The sergeant brought his gaze back around to Dimitri. Bugs buzzed in the tall steppe grasses. Other tanks on other training areas growled in their own exercises. Dimitri lowered his voice below the insects and engines so only the sergeant could hear.
‘Who is that?’
The sergeant kept his voice low, as well.
‘It’s Babadzhanian.’
Dimitri grimaced. Colonel Babadzhanian was the commander of their 16th Regiment.
Dimitri looked down to think, but also to look sorry.
‘Slap me.’
The sergeant bristled at this.
‘I will not.’
‘I was insolent. Slap me now.’
‘No. It’s against regulations.’
And if you don’t, I’m headed for the stockade. Come on, boy, show some balls and save me a week behind bars. I hate their food.’
The sergeant held still. ‘No.’
‘Your mother was a whore.’
‘I know.’
‘You should have been drowned at birth.’
‘I know.’
‘Then slap me.’
Dimitri shuffled his heels in the torn-up earth. This was taking too long.
Many more seconds and the colonel himself would stride forward to mete out regimental justice. Dimitri gritted his teeth.
Alright, Valentin. What will it take?’ he asked.
‘Your promise.’
‘What, to be good?’
‘Yes.’
Dimitri hesitated.
‘For how long?’
Both the sergeant and private saw the colonel take a step into the ring of quiet men.
‘Alright,’ Dimitri said.
Valentin’s hand lashed across Dimitri’s face, turning his head with the force of the blow. A good shot, Dimitri thought, over the burn in his cheek.
‘Private!’ the sergeant shouted. Dimitri sneaked a glimpse at the colonel. The officer was holding his ground.
The young tank commander laid it on. ‘The men in that trench are your comrades, Private. The Red Army has no place in it for behavior like what you just displayed! You will apologize to these men and you will in future conduct yourself according to the rules set out in the training manual. Or I will personally see you to the stockade myself! Is this understood?’
Dimitri stiffened. ‘Yes, Comrade Sergeant! Deeply understood!’
Everyone in the company who knew Dimitri knew this was more of his clowning, but they also knew no one had better laugh in front of the colonel, or Dimitri would not be so funny later.
Valentin stabbed a finger at the T-34. ‘Now get back in your tank. You will do another shift and you will perform your duties without flaw. Or there will be consequences. Move, Private!’
Dimitri ran the several steps to the tank. The green-painted metal was warm under the summer sun, filthy with flung dirt. With practiced ease and agility beyond his fifty-five years, he lifted himself and swung his legs through the hatch, settling into his seat. With swift hands he flicked the ignition switch and hit the starter. The diesel engine coughed and fired.
Dimitri pulled down his goggles and gripped the twin levers. This was the third tank he and Valya had been given. In the last year they’d had two shot out from under them, one in the pocket outside Stalingrad in the winter, one more in the lost battle for Khar’kov three months ago. With their tanks went two crews; twice, he and Valya had been the only ones to escape. Four dead, all the hull machine-gunners and loaders. And when you die inside a tank, you always die ugly. Dimitri looked around the compact room of the T-34, designed for battle, not comfort. Metal everywhere, and where there was not steel there were glass gauges. When the armor gets pierced by a shell, the compartment turns into a razor storm, a pit of flame, a gas chamber, any number of things that will kill you faster than a blink. Dimitri permitted himself a wistful second, recalling what he had seen inside these tanks. When will the luck run out for him? And Valya?
It’ll happen, he thought, somewhere on the road ahead. It’s always been there. So why worry? Dimitri laughed at this. He wanted a saber in his hand and a strong horse between his legs, to gallop off down that road ahead, to find what waited for him there and call it to a challenge. But he had no horse, he was a Cossack without a steed or a blade. Instead he gunned the engine of the tank the Red Army gave him to ride, he looked up at the long barrel of the gun this sergeant was given to fire, and for now these were good enough. Valentin’s head appeared in his hatch.
‘Private.’
‘Yes, I know’
Dimitri grinned.
‘Valya,’ Dimitri said.
‘What?’
‘Next time don’t smack me so hard.’
Valentin drooped his eyes and shook his head. The boy is always amazed at me, thought Dimitri.
Dimitri sprang the catch on the driver’s hatch and let it fall shut with a clang. He charged the gearshift forward, let go the clutch, and the tank surged ahead. He couldn’t see, but he knew his son had to leap clear fast.
* * * *
June 28
1440 hours
Dimitri rumbled the tank away from the training field to a clearing. He was filthy with dust and perspiration. Valentin kept him going back and forth over the trenches until the new tank was almost out of gas. He eased above the trainees in the ditch, even braked for them to catch up to him and lay their wooden disks, the fake mines, over his ventilation system. Valentin stood always in his vision, signaling him to turn and do it again. In his gritty cabin, Dimitri cursed the boy.
The tank, one of the new T-34/76 1942s, responded well. The designers had added only a few improvements over the 1940 and 1941
models. The treads were slightly broader, reducing the ground pressure per square inch, letting the tank handle better. There was added armor on the turret face and sides. The hull gunner’s position had a protected mount now. The turret overhang was reduced to keep from reflecting incoming rounds down onto the turret ring. The big difference was the longer-barreled main gun for a higher muzzle velocity. Shells fired from this tank would penetrate far better than anything the Red Army had ever mounted. But it still might not be enough. Dimitri heard talk of the new German super-tanks, Tigers and Panthers with massive guns and the thickest armor ever seen on the battlefield. When the fighting starts again, those new beasts will be arrayed across the steppe from him. Again, he laughed at his own worries, and once Valentin let him off duty, he parked his own new beast under a tree. In the shade, he rose from his seat, tossing helmet and goggles to the grass. He slid down the glacis plate and stood stretching his back and stiff neck. He looked out over this land the Germans and Russians decided would be the stage for their apocalypse.