The defenders were Americans, the toughest, most stubborn race of jerks on the planet, and their M4s were good tanks ready to take on whatever the Germans threw at them. Russo considered the Germans might have more tanks in the field and air superiority to boot, but he had faith in his crewmates and Boomer’s firepower. These guys were a bunch of buttagots, but they could fight.
“Let’s do this,” he growled.
“Loader, give me shot,” the tank commander said.
Swanson slammed a round into the breech. “You’re up.”
“We’ll start shooting at two thousand yards.”
“Roger,” said Wade.
“Corporal, what was that inscription you translated that I liked? The one we saw on that pillar in the ruins we visited on the road from Oran?”
“‘The dead salute the gods,’” the gunner said.
“Right,” the tank commander said. “Today, we’re going to win, boys, or tonight, we’ll be saluting the angels.”
MAP: Opening attacks in the Battle of Kasserine Pass.
At dawn on February 14, 1943, the German 10th Panzer Division (north) and the 21st Panzer Division (south) punched through Allied defenses and encircled Sidi bou Zid and the 168th Infantry on several hills.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
HELL BREAKS
With his binoculars, Tank Sergeant Austin swept the diorama of chaos and smoke. German armor rolled toward him, commanders in black uniforms standing tall in their cupolas and ready to direct the fire of their big guns.
Some of the tanks were big, boxy monsters he’d never seen before. He thought these must be the rumored Tigers and shuddered at the thought of going up against one of them. They made big targets, but otherwise all he had to go on was hearsay about their guns being 88s, about their armor being virtually impenetrable to shot.
Whatever these tanks were, Austin would just have to figure out how to kill them or go home, and going home wasn’t an option.
He glanced at Sergeant Cocker in Buckshot’s cupola on his left, Sergeant Dunlap in Boxer’s on his right. They were muttering into their microphones, working out targets with their gunners. Dunlap leaned over the side of his turret and vomited then returned to giving orders over his interphone.
Austin raised his binoculars again. The Germans rolled ever closer. At two thousand yards, he could start firing.
“Gunner, target will be—”
German tanks lurched to a halt and opened up at three thousand yards.
Smoke puffed from barrels as the big guns boomed. White shot blurred toward the American M4s, chased by waves of dust rolling up from the ground.
A round plowed a smoking trench between him and Buckshot. Cocker goggled at it and gaped at Austin. A hill bulged out of the ground in front of Boxer, raining clumps of dirt.
Then the German gunners found the range and zeroed in.
Boxer rocked as a shell punched its turret and hurled Dunlap away in flaming rags. The explosion set off the ammo in the racks. A moment later, fire billowed from every hatch before the turret belched into the air and thudded on the ground.
Nobody got out.
Austin stared at the burning wreck in horror.
“Bears 3 Actual to all Bears 3,” Whitley said over the radio. “Move out! Get into range and kill some fucking Krauts!”
“Driver, move out,” Austin ordered. Whatever he was feeling about all this, he’d feel it later. His voice gained strength. “Balls to the wall!”
Russo barked his strange laugh again. “Roger!”
Boomer snarled as she mounted the berm and rolled into action. Bull was hit before it could get out of the ditch. The tank jerked as its track broke and whiplashed behind it. Sergeant Blackburn rolled out of the cupola, his right leg ending in a smoking stump.
The only emotion Austin felt now was rage that ignited in his chest. He peered through his binoculars. “Gunner, target is the Mark III on our eleven, passing that burning jeep, range twenty-five hundred yards.”
“Wilco,” said Wade.
“We’ll light him up as soon as we get within two thousand. Get us there quick. We’re going to kill them all. Understood?”
“Understood.”
“Drive on. Let’s go kill some Germans.”
The M4 tanks charged out of the orchard line abreast and lunged forward to clash with the German armor.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
PANDEMONIUM
Corporal Wade leaned into his periscope’s eyepiece to take in the Mark III bearing down on them.
I told you so, he wanted to scream. I told you so!
“Driver, stop!” Austin barked. “Gunner, tank, shot, one-nine hundred!”
Range, two thousand yards, from which the commander had deducted a hundred because the target was moving toward them.
Wade focused his scope reticle’s vertical center on the German tank. The idea was to lay the gun so that, if the round passed straight through the target, it would hit the ground on the other side. Basic gunnery, this time for real.
He swelled with a sudden sense of power. Manning the 75 was like holding Thor’s hammer. The thought chilled him; nobody should have that kind of power, nobody should ever use it. He was about to kill, an idea that went against his entire upbringing and identity.
Dirt geysered in front of him, obscuring his view. A ricochet splintered off a nearby tank and splashed Boomer’s hull.
To hell with his social conditioning. It was kill or be killed now. Emboldened by a wave of fury, he yielded his mind to his training.
Austin: “Fire!”
Wade stomped the foot pedal. “On the way!”
The white shot zipped toward the target and burst short and to the left of the Mark III, which didn’t even flinch. The German commander raised his glasses to study Boomer. A pair of Messerschmitts screamed overhead. Swanson rammed another round into the breech. The turret filled with the acrid tang of burnt gunpowder.
Austin: “Right five, up eight, fire!”
Wade cranked the hand wheel eight times and traversed. “On the way!”
Another blast of dirt, this time behind the target. Boomer had its prey bracketed now. The Mark III’s turret began to traverse to return fire.
“Down four, fire!”
Another four cranks. “On the way!”
The tracer blurred over the ground and smashed against the Mark III’s sloped armor. The shell shattered in a fireworks display of bright streaming sparks.
“Fire!”
Wade stomped the foot pedal. “On the way!”
The AP round penetrated the Mark III’s turret. The tank trembled with the detonation, its turret at an angle, smoke pouring out as it caught fire. Two tankers in black uniforms emerged from the hatches.
“That’s a hit!”
The tankers howled in triumph.
“Scratch his back!” Russo screamed. “Eugene!”
“Okay!” The .30-cal chattered. Tracers zeroed the bow gun’s fire at the fleeing Germans. One of them spun like a top and tumbled to the dirt.
Boomer’s hull shuddered and rang like a gong. Wade’s elation cut off as his heart leaped into his throat. “We’re hit!”
“It bounced off, we’re good!” Austin said. “Gunner, traverse right!”
Buckshot crossed in front of Boomer, streaming dirt that was still clumped all over it from a near miss, its gun firing at a target at close range. An enemy shell struck it in the lower glacis plate, which Sergeant Cocker’s boys had up-armored with sandbags. The bags burst in a sand cloud, followed by a heart-stopping explosion that sent the turret tumbling into the air.