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.
The T-34 slowed.
‘Balthasar, fast! He’s coming around for a shot!’
The turret whined, the hydraulic traverse brought the barrel dead on to the Russian tank. Balthasar slipped the tip of the gun just ahead of the T-34. Now, Luis thought, go ahead, travahata. Do your dance one more time, under my gun.
The Russian skidded, still the slaloming skier. Balthasar’s long lethal eye watched the Red driver’s antics, more fabulous moves and jukes. But this time the Red did not spin toward Luis to stop and take a shot at the starboard wheels. He stepped on the gas and headed away from the circle, into the battle mists of the sunflower field. Balthasar had chased him off. Luis was relieved only for a second. No, he thought. This Russian is going away to bring back others, a hunting pack to help him finish off the wounded Tiger before it can drag itself out of the valley.
‘Let him go, Captain?’
Luis raised his binoculars. The Russian was hurrying off into the haze, making his little crazed dodges left and right.
‘No, gunner. Give him a parting gift. And Balthasar – ‘
‘Ja.’
‘Hit him this time.’
Luis stared down the long cannon. Balthasar twitched it left, then left a degree more. The T-34 sideslipped, skipping and raising his plume. Balthasar waited. The tip of the barrel elevated a hair. Luis ducked.
The cannon wailed.
The Tiger rocked on its heels, then settled. Luis stood into the miasma of dust and fume. On all sides, the battle in the sunflower field raged on, thunder and flame erupted from every corner of the valley floor. A thin rain began to speckle the deck of the Tiger.
Luis did not need the binoculars to see the Russian smoking and still.
CHAPTER 30
1009 hours
Dimitri groaned. Every joint griped, his neck, hips, and shoulders felt pulled apart and snapped.
His goggles were gone. Smoke raked his eyes, gray billows of oil fumes and steam boiled out his open hatch. He groped through the coils to Sasha. The boy was there, slack and collapsed. Dimitri shook him by the wrist and saw the red face gleam with blood.
‘No,’ Dimitri muttered.
At that the boy hacked and twisted in his seat, he awoke like a fighting fish. Dimitri took a harder grasp on the boy’s arm to tell him he was alive. Dimitri caught a glimpse of the boy’s blood splashed on the tank wall where he’d slammed his face when the German shell hit.
Dimitri heard coughing. The intracom was off, the General was out cold. The tail of the tank hissed, hot metal sprayed water and diesel.
‘Get out,’ his son spewed in a huffing voice. ‘Everyone out!’
The first thing Dimitri saw in the turret was Pasha’s toothless open mouth. The thick boy lay crumpled on the matting, eyes closed and limbs splayed in an awful way to show he was either unconscious or dead. Several teeth lay around his cheek. Dimitri couldn’t reach him to check for breathing. Beside Pasha, Valya’s boots wobbled but planted him firmly enough to stand and open his hatch to release the smoke.
The Tiger had hit them square in the rear. The engine compartment and radiator were surely torn up and lost, but they’d contained the blast enough to let the crew, or most of them, survive.
‘Valya,’ Dimitri called. ‘Valya.’
His son bent to bring his face down to Dimitri. Smoke poured out above him as though up a chimney.
‘Papa.’ Valentin grinned. ‘Good.’ His face was welted and bruised. The bridge of his nose colored, likely broken. He nodded at his father.
Dimitri returned the nod, to tell Valya he was heartstruck the boy was alive.
‘Sasha?’ Valentin asked.
‘He’s okay. Cut up a little.’
‘Get out, Papa. Get Sasha out.’
Dimitri raised his eyes to the motionless loader. ‘Pasha?’ he asked.
Valentin shook his head, he didn’t know yet. He laid a hand on Pasha’s ribs, then nodded. The big loader was breathing. Pasha will have a mouth of gold teeth to show for this day in the sunflowers, Dimitri thought.
‘Go, Papa. I’ll get Pasha out.’
‘We stung him, boy, didn’t we?’
‘Yes, we damn well did.’
‘Someone will finish him off before the day’s out.’
‘Yes. Someone will. Get going.’
