Last Citadel - [World War II 03] (66 page)

The Red tank slowed, and Luis knew they had seen each other.

‘Balthasar. Sixty degrees right.’

The great turret pivoted around Luis. The gun barrel did not raise at all, every target in the sunflower field was so close there was no need for elevation. Every shot was a flat trajectory.

‘Do you see him?’

Balthasar did not answer for a moment. The smoke was thick, tanks ran every direction.

‘The one turning toward us?’ he said.

‘Correct.’

‘J a.’

‘Range?’

‘Six hundred meters.’

‘Wait, Balthasar. This one… wait for him.’

Luis followed the coming Russian. He kept the binoculars up with one hand and patted his tunic pocket with the other. He grabbed a few crackers and slid them over his lips. The chewing made another drop of blood fall from his chin.

* * * *

1003 hours

Dimitri had crossed boundaries all his life. He was a Cossack, he’d ridden over anyone’s land he cared to. He’d played tag with death many times. He’d sneered at any notion that this or that was a place he should not go. Love had corralled him once, inside one woman for their time together. Love bound him again to their children, Katya and Valya. And that was all for the lines drawn across his life. He’d loved his freedom, Kazak.

Now, at Valya’s command to attack the Tiger, Dimitri felt cold misgiving. He swept past the hulks of slaughtered T-34s. They were disfigured and burned, or simply perforated and still. The Tiger left marks on these T-34s that no other tank could, the destruction was utter. Dimitri skittered past them and it was like entering a bone-yard, the scat of killing at the mouth of some monster’s cave. The dead Soviet tanks were dark portents, warnings, do not come this way.

Dimitri reached for the handle on his hatch cover. To hell with this, he thought, there’s no help from armor so close to a Tiger. One hit, even a glancing shot from that big cannon, and we’ll be done. He pushed up the hatch and gazed into the open, seething air. The sunflowers were beaten down in this part of the field, from the Tiger’s pacing, from the Russian tanks’ bids to engage it, or from their doomed attempts to flee. Even half a kilometer away in the haze, the Tiger loomed a colossus.

Pasha objected to taking on the big tank but no one listened. Sasha stayed affixed to his machine-gun, quiet and uncertain.

Both boots slid off Dimitri’s shoulders. He was out of the traces. What was this?

Instead of a heel, a gentle touch of the son’s hand tapped beside Dimitri’s neck.

‘Take us in, Papa.’

Valentin was ceding the tank to Dimitri. That touch said, Ride, old man, old Cossack. Show us and show this German what you’ve learned, crossing all those times into and out of death. No one else but you can do this. Take us in.

In the last few days Dimitri had made himself want so little from Valentin. The boy had penned himself away from his father. Now the fences of that pen were down. Dimitri was free again, to go where he pleased.

He reined the
General
around at full speed. He crossed into the Tiger’s realm of crushed machines and flowers. This was where he wanted to go, because this was where his son needed to go.

The Tiger pivoted its turret to greet them.

* * * *

1005 hours

Luis had never seen a T-34, or any tank, move like this.

The Russian dashed toward him at top speed; even at four hundred meters off Luis marveled at the rate this tank ran. It came in at a narrow angle, slicing to the left, eating up the smoky distance. Balthasar tracked the sprinting Red with the Tiger’s long barrel. The turret inched around Luis standing in his hatch. Luis aimed along with Balthasar, lining up the charging Red tank to the end of the barrel. Just when it seemed the gunner had the T-34 in his sights, the Russian skidded, turned full to the side like a slalom skier kicking up dirt instead of snow, then raced across the center line back to the right in an extraordinary zigzag. Balthasar’s hydraulic traverse clunked to a sudden stop. The turret shuddered, then whined - an aggravated sound - to catch up.

Luis dabbed ginger fingers to his chin. Salt from the crackers lingered on his fingertips, making the cut sting when he touched it. He winced and licked the fingertips absently to clean them, licking blood, too.

The Red tank skimmed right, then left again. The driver must be a damned madman, Luis thought, he’s scrambling the brains of his entire crew driving like that. For what? To display some panache before dying?

‘Balthasar.’

‘Sir.’

‘Range.’

‘Three hundred seventy-five meters.’

‘Leave it for a moment. Let them come. They’ll be too dizzy to do anything when they get here.’

Chuckles popped in the intracom.

‘Driver. Keep us facing him. I want frontal armor on him at all times.’

‘J a.’

The Tiger began to lurch in small, backing steps to stay face-to-face with the jitterbugging Russian. The Tiger’s adjustments were staccato, the driver charged one tread, then the other. Every move was jarring and ponderous. For a moment, Luis admired the Russian tank driver. This one had talent, style even, he handled his tank like the best
picadors
on horseback, it was lovely to see. But this Russian driver would die anyway. What could one T-34 do against a Tiger? Show off? Thumb its nose? Luis smiled at the thought of this Soviet horseman in flames in the next several seconds. The gash in his chin stretched, smarting him again, advising him to savor nothing. Prokhorovka would not fall to Luis so long as he was stuck in this field. Without Prokhorovka, he was mired in this body, this narrow ugly life. Every passing second the Americans dug in deeper in Sicily. Luis looked behind the lone charging Russian into the rest of the valley, where the Reds lost tank after tank and still seemed to have more than a hundred careening around, how many hundreds more across the whole corridor today? He swallowed and again tasted his own blood. He was angry in an instant.

‘Balthasar.’

‘Sir.’ The gunner’s response was quick, restive. Luis wondered, Is the crew getting nervous over this little pissant Russian?

