himself wondering if he could get two or three of their BRMs to race up on the invaders and immolate them with the 30-mm rapid-fire cannons on their tracked carriers. But Aleksandrov would never allow it. You could always depend on officers to deny the sergeants what they wanted to do.
The captain and his sergeant walked back north to their track, leaving three other scouts to keep watch on their “guests,” as Aleksandrov had taken to calling them.
“So, Sergeant, how are you feeling?” the officer asked in a quiet voice.
“Some sleep will be good.” Buikov looked back. There was now a ridgeline in addition to the trees between him and the Chinks. He lit a cigarette and let out a long, relaxed breath. “This is harder duty than I expected it to be.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, Comrade Captain. I always thought we could kill our enemies. Baby-sitting them is very stressful.”
“That is so, Boris Yevgeniyevich, but remember that if we do our job properly, then Division will be able to kill more than just one or two. We are their eyes, not their teeth.”
“As you say, Comrade Captain, but it is like making a movie of the wolf instead of shooting him.”
“The people who make good wildlife movies win awards, Sergeant.”
The odd thing about the captain, Buikov thought, was that he was always trying to reason with you. It was actually rather endearing, as if he was trying to be a teacher rather than an officer.
“What’s for dinner?”
“Beef and black bread, Comrade Captain. Even some butter. But no vodka,” the sergeant added sourly.
“When this is over, I will allow you to get good and drunk, Boris Yevgeniyevich,” Aleksandrov promised.
“If we live that long, I will toast your health.” The track was where they’d left it, and the crew had spread out the camouflage netting. One thing about this officer, Buikov thought, he got the men to do their duty without much in the way of complaint. The same sort of good comradely solidarity my grandfather spoke about, as he told his endless tales of killing Germans on the way to Vienna, just like in all the movies, the sergeant thought.
The black bread was canned, but tasty, and the beef, cooked on their own small petrol heater, wasn’t so bad as to choke a dog. About the time they finished, Sergeant Grechko appeared. He was the commander of the unit’s #3 BRM, and he was carrying ...
“Is that what I think it is?” Buikov asked. “Yuriy Andreyevich, you are a comrade!”
It was a half-liter bottle of vodka, the cheapest “BOΔKA” brand, with a foil top that tore off and couldn’t be resealed.
“Whose idea is this?” the captain demanded.
“Comrade Captain, it is a cold night, and we are Russian soldiers, and we need something to help us relax,” Grechko said. “It’s the only bottle in the company, and one slug each will not harm us, I think,” the sergeant added reasonably.
“Oh, all right.” Aleksandrov extended his metal cup, and received perhaps sixty grams. He waited for the rest of his crew to get theirs, and saw that the bottle was empty. They all drank together, and sure enough, it tasted just fine to be Russian soldiers out in the woods, doing their duty for their Motherland.
“We’ll have to refuel tomorrow,” Grechko said.
“There will be a fuel truck waiting for us, forty kilometers north at the burned-down sawmill. We’ll go up there one at a time, and hope our Chinese guests do not get overly ambitious in their advance.”
That must be your Captain Aleksandrov,” Major Tucker said. ”Fourteen hundred meters from the nearest Chinese. That’s pretty close,” the American observed.
“He’s a good boy,” Aliyev said, “Just reported in. The Chinese follow their drill with remarkable exactitude. And the main body?”
“Twenty-five miles back—forty kilometers or so. They’re laagering in for the night, too, but they’re actually building campfires, like they want us to know where they are.” Tucker worked the mouse to show the encampments. The display was green-on-green now. The Chinese armored vehicles showed as bright spots, especially from the engines, which glowed from residual heat.
“This is amazing,” Aliyev said in frank admiration.
“We decided back around the end of the 1970s that we could play at night when everybody else can’t. It took a while to develop the technology, but it by-God works, Colonel. All we need now is some Smart Pigs.”
“What?”
“You’ll see, Colonel. You’ll see,” Tucker promised. Best of all, this “take” came from Grace Kelly, and she did have a laser designator plugged in