"Gardner Dozois - Down Among the Dead Men" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dozois Gardner)

“I told you to carry him to the cart, didn’t I,” the guard said petulantly.

“Show him you can work,” Wernecke said to Josef, “or you’ll surely be smoke.”

And Josef stumbled away from Wernecke and Bruckman, leaning forward, as if following the rock he
was carrying.

“Bring him back!” shouted the guard, but his attention was distracted from Josef by some other
prisoners, who, sensing the trouble, began to mill about. One of the other guards began to shout and kick
at the men on the periphery, and the new guard joined him. For the moment, he had forgotten about
Josef.

“Let’s get to work, lest they notice us again,” Wernecke said.

“I’m sorry that I—”

Wernecke laughed and made a fluttering gesture with his hand— smoke rising. “It’s all hazard, my
friend. All luck.” Again the laugh. “It was a venial sin,” and his face seemed to darken. “Never do it
again, though, lest I think of you as bad luck.”

“Carl, are you all right?” Bruckman asked. “I noticed some blood when—”

“Do the sores on your feet bleed in the morning?” Wernecke countered angrily. Bruckman nodded,
feeling foolish and embarrassed. “And so it is with my gums. Now go away, unlucky one, and let me
live.”

At dusk, the guards broke the hypnosis of lifting and grunting and sweating and formed the prisoners
into ranks. They marched back to the camp through the fields, beside the railroad tracks, the electrified
wire, conical towers, and into the main gate of the camp.

Josef walked beside them, but he kept stumbling, as he was once again slipping back into death,
becoming a Musselmann. Wernecke helped him walk, pushed him along. “We should let this man
become dead,” Wernecke said to Bruckman.

Bruckman only nodded, but he felt a chill sweep over his sweating back. He was seeing Wernecke’s face
again as it was for that instant in the morning. Smeared with blood.


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 Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann - Down Among the Dead Men


Yes, Bruckman thought, we should let the Musselmann become dead. We should all be dead…

==========

Wernecke served up the lukewarm water with bits of spoiled turnip floating on the top, what passed as
soup for the prisoners. Everyone sat or kneeled on the rough-planked floor, as there were no chairs.