Last Orders: The War That Came Early by Harry Turtledove

and they see they haven’t got a chance in hell to carry out their mission.”
    He knew the hard way how true that was. In 1917, several French divisions had mutinied instead of making the big attack the clowns in the fancy kepis told them to put in. The government and the Army eventually got things under control again by mixing executions and concessions, but it was close. More importantly, they managed to keep the
Boches
from finding out about the mutiny. The Kaiser’s bastards could have torn a hole in the line kilometers wide, but they never moved.
    Louis Mirouze wasn’t around yet in 1917. He might have learned about the mutinies in his training, but they were just school lessons to him. And who ever gave a damn about school lessons? Nobody, not since Cain sneaked away from Adam to play hooky. Abel stuck around for all the classes. No wonder Cain went and murdered him!
    “We have to keep the pressure on the enemy,” Mirouze insisted. “It keeps him from sending reinforcements against the Russians.”
    “Fuck the Russians. Let them take care of themselves. I’m worrying about us,” Demange said. “Only reason Stalin’s better than Hitler is, he’s farther away.”
    “You are of course an expert on this, sir?” Mirouze asked with frigid politesse.
    “Hell of a lot more than you are, kid,” Demange said. “I was fucking
in
Russia with our expeditionary force. I’ve seen the place. The only reason more Russians don’t go over to Hitler is, he jumps on ’em even harder’n Stalin does. Proves he’s a damn fool in the end, you ask me. But plenty’d sooner see him than Uncle Joe any which way. Russia! Pah!” He spat out his cigarette butt with the disgusted exclamation and lit a new one.
    “I … did not know you had served in the Soviet Union,” Mirouze said slowly.
    “All kinds of things you don’t know, aren’t there, buddy?” Demange growled. “And, like I said a little while ago, we do what we’ve got to do, sure, but you won’t win the goddamn war all by your lonesome. This stinking company won’t win the war all by its lonesome, either. So try to keep the guys alive, all right? They’ll like you for it, and you won’t need to worry about getting shot in the back ‘by accident,’ know what I mean?”
    Louis Mirouze’s expression said he knew only too well. Such things did happen—usually when you couldn’t pin them on anybody. Then the youngster’s eyes narrowed as he studied Demange. He had to know Demange had won a field promotion. Nobody his age who hadn’t would be just a lieutenant. The French Army’s tolerance for fuckups was enormous, but not limitless—not unless you were a general, anyway.
    No doubt Mirouze was wondering whether Demange had shot an officer in the back “by accident” while he was a common soldier or a noncom. Demange hadn’t, not personally, even if there were a good many officers whose untimely demises he’d mourned not a bit. But if the kid wanted to think he had, he didn’t mind.
    They got the order to go forward again a week later. This time, they had a couple of Somua S-42s with them. The latest French
char
was almost as good as a long-gunned Panzer IV. It had thicker, better-sloped armor than the German machine, but its cannon wasn’t as powerful. Still, it did stand a decent chance against most of Fritz’s panzers, and it was hell on infantry.
    “On les aura!”
Mirouze shouted as he trotted up with the
poilus. We’ll get ’em!
It had been Pétain’s slogan at Verdun. You saw it on posters in the last war. Demange wondered how the puppy had heard of it.
    The S-42s sprayed machine-gun fire at the German positions ahead. One thing that made them pretty fair
chars
was that they’d stolen a leaf from the German book. They’d stopped asking the commander to make like a one-armed paperhanger with hives. Now the turret held a gunner and a loader, too, so the commander didn’t have to try to do everything at once.
    Then, quite suddenly,