David Robbins - Last Citadel

The Russian sheered off from his swerving headlong dash. Luis had guessed he would. The T-34 bounded to the left, to advance down the damaged side of the Tiger. Damn it, Luis thought. He’s going for the port bogey wheels again! One more hit there and the Tiger will lose a track, we’ll only go in circles. Of course!

‘Driver! Turn to him. Keep him away from the side. I want frontal armor on him! Move!’

The Tiger jerked to a stop. Gears and driveshaft howled. The Tiger came out of reverse and lurched forward now, spinning only the right tread to push the tank around to the left. Balthasar worked the traverse to catch up with the enemy boring in alongside. Again the swift T-34 managed to stay just ahead of the rotating cannon. But this time the whole crew knew what this Russian had in store. The Tiger’s driver did a better job of swinging the chassis around to keep their front trained on the Russian. Balthasar’s gun slid ahead of the T-34.

‘Got him,’ intoned the gunner.

‘No. Stay on him. He’ll stop in a moment. Then.’

‘Ja’

The Red tank kept up its dash along the left side, two hundred meters off and angling in, narrowing the distance. Balthasar’s gun moved with the Russian. Luis stared hard at the T-34. Something was wrong. He raised his binoculars and focused on the neat hole in the center of the Russian’s turret. Luis recalled the shot, one of Balthasar’s first in the sunflower field. The .88 shell had sliced right through the Russian tank like cheese and left it standing in the field, spookily intact but surely dead. This loco Soviet driver and his gunner had somehow survived the hit on their own tank. They’d crept into this one, mice to the cheese, and brought the tank alive for another go at the big cat, Luis’s retreating Tiger.

Why, Luis thought? It’s insane to come back. I killed you once, I’ll do it again! In his mind he hurled this at the Russian tank but felt his warning glance off the slanted green armor. No, they won’t heed. The Russians are maniacs, reckless, just like Hitler says, unflinching, witless, subhumans. Do you have to kill them all more than once, is that how this war is going to go? Luis was hungry and had no food. He needed to get his damaged tank repaired, he needed to leave and return to the battle with haste, everything with haste; history and glory look slow in books but these things are only made in flashes of opportunity, by the hand on the trigger. He was incensed that this single T-34 wouldn’t let him back away. Luis had already killed this man and this tank! The Russian driver and his gunner were using up more than their allotments of one life each. In Spanish under his breath he cursed them, glaring down the rotating barrel of the Tiger’s gun. He would have to stop backing away and fight, though he did not want to, he did not have time for this. The thought of killing something or someone twice did not sit with him, not with what he knew and expected of God and death. This was wrong. This whispered to him with the voice of the T-34’s winding diesel – close enough now to breathe in his ear – of mala suerte , bad, bad luck.

Just as he predicted, the T-34 stopped, like an arrow finding its mark, sudden but this time unremarkable. The Russian slid to a halt straight at the end of Balthasar’s barrel. Its own cannon was off, not fixed on the Tiger.

‘Now?’ Balthasar asked.

Why stop there, Luis wondered? Why not outrun our turret again? There’s nothing the Russian can do, not even this close, a hundred meters away. His round will smack the frontal plating of the Tiger and make no more than a deep dent. One word to Balthasar and I’ll blow him backward another hundred meters.

Why isn’t his turret moving? He hasn’t aimed at us yet. What is he…?

The T-34 idled.

The Tiger was broadside to the sunflower field, facing the decoy. Luis looked across the short distance into the open driver’s hatch. He saw a white face and a bloody palm waving hello. Or goodbye.

‘Now?’ Balthasar pressed.

Luis turned only his head, knowing he could not turn his tank fast enough.

Valentin’s shell hit the Tiger on the starboard bogeys. Dimitri watched the big tank vanish in a maelstrom of smoke and flash. He balled his open hand into a fist and shook it at the instant fireball. He shouted into the din, ‘Good shot, son! Now hit him again!’ The explosion was done in a moment. The Tiger weathered the hit with incredible brawn, it barely shuddered. It was a stupendous sight to see how much damage it could take. When the smoke receded, the German commander was not standing in his cupola. He’d either been blown out or ducked at the last instant.

Valentin was alone in the General . The son would have to scoot around the hot extended breech, dig up another AP round from the bins, ram the shell into the breech, and get back to his optics. Any adjustment to his targeting would have to be made with the hand cranks. Valya had a broken nose, and who knew what other injuries, to deal with. Valentin would do what he had to do, no question. Dimitri grinned up into the dark bore of the Tiger’s cannon, proud and certain that this best trait of his own, if none of the others, would stay alive in his son.

His hands and feet were ready to shift into gear. The Tiger smoked, brooding. The big tank was bruised, but how badly? Could Valentin fire again and kill it before the Tiger recovered?

The Tiger’s enormous engine roared. Its transmission engaged, black exhaust expelled, the tracks of both sides shrieked over damaged wheels.

The tank bucked backward ten meters.

The Tiger could still move!

Dimitri cursed. Now Valya would have to take aim again. Without the General’s hydraulics, this would take precious seconds, perhaps more than Valentin had. Damn it!

The Tiger backed and pivoted to the right, racking itself to turn toward the center of the field, a great wounded creature and now certainly angry. Its cannon traversed away from Dimitri, careless for his curses or his life. He was no threat, a T-34 with no gunner, with holes in his turret.

In the Tiger’s cupola, the commander reappeared. He waved back at Dimitri, blood on his hand, too. Then he pivoted, with binoculars pressed to his brow, his turret rotating around him. He ignored Dimitri.

The German turned to his right, to Valentin.

Dimitri spit again into the red bog beneath his boots. Enough, he thought. He shifted the T-34 into gear and mashed the accelerator. Let’s shake these bloody hands.

The German commander’s face left his binoculars, not ignoring Dimitri now.

Luis believed only for the first second that the loco Russian was leaving. The T-34’s treads spun, again with that unlikely acceleration, and the tank with the dead turret turned in to the rain.

Then the Russian swerved back at the Tiger. He angled to the right, racing to stay ahead of the Tiger’s turning cannon.

Balthasar’s voice bit through the engine clamor.

‘What’s he doing?’

The gunner had finally gone urgent. Luis fought to keep panic out of his own throat. He needed to give an order, but confusion and dismay delayed him. He was divided in half: one Red tank drew a bead on him from four hundred meters off; another bore in crazily from a hundred meters away. Something wasn’t fair here, the mala suerte . He felt like he’d stepped in a hornet’s nest, why were they coming after him like this? These two madmen working in tandem, why?

Luis found his voice. Only a moment had passed, but all that remained was moments.

‘Gunner, stay on target.’

The Tiger’s turret continued to rotate clockwise around Luis. The T-34 out there with the live cannon had to be handled first.