutty Sark was inviting, and I had worked up a considerable thirst. I half dragged Standfast to the bar. After he began to dig his heals in, I relented, and agreed to find a table in a quieter corner of the building. But quiet was a sort of relative thing; it was a Saturday night, and after a long day spent in the dizzying array of assemblies, councils, and committees that make up the skeleton of American civic life, it was popular to go to the pub, and continue to talk shop while slightly inebriated.
The waitress was polite but not overly friendly. I ordered some of the local flavour. Since Standfast seemed paralyzed with indecision, muttering something about whether to see if the porter measured up. So I ordered for him to spare him from the continued agony. The waitress quickly scratched down our order on a little pad, and briskly moved on to the next table.
"Must you be so meddlesome?" Standfast said wearily, as though he already knew the answer.
I didn't see the point in answering. Soon enough, the waitress brought two pints—excuse me, half-litres—of foamy golden lager. And to be perfectly honest with you, while I didn't care for the style, it wasn't half bad. Standfast seemed to enjoy it as well. He seemed so inscrutable to me; he barely talked about his personal life at all, and scarcely talked anymore about world affairs. Why he had taken up this profession baffled me. Journalism, especially foreign correspondence, seemed to be work suited only for adventurous gadflies and incorrigible womanizers.
As far as I could tell, the crowd that frequented the Cutty Sark was mostly the young and fashionable sort. The usual array of strapping young men, with slicked back hair, double breasted leather jackets, and colourful trousers. Some wore more traditional professional dress, sans the neck-tie. A scarf, usually red but occasionally black, was the most usual stand in. For my part, I tried to blend in as well as I could, but I drew the line at goggles and jackboots.
Standfast, on the other hand, remained as resolutely bourgeois as ever, and on some level I admired him for it, even if he did it out tired habit.
It was a mixed crowd too. Plenty of young women, some of them dressed much like the men, but others wore enticingly short skirts. As I contemplated whether or not to eat the house's offerings rather than endure another dismal attempt to cook myself a meal, a group of young coeds strutted by our table. With their chests puffed up proudly in their tight sweaters, it was hard not to get distracted. They sat not far away, giggling loudly. I licked my lips, contemplating how best to approach them.
"On the prowl again, Kerrigan?" groaned Standfast.
"How can I not be? A bachelor has never had it quite as good as here in Metropolis after the revolution. The women here are loose—excuse me—‘liberated,’ and they practically give themselves to the hunter."
Now, I have a fairly high estimation of my abilities. I had quite a list of conquests before accepting this assignment, and it isn't just due to my grooming and rugged good looks. Men more attractive and well-bred than I don't have half my accolades. But I did not become suddenly so much more charming or handsome after one transatlantic boat ride.
"Has it not occurred to you that they're hunting you?"
As if to punctuate his statement, the waitress returned and promptly set a cocktail glass before me. “Excuse me comrades,” she explained, “But it appears you caught the eye of one our out patrons. She says to tell you that she heard your accent, and wished to welcome you to the cradle of our revolution with one of the local drinks.”
I saw her up at the corner of the bar. As I looked up, she was raising her own glass to me. Her short red hair, trimmed close on the sides but longer on the pate caught my eye first. She was…tomboyish to say the least. Her face was girlish enough, definitely no pinup girl though. She didn’t wear a speck of makeup. It took me a moment to realize she was in uniform. An olive drab Revolutionary Army dress uniform. The mandarin collared jacket was unbuttoned revealing the black turtleneck beneath.
The drink was ruddy brown, with a little cherry in the bottom. “Capital. What is it?”
“She said to come ask her yourself.”
It was smooth, I’ll give her that. I made a mental note to remember that line for later. I excused myself from our table. Standfast rolled his eyes as always. I sauntered over to my androgynous mystery woman. She was not my type, but her boldness definitely had my interest.
“It’s not poison, is it?” I said in my best RP, something I found always loosened American women’s morals. It was exotic and dangerous I supposed.
She had that cocky half-smile that I’d seen in the mirror plenty of times. “Only if you drink too much.” She patted the stool next to her, and I obliged. “It’s a Manhattan; rye whisky and sweet red vermouth with a dash of bitters.”
“My name is Henry Kerrigan,” I said, offering her my hand.
