The Nazi stiffened.

  “You would never have killed me,” he snapped.

  Mickey looked down and smiled.

  “You forget my strength,” he grinned.

  Von Starheim had not forgotten. He remembered the terrific pummeling from Mickey’s big fists. He remembered the unconcealed amusement on the faces of the other medical students when he appeared with his eyes blackened; a gaping hole in the middle of an otherwise perfect row of teeth where Mickey had knocked a tooth or two off its foundation. But the American had taken the German’s taunts at the University, his bragging arrogance of his Aryan superiority over the American Indian as he had called him, until even a patient Yankee must defend his good name. So Mickey slapped Von Starheim’s face.

  * * * *

  Von Starheim’s seconds called on the American. He had the choice of weapons. He chose to use his fists. Von Starheim had no alternative. He had to fight with his fists. The count reached almost a thousand—or it could have— before he could mutter: “Where am I?” Even his seconds laughed at that. And so did the whole medical studentry. It made the proud Von Starheim forget his medical career; but not the students who laughed; nor Mickey Tchekov. When the Nazi Party came into power, six of the students died in concentration camps for their laughter. Von Starheim became a respected member of the Nazi party, gained power, and began seeking typical Nazi revenge. He had one more to go; that was Doctor Mikhail Tchekov, the American “Indian.”

  But there was nothing Indian about Mickey, except his fine body; his enduring strength. Though these were not inherited from any Indian ancestry but from a father and mother of Kuban Cossack descendancy. Mickey’s father was a Caucasian who, with his wife, had migrated to New York City where, in the lower East Side, Mickey was born to them.

  Mickey’s father prospered and his son enjoyed all the fruits of a free American education even to the scholarship which sent him to Breslau University for postgraduate medical work.

  When the war broke out, Mickey enlisted in the United States Army and because he spoke Russian and German fluently, was sent to Iran with the first American contingent to await further orders.

  The Soviet Union declined the use of American soldiers to protect Russian soil, but they did accept many American medical officers when the German 1942 summer offensive started and medical men were at a premium in the Soviet.

  With a number of other Americans who could speak Russian and German, Mickey was shipped up the Caspian Sea to Mackhack in the Caucasus. There he entrained on the Transcaucasian Railway and later disentrained at Amavir where one of the largest of the Caucasian Hospital units was based. It was there many of Russia’s captured Germans were imprisoned in a camp on the outskirts of the town.

  No. Von Starheim had not forgotten Mickey’s strength. Nor the disgrace that strength had caused.

  “How can I forget your strength,” the Nazi replied, “when it caused me the loss of my career? Do you think I shall ever forget that?”

  “Probably not,” agreed Mickey. “You’re not the type. You lost your career not through any beating I might have given you, but through your foolish Nazi pride.” He looked down at Von Starheim significantly. “I’d advise you to forget that around here.”

  “I won’t have time to forget it here,” smirked the Nazi. “I won’t be here long enough. My army is driving South. They’ve smashed Krasnodar. They are not far from the Maikop oil fields. Once in Maikop, this place will crumble like an egg crate.” The man could not help licking his chops at the prospect. “Then, my friend, you will not be too far away for me to get satisfaction.”

  * * * *

  The news was bad from the direction of Maikop. The German Army was pushing down on it and driving the dauntless Russians back deeper into the Caucasus. Amavir was less than seventy-five miles from Maikop to the southwest of it.

  Back at the hospital, Mickey sat with his superior officer.

  “I’m not an alarmist, sir,” he said, “but in the face of the information we are getting from Maikop—and that from our bragging Nazi friend, it would seem to me that evacuating our wounded up the Kuban River to Batalpashinsk where they will be a lot safer—at least for a while—is the pressing thing to do.”

  “That will be difficult, Captain Tchekov,” replied the Chief Surgeon. “You must remember that the Kuban flows down from the Elbrus Mountain. To embark for Batalpashinsk will be driving against the strong current. Our boats are small and too few.”

  “I think we still have time to get more boats, sir,” replied Mickey. “I know where there are at least a dozen of them; motorized.”

