“No, goddammit-a big war,” the runner said. “The Munich giveaway just fell apart. A Czech murdered some Sudeten Nazi big shot inside Germany-that’s what Hitler says, anyway. And he’s gonna jump on Czechoslovakia, and England and France can’t back down now. And if they get in, the Russians do, too.”

“Holy Jesus!” Mike said. Chaim nodded. If the gloves came off in the rest of Europe, they’d have to come off in Spain, too…wouldn’t they? No more noninterference? Hot damn! Maybe things here just evened up.

* * *

Corporal Vaclav Jezek crouched in a hastily dug trench just in front of Troppau. If the Germans came-when they came-this was one of the places they’d hit hardest. Slice through here in the north, push through from what had been Austria till a few months ago down in the south, and you would bite Czechoslovakia in half. Then you could settle with the Czechs in Bohemia and Moravia-the important part of the country, as far as Vaclav was concerned-at your leisure.

The Czechoslovakian General Staff wasn’t blind, or stupid. Some of the heaviest fortifications in the whole country lay along this stretch of the border. If Vaclav stood up in the trench, he could see them: big, rounded, squarish lumps of reinforced concrete that had good fields of fire from high ground and plugged valleys through which tanks might otherwise charge freely.

He didn’t stand up. His khaki uniform and brown, bowl-shaped helmet offered good camouflage, but they weren’t perfect. Somewhere on the other side of the border, some bastard in a field-gray uniform and a black coal-scuttle helmet would be sweeping the area with heavy-duty field glasses. Vaclav didn’t want him marking this position.

Trucks and teams of horses rushed machine guns and cannon and ammunition to the Czechoslovak forts. Not all of them were done yet. The government hadn’t really got serious about them till the Anschluss . But with Nazi troops in Austria, Czechoslovakia was surrounded on three sides. Without fortifications, it wouldn’t last long. It might not last long with them, but they gave it the best-likely the only-chance it had.