She shook it firmly. “1st Lieutenant Jane Schafer. So tell me, Kerrigan, what brings you to Metropolis.”
I found myself getting a little lost in her wolfish grin. I wondered idly what was making this woman so alluring. I took a quick drink from the Manhattan. It went down smooth. “I’m a journalist actually.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve come all this way to sample the whiskey here.”
“No ma’am, though I must say this drink was worth the trip.” She chuckled softly. Good, I thought, she doesn’t think I’m completely daft. “I’m actually here to report on the war. Specifically, the home front, to give readers back home a more favourable impression.”
“The Times then?”
“You are sharp,” I said, trying to mask my surprise.
“You have to be in my profession.”
“And that would be?”
“That depends. Are you here for business or pleasure tonight, Kerrigan?”
I had finally figured out what was so captivating. It was her voice, low and sultry for a woman. And that unashamed way her eyes seemed to undress me. That damnable Standfast, he was right; I was the one being hunted tonight. “Pleasure,” I said confidently.
“Good. Political commissars shouldn’t make a habit of carousing with foreign journalists. But if you’re just a private citizen right now, then I don’t see any problem.”
My heart jumped a little bit. I felt a wave of nervous excitement. They’d warned all of us on this expedition about StateSec. Somehow, though, the aura of mystique just made her more alluring. If I had been paying more attention, I’d have seen the Party emblem on her collar. “Any problem for what?” I said, finishing my drink.
Jane stood up. She pulled me off my stool, ‘til I pressed close to her body. “Dancing,” she said, as she guided my hands to her hips.
---
I won’t go into great detail about what followed. I am, after all, a gentleman. But suffice to say, we danced for a while in the pub. Then we retired to my hotel room for a more intimate sort of dancing.
After wards, we lay in bed quietly. I do not know if it was the alcohol, the exhaustion from a day spent hammering away at a typewriter, or the night’s other activities, but I started to doze off while she held me close to her chest. We lay cwtched(1) together, for some time, and it seemed like there was no other sound in the world other than her gentle breathing on the back of my neck.
I felt her start to stir, and my eyes fluttered open. The city lights filtered through the Venetian blinds. I turned to see Jane standing at the other side of the bed, beginning to dress. A wave of shame fluttered over me. So that’s what it felt like…
“Hullo,” I groaned, still groggy with sleep.
“Oh, you’re up,” she said flatly, “I was trying to save us an awkward morning.”
“Too late for that.”
“In my defence, I did stay for a few hours. You weren’t exactly an engaging conversationalist.”
Impossible. I checked my pocket watch; it had been at least a couple hours. Where had the time gone? “Ah, my apologies.” I propped my pillow up at the head of the bed. “Still…it was nice. You’re not like any woman I’ve ever known.”
She laughed quietly. “Flatterer.”
It must have worked, since she stopped dressing after putting on that absurd brassiere designed to minimize the profile of the breasts. She stooped over, kissing me on the forehead. “Alright, I’ll stay for a bit. Let me put a kettle on, since I doubt either of us will be getting back to sleep.”
“You’re a sweetheart,” I said.
The match flared brightly, filling the room with the aroma of brimstone. The range lit without difficulty, blue flames dancing. She filled the kettle, and set it on the range. I finally got a good look at her unclothed body. I couldn’t help but feel envy at her physique. It reminded me of the marble sculptures of the great masters.
“Are all women soldiers as athletic as you?”
She tsked. “No. But most are. Are you surprised?”
“To be perfectly honest, yes.”
She slipped into the bed next to me. “You think we’re playing at soldiering,” she accused.
I didn’t answer. Which was probably all the answer she needed. Even in the dark, I could see her disapproval.
“The world is changing, Kerrigan. You can’t stop it. Nobody can.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I hissed, “I am a journalist. I take my profession at least as seriously as you take yours. My assignment here is proof of that.”
“You’re obviously not some starry-eyed British pinko. I’m sure you think of yourself as liberal and oh-so open-minded, but you view every hallmark of our revolution with such disdain. So why are you here?”
“I would like to think we’re fighting the same war. Just one different fields.”
She fluffed a pillow and sat beside me at the head of the bead. “Go on, I’m listening.”
