The Man with the Iron Heart by Harry Turtledove Read Free Book Online Page A

supposed.
    “Hey, Joe, got any gum?” a kid maybe eight or nine years old called in pretty fair English as Lou and Sergeant Benton neared the house. Benton ignored him. Lou shook his head. He wasn’t feeling sympathetic to Germans, even little ones, right then. The kid dropped back into German for an endearment: “Stinking Yankee kikes!”
    “Lick my ass, you little shitface,” Lou Weissberg growled in the same language. “Get the fuck out of here before I give you a noodle”—German slang for a bullet in the back of the neck. He might have done it, too; his hand dropped toward the .45 on his belt before he even thought.
    The kid turned white—no, green. How many uncomprehended insults had he got away with? He damn well didn’t get away with this one. He disappeared faster than a V-2 blasting off.
    “Wow!” Benton said admiringly. “What did you call him?”
    “About a quarter of what he deserved.” Lou pushed on, his thin face closed tight. The ordnance sergeant had the sense not to push him.
    Lou took some satisfaction in banging on Anton Herpolsheimer’s front door. If the town councillor thought the American
Gestapo
was here to grill him…it wouldn’t break Lou’s heart.
    When the door didn’t open fast enough to suit him, he banged some more, even louder. “We gonna kick it down?” Sergeant Benton didn’t sound bothered.
    “If we need to.” By then Lou looked forward to it.
    But the door swung wide then. A tiny, ancient woman in a black dress—housekeeper?—squinted up at the two Americans. “You wish…?” she asked in a rusty voice, as politely as if they were holding teacups with extended pinkies.
    “We must see
Herr
Herpolsheimer at once,” Lou said. If she tried to stall, she’d be sorry, and so would the councillor with the funny name.
    But she didn’t. She nodded and said, “
Jawohl, mein Herr.
Please wait. I will bring him.” Then she hurried away.
    “
‘Jawohl,’
huh?” Sergeant Benton didn’t know much German, but he followed that. “The way she talks, Lieutenant, you’re one heap big honcho.”
    “I should be—not ’cause I’m me, but ’cause I’m an American,” Lou said. “We tell these German frogs to hop, they’d better be on the way up before they ask, ‘How high?’”
    “Now you’re talkin’!” Benton said enthusiastically. Lou nudged him—here came Councillor Herpolsheimer.
    Nobody’d told Lou that the bomber had wounded Herpolsheimer. But the old German walked with a limp. His left arm was in a sling. An almost clean bandage was wrapped around his head. “Good day,
Herr
Herpolsheimer,” Lou said, more politely than he’d expected to. “I’m here to ask some questions about the, ah, unfortunate events of the other day.”
    “Unfortunate events? I should say so!” Herpolsheimer had a gray mustache and bushy gray eyebrows. (Lou could see only one of them, but the other was bound to look the same.) The old German added, “That maniac!”
    “Do you know who he was? Had you seen him before?” Lou asked.
    “No. Never.” Herpolsheimer winced a little as he shook his head. Maybe he had a concussion to go with his more obvious injuries. He said, “I fought in the last war. That’s where I got this.” He used his good hand to brush his leg, so he’d had the limp before he went out to watch the Yanks play baseball. The gesture was oddly dignified, almost courtly. “I fought in the last war,” he repeated. “No one back then would have done such a thing—not a German, not a Frenchman, not an Englishman. Nobody. Not even an American.” He seemed to remind himself what his interrogator was.
    “Danke schön,”
Lou said dryly. “How about a Russian?”
    “Well, I fought in Flanders, so I didn’t face them,” the town councillor replied. “But I never heard of them doing anything like that.”
    “Do you think the fellow who blew himself up was a German?” Lou inquired.
    “Until he did…that, I didn’t pay much attention to