‘Take a shot.’

The T-34 tank was making a long sideways run now to the left, fast and broadside. Balthasar rotated his turret. He drew a perfect bead. Luis braced himself for the blast; the jolt he felt was not the cannon but his driver yanking the Tiger again to keep the Russian to the front, disrupting Balthasar’s aim.

‘Driver, damn it! Stop!’

The driver shifted to neutral. The tank stilled. The Russian had closed now to within two hundred meters, tightening a loop around the Tiger. The T-34 sped just beyond Balthasar’s rate of turret traverse, which was only six degrees per second. With the Russian this close, at that clip, Balthasar could not keep up. Luis locked his eyes on the T-34 knifing through the remaining patches of standing sunflowers and could not believe what he saw. A murky cloud of dirt and the grist of stalks jetted from the Russian’s left-hand track. Luis thinned his eyes and leaned forward. Unbelievable. The tread was not moving. The Red driver had locked his brakes at full speed and somehow - Luis could not imagine it even as he watched it - spun the tank to a full stop. The Russian rocked and stopped two hundred meters away, with its gun facing the Tiger’s port side.

‘Balthasar!’

‘I can’t…’

Luis ducked at the last instant. The woof of the T-34’s cannon and the clang of the round striking the side of the Tiger leaped as one, the Russian was so close. Luis brought his hands over his soft helmet, protecting himself without knowing what to expect, no tank had ever fired at him from this distance. His eyes slammed shut, a fleeting death swept over him, but the Tiger shuddered and remained. Luis stood into the turret again. Smoke coursed from the port side. Balthasar never stopped revolving the big gun to the left, to catch the Russian. The cannon almost faced the rear now, but the T-34 was not at the business end of it, the tank had already gone, speeding off in its circle around the Tiger.

‘Driver! Move, now! Keep us facing him!’

The Tiger’s immense engine revved, the gears slapped into place. The tank seemed to stumble. Something tripped it from the left-hand track.

‘What!’ Luis shouted into his throat microphone.

‘I don’t know, sir. We might have taken a hit on a bogey wheel. I don’t know.’

The driver’s voice was frayed. This worry boded badly, as if it were the machine itself that was afraid.

The T-34 kept racing behind the Tiger. Balthasar traversed the turret as fast as it would go, straining but still lagging badly behind the swift Russian. Luis slid down to the deck. With feline speed Luis clambered over the fender and dropped to the ground beside the port wheels and tread. His cut chin throbbed; it was the least of his problems right now.

He was not surprised by what he saw, the deformed bogey wheel in the center. The Red shell - an armor-piercing round - had struck it near the top, bending the rim back into the two interlocking wheels behind it. The entire left side was sooted from the explosion, but the damage was contained. The Tiger would have to roll with care to avoid throwing the port track. The tank was hobbled, but not beyond repair.

His fury grew in the seconds he stared at the blackened, busted wheel. How was he to ride into Prokhorovka with this? How was he going to lead the assault out of this sunflower valley with a Tiger that couldn’t go faster than a walk? Damn it, he thought, damn it! He’d have to deal with this rampaging Russian - there he was, scooting around to the other side with Balthasar chasing him -then limp back up the slope for a field repair.
Carajo
!

He leaped free of gravity, shooting off the shivering earth up the side of the Tiger and over the rotating turret. He slid his legs into his hatch and snapped into the intracom. He’d been on the ground for ten seconds, and when he returned to his place he found the T-34 still outracing the end of Balthasar’s cannon. Luis knew: the Russian was going to take a shot at the starboard wheels, to cripple the Tiger entirely. Then he’d circle in for the final blow.

‘Driver, it’s a port bogey wheel. Reverse starboard track only. Bring us around. Balthasar.’

‘Ja.’

‘He’s going to pull the same trick on the other side. I want you to fire at him. Keep him moving. Don’t let him stop.’

The Tiger lurched backward, pivoting on the inert left track to turn the Tiger to the right. The driver swung Balthasar’s cannon around faster than the traverse could. The tank came to an abrupt halt, swaying Luis in his cupola. He bit back a curse at his driver. There was the T-34. A brown rooster tail spit from his spinning tracks. The Russian ran behind the Tiger’s long barrel.

‘Range.’

‘Three hundred meters.’

‘I don’t care if you hit him. Let him know you will if he stops again.’

The day was still early. If he shouted enough at the field mechanics, the Tiger could be ready for a charge on Prokhorovka by dusk. He didn’t need this lunatic T-34 on his scorecard, not at the risk of returning to his place at the head of the battle by nightfall. Let him go, Luis thought, I’ll settle his hash in Prokhorovka if that
pendejo
is still alive tonight.

In the next moment, without warning, Balthasar fired. The report shoved Luis about in the cupola, cudgeling his back into the hard rim. This jarred his temper at the speeding T-34. He said a silent prayer that God would give him the opportunity to kill every man inside that tank.

The round missed, a pillar of steppe dirt rose beyond the Russian. Balthasar gave the T-34 too much range and the shell sailed over his head. But the Russian had to know now he’d pulled the Tiger’s whiskers. The loader shoved in another shell. The gunner glued himself to his optics, rotating the turret, talking to the driver to give him another goose around to the left. The starboard tread surged forward and quit. Balthasar’s gun came around. The Tiger moved like an old man with a peg leg. Luis lowered himself in the hatch for the blast. Balthasar fired. Luis popped up and peered through the gases and flung soil at the T-34. This shell missed, too, but in front of the Russian. Balthasar was bracketing him.