“The British nation has become the unwitting co-belligerents of the Germans. While our financiers make truly outlandish loans to the German government, oft rumoured to be underwritten by His Majesty’s Government, some of us still remember the last time German militarism was allowed free reign over the continent.”
The kettle began to boil. She leapt to it immediately. While she asked me how I took my tea (plain), I wondered just how much I should share with this woman. As she passed me the piping hot black tea, our fingers brushed. I looked up to see her smile. Good, she didn’t seem too mad at me, and for a moment I wondered if this would not be a one-time event.
“May I ask how old you are?”
“I’ll be twenty-three soon.”
I felt a little roguish being twelve years her senior. But at least this time I could excuse myself, though I would probably never admit it to my peers, she was the one who had conquered me. “I was young enough there was no danger that I would ever been conscripted in the Great War. But I was my father’s second son. My older brother joined the British Army in 1916, just after his eighteenth birthday. He made it almost to the end; the Germans killed him during the 1918 Spring Offensive.”
“You hate them, don’t you?”
“The Germans?”
She nodded.
“Hate is a strong word. But yes, I do very much blame Germanic militarism for my brother’s death. And I dare say I’ve come to hate all militarism with equal enthusiasm. I’m hardly alone in having lost, and it kills me to see the memory of our fallen desecrated by short-sighted anti-communist alliances. Since then, I’ve never trusted Germans, and I never will.”
She…laughed? I froze, somewhere between anger and confusion. “You’ve been sleeping with the enemy then.” She kissed my forehead so tenderly. “I was born in Berlin. My parents were ordinary German workers. When the war ended, they joined with millions of their comrades to put an end to Junker militarist-capitalism. My father marched with Red Rosa in November 1918. The Freikorps put him—and many others—up against a wall for joining the general strike. My mother left the Old Country to live with relatives in America.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know—”
“The way I see it; it isn’t Germans that you should be hating. It’s fucking Nazis and their Imperial predecessors that are the enemy.”
Before I knew it, she was on my lap, kissing me. There was a lust for life behind her kisses, and instantly I feared the worst.
When she finally gave me a moment to breathe, I whispered, “You’re shipping out to the front soon.”
“Ja.”
“I’ve…grown rather fond of you in the short time we’ve known each other. Don’t get yourself killed.”
“I feel the same.”
We spent the rest of the early morning talking. Mostly politics. I found her strident, if not fanatical, in her devotion to “the cause”, which she often spoke of in such reverent terms. It was not mere youthful conviction; she had earned her battlefield commission fighting in the last campaigns of the Spanish Civil War. She kissed me when we parted.
---
It was almost two years before I saw Jane Schafer again. We had exchanged several letters before falling out of contact in the chaos of the war. In that time, my conviction in the anti-Nazi cause had grown enough for me to shake off my normal aversion to gunfire and artillery, and take the more dangerous assignment of a war correspondent. I had joined up with the International Volunteer Army to serve as a journalist. They still sent me to boot with the rest of the volunteers, even though I was assured that I would not likely need it.
Well, in short, they lied. As I found out very quickly, the Germans did not distinguish between soldiers and non-combatants. Even certified as I was as a medical corpsman, and thus protected under the various laws of war, the Germans shot at me with the same enthusiasm as everyone else.
We learned very quickly that they regarded us all as equally indoctrinated agents of Judeo-Bolshevism. And the Commissar Order gave carte blanche to any Jerry to shoot any of us if he just plain didn’t like our face. So in the six months from when I arrived at the front to my next meeting with Jane, I had pick up a PPSh at least once a month to help my unit fight its way out of an encirclement, each time evading capture by the skin of our teeth.
The winter was cold, and the fighting was brutal. The rain of artillery, both friendly and enemy, became a constant companion. I saw the dynamism of the German Panzer troops up close. The IVA soldiers were disciplined and well-motivated, but we were poorly armed against enemy mechanized forces. The casualties mounted, and I found there was very little I could do to help victims of artillery shrapnel.
In late February 1942 they at last pulled the 11th International Brigade from the front. I learned as we withdrew across the Volga River that only three thousand of the original eight thousand of our muster were still battle ready; the balance had been killed, wounded or captured. Worse, I had learned from our liaison that the Stalingrad area had been considered a lower-intensity theatre. It could have fooled me.
