Free Souvenir by James R. Benn Page A

halfway before he turned, ran up the stairs, stumbling and falling, propelling himself out of the house to vomit on the street.
    Tuck and Shorty never asked him what was down there. Clay never said a thing about the little girl and the baby in the cellar. Jake never asked either. In Jake’s dreams, the girl was alone, and she felt the grenade as it struck her, bouncing off a stair and onto her shin, knew what it was, knew who he was, and screamed a curse for him to listen to for the rest of his life.
    He remembered the scream. He also remembered the Schmeisser and that if he hadn’t listened to Samuelson, had shot out the window and tossed in a grenade, the girl would still be dead, same result, and the Kraut would be dead, same thing there, but Samuelson would be alive. He’d be having bad dreams too, but he’d be alive, or maybe she wouldn’t have screamed if it happened that way and they wouldn’t bother checking out the cellar after clearing the house, so who knew what was best anyway? He’d stopped worrying about all the possibilities in all the cellars since then, imagining a street full of houses with sturdy stone cellars reaching all the way to Berlin. He tossed grenades, remembering the scream, remembering Samuelson, remembering everything.
    Jake reached up and felt the grenade hanging on the canvas webbing over his heart. Hearing engines, he turned. Three halftracks came down the road, grinding gears and churning up snow. The big .50 caliber machine gun mounted above the driver gave the armored vehicles a menacing look, and Jake could see each carried a heavy mortar crew in the open rear compartment. With all the artillery fire blazing overhead, and the halftracks and their added firepower, maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. The halftracks passed Jake, and he heard the three replacements cheer as they went by. Okay, he almost felt like cheering himself, but fuck it, he’d save his cheers, he wasn’t sure how many he had left.
    The head of the column was clearing the forest, coming out on a wide slope of land, pastures maybe, that rolled down to the valley floor. Lines of trees and rocks divided the fields, little bits of cover and concealment but not a lot, not enough. The road curved left, into the clearing, as Jake followed the halftracks. Sunlight hit his face, and he saw the biggest patch of blue sky he’d seen in weeks. The glare off the snow was blinding, and he shaded his eyes, holding his hand up to the rim of his helmet. He scanned the hills in front of them, searching the dips and rises of the land for traces of the enemy, glancing back and forth between Clay and the others, marking where they were in relation to him. His eyes scouted the nearest cover, a barely perceptible gulley, a depression in the snow, alongside the road. Everyone was walking in the tread marks from the halftracks now. They had flattened the snow, compressed it along two parallel paths, perfect for easier walking.
    Jake felt something wrong, in the air, in his mind, over his skin as it tingled a warning. Everything looked okay, but he felt like someone had him in his sights. His body tensed, a flush of sweat drenched his back, and the bottom dropped out of his stomach. What, where? He swiveled his head, searching for some sign from anyone else. Nothing. He looked off to either side, unsure, wondering if Krauts were on their flanks. Nothing. He unslung his rifle, gripping it tightly and holding it across his chest, ready.
    A buzzing, faint, like a mosquito at the screen door. He cocked his head, trying to catch the direction.
    “Hey!” It was one of the replacements, a kid whose eardrums hadn’t been battered by constant rifle fire yet. “We got planes too, here’s the Air Force!”
    “There, fighters!” Someone pointed to the right. Jake picked them up, four dots racing towards them along the length of the valley. Or away? He didn’t know, the glare of the sun on the snow was too blinding to tell. They were low, lower