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 - ‘
‘J a.’
‘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.
* * * *
CHAPTER 30
1009 hours
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.
Dimitri returned the nod, to tell Valya he was heartstruck the boy was alive.
‘Sasha?’ Valentin asked.
‘He’s okay. Cut up a little.’
‘Get out, Papa. Get Sasha out.’
Dimitri raised his eyes to the motionless loader. ‘Pasha?’ he asked.
Valentin shook his head, he didn’t know yet. He laid a hand on Pasha’s ribs, then nodded. The big loader was breathing. Pasha will have a mouth of gold teeth to show for this day in the sunflowers, Dimitri thought.
‘Go, Papa. I’ll get Pasha out.’
‘We stung him, boy, didn’t we?’
‘Yes, we damn well did.’
‘Someone will finish him off before the day’s out.’
‘Yes. Someone will. Get going.’
Dimitri started to turn around. He reached a hand out to shake Sasha into action. Valentin stopped him with a hard grip to the shoulder.
‘Papa. You were…’
The look on Valya’s face was the awakened gaze of a son at a marvelous father, an indomitable figure.
‘I know, boy. Come on. We’re not done. Hurry, Valya. See you outside.’
Dimitri got woozy Sasha to open the belly escape hatch between his feet; then helped him slide out of the tank. When Sasha was on the ground, Dimitri tossed a glance over his shoulder to see Valya wrestling with Pasha, who roused like a sleepy child. We’re all alive, Dimitri thought, our luck is changing. He rose from his seat through the driver’s hatch and stood out into the sunflower field.
Sitting inside the General, careening back and forth over the valley floor, he’d had no way of experiencing any part of the battle except his own.
Dimitri slid to the ground and felt it tremble.
The noise hit him next. Tank engines howled on every side, an incredible number of them in this valley, more than should fit here, engines crossed paths, pistons decided life and death as much as cannon fire.
Tracks squealed over sprockets, more than a hundred guns mauled each other at gladiator distances, and from lifeless tanks strewn all over the field the black pulses of oil flames panted into the morning like the devil’s breath.
Overhead, unseen behind clouds and haze, more engines struggled to kill one another high in the air. Dimitri felt helpless and out of place, a man on this battlefield racked with motors and clashing steel. He leaped when a hand grabbed at his boot.
‘Sasha! Christ, boy, come on, get up.’ Dimitri helped the crawling lad from under the General’s treads, glad to be startled out of his astonishment. Several dead T-34s and one Mark IV were within a hundred meters. Closer was a deep crater. There was no time to salvage the toolbox he kept kit-strapped to the General’s deck. Ah, well, he thought.