  The telephone jangled on the Chief Surgeon’s desk. He answered it. Mickey watched him. The man’s face grew serious, as he listened to the squeaking voice which came through to the American. The conversation was short and snappy. When the Hospital Commandant turned to Mickey, his eyes were aglow with an anxious light.

  “You were right, Captain,” he said. “Orders have just come in. We must evacuate at once. Do you think you can get those boats?”

  Less than one hour later, with the help of a dozen Russian guards, Mickey had the motorboats tied to the hospital dock. The whole place had suddenly come alive. Stretcher bearers, nurses, doctors, assistants, orderlies and hospital attendants were bringing out the wounded and laying them on the ground to wait their turn to be put aboard the boats.

  Von Starheim had not lied. Maikop had fallen to the Germans. Gunfire, light and heavy, could be heard not more than twenty miles away. The vanguard of the retreating Russians appeared less than five miles to the West across the Kuban Steppes. Motorboats of all sizes lined the docks and part of the shoreline. Soon one of the motors roared over the noise of distant gunfire and the boat moved out with the wounded and nurses packed as tightly as they dared.

  Mickey Tchekov, his kitbag in hand, rushed from one stretcher to another, and helped the wounded men where he was needed. One by one the boats were filled. But the job was a slow one. The gunfire drew closer to the little town at the river’s edge; and the hospital that nestled at the base of the foothills of the Caucasus Range.

  As Mickey looked toward the South, he saw Mount Elbrus towering toward the sky, over eighteen thousand feet above them. Not much higher than the mountain, he caught a glimpse of smaller objects. Their noses were pointed in his direction. Suddenly the noses dipped. The objects started a mad dive earthward. The sound of Jumo engines ripped the atmosphere over the hills. Mickey shouted:

  “Hurry! Hurry! Stuka dive bombers are tearing at the hospital!”

  It was true. Those Nazi messengers of death were aiming their beaks for the Amavir Hospital roof and as they roared down in screaming fury, they unloosed their cargo of burning destruction upon the red cross that marked the roof of the building using it as a guide to place their bombs.

  * * * *

  One by one they roared over. One by one they sent their black missiles of oblivion into the unprotected building. Blast after blast rocked the earth about it; geysers of white cots, hospital equipment, men and women, were blown through the roof to fall back to earth, lifeless, useless, twisted things. Fire rose through the roof and the flames licked at the side walls. Men were still bringing the wounded out in spite of the roaring inferno that soon made it impossible to return for more. Most of the wounded men and women were brought out. In the face of devastating fire from the Nazi machine guns, the boats were being loaded rapidly now, and moved up the river with their cargo of pain as rapidly as they could get away.

  The five miles that separated the motorized Russian columns that were marching and riding in the direction of Amavir were soon obliterated and the light gun carriers blasted into action. They poured their anti-aircraft shells at the roaring, diving Huns and caught two of them in their engines driving them into the earth where they burned as they had caused the hospital to burn.

  Men shouted orders across the open fields. Only one boat remained to be filled. The Chief Surgeon, the remaining nurses, and a small number of men who did not require stretchers boarded it. Several of the younger men gave up their places to the older doctors, and the nurses. Among them was Mickey Tchekov. He remained on the beach, to whatever fate destiny had in store for him.

  Guns blasted all around him as the Russian anti­aircraft gun carriers rolled up to the field where a few minutes before the wounded men waited to embark. One of the boats seemed to be having motor trouble. It was filled with men and women attendants, nurses and doctors who attempted to protect the wounded men from the devastating machine gunfire. The motor on the boat finally coughed and gave up.

  One of the Nazi pilots must have seen the boat in trouble. It made an excellent target for his front machine guns. He dived down on the boat from a height of five hundred feet firing all the way down, and racked and rocked it with burning tracer fire, felling the men and women who were still standing up. The small boat floundered a moment, and with the loss of buoyancy of live men and women and wounded soldiers, the small craft turned on its side flinging its stricken cargo into the Kuban River as it started to burn.