We were away from the frontline at least, and with the spring rasputitsa approaching, the front would likely stabilize long enough to let us lick our wounds. The cold and hunger had worn me down to the nub, and I counted myself lucky to still have all my fingers.
It was a warmer day when we were reunited, which still meant it was still below freezing, if only barely. I sat huddled around a campfire late that morning amongst familiar tongues; for the past few months I had been battling alongside a French speaking detachment. But at last I had found IVA soldiers from Britain or her Dominions. They were a hardy lot, all as red as they came save one, who I only knew as “Mad Jack.”
At least I didn’t think he was a red. He didn’t seem to join in the political discussions that were quite common. I was just finishing peeling the potatoes that were to be the main course of our noon meal when “Mad Jack” crouched beside me. He sniffed as he looked at the meagre pot.
“How can I help you, Jack?” I said, not taking my eyes from the knife.
“Wish there were more potatoes. Never liked them much before the war, but by Jove, I’ll take them over that damned black bread the Russians give us.”
I laughed a bit. “It’s growing on me. Like mould.”
“You don’t seem like a Communist, Kerrigan. And you’re very clearly not a military man. Tell me, what brings a man like you to Russia?”
“I suppose I could ask you the same. But yes, I am not nor have I ever been a Communist. I’m actually a journalist. And a fervent anti-Nazi. The battlefields of Russia are the natural venue for this vocation.”
“Indubitably. I’m not here for the cause either; I wasn’t going to miss out on fighting the Hun because some stuffed suits in Parliament can’t see an enemy knocking at the gates.”
I glanced at the basket-hilt broadsword on his hip. There was a reason they called him “Mad Jack,” but I suppose it was nice to have him on our side. I’d heard some tall tales about him already, including one that I still, to this day, don’t know if I can believe, that he killed a German officer with a longbow during the crossing of the Dnieper.
We had set to boiling our potatoes and frying up our meagre rations of pork and vegetables when I heard the rumble of trucks approaching. A few of the more cautious in our group decided to play lookout, climbing to the top of the little draw we’d tucked ourselves in to protect from winds of the steppe.
My curiosity piqued, I made the mount as well. There was a small automotive column, led by a jeep. Two armoured half-tracks followed, along with two hefty Packard “deuce-and-a-half” six-wheeled trucks. All I could think of was I hope they brought cigarettes. It had been several days since we’d run out of tobacco, and my skin itched at the thought of some relief.
When the column closed, I saw the ruddy-haired woman riding shotgun in the jeep, and my heat started jumping. She jumped out a half-second before the jeep slid to a halt in the snowy mud, trodding through the mire with practiced ease. There was no doubt anymore, it was Jane. But not the fresh-faced and lively girl that I had first met in Metropolis. The woman who approached was worn down beyond her years; not physically, but rather mortally tired. Her sombre face lit up a little when she recognized me.
“L’chaim! Kerrigan…I would have never imagined I’d see your face here!”
There was some of the woman I had known. I approached her, and she hugged me. Even through the overcoat I could tell she’d lost none of her strength. But the scars on her face filled me with a rage I couldn’t explain. Somehow, I just knew they weren’t from shrapnel. “Jane…it’s been too long.”
“Indeed. We’ll catch up in a bit, though. Unfortunately, duty calls.”
She gathered the rest of our company to address them. The lieutenant had done well for herself in the military, the red lieutenant bar had been switched for the gold wheat ear of a major. She introduced herself as regimental commissar, 571st Grenadier Regiment. She had a pretty good speech prepared, definitely the sort that would be rousing to the true believers, but I ended up tuning most of it out.
At least until she brought news that our mother country had finally entered the war, and as an ally. We’d heard some rumours about what was going on in France, all of them conflicting. We’d heard first that France had declared war on Germany. But then we’d heard confusing tales that France was actually Germany’s ally, and thus many of our troop were stateless. But now the good commissar set the record straight. The news was a mixed bag; some of all the rumours had been true.
The French Marshal Petain had delivered his “pronunciamiento” against the French Republic for preparing for war against Germany. He and his confederates had overthrown the state with German assistance; most of the military had fallen in line with him. But the loyalists, spurred into action by valiant British resistance, had evacuated the metropole. Apparently Mosley’s gang had tried their own version of the Beerhall Putsch, with similar result. The exact timeline was still confusing as she explained it, but the gist of it was that the French Republic and the United Kingdom had formed a permanent alliance to oppose fascism, and they were now our allies in the struggle.
