Ian Slater - Rage of Battle

Col. Maureen Davis of the USMC replied that “General Freeman’s objections to women tank crews no doubt arise out of his sincere concern for hygiene and practicality. He need not be so concerned. No doubt the general knows a great deal about tanks, and in being so occupied with this, it appears that he has not kept pace with the results of an astonishing study which shows a woman’s anatomy allows her to drop her pants as quickly as any male, and in any event, women find it easier to relieve themselves than their male colleagues, who, as I understand it, often have difficulty in aiming.”

“Cheeky bitch!” Freeman had thundered, and was not won over until the intelligence officer in Heidelberg personally requested three minutes of the general’s time after Freeman’s intense briefing of the disastrous NATO situation.

“What’s your name?” snapped Freeman.

“Norton, sir. Major James Nor—”

“All right, Norton. You’ve got one minute. Shoot!”

“Sir, I’ve been tallying destroyed tanks by crew composition. Those Russian tanks with mixed crews are scoring better than all-male crews.” He paused.

“You’ve got thirty seconds left, Major,” growled Freeman. “I’m not a goddamned mind reader. Shoot!”

“Sir, it seems that our assumption that women would inhibit aggressive action — that male crew would want to protect the women and therefore withdraw — is incorrect. All the evidence suggests the opposite. With a woman aboard, male crews are afraid of being seen as, well—”

“As cowards!” said Freeman. “Yellowbellies.”

“Yes, General.”

“What’s your name again? Norton?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right, Norton. We’ll put gals inside the turrets.” It was the kind of decision that endeared Freeman to field officers — the ability to cancel his own prejudice on the evidence and to waste no time in implementing a new tactic or strategy. “Mind,” added Freeman, “none of them over thirty-four.”

Norton was nonplussed.

“Their tits,” explained Freeman, pulling tje glove on harder, riding crop dangling freely from his wrist as he smelled the change in the air, still dusty and cordite-filled, blowing in from the battlefields to the east, but much colder, more bracing. “No big tits,” he continued. “Get in the way of the laser sights. Can’t get close enough to the eye cup.”

Norton looked for help from Col. Al Banks, the general’s aide from his Korean days, but help was not forthcoming. Sometimes Al Banks didn’t know himself whether the general was being serious or making a joke.

“Norton?”

“Yes, General?”

“We’ve got to do something about this Dortmund-Bielefeld pocket. We need every man, woman, and jackrabbit we can get. Appreciate your report.”

“You’re welcome, General.”

Freeman was already walking back to his staff Humvee, buttoning his coat collar against the sudden drop in temperature that had resulted from an Arctic front, when he turned to Norton. “Major? How’d you like to be in my G-2? Get your ass out of that castle in Heidelberg to where the action is?”

“That’d be fine, sir,” Norton lied.

“Good man. Al, you see to it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Norton, when you get yourself to Arnhem, I want you on aerial reconnaissance. Not afraid of flying, are you?”

“No, sir,” Norton lied for the second time that night.

“Good. You’re the kind of man who sees detail. Any ass can draw arrows on a map, but what I want is attention to detail. That right, Al?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You know about Tae and the chopsticks, Norton?”

Norton looked blank.

“Well — never mind. I think you’ll work out fine.”

As he was getting into his Humvee, Freeman could hear the rumble of Russian artillery in the Oden Wald to the east. Like the bad weather also to the east, it was getting closer. Driving out of Heidelberg to catch his plane to Arnhem, he said to Banks, “Al, I want all aerial photographs for the last twenty-four hours at Arnhem HQ.”

“You’ve got that look again, General.”

“Have I? Well, I’ll tell you what else I want — a plan for a fighting retreat. Regimental level.”

Banks wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. “Retreat, General?’

“What’s the matter — you got sand in your ears?”

“No, sir, but — well, sir, you’ve never pulled back before.”

“I’ve never been surrounded by four thousand Russian tanks before. And, Al, when we do start using women in the tanks, I don’t want anyone playing Sir Galahad and getting out of the tank for a leak. That’s an order, and I want it circulated to all commands. Northern, Central, and Southern NATO commands — what’s left of ‘em.”

Al Banks tried not to smile, but Freeman caught him. “Think I ‘m a rude son of a bitch?”

“No, sir, I just don’t think the men are going to obey an order that involves unzipping in front—”

Freeman’s voice grew cold. “Any man or woman who leaves a tank to urinate or defecate in action will be fined five hundred dollars and I’ll flail ‘em alive. Those Russian thermal detectors’ll pick up a ‘hot shimmer’ at a thousand yards.” He paused. “You know how I know? Because I bought one of the sons of bitches. On the black market when the Berlin Wall was getting holes punched in it and all the goddamn liberals and fellow travelers were having orgasms over ‘Gorby’ and thought it would be peace ever after. I’m not losing a single Abrams, not a goddamn one of ‘em, because some joker’s too embarrassed to piss inside his helmet. That clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“One more thing, Al. Those casualty lists we saw in Heidelberg show six crewmen killed because in defilade they spelled one another off. All six were crushed because the ground under the tank suddenly gave way under the weight. I don’t blame them. Underneath a tank’s as good a shelter as any. Besides, they’d just been shipped over — so didn’t expect it. Different geology than California. Still, their commander should have known better. We need every goddamn tank and man we can get. Now our G-2 tells us the Russians are stockpiling oil supplies in our own underground depots they’ve captured outside the pocket — safe from aerial attack. Meanwhile the bastards are pounding the shit out of our Atlantic oil and supply convoys. They keep getting clobbered, we could lose this thing for the want of a shell.”

Banks said nothing. As usual, the general was exaggerating — and as usual, he was right.

“Morning, Comrade General,” welcomed the captain of security.

Marchenko grunted and kept walking down the long, crimson corridor of the Kremlin’s Council of Ministers building to the first deputy prime minister’s office. The general was in no mood for pleasantries, and his lumbago was starting to act up again, a sure sign that winter was on its way. When he arrived in the waiting room outside the deputy minister’s office, the general informed the secretary he must see the minister at once.

“Is it pressing?” the immaculate major asked, his red shoulder boards vibrant in the pale shafts of sunlight.

Damn protocol, thought Marchenko. “It’s not pressing,” he retorted. “It’s critical.”

The major, unperturbed — it was always “critical”—put the ivory desk phone on “conference.” Often the minister could deal with it over the phone without wasting his time in the office. “General Marchenko here, sir,” the major informed the minister crisply. “He wishes to speak with you.”

There was a slight hesitation. “Very well,” said a voice resonant in the tinny-sounding speaker. Marchenko could see, through the beige-draped panel of the glass door, that the minister wasn’t coming to meet him, so that the general was required to walk the twenty meters down the long, rectangular office to where the deputy sat talking on one of the seven white phones to his left, waving Marchenko to a chair as a headmaster to a prefect. Marchenko bristled — after all, he was the senior adviser to Premier Suzlov, and yet the deputy minister wouldn’t meet him halfway. At the end of the row of chairs down the wooden-paneled wall to the minister’s right, a young, nervous executive type sat waiting apprehensively below the sepia-toned portrait of Marx.