  Three of the ack-ack guns concentrated their fire on the Nazi dive bomber and the pilot had not time to pull out of the dive. As he attempted to pull the nose of the heavy ship up, his tail section struck the water and the impact twisted it beyond further use. With full engine on, throttle wide-open and Jumo screaming, the plane pancaked as the pilot’s cubicle was ripped apart with the exploding ack-ack. The Stuka dived into the Kuban and sank, submersing the already dead pilot, leaving the battered, twisted tail sticking up out of the water like a camouflaged cross.

  Mickey turned to one of the other doctors who had stayed behind with him: “That couldn’t have happened before that rat sank the hospital boat.”

  “Now we see why we must not lose this war,” remarked the man. “That is only a sample of what the Nazis will do to us if we do.”

  II

  The fires in the hospital building continued to rage. Walls collapsed and sent great geysers of burning embers showering over the guns still active on the grounds.

  Mickey called his colleagues together under the protective shadow of a huge Soviet tank which stood by near the main road.

  “I told Commandant Kousoff that we would try to join the unit at Batalpashinsk. If we stick to our forces, I think we’ll have no difficulty making it. What do you gentlemen think?”

  “I think if we’re to try joining our hospital unit,” suggested one of the doctors, “we’d best start now. I see the infantry is moving off.”

  Stormovik fighters took up where the ack-acks left off and were smashing at the remaining Stukas high overhead. The Russian Infantry unit continued on in its retreat recognizing now how little they could do to save the hospital. With pressure being brought upon them by advancing Nazi tanks and men, they started to gather their forces and move out of Amavir in orderly fashion, putting the torch to anything that still stood intact and maintaining their policy of leaving nothing but scorched earth behind them.

  With Amavir in flames, the only thing the Russians left standing was the prison camp. So fast was the onrush of the Nazis that the men of the Soviet had no time to put the torch to the buildings, or take the prisoners with them.

  As Mickey drove on with his other officers in a small, light truck, he saw Von Starheim on a box in the middle of the prison yard haranguing the Nazi prisoners to take possession of the camp. He saw them break for the switches, cut off the current as they ran screaming about the yards at their liberation, and threw the unelectrified gates wide-open.

  That was the last thing he saw of Heinsel too. For the little German stood off from the mob; he let them run amok and stood calmly by watching them.

  As the little car which carried Mickey and his medical colleagues drove into the green of the Caucasus hills, tanks clashed with tanks on the outskirts of Amavir. Shells dropped around them and blew dirt up on both sides of them. It fell back and smeared their uniforms. Some of the dirt blew into the driver’s eyes and blinded him. The car veered off the road and drove up a small mound. An 88-millimeter shell from a Nazi tank dropped just behind the veering truck and drove its nose into the ground just beneath it. It blew up and carried the rear of the small car with it. The occupants were blown over the greenery of the Caucasian countryside. The driver was killed instantly. Two of the other doctors lay quite still where they fell. Three of them came through; one of the three was Mickey Tchekov.

  When he regained consciousness, and opened his eyes, he was still in the hills. A familiar face looked down upon him. Gradually it fell into focus. A familiar voice spoke as if it were relieved.

  “I’m glad you’re alive,” it said. “I hated the thought of anything or anyone else killing you. I wanted that distinctive pleasure for myself.”

  * * * *

  It was Von Starheim. And he held a Luger in his hand. The man had spoken truthfully. He did not stay a prisoner in the Russian camp twenty-four hours. In fact, he had not been a prisoner half that time.

  “Hello, Von Starheim,” muttered the still-dazed Mickey. “I’m surprised you didn’t put a bullet into me while I couldn’t fight back. That is typically Nazi, isn’t it?”

  The Nazi’s eyes narrowed venomously.

  “I wanted you to know that it was I who did the job,” replied Von Starheim. “Now that you are conscious, I would do it but I have too many of my men around me to see it. It might shock their sensitive souls to see me put a bullet through you here.”

