Last Citadel - [World War II 03] (33 page)

Dimitri whipped the tank to the right, to circle back down the hill. Sasha held on while the tank jolted, shaking a skinny, childish fist at Dimitri in approval. Dimitri aimed the T-34 down the hill, grabbed the gear knob to shift into third, then froze. The blunt barrel of a pistol appeared beside him, in Valentin’s hand.

Dimitri gazed at the gun. He thought, Well, let’s see if the little shit is man enough to make it stick.

He flung the gearshift into third. The
General
plunged ahead. Dimitri posted a stupid grin on his face.

‘Yes, Valya, I see it! It’s a lovely pistol, but I don’t think we’re going to need it just yet. Put it away and get your big gun ready!’

The pistol hung in front of Dimitri’s face for another second, then withdrew. Dimitri shook his head in a small, rueful rattle at the shame of this.

The tank lumbered into the air, bounding off the lip of a crater, then crashed down and kept running. Everyone jarred. Dimitri knocked his padded head and wondered if this constant banging of his noggin was going to make him silly one day when he got old. He balled a fist, hollered, ‘Faster,
General!
’ and laughed. Death was everywhere, in the Germans’ waiting tanks, in his son’s mean cowardice, in the sky with its stinking Stukas. And Dima Berko was alive in the middle of all of it, shaking his fist and howling.

‘Are the other three still with us?’ Pasha asked.

Dimitri didn’t know. He had to keep his eyes forward to get back down to the river and the barn. Valentin was the squad leader, and
General Platov
was the lead tank. The others were still under Valya’s orders. They’d be to the rear. Valentin would have to find them through his rotating periscope.

‘Yes,’ Valentin answered. ‘All three.’ Reluctance stained his voice. Dimitri considered: His son was no coward. No, the boy was a Communist. Three tanks for three men. Valya was right - it was a rotten risk - and he was so wrong.

Two hundred meters away, smoke curled from both sides of the river. The burning Mark IVs were in full flaming bloom, their fuel and ammo had been set off. Gray trails billowed from the engine compartment of the third tank but it was rolling. The fourth patrolled back and forth along the riverbank. To the right of the barn, Medvedenko’s T-34 was ruined, its left-hand tread shot off and lying in pieces behind it. The tank smoldered, black smoke boiled out of the open hatches. One of the remaining Mark IVs had put another round into the Red tank to be certain it would not be rescued and repaired later. Dimitri drew closer. At one hundred meters, flinging the
General
to and fro to keep the German tanks from drawing a bead on him, he saw Medvedenko’s crew, hunkered behind their blazing T-34. Only two men squatted, waving at Dimitri’s onrushing tank. Two others lay on the ground.

‘They’ve got wounded,’ Dimitri called into the intercom.

A burst of small-arms fire from across the river tattooed the glacis plate around his hatch door,
tang-ting-tang
. Dimitri angled the
General
to run alongside the bank. His wrists ached, the veins in his forearms were as swollen as the river. At top speed he brought the T-34 between the downed tankers and the river, then shut down his pace, broadside to the still functioning and dangerous twin Mark IVs. In the turret, Valentin was already acquiring a target, mincing in his small circle with the traversing gun. Pasha on his knees raked in his racks for shells. Dimitri shot a glance at Sasha.

‘Go.’

The boy did not hesitate. He reached down between his legs and yanked the handle to the escape hatch. The door lifted and the thin lad slithered out between the treads, then pulled shut the hatch. Close by the
General,
a
report boomed. One of the T-34s in their squad had gotten off the first shot. Dimitri couldn’t see the result. In the blue steppe sky, white scrawls displayed the ferocity of the air battle taking place. Below, for miles running west along the river, every meter of the battlefield bore guns and men exchanging fire, wisps of smoke showed where triggers were pulled, shells struck, lives were taken. Here, almost privately on this small plot of cornfield and river beside a shambled barn, the two Mark IVs and three T-34s defined the war, a rescue and a fight to stop it.

One of the T-34s pulled ahead of the
General
, Kolyakin angling for a better shot at the roaming Mark IVs across the river. Dimitri kept his own tank still, shielding Sasha while he helped Medvedenko’s crew climb on the
Generals
back with their wounded. Valentin poked his head out of his hatch to check on the progress of the scrambling men and boys. Dimitri heard him holler down at them, ‘Get on, get on!’ The turret swiveled again, Pasha shoved in another shell, Valentin toed the firing pedal and the tank recoiled. Something across the river took the hit, Dimitri heard a terrific metal din.

‘They’re on,’ Valya yelled. ‘Go! Get out of here!’

Dimitri floored the gas. Kolyakin’s T-34 in front of him began to roll out of his way. Then, with a wrenching
clang
, Kolyakin’s tank was hit so hard it reared over, almost flipping on its side. The turret ripped off the tank’s body, a ball of fire gushed from the beheaded chassis. The noise was horrific, a gutting. Kolyakin’s turret rolled like a boulder behind his devastated tank, spewing flames and black fumes. Dimitri was stunned in the handful of seconds this obliteration played out in his hatchway. He muttered to himself, ‘Tiger.’

Valentin screamed it. ‘Tiger!’

That jolted Dimitri into action. He rammed on the brake, shifted the
General
into reverse. He swung his tail around fast, putting the rising hill behind him now, and laid on every bit of backward speed the tank could give him.

He faced the Tiger on the far shore. The thing was mammoth, the first heavy German tank Dimitri had ever seen. Its main gun was so long the tank seemed to want to tip forward onto it. The Tiger was boxy, its armor not slanted like the Soviet tanks. But it looked solid, terrible and lethal.

