David Robbins - Last Citadel

‘Alright.’ The large man let the tire fall over and roll at his feet. His gesture said, A truck can wait for a tank.

Together with the mechanic, Dimitri gathered up the man’s welding tools, plus a tarpaulin and two metal rods. The mechanic had an angular face, he was bald, and powerfully built. He led the way out of the tent – he had to duck, he was so tall – to a quarter-ton truck parked with a large electric welding generator hitched to it. The rumbles of fighting eight kilometers to the south muttered under the rainfall and their sloshing boots. The Germans would not get the Oboyan road; even so, they were keeping up the pressure to stop the Reds from going over to the offensive. The Germans weren’t quitting. They’d come close, maybe closer than they knew, to breaking through to Oboyan. The mechanic climbed into the truck, filling the seat with his midriff, the steering wheel almost touched his belly. Cursing the nasty weather under his breath, he wheeled the truck and trailer through the mud, dodging the human traffic growing with the lifting light. He did not smile at Dimitri.

When they reached the General , Dimitri saw that Valentin and Pasha had not yet risen. Their boots lay side by side between the treads, pointing up, and the T-34 seemed to be some grand headstone for the two of them, a green sarcophagus carved in the shape of a tank to mark the heroes’ last place. The mechanic pulled up close to the General and got out, slamming the truck door, thoughtless of the late snoozers under the tank. He walked up to the glacis plate and ran his fingertips into the bottom of the scoop below the driver’s hatch. The big man whistled.

‘This was a Tiger.’ The mechanic looked up at the turret, at the name of the tank painted there by Dimitri only two weeks ago.

‘You’re the tank that was out front. The one in the crater.’

Dimitri nodded.

The mechanic wagged his head to say: You all ought to be dead . Dimitri thought, Yes, we tried.

The man went back to the truck for the tarpaulin, then clambered up on the tank to hang the oiled sheet across the main gun barrel. Dimitri spread the tarp and secured it to make a tent, to keep the spot dry where the mechanic would work. The big man jumped down, mud sprayed. Dimitri stepped back. The rain tapped on his hair and shoulders, he was lost again, dissolved into the dank. He stared beneath the tank at the bottom of Valentin’s boots, the boots that rode like angels or devils on his shoulders in the tank.

The mechanic cranked up the generator. The pistons made a diesel racket, the generator coughed as though it had a cold in this dreary weather. But the engine sounded alright to the mechanic. He took his dark welding goggles from a hook on the trailer and slipped them over his cloth hat. He moved under the spread-out tarp and dried the glacis plate with his sleeve. He laid the first of the metal bars horizontally across the bottom of the sloped plating and lit his welding rod. The generator jerked into some higher mode and a blue flaming dot popped at the end of the wand in the mechanic’s mitt. Dimitri had to turn away, the electric dot was blinding. The mechanic set to work under the tarpaulin, glittering like lightning with the welding. Dimitri grabbed the tank fender and sprang onto the General’s treads and up on the deck. Yes, we tried, he thought, of the time in the crater. Maybe we succeeded.

Inside the turret, he unhooked from the wall the first of the three spare tread links the mechanic would wedge over the glacis plate between the two welded bars. Each link weighed almost half of what Dimitri weighed, but he hefted them one at a time out of the hatch and tossed them to the soft ground. They landed with splashing thuds. He left the hatch open when he was done, to let the rain fall in and wet Valya’s seat. He’d say he was sorry, he was busy.

Dimitri stacked the three links beside the flashing mechanic. His biceps and back muscles thickened with the strain of lifting and carrying the things, he sweat under the coating of drizzle. He stood back and watched the sparks fall and bounce around Valentin’s and Pasha’s boots.

The mechanic was almost finished securing the second bar when Valya and Pasha slumped around from the rear of the General , puffy-faced and aggrieved at being wakened to rain and welding. Valentin came over to inspect the work. The mechanic in his goggles and scorching noise did not know Valya was there behind him. Valentin waited to be acknowledged, then touched the mechanic’s shoulder. The man shut down his wand and turned, raising his goggles.

‘Let me take a look,’ Valya said to him. The mechanic shrugged, then backed from under the cover. He stood beside Dimitri and cut his eyes to the back of the lean sergeant bending over the still-smoking metal. He glanced at Dimitri. That your boy? the look asked. Dimitri nodded.

Valentin stayed under the tarpaulin longer than someone should who knew nothing about welding. The mechanic cast his eyes over at Pasha. Dark specks of rain spattered on the boy’s dry coveralls.

Pasha asked the big man, ‘Did you hear about us?’

The mechanic’s chest jiggled. He laughs to himself, Dimitri thought, just like I do. He laughs at Pasha’s brand of heroism, at a boy stupid and ungrateful to be alive. How many other, quieter heroes has this mechanic scraped out of tanks into buckets to get the machines ready for another crew?

‘Yeah,’ he answered Pasha, indulgent. ‘I heard of you.’

‘We took out four tanks. And a Tiger. “We ran out of ammunition.’

Valentin was done looking at the welded bars. ‘Very good,’ he said, backing out from under cover.

‘I’ve got a little left to do,’ the mechanic said. He towered over Valentin, over all of them. ‘We’ve got to secure the links.’

Valya seemed uncomfortable. ‘Alright. Get to it then.’

Dimitri winced. This was how Valentin evened the score, always. He’d taught the young boy the sword, Valya had excelled with it in the sietch . Now in life, Valentin the man knows nothing else.

The mechanic nodded his great bald head. ‘Yes, Lieutenant.’

Valentin wore the mustard and red badges of promotion. Dimitri had not noticed. It must have happened yesterday, while he was off finding new orders.

‘You should both know,’ Valentin said, taking in Pasha and Dimitri with a regal turn of his head. ‘We’ve been transferred. The three SS divisions are regrouping and moving east, around Oboyan. Some units from 3rd Mechanized and 10th Tank are being sent to reinforce 5th Guards Tank Army at Prokhorovka. I volunteered the General . We’ll leave as soon as we take on more ammunition. Where’s the machine-gunner?’

Dimitri said, ‘Sasha will be back from the infirmary this morning.’

Valentin turned away, certain of his victory over the mechanic, that seemed to be what he wanted, as though the mechanic had not come in the rain to help but to bring some encounter. Valentin was on a winning streak, he wanted to stay on it. He walked off to show there was some very dutiful chore on his mind. Pasha stayed behind, a stunned look on his face. He hadn’t known about Prokhorovka, either.

The mechanic was a kind man. ‘Four tanks. And a Tiger. Well done, loader.’ Pasha seemed ready to cry, not so heroic. Then he, too, turned away, to follow Valentin and fetch more ammunition, to return to the battle.

The mechanic smiled now.

‘Yes,’ he said with a different inflection than when he’d spoken these words to Pasha, ‘I’ve heard of you.’

He drew from his pocket a small jackknife. He opened the blade. With quick snips, he cut from his own coveralls all the buttons holding the fabric together over his chest.

‘Prokhorovka,’ the mechanic mumbled while he cut.