  “I’m sure it would,” replied Mickey. “They’re so unused to it.”

  Von Starheim ordered the men to cover Mickey and take him back to the prison camp which had temporarily held him a prisoner.

  As Mickey rose to his feet, he found his kitbag lay a mass of debris not far away.

  “That’s no good anymore,” he remarked dully.

  He looked about him at the other unconscious and dead men.

  “What are you going to do with these men?” he asked.

  “Oh, they’ll be taken care of,” said Von Starheim.

  “Why don’t you let me see if they’re alive?”

  “No need for that,” replied the Nazi. “They’re all dead. All but you.” He smiled, as if in gratitude to a good Nazi Rosenberg-created God.

  One of the other doctors stirred. Mickey dropped to his knees and turned him over.

  “Get up!” ordered Von Starheim threateningly.

  Mickey looked up and saw the man aiming a Luger at him. “But you can’t let this man lie here and die,” he remonstrated.

  “I said he’ll be taken care of!” shouted Von Starheim furiously. “Now get on with you.”

  As Mickey entered the gates of the prison camp he could hardly help smiling woefully. The uniforms of the men now walking the yard were changed from German grey-green to Russian mud-brown. The Heinies were out; the Vodkas were in.

  It was a strange metamorphosis; but that was the fortune of war.

  Mickey wondered how the boats with the wounded men, the doctors and nurses who escaped with them fared; and if they succeeded in reaching Batalpashinsk and safety. He hoped so, though he doubted it because of the rapidity of the German onslaught.

  His uniform was a bit battered with the recent explosive experience; but he himself was none the worse for it though he was a bit shaken up. The Nazi Commandant of the prison camp sent for him.

  “I understand you are a good doctor,” he began.

  “I have a fair reputation,” replied Mickey. “I finished my studies in Breslau.”

  “Oh,” said the man perking up. “Breslau. Then you must be good.”

  “Not necessarily,” explained Mickey with meaning. “Not everything that comes out of Germany is good.” Then he added significantly. “Lately, in fact, not anything.”

  The Commandant eyed Mickey a few minutes with eyes that were not unkindly. In fact, he half-smiled good-naturedly at the American’s attitude. He might have taken offense but he did not. He dropped the German language and to Mickey’s amazement spoke a perfect American English.

  “I can understand how you feel, Captain,” he smiled. “There are still a few of us left with some human instincts.”

  Mickey eyed the man with surprise.

  “I see you’ve been to the States,” he said quietly.

  “I had a large family in Berlin,” explained the Nazi Colonel. “I had a lot of money; large business interests in Philadelphia and in Berlin and Hamburg. It was suggested I cooperate with the Party. I saw Dachau for my relatives if I didn’t. So here we are.”

  Mickey didn’t know why but he liked the man and his frankness. He apologized for his seeming brusqueness.

  “Oh, that’s all right,” replied the Commandant. He seemed a little weary. He looked at Mickey’s uniform. “It seems strange seeing that uniform here in Russia.” Then he added quietly, quoting a famous American patriot: “If this be treason, they can make the most of it; but I like seeing it over here.”

  Mickey smiled.

  “I think we understand each other, sir,” he said. “Now how can I serve you?”

  The man took his tunic off.

  “First you can relieve me of this boil under my arm,” he said. He pointed to a table. “That medical kit will be yours.”

  While Mickey operated the man talked.

  “There is a shortage of medical officers with my unit,” he said. “I’ll have to ask you to take care of the Russian prisoners. My own men will take care of our soldiers. However; if we need your services there, you will be called upon.”

  Mickey concentrated on the wound and nodded his head in understanding. A low clucking sound dropped from his mouth. The Nazi looked at him in wonder as he winced with a momentary shock of pain.

  “What was that?” asked the German.

  “I always do that when I’ve done a job satisfactory to myself,” Mickey replied. “I’ve just removed the core. You’ll be all right now.”

  “Of course,” went on the Nazi Commandant, “you’ll still be a prisoner and have the status of prisoner in spite of the freedom you will have in making the rounds of the camp.”