David Robbins - Last Citadel

Bullets hacked at the ground behind him. He wove his way to the T-34, each shift of direction shot bolts of agony out of his hip. This Red tank was not burned like the others that had died near it. A wide hole had been bored neatly through the middle of the turret. At this range, the Tiger’s big cannon had drilled a shell right through one side of the T-34 and out the other! He had only that instant to marvel, the Mark IV’s machine-gunner cut loose again. Dimitri threw himself between the T-34’s treads just ahead of a sickle of bullets slashing at the soles of his airborne boots. He hit and skidded under the tank, his hip hurt so much, he thought he might have taken a bullet in it. Thirty meters away the Mark IV curled a small semicircle, pondering whether to keep up the chase against this lone tanker, then lost interest and veered away to another of the hundred duels raging in the valley. Dimitri peered out into the rain and watched the tank rumble past the General . The German did not see Valya’s slowly rotating gun.

Dimitri rolled onto his back. His hip smarted enough to force a tear down his cheek. He heaved for breath.

Just above his nose, the hard belly of the T-34 rattled. Dimitri smelled exhaust.

The tank was running.

Dimitri swept aside his pain again and thrust himself out from between the treads. The hatch was open. The driver was gone, so was the machine-gunner. He spun to look one more time at the General . Valya had the turret cranked halfway around to the escaping Tiger. In another fifteen seconds he’d have the gun in position. Dimitri hoisted himself up on the T-34’s fender. He stepped down into the driver’s hatch. He bent his knees and descended.

Dimitri almost leaped back out. Blood was everywhere. His feet reached for the pedals, skimming through a horrible slick in the bottom of the tank. The driver’s gauges and controls were splashed red. Dimitri whirled behind him and recoiled at the bodies of the commander and leader. The German .88 shell had cut through them both; the commander had been standing when the round entered, he was split and folded over at the ribs, his two halves were toppled on their sides, spilling entrails and every fluid the body courses, his shocked face toppled between his own boots. The loader was slumped in his seat, headless. The German shell had cut through his neck, then exited the turret beside him. The neat hole leaving the armor was rimmed with gore where the pressure sucked out, taking the loader’s head with it. Shrapnel had whittled both bodies with a thousand crimson pits, their coveralls were shredded. The smell of death cooped in this tank was overpowering: gut, bile, and blood mingled to make the compartment ferocious and sickening. Dimitri gripped the steering levers. The driver and machine-gunner must have leaped out as soon as they discovered they were still alive, no reason to stay in this hellhole.

He shifted into first gear, nailed the accelerator, and took off. The corpses behind him jostled with a damp flop. Dimitri shivered and hit second gear.

‘Christ,’ he muttered. He had only seconds, so that was all he could say for himself and his dead crew. He sucked his cheeks and found enough moisture in his mouth to spit into the blood at his feet, to clean his tongue of the vomit taste. Go, he thought. Go.

He was not able to see the General any longer. He drove hard, shifting again. He said to Valya, ‘Wait, boy. Wait for me.’

He slung the T-34 around as fast as he could, the bodies behind him skidded in their butchery but he could pay them no more mind. There was the limping Tiger, retreating into its own exhaust out of the sunflower valley. He sped toward it, skimming the T-34 back and forth as he had done the General , but this time not to get a shot, only to draw the Tiger’s attention. To make it stop. Make it turn sideways. To make the great son of a bitch aim its cannon at his speeding ghost tank, and not his son.

Luis backed away.

His Tiger could manage no more pace than a brisk walk. An hour ago, he’d rumbled down the slope through the wall of purple smoke, he was the first tank into the valley, blasting Russians and crushing flowers. He’d been a titan, astride a titan’s tank. Now he shrank away, stanching his own blood, his Tiger limping on a bad paw, spooling out the land he’d reeled in. Backing away, he was no larger than his little famished body.

Luis contained his anger at the receding battle. He would be back before dusk, mechanics be damned! And then he’d swell with the land again. He surveyed the departing field, the number of hulks he’d left around him. A dozen, more, he imagined their smoke rising into the sky to write his name in dark script. The sunflower field knew he’d been there, and Prokhorovka would know him when he returned tonight.

No other tanks came near. The Russians left him alone. Why would they come after a retreating Tiger; if it’s leaving the battlefield, isn’t that good enough for today? Why risk taking it on, still dangerous? Balthasar fired no more shots. Luis would not let the driver stop long enough for the gunner to take aim.

He surveyed the valley now that he was leaving it. Leibstandarte was stymied down here, but holding its own against vastly superior numbers. The Russians couldn’t keep pouring tanks into the fight, their reserves had to have a limit. His division would surely punch through by afternoon. He couldn’t tell what was taking place outside the sunflower field, north of the Psel with Totenkopf and south of the rail mound for Das Reich . The rain added its beaded curtain to the haze, closing down visibility. The valley magnified the wrench of steel and the deep whumps of cannons and exploding armor, giving Luis’s ears no information from the surrounding frays. He believed they must be as intense as his own, and grimaced that he did not know if the day was being won or lost. But backing away from the battle now, he was amazed at its magnitude. Still almost two hundred tanks clashed at close quarters in the sunflowers. Never before, he thought, and he had to cinch down his rancor at leaving the history that was carving itself out in this field. If Hitler could see this, he would not talk of stopping the assault on Kursk for Italy’s sake. He would applaud and come fight alongside us, and be part of this.

Luis had no more to eat. All his crackers and tidbits were gone. His stomach agitated for attention, he had nothing to give it but water. He dipped his head below the hatch to reach for his canteen, then stood in the cupola, unscrewing the canteen cap. He took a swig, eyes open, then lowered the jug too fast in surprise at what he saw. Water drizzled down his chin, cooling his cut; a pink wash slipped down his neck, under his black SS collar.

What was this? He winced into the gunsmoke mist and falling rain, at a Russian tank charging at him, cutting up the ground in that unbelievable lightning zigzag.

The crazy Red driver. It’s him again! But Luis killed his tank minutes ago!

He dropped the open canteen, it banged down into the Tiger’s well. He raised his binoculars to pierce the haze in the valley.

The T-34 came hard, sideslipping. What was the fool doing? Was this some sort of loco Russian cat with nine damned lives?

‘Balthasar!’

‘I see him, Captain.’

‘Range.’

‘Three hundred meters. Closing.’

‘Stay on him.’

‘Jawohl’

The Tiger’s turret jerked awake. The hydraulic traverse began its high-pitched labor to bring the big cannon to bear. Balthasar’s voice had betrayed no concern. The gunner was locked in, figuring distance and lead, tracking the target with nothing else to think of. The turret jittered around Luis’s chest, left, then right, trying to keep up with the Russian driver all over again. This was the same man, yes? Supposedly a dead man, coming at the Tiger again in another tank. There couldn’t be two Red drivers with that ability. The T-34 dodged and weaved, alone in the attack, just like before. Luis recognized every move. He held out no welcome for the return of a worthy foe. He sensed a cold touch of dread. Something was going on that he could not fathom.