David Robbins - Last Citadel

‘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.

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.