I felt elated, in truth. While it was awful what happened in France proper, I was relieved that I no longer had to fear my homeland joining with the enemy. Jane went on to say that the Stavka was reinforcing our sector for the spring campaign season. We could expect heavy fighting after the rasputitsa relented, though she could not say whether it would be on the offence or defence.
I returned to our little camp to get my portion of dinner. The section’s machine gunner, a Scotsman who I knew only as Robert, had stayed to finish preparing the meat and potato hash. He scooped out small portion of the slightly burnt food into my tin soup mug. Before I could start eating, Jane came to me. Patting me on the back, she told me to come eat with her.
I complied, though I could feel Robert’s eyes boring into me as I walked away. We sat on a fallen log as she pulled out a K-ration from her pack.
“You’re getting too skinny,” she chastised.
“Not really my choice, love.”
She opened up the little cardboard box. After opening the can of meat spread, she quickly tore into the package of hardtack. “I’ve been eating barracks food lately, so we should split this,” she announced.
I wasn’t going to say no. I had already finished downing my food by the time she had the package open. “Not the most romantic luncheon,” I joked.
I could see her crack a thin smile. She kissed me on the cheek, whispering, “I’ve missed you.” To be perfectly honest, I hadn’t spent a single moment reading the rules and regs of the IVA, nor had I paid much attention to seminars on issues like fraternization. At this moment, I really didn’t care.
I ate my half of her dinner more slowly. We mostly ate in silence while the food lasted. For the first time in probably three months, I felt decently full. I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to not be hungry.
“Do you smoke?” she asked.
I nodded. She broke open a four-pack of Lucky Strikes, handing one to me before slipping one into her lips. She was faster on the draw than me, producing a beaten up Zippo before I could find mine.
“I remember you calling smoking a ‘disgusting habit’ during our last visit.”
She grumbled wordlessly as she lit mine first, then hers. I took a long drag, savouring the smoke. It was like finally reaching an itch you just couldn’t scratch.
“I only smoke occasionally,” she protested, “like when I’m with friends who smoke. Usually, I just give my cig ration away.”
Watching her smoke, it was definitely true. She smoked like a complete amateur, puffing but not inhaling. By the time mine was finished, hers was only half-smoked. She gave me the rest of the pack, but told me to save the rest for later.
I was feeling the guilt start to well up. I figured it was time to rip this bandage off clean and get it over with. “Jane, I don’t know how to tell you this except to just state it plainly—there have been other women since you.”
“There have been others since you, Henry.”
I’m not sure what I was feeling. Relieved? Jealous? Relieved jealousy? This was unfamiliar territory for me.
“So what the hell are you doing on the battlefield?” said Jane, “Truly, this is the last place I expected to find you.”
“Sometimes I surprise even myself. But there was a story here that needed to be told, so I came to tell it. Unfortunately, I’ve spent more of the last few months fighting than I have writing. And I haven’t had much opportunity to post what I have been writing.”
“You’re going to turn my hair grey with worry over you, Henry.”
“Sorry, that’s not what I intended. Still, I felt the same about you. The last letter I got from you, you told me cryptically that major fighting was expected. I…feared the worst.”
“I’m a soldier, Henry. And while you’ve done a pretty swell job playing at being a soldier, this isn’t where you belong. There’s a story you said that needs telling; so tell it. I’m being recalled to Moscow next week for new assignment. Come with me, tell the story of these brave men. And don’t get yourself dead.”
“I can’t leave them, Jane.”
“Yes you can. Do you know what the hardest lesson I’ve ever had to learn is? The awful fucking truth about war is that sometimes you have to send men and women to their deaths. And you can’t go into the lion’s den with them. It took me a long time to learn that lesson. My seniors tried to teach to me, and when that failed they tried disciplining it into me. Leading from the front might be romantic, but leaving soldiers disorganized and leaderless is just foolhardy.”
“I fail to see the relevance.”
“I’m saying you’re not going to do your comrades any justice unless you finish what you started.”
