1
" In return for their faithful service, they would receive Red Army food rations, which amounted to a generous ladle, twice daily, from a cauldron into which all appropriated food was thrown. The stew boiled twenty-four hours a day, a fatty broth of onions, roosters, rabbits, dead horse, turnips - whatever they happened on in the course of their collecting forays - the Red Army essentially lived off the countryside. "
― Alan Furst , Night Soldiers (Night Soldiers, #1)
10
" Communards died here, in 1871. They fought all night among the gravestones, then surrendered at dawn. The soldiers put them against this wall, shot them, and buried them in a common grave.” “Are you a communist, Ilya? In your heart?” “Oh yes. Aren’t you?” “No. I just want to live my life, to be left alone.” There was a moment’s silence, then Ilya said, “Now, a matter of some delicacy.” They turned "
― Alan Furst , Night Soldiers (Night Soldiers, #1)
17
" crossed borders like the wind. Yet it had happened, and Khristo finally understood how it had happened. Moving across the countryside made one prey, over time, to a series of small mishaps, none of them serious in and of itself, but cumulative over time. A few hours of sleep when one could manage it, a meal now and then, the insidious chill of the early spring, the constant forcing of the mind into a state of vigilance when all one craved was numbness, when not to think about anything seemed the most exquisite luxury the world had to offer. "
― Alan Furst , Night Soldiers (Night Soldiers, #1)
20
" [on chess]
He had learned the moves, back in Vidin, from Levitzky the tailor, who called it “the Russian game.” Thus, the old man pointed out, the weak were sacrificed. The castles, fortresses, were obvious and basic; the bishops moved obliquely; the knights—an officer class—sought power in devious ways; the queen, second-in-command, was pure aggression; and the king, heart of it all, a helpless target, dependent totally on his forces for survival. "
― Alan Furst , Night Soldiers (Night Soldiers, #1)