Theo had known Adi Stoss was uncommonly fast and strong, even among the extraordinarily fit men of the Wehrmacht. He’d never seen him play football before. He was even more impressed than he’d thought he might be. If Adi wasn’t good enough to make his living in short pants, Theo couldn’t imagine anybody who would be.

Thanks largely to his efforts, the panzer side beat the infantrymen, 7-4. Soldiers in black passed bottles of the distilled lightning the Poles brewed from potatoes to soldiers in field-gray. Theo was glad to get outside some of the vodka. He wasn’t normally much of a drinking man, but in weather like this he figured he needed antifreeze as much as his panzer did.

Sergeant Hermann Witt, the commander of Adi and Theo’s machine, had run up and down the rutted field. He put an arm around Adi’s shoulder. “Man, I didn’t know you could play like that,” he said expansively-his other hand clutched a bottle.

“Fat lot of good it does me.” Adi sounded surprisingly bitter.

“You just made those ground pounders look like a bunch of jerks,” Witt said. “Nothing wrong with that. They think we’re out of shape because we don’t tramp like horses all day long. I guess you showed ’em different.”

“I like to play. That’s all there is to it.” Adi shook himself free of the sergeant.

Witt turned to Theo. “What’s eating him?”

“Beats me.” Theo had an opinion, which he kept to himself. As far as he was concerned, opinions were like assholes: necessary, but not meant for display.

The panzer commander frowned, lit a cigarette, and coughed. “I didn’t mean to piss him off-he was great. But the way he acts, I could have told him he stinks.”