Dimitri started to turn around. He reached a hand out to shake Sasha into action. Valentin stopped him with a hard grip to the shoulder.
‘Papa. You were…’
The look on Valya’s face was the awakened gaze of a son at a marvelous father, an indomitable figure.
‘I know, boy. Come on. We’re not done. Hurry, Valya. See you outside.’
Dimitri got woozy Sasha to open the belly escape hatch between his feet; then helped him slide out of the tank. When Sasha was on the ground, Dimitri tossed a glance over his shoulder to see Valya wrestling with Pasha, who roused like a sleepy child. We’re all alive, Dimitri thought, our luck is changing. He rose from his seat through the driver’s hatch and stood out into the sunflower field.
Sitting inside the General, careening back and forth over the valley floor, he’d had no way of experiencing any part of the battle except his own. Dimitri slid to the ground and felt it tremble.
The noise hit him next. Tank engines howled on every side, an incredible number of them in this valley, more than should fit here, engines crossed paths, pistons decided life and death as much as cannon fire. Tracks squealed over sprockets, more than a hundred guns mauled each other at gladiator distances, and from lifeless tanks strewn all over the field the black pulses of oil flames panted into the morning like the devil’s breath. Overhead, unseen behind clouds and haze, more engines struggled to kill one another high in the air. Dimitri felt helpless and out of place, a man on this battlefield racked with motors and clashing steel. He leaped when a hand grabbed at his boot.
‘Sasha! Christ, boy, come on, get up.’ Dimitri helped the crawling lad from under the General’s treads, glad to be startled out of his astonishment. Several dead T-34s and one Mark IV were within a hundred meters. Closer was a deep crater. There was no time to salvage the toolbox he kept kit-strapped to the General’s deck. Ah, well, he thought. Better to save boys than wrenches. With Sasha leaning on him, running, Dimitri noticed for the first time a drizzle had begun to fall on the valley.
At the lip of the hole, Dimitri lowered Sasha, then jumped in after him. He clambered up on his elbows to look back at the General.
Pasha stumbled over the field behind them, clamping a hand to his bleeding mouth and staggering. Dimitri waved to be sure the loader saw them in the crater. Pasha waved back a crimson palm.
Where was Valya?
Dimitri helped the hurt lo
ader into the crater and lowered him next to Sasha. He did not let go of the boy’s arm.
‘Where’s Valentin? Pasha, listen to me. Where is the lieutenant?’
Pasha shook his head, not wanting to talk through the bloody gaps in his gums. Dimitri shook his arm.
‘He’sh in ‘e tank,’ Pasha burbled. ‘He won’ come.’
‘What… what do you mean he won’t come?’
Pasha pleaded with a puckered face to be left alone, to see if he could live out the rest of the day in this crater. If Lieutenant Berko wanted to stay in the tank, that was fine, because Pasha wanted to stay here and keep his head down. Dimitri stuck a finger at Sasha to instruct him, Pasha was just too stupid.
‘Don’t move. You’re safest here. Wait ‘til a T-34 comes by and flag them down and get on. Then get out of here.’
Sasha sat up. ‘Where…?’ Dimitri pushed him back down to the warm dirt of the crater. Sasha sank back, unresisting.
‘I’ve got to go, boys.’
Dimitri gripped both lads on their knees and squeezed, to be sure they could feel his parting blessing through their pains. ‘Kazak, Pasha. Kazak, Sashinka.’
He scrabbled over the lip of the crater. Every joint ached but he cast his pain off him like cobwebs; this is no time to be an old man, he thought. The two boys he left behind had a chance in the crater if they stayed low, if they had any more luck at all today; they’d used plenty already this morning. But Valentin. What was he doing?
Dimitri ran. His hip stabbed at every step but he would not let it slow him. He crashed over the few standing sunflowers rather than run around them. He was halfway to the General when he stopped.
Forty meters away, the commander’s hatch cover to the General fell and clinched down. Dimitri’s chest seized. Moments later, he watched the driver’s door shut, too. He could hear the hard metal clangs, like a closing cell.
Valya had seen him coming. He was not going to leave the tank.
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