“Rommel,” the sergeant grinned. The man’s name had mystique. If your ass was getting kicked, there was some small joy knowing a legendary boot was doing the kicking.
Clay looked again at the men on the ridge and wished one of them was a Rommel. They could sure use a Desert Fox right about now.
Carson sized him up. “What do they call you?”
“Sarge, meet the legendary Eight Ball,” Swanson said.
“Yup,” said Clay. He wasn’t Cherry anymore, but he would forever be Eight Ball, a name he now accepted with pride.
“That Iron Cross you got, you want to sell it?”
“Not for sale, man.”
He wasn’t giving it up for all the money in the world.
“Well, how’d you get it?”
Clay smirked. “With an eight ball.”
The tankers burst into laughter. They were all punch drunk from the fighting, burying Austin, and the harrowing night march and escape. More than that, they were drunk on being alive. They’d run the gauntlet and survived.
Carson scowled at being put on. “What’s that?”
“With a grenade.”
“Wow, no kidding. You know, I’d love to get out there with you guys sometime.”
Swanson said, “Pal, I’m dying to get in the maintenance section. I’d trade places with you in a heartbeat. Just say the word.”
Carson suddenly didn’t seem thrilled at the idea of facing combat. “Sure, yeah. One of these days.”
An electric buzz filled the air. Stukas appeared over Sbeïtla. AA flak guns flung streams of metal into the sky.
The tankers paled at their propeller hum, all humor gone.
“We’d better let you get to work,” Wade said.
They scurried off to an empty foxhole with Elephant’s stove and cans of C rations they’d scrounged from her crates. They hunkered down and ate, one eye on the sky overhead, shoulders clenched at the howl of the planes and the blasts of five-hundred-pound bombs slamming into the town.
“Who’re you guys supposed to be?” a gangly, acne-scarred kid said.
“Who’s asking?” Clay said.
“I’m Ackley,” the kid drawled with a surprised tone, as if everybody knew who Ackley was. He wore the distinctive tanker helmet, jacket, overalls, and boots. “You came in on Elephant, but you ain’t her crew.”
“Her crew’s dead,” Wade said. “You with 3rd Battalion?”
“Yeah. I’m Excalibur’s driver. Well, when there was an Excalibur, I was.”
The kid was one of the few survivors from the doomed relief column.
He said, “I’ll say it again, who are you supposed to be?”
“We’re 3rd Platoon, Company B, 1st Battalion,” Wade told him. “We lost our tank and got Elephant working on the way back.”
“Well, all right. You looking for a driver?”
“We’ll settle for a bog.”
Clay liked the sound of that. Either way, he was the bog no more.
“I can do that. Better than the motor pool. They make you work here.”
“Welcome aboard, Cherry,” Swanson said.
“I’m Ackley,” the kid insisted as he plopped into the foxhole and made himself at home. “So you can call me Ackley, or I can call you Shit for Brains.”
Swanson fixed his most intimidating glare on the skinny kid, who stared back with his perpetual disgusted expression. Then he chuckled. “I think you’ll fit right into this crew, Ack-Ack.”
Ack-ack was a nickname soldiers used for anti-aircraft guns.
The kid narrowed his eyes at the name until he seemed to decide he liked it. “Well, all right. What’s your name, since we’re all getting acquainted?”
“Swanson. These guys call me—”
“Swan Song,” Ackley deadpanned. “Yeah, I figured.”
Russo roared with laughter. “I’m Russo. Do me next.”
“Yeah. I’ll bet they call you Megaphone. I heard you all the way on the other side of the motor pool.”
Russo frowned, disappointed he didn’t get a clever take on his last name. “How about our new commander, here? His name’s Wade.”
“A handsome joe like him, he’s Waylaid.”
Wade guffawed. “Yeah, that’s me, all right.”
“What about me?” Clay said. “The name’s Clay.”
Ackley narrowed his eyes again. “Clay. Yeah, that suits you just fine.”
The tankers laughed at the zing. Clay chuckled along, though it ended with a wince of jealousy. Not only was the crew accepting this kid on the spot, but he already seemed to be bumping ahead of Clay on the totem pole.
“Don’t worry, Clay,” Swanson said. “You’ll forever be Eight Ball to me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
PANIC
PFC Russo had thought it’d be impossible to sleep through air raid sirens, Stukas screaming like bats out of hell, flak guns banging, and bombs booming, but he learned he could sleep through almost anything.
At the sound of MG42 machine guns ripping nearby, however, his eyes popped open. The rest of the crew was already awake except for Ackley, who slept like the dead. Swanson kicked the kid’s boot until he lurched upright.
Russo scanned his surroundings. Heavy cloud cover blocked the moon and shrouded the motor pool in thick darkness. The Stukas had returned to their bases. Vehicles rumbled nearby, filling the air with the stench of exhaust. From their sound, they were tanks.
“The Krauts are probing our defenses east of town,” Wade said.
“Infantry,” Russo said. “I don’t hear any big guns.”
“You woke me up for this?” Ackley bitched.
Clay peered out of the foxhole. The clouds broke long enough for moonlight to shimmer across the nearby trees, where he no doubt imagined a German battalion closing in. “What do we do, Corporal?”
Wade answered, “I’m going to see what shape Elephant is in. If I’m hit, Russo will take command.”
Russo snorted. “You think there are Germans in the motor pool?”
“Right now, I’m more scared of our own guys shooting me.”
“You’ll be all right,” Swanson said. “They haven’t gotten to know you yet.”
Wade snorted. “Speaking of which, don’t shoot me as I’m coming back. Remember the challenge and password.”
“‘SNAFU’,” Russo recited the challenge.
Clay chimed in with the password: “‘Damn right.’”
Wade rolled over the foxhole’s edge and vanished in the dark. For the next fifteen minutes, the men listened to the din of battle spread all around them. Tanks had joined the contest. Panzer shots clanged, and M4 Shermans thudded in reply. Flares arced across the sky to silhouette the orchard. Batches of flames sparked to life, vehicles on fire. Machine guns snarled in the distance.
German armor had reached the outskirts of Sbeïtla.
Maronna mia, Russo thought in mounting panic. These Germans aren’t men, they’re demons.
A veritable plague of locusts, a vicious, invincible, relentless enemy.
No, not demons, and not immortal. He’d seen them make mistakes. He’d seen them die. They were men, albeit with greater experience, superior firepower, and generals who knew what they were doing.
The Germans could die, all right. They just couldn’t be stopped.
Wade startled him by dropping back into the foxhole. “Good thing I wasn’t a German intent on cutting all your throats.”
“We ain’t infantry,” Ackley offered up as a lame excuse.
The corporal ignored him. “All right, listen up. Sergeant Carson says the Elephant is good to go, but the turret has to be traversed manually. Word is the Germans are apparently launching an all-out attack on the town.”