Уильям Макгиверн - Soldiers of ’44

“She’s in the middle, sarge. That’s her mother next to her.”

Docker took the wallet from Linariand glanced at the photograph tucked behind a celluloid shield, a festive group in tuxedos and long dresses and flowers, the smiles stiff but blurred because the camera was out of focus.

“Her name’s Josefina,Josie Carducci. I known her all my life.” Linari was so pleased to have Docker look at his girl, with Sonny smiling and Kohler pretending to be mad, that he thought of telling them about when he was little and his mother called him “pretty star-baby,” mixing up the words so they came out “Guido bambini, Linari stellini,” and how his father had once explained that he could never be in the second half of the class because their initial L was number twelve in the alphabet, so he would always be in the first half when the teacher called out names. But it was too late now, the sergeant wasn’t looking at Josie anymore, he was watching Trankic.

“I hope it works out great,” Docker said, and started for the revetment. Radar bounding ahead of him and Laurel following him for a few paces.

“You took a load off his mind.”

Docker stopped and looked at the young soldier. “You got any last requests?”

Laurel smiled and pushed his helmet back. The wind and sleet stirred his blond hair. “Sure, sarge. I’m the only guy in the section who’s never had a taste of our famous black whiskey.”

“Well, we can fix that.” Docker uncapped his canteen. “Good health.”

Sonny took a sip of whiskey and almost immediately began to cough. When he could speak, he said hoarsely, “Wow, it’s even worse than Baird said.”

Trankic suddenly waved to them and pointed into the valley, where they now heard a car, the laboring strokes of its motor muffled by the inversion of heavy fog.

Docker ran back to the rocky shelf in front of the revetment. Taking the glasses, he picked up the dark line of the logging road where it cut through the woods and across open fields, tracking it until he focused on the gray shape of the German command car driving at speed toward Mont Reynard. Without lowering his binoculars he said, “If the tank moves out, cover whichever flank it heads for. Make damn sure no one hits the plungers too soon.”

A rising wind swept down the valley, driving patches of fog ahead of it like huge tumbleweeds. Docker lowered his glasses and saw the German officer climbing from his command car and running the last dozen yards toward the great tank.

One of the Tiger II’s treads ground powerfully into the frozen ground, turning the tank and cannon to face the upper slopes of Mont Reynard.

“I say we open up now. Bull. I say it’s about fucking time.”

“Not quite,” Docker said.

Earlier he and Trankic had used local maps and the heights of trees to make rough, visual triangulations, from which they had estimated the distance from their positions down to the floor of the valley as approximately a quarter of a mile — somewhere between four hundred and five hundred yards.

Using Baird’s stats on the tank, they figured the tank’s uphill speed at between ten and fifteen miles an hour. They had calculated that — unless it were stopped by the charges of dynamite — the Tiger II would reach the machine guns on the left or right flank of their position in about sixty seconds. One minute.

The tank was moving forward now in low gear, its laboring engine shattering the silence and its tracks digging deep into the frozen rock, sending trails of sparks spinning through the early morning curtain of mist.

“Christ, don’t cut it too fucking fine. Bull!”

Docker looked to his right where Kohler and Linari and Sonny Laurel were crouched behind the machine guns, hands on the firing grips. To his left Schmitzer and Farrel were on the other guns, Dormund behind them with shiny belts of ammunition. All the men had turned to watch Trankic and Docker.

“All right, hit it!” Docker said.

Trankic pumped a fist high in the air and the machine guns tore the silence apart, the bullets ricocheting instants later with shrill drawn-out whines against the thick armor of the tank. Echoes of the bursts streaked through the valley, and the tracer ammunition formed brilliant looping arcs above the hill, fiery guidelines for the moving tank.

The Tiger II was accelerating rapidly now, gathering momentum for its charge at the mountainside. The sound of its engine and the grind of its tracks shook the ground; Docker felt the tremors through his boots and could see miniature avalanches starting on the hillside, streams of rock and shale and ice hurtling down to the floor of the valley. He also saw the Tiger II’s huge cannon tracking swiftly toward the machine guns on their right flank. As he yelled at the men there to take cover, the ground and air shook with cannon blasts and the twenty-five pound projectiles pounded against the overhang of the mountain. A storm of splintered rock and shale burst around them, one taking an inch-long strip of flesh from Docker’s forehead and so disorienting him that only the feel of the cold rock against his face made him realize he had been knocked to the ground.

Crawling to his knees, he saw that the Tiger II was coming straight up the mountain at their cannon, ignoring the baited flanks, traveling swiftly and safely between the charges of dynamite below the machine guns. And for an instant he saw the tall German officer and one of his soldiers running in a crouch behind the tank, machine pistols in their hands.

The tank’s 88-millimeter cannon was now swinging back toward the center of the hill. Docker ran toward the revetment, but the Tiger II fired again and the projectiles exploded into the overhang behind him, the concussion striking him in the back and throwing him against the sandbagged walls around the cannon... The whole world seemed shredded by noise, the staccato bursts of their machine guns, the rupture of frozen rock under the tank’s tracks, the fire from the tank’s big cannon breaking over them like flails. The weight of it all pressed almost unbearably on Docker, the churning sounds fragmented and seemingly inflamed by the blood filming his eyes.

Trankic had run toward the right flank of the hill when the tank’s cannon turned in that direction. By the time he saw — as Docker had — that the tank was heading toward the center of their position, the first shells were already smashing into the mountainside, the impact stunning and driving him to his knees... When his head cleared, he could smell the stench of powder in the air, its smoky taste mingling with the wet snow and smell of fresh earth churned up by the cannon blasts. When he stared around, instinctively tightening his grip on his rifle, he saw Docker on the ground, and Baird climbing over the revetment wall above him... Kohler and Linari were firing down the hill at the tank. Laurel was lying beside them, an arm over his helmet. The tank was not heading for the machine guns and the dynamite, Trankic knew then, it was coming straight at their cannon. Firing the dynamite was a long shot, maybe they’d get lucky, Trankic thought, the blast could take out the Germans behind the tank, a slab of rock might crack one of the tank treads... he twisted around and slammed a fist down on the plunger of the detonating machine.

The exploding dynamite ripped the ground open, clouding the hillside with dust and black smoke, sending bursts of ice and rock and clods of frozen earth arcing, wheeling through the smoke-threaded mists, and then as they lost their thrust and fell spinning back to the ground they rattled noisily but harmlessly around the turret and armor of the charging tank...

Shock waves from the first dynamite blast knocked Schmitzer off his feet. Shouting at Dormund to take his place at the machine guns, he scuttled across the ground to fall across the plunger and detonate the charges on the left flank of the hill...