The Military Megapack by Stephen Crane & Ambrose Bierce

Author:Stephen Crane & Ambrose Bierce [Crane, Stephen & Bierce, Ambrose]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: war, military, adventure, action, pulp fiction
Publisher: Wildside Press
Published: 2011-05-31T04:00:00+00:00

WHEN A YANK GETS FIGHTING MAD, by Lieut. Jay D. Blaufox

I.

Doctor Mikhail Tchekov, American military surgeon attached to the Russian Army and stationed in Amavir in the Caucasus, waited in front of the camp where the Soviets kept their German prisoners on the outside of the town.

As he stood before the gates of the barbed wire entanglements waiting to be admitted, he remembered to keep well back from the gate. One touch of the wire before the electric switches were pulled which charged them, and he—or anyone— would need a doctor. That is, if he survived the terrific electric shock.

A guard strode to the gate. He swung it wide and saluted.

“Thank you, Pavrovitch,” said Mickey nodding at the Russian. “I hear we have a new batch of prisoners today.”

“Da,” replied the guard Pavrovitch. “General Timoshenko has added another five hundred to his collection of Nazi dogs for his great kennel.”

Mickey laughed. He entered the enclosure.

The gang at the hospital called him Mickey. Mickey Checkoff and even the nurses dared call him that—though they did it quietly, respectfully, and even affectionately, for everyone in the hospital situated on the left bank of the Kuban River liked the tall, handsome, dark-eyed American. They liked his jokes, his broad smile, and the noise he made with his tongue—a sort of clucking noise—twice. When he said anything that tickled his hearer, a broad wink always accompanied it from one of his laughing eyes.

“Do I have to examine the whole five hundred, Pavrovitch?” he asked smilingly.

“Only fifty, doctor,” replied Pavrovitch. “The others have been examined.”

Mickey strode on to a low, rambling pinewood building, at one end of the camp.

He walked past dozens of small groups of half-starved, weary Nazis in ragged grey-green uniforms. He saw the toes of many of them sticking through rotten, worn-out boots. Their coats and britches were torn, badly patched, or pinned together.

As he passed one man separated from the rest, the German stopped him.

“Herr doktor.”

Mickey stopped.

“Oh! Hello Heinsel,” he greeted in perfect German.

Heinsel was a small man, of the type which might have been obese if he had been well fed enough.

“Wie gehts?” asked Mickey.

“Sehr gut!” smiled Heinsel. The man never complained; at least, not to the American. It was odd seeing an American uniform among the German and Russians in camp.

* * * *

Mickey and Heinsel were old friends. They had known each other when Mickey was taking a postgraduate course in medicine at the Breslau University. Heinsel gave up surgery when he lost an arm in the attack on Moscow.

“I just wanted to let you know that one of your new prisoners is Von Starheim,” Heinsel warned him. “You’ll meet him in the examining hut.”

Mickey’s face was not a poker face. He showed his surprise plainly. Then he smiled.

“Really,” he grinned. “We meet even here.”

“Hitler may yearn to rule the world,” Heinsel added. “But one thing is certain; if he wins, he won’t be able to make it any larger—or any smaller.”

“So my old sword-swinging Von Starheim is a guest of ours,” mused Mickey.

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