Dimitri ran backward up the hill, keeping his thick frontal armor facing the Tiger, and presenting the T-34’s smallest profile as a target, a broad triangle. Valentin shouted to Pasha, ‘AP! Now!’ The boy must have already had one of the armor-piercing shells in his hands because the breech was loaded in an instant. Dimitri kept his foot smashed on the accelerator. Anyone behind him had better fend for themselves, he would not see them to dodge. His eyes were fixed on the Tiger, needing to anticipate the movements of the huge 88 mm cannon to stay out of its lethal path. He thrashed the tank left and right, and hoped Sasha and Medvedenko’s crew were still clinging to the
General’s
deck handles. To give them a smooth ride right now would kill them all.

Valentin managed to rotate the
General’s
turret around to face the Tiger. The other two tanks in their squadron were tearing away from the riverbank and the scorching pyre of Kolyakin’s tank. The Tiger opted for the easiest of his three Russian targets. Slobadov made a wide, circular turn, choosing speed over evasion. The Tiger let go one round, a fountain of dirt rose at Slobadov’s rear. A perfect smoke ring spit out of the big German gun. The Tiger adjusted its aim to Slobadov’s flight. The turret waited, drawing the proper lead. Slobadov wasn’t swerving enough, Dimitri knew, and the Tiger’s gun yowled. The big tank barely rocked with the report, the thing was so immense. Slobadov’s tank was hit in the right-side chassis, above the wheels, by an armor-piercing round. No flames or explosion blew from this dead T-34. The tank ran another twenty meters, swung toward Dimitri’s retreating window, then stopped. A hole the size of a bread loaf gaped in the armor; Dimitri knew there was little left inside the tank that would resemble a man. The Tiger puffed out another perfect smoke ring, some kind of infernal hallmark.

The Tiger’s turret paused, still aimed several degrees away from them. It appeared to be admiring its kill. Dimitri had propelled the
General
eight hundred meters from the river. In another minute, they’d be far enough out of range to turn around and run up the hill in forward gears, faster to safety. He hit the brake.

‘Take a shot, Valya.’

His son was ready. The T-34’s turret whirred left, the gun was depressed a few degrees to the riverbank below. The one surviving Mark IV had moved behind the Tiger, like a handmaiden to the hulking queen.

Valya fired. The
General
shivered behind the shell. The blast kicked up a dust cloud, and Dimitri hit the gas again, not waiting for the roiled dirt to settle. Backing away, he caught a glimpse of the Tiger. It stood impassive, haze drifting off its face where the AP shell struck, unhurt and swinging its turret straight toward Dimitri.

‘Shit, shit, shit,’ Dimitri mumbled to himself. He desperately needed speed. He could spin the
General
around pretty fast, but fast enough?

Before he could act, another shadow grazed the ground, streaking over the crushed stalks and upturned earth. ‘Shit!’ That was all that was missing, another Stuka.

But it was not a German plane. The guns roaring at the Tiger and her attendant on the riverbank told Dimitri that this was a Sturmovik. The pilot came in low and hot, blazing away at the Tiger, lifting a veil of torn-up ground and hot metal between the
General
and the massive German tank. Dimitri stopped the
General
and spun around. Shifting gears, he heard Sasha and Medvedenko outside the tank raising their voices in an ‘Urrah!’ One last glimpse at the riverbank showed the two German tanks withdrawing. In their wake were seven dead vehicles: three Mark IVs and four T-34s. The
General Platov
was the sole surviving member of their squadron.

Dimitri ran the T-34 up the hill as fast as he could. Infantrymen cheered and raised their rifles when he sped past their positions, they’d watched the entire confrontation from their holes. Valentin said nothing, gave no orders to Dimitri but sat stony while the
General
crossed into the second Russian defense belt and hurried to an aid station at the rear.

Away from the front line, Dimitri shut the tank down. He leaped from his seat to lend a hand lowering the men off his tank. Aid workers rushed forward with stretchers. Dimitri and Pasha both put their arms up to receive little Sasha down from the turret. He yelped when Pasha took him by the arm. Sasha had been winged, his first battle wound, a bullet had nipped his left biceps. His tunic was torn and stained with blood, but his eyes were clear and his color remained that of a carrot. ‘Get that looked at,’ Dimitri told him. ‘We’ll wait. Pasha, go with him.’

The two boys followed the stretchers. Medvedenko walked up to Dimitri. The young sergeant was white-faced from his adventure down the hill. He was unshaven and unnerved.

‘Where’s Valentin?’

Dimitri jerked his thumb up at the
General’s
turret. Valentin had not come out yet.

Medvedenko looked at the
General
, it was undented. He patted the fender, as though the tank were a talisman of luck. ‘I’ve got to go find another tank and a crew’

‘Alright. We’ll see you when you get back.’

‘Tell him I said that was fucking brave.’

‘Of course.’

‘I mean it.’

Dimitri pointed behind Medvedenko to Pasha and Sasha, headed for the medical tent. ‘Tell them.’

The sergeant nodded and walked off after the two boys. He’ll get his spine back soon enough, Dimitri thought. No shame in being scared when you think you’re going to die beside a river, naked outside your tank, unmanned like that. No shame in thinking Valentin Berko is a brave man. What does Medvedenko know? Only what he sees. The
General
came back for him.

He gripped a handle and hoisted himself up onto the T-34’s deck. Gore from the wounded slicked the armor. The new
General Platov
was blooded now. It had performed well. Dimitri patted the tank’s warm turret, then stepped around the stains.

Valentin’s hatch was open. Valentin sat on his commander’s seat, his soft helmet doffed, a map spread across his lap. He lifted his eyes to the shadow falling over his hatch. He looked up into Dimitri’s face. The boy’s cheeks were filthy, black outlines marked where his goggles had been. The grit made him look older, seasoned.