I grumbled. It felt like she was just giving me reasons to be a coward. But I couldn’t disagree; I was a second-rate corpsman, and pretty bad shot, even with all the rounds the PPSh gave me to play with. “I’ll consider it.”
“Good.”
She pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her fatigues and pressed them into my hand. It was a full pack, twenty wonderful Chesterfields. She held my hand for a moment, lingering as though there was something she wanted to say but couldn’t find the words. She eventually just ruffled my hair and told me she needed to get back to work.
I pocketed her gift. After cleaning up our mess, I returned to my section’s little camp. Most of the men had left to procure supplies from the trucks. Only “Mad Jack” remained, poking at the coals with a stick.
“I’m making coffee if you’d like some, Kerrigan,” he announced, not taking his eyes away from the coals. I was always more of a tea man, but some coffee sounded like a good idea right now.
The water in the metal can began to boil, submerging the coarse coffee grounds floating on the surface. “I’ll take a cup when you’re finished.”
“So tell me, how do you know Major Schafer?”
“We met back in 1940. I interviewed her before she went to the front; she was just a lieutenant then.”
“Interviewed huh?”
Well he was on to me. “A gentleman doesn’t discuss such things. Do you know her?”
“Only by reputation. I was in Moscow waiting for deployment last summer. Apparently they were giving out medals. Her name came up in the local scuttlebutt. She’s a notable woman officer, the very idea of I’m still getting used to, but also apparently a good soldier as well. They were giving her the Hero of Socialist Labour medal.”
“Is that important?”
“It is the Victoria Cross for godless communists.”
“Ah.”
“The men I heard it from claimed to have served in the same unit as her. I can’t vouch for their veracity, but they called her the Night Witch.”
“That sounds ominous. She counselled me to stop playing at soldier and do what I originally came here to do: report on the conflict from relative safety. Personally, I think it’s a load of bollocks.”
“No, I think she’s right. Don’t get me wrong, lad, you’re brave and dependable enough. But you’re not a soldier. You’ve survived this long, you’ve done your duty, and you know what it means to the men on the ground when the shells are exploding around them and the Panzers are coming to roll over them. You’ve survived that.”
“So?”
“My point is that no one here will think of you as a coward if you leave. You don’t have anything left to prove. Go tell these men’s stories. Tell the world what they were dying for. And while you’re at it, maybe try to get us some proper English food.”
I laughed a little in spite of myself.
Mad Jack pulled the can from the fire. After splashing some cold water to submerge the grounds, he poured some into two mugs. Handing one to me, he toasted “To their world revolution; by God’s grace we seem to have picked the winning side.”
“To rye bread,” I replied, “It is better than starving.”
I ended up accepting Jane’s offer to return to Moscow. It was hard, especially seeing so many green recruits joining the brigade in the next few weeks. Jane convinced me in her own way. The regulars were arriving, but she spent most of her time making sure the Volunteers were taken care of. Most of her time was spent meeting with the many Jewish volunteers.
I watched her meet a young Canadian just arriving, fresh off the train from Vladivostok. He was no older than twenty, dark haired and boyish. Jane noticed the Star of David pennant the hung over his fatigues. She placed a hand on his shoulder as he passed.
“Hey, what’s big—oh is there something I can help you with major?”
“Your pendant; you should find someplace safe to keep it. Safe and far away from you.”
“No offence, comrade major, but I’m keeping it. Last time I checked, atheism wasn’t a requirement for IVA volunteers.”
“You misunderstand me, private. There’s a reason why your dog tags give no religious identification. If the Nazis capture you, and find any evidence at all that you’re Jewish, they will kill you right then and there.”
“But— ”
“Don’t fuck with me on this. This may save your life. You’re not going to do the cause any good if you end up wormfood. Survive, escape if you can, and continue the fight. Don’t wind up dead if you can help it.”
At that point, I guess I knew it was the right decision. It wasn’t romantic, but victory demanded it. Getting out of harm’s way was a relative sort of thing. The bombing raids, the rationing, the constant search for saboteurs ensured that life away from the front was still a dangerous trial. But my reports made the news back home. I’d like to think they made some contribution to the war effort, but in the end I may never really know.
(1) Cwtch: Welsh, literally “safe place”. Pronounced like “cutch”; In this sense, it means to cuddle.
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