Mack Reynolds: After Utopia

Tracy and Dan stared.

“The sonofabitch,” Dan blurted.

Tracy slumped back into his chair, his face wan. He sighed deeply and said, “This changes things. I thought possibly we could be of some assistance in forming the new government. To give speeches and so forth, drawing on our years of experience. Possibly write some newspaper articles, that sort of thing.”

Dan said bitterly, “We’ll be drawing on our years of experience all right, but not in the way of doing speeches and articles.”

The tanks didn’t come until morning. The Soviets knew better than to enter narrow streets in the darkness of night. When they came, they came belching cannon fire, plowing through the barricades that the defenders had attempted to throw up during the night. It takes quite a barricade to stop a Joseph Stalin heavy tank, or even a T-34 medium.

When the sound of the firing could first be heard, Tracy and Dan were in a second-floor room of the Polytechnic school giving a talk to thirty or forty young men, all of whom were rifle armed.

Dan was seated to one side, as Tracy spoke.

“Okay,” Tracy said. “You’re students.” He took in a deep draft of air. “I was a student once… a long time ago. Now this is what we do. A tank is vulnerable in a city, as the Russians well know, since they took advantage of it in such towns as Stalingrad. Not that I’m bitching about Stalingrad. The Nazis had to be stopped. However, now it’s the Russians that have to be stopped. So we’ll get around to what you do with tanks in a city.”

All of a sudden it came over him, wearily. Yes, he had found out the hard way how you dealt with a tank in a city. So had Dan, here next to him. Yes, Dan knew about how to take a tank in a city.

Tracy went on. “The thing is, that contrary to popular belief the captain of a tank can’t fight it efficiently with the hatch down. For any efficiency at all, his head has to be up out of the hatch. That’s one thing out on an open plain, but in a city he lays himself open to snipers, so he has to seal up. Besides that, tanks aren’t meant for close-up work. That means they can’t get their guns leveled on a man who darts right up next to them. And they also run the risk of people in the buildings throwing goodies down on them.”

He turned to Dan. “Show them how to make a Molotov cocktail, Dan.”

Dan Whiteley had been seated behind a table laden with various pieces of equipment. He came to his feet and took up an empty liter bottle with a screw top. He unscrewed the top, put a small funnel in, then took up the jerry can of gasoline he and Tracy had brought.

As he filled the bottle, he said, in German, “You’ve probably all heard about the Molotov cocktail. It’s one of the simplest weapons you can use against tanks. Larger bottles, such as this, are best but if they aren’t available, you can use smaller ones. Try to have a screw top, they’re safer, but if they aren’t available, a cork will do. Don’t try to cork the bottle with a rag. You run the chance of blowing yourself up.”

He finished filling the bottle and screwed the top on tightly. He then took up a rag, stripped it to about two inches in diameter and tied it tightly around the bottle. He poured more gasoline on the rag.

“There you are,” he said. “Just before you throw it, you light the rag. Your best bet is to throw it from an upper story window, and if possible, and it usually isn’t, right into the tank’s hatch. If you’re out in the streets, run as close as you can get before you heave it. Sometimes one of these will set a tank afire, after all they’re gasoline burners.”

He thought for a moment before saying, “The piece of rag might be more efficient if you soak it with methylated spirits, if you can get them. And instead of trying it, you can attach it to the bottle with a rubber band, given rubber bands.”

One of the students, who had been stationed at a window said, “Three tanks and two armored cars are coming up on Szena Square.”

Everyone hurried to the windows. All entrances to the square were barricaded, largely with hundreds of barrels, but Tracy and Dan had a few illusions about their efficiency.

The first of the tanks found a weak point and plowed right on through to the center of the square. Large groups of men were firing at it with rifles and a few submachine guns. As Tracy had mentioned, the tank’s hatch was closed. Two more tanks, cannons booming, followed after through the same hole, and then two armored cars.

Tracy said to the students, “Start making up Molotov cocktails. Just as sure as hell they’ll break right on through the square and head down this street.”

They began hurriedly to make up the bottles of gasoline.

While they were doing this, Tracy said, “You remain up here and watch. Dan and I’ll give you another lesson in taking a tank in a city.”

He took up a steel crowbar from the table. Dan sighed and took up one of the blankets that were piled on a chair.

Tracy looked at Gyula Rajk, the poet. “All right,” he said. “You can be third man of the team. Take that bucket there and fill it half full of gasoline.”

While the other was following orders, Tracy looked around at the remaining students, most of them holding their gasoline bottles. He said, “If we fail, you try raining the cocktails down on them.”

One of them, still at the window, called, “One of the larger tanks has broken through the square and is coming down the street.”

Tracy said, “Okay. Let’s go Dan, Gyula.” He led the way to the door, out into the hall beyond, and then down the stairs, explaining the procedure to the poet as they went.

Below, they crouched in one of the doorways of the building, waiting, watching the approaching tank.

“A Joseph Stalin,” Dan muttered. “One of the big boys.”

“Thank god there’s only one of them,” Tracy said. “A second one would make mincemeat of us, while we were busy with the first.”

Dan looked over at Tracy and grinned wanly and said, “Why did we come all this way to do this?”

“Yeah,” Tracy said. “Why?” He grunted. “I didn’t ask for it any more than you did.”

Dan said, still watching the approaching tank. “A profound thought has just come to me. You know, Tracy, there are two things in this life that a man can only do for himself. Nobody else can do them for him. They are of equal importance.”

The poet looked at him, frowning. “What are they?”

“Taking a shit and dying.”

The tank, unaware of them, was rumbling closer.

Every so often it would fire its looming gun; at what, the three men didn’t know. The streets seemed deserted. The tank crew was probably just proving it was dangerous.

Fortunately, the tank was coming along their side of the street. It was going slowly, cautiously. When it came abreast of them, Tracy darted out and thrust his steel crowbar into the tracks close to the sprocket, thus stopping the vehicle. Dan, immediately behind him, hurled his blanket into the stationary tracks, the poet threw his half full bucket of gasoline onto the blanket, both Dan and Tracy threw fuze matches then turned and darted back for the building again. The tank’s gun was already beginning to twirl in their direction.

But then a cheer rang out from the building. The young men were leaning out of the windows, some shaking their rifles. The tank had mushroomed into flame and black smoke.

Tracy yelled up at the boys, “Pot any of them that try to get out.”

He and his small team were back inside the building again.

Gyula Rajk looked at Tracy strangely. “But they’d be helpless, possibly even their clothing on fire.”

“That’s the best time to shoot them,” Dan Whiteley growled. “When they’re helpless. Let them go, and for all you know they’ll wind up in a new tank, shooting at you again. In this kind of fighting, you can’t take prisoners, either. We have no facilities for holding them.”