The fighting vehicle parked beside the house blew up, shaking the building and jolting the two boys against each other. Seryosha lost his balance and let go a wild burst of machine-gun fire as he fell. Leonid braced himself against the side of the window, watching in wonder as the pink glow of the burning vehicle revealed running figures. Without conscious thought, he raised his weapon and fired in the direction of a shadow scurrying along the edge of the radiance. But his effort seemed lost, devoured in the wildness of the firefight. Countless beads of light chased one another at dizzying speeds.
An unexpected blast downstairs shook the floor beneath them. Voices shouted in a stew of languages, and automatic weapons fired thunderously inside the building. The hallway flickered with light, and booted feet thumped across the floor downstairs. Leonid and Seryosha crouched behind the toppled furniture of the bedroom, weapons pointed at the doorway. Leonid watched with his mouth hanging open, breathing almost suspended.
The boots crashed from room to room. The noise sounded like at least an enemy platoon to the two boys. The enemy soldiers hunted about downstairs for what seemed an unreasonably long time. Then one pair of boots began to climb the stairs.
A voice called out in a foreign language, and another voice answered from the stairwell. Leonid expected a grenade to sail in through the open doorway. But instead, the soldier on the stairs turned about and went back down. The cassette tapes Leonid had stuffed into the pockets of his trousers cut into his flesh. It felt as though most of the plastic had splintered into shards. He wondered if the enemy would shoot him for stealing when they found him. He wondered if he should call out and volunteer to surrender. He didn’t want the enemy to be angry at him. Lieutenant Korchuk had told them that the Germans and Americans always killed their prisoners. Some of the soldiers didn’t believe Korchuk, but now, Leonid decided it was better not to take the chance. He lay still, doing nothing.
Incredibly, the booted feet began to leave the house, fading back into the bigger noise outside. The huge sound of tanks in rapid movement made the air tremble. The fire glow from the burning vehicle outside lit salmon- colored ripples and waves on the ceiling of the bedroom.
“We’re in the shit now,” Seryosha whispered.
Senior Lieutenant Zirinsky had no idea how long he had been fighting. The night seemed endless, a stubborn, miserable, unyielding thing. One by one, he had watched as his tanks were destroyed. It seemed totally unreasonable. Losing one or even a few might be expected in battle. But Zirinsky had watched six often explode in less than five minutes, several losing their turrets like caps popping off shaken seltzer bottles. He had almost immediately lost radio contact with the rest of his company, if any of them remained alive and capable of carrying on the fight. And he had begun the long game of cat and mouse with the enemy.
He had been ordered to hold the crossroads. The terrain ran low, with marshlands everywhere. The only practical way to pass armored vehicles through the area was to stay on the roads. And one lonely country crossroads tied the local network of roads and trails together.
Zirinsky figured that his antenna had been torn away by the artillery fire. Or that a nonlethal hit on his tank had knocked out the sets. The vehicle was so battered now it was impossible to tell exactly what cause had been responsible for each failure. He had no idea what the situation was like in the overall battalion sector, let alone from the regimental perspective. He hoped the others were in better condition than he was.
His unit had moved up from a holding area in East Germany, crossing the border in midafternoon. As they progressed deeper into the west more and more of the litter of battle had begun to punctuate the landscape. But no rounds had sought them out, and the aircraft up in the gray murk had ignored them. Except for countless unscheduled stops and starts, and the hectic confusion at the traffic control points, their march had been almost administrative in its tone, with the battle seeming to flee before them, always outside of their moving domain.
In the evening, his unit had been halted unexpectedly and ordered to deploy into hasty defensive positions oriented to face a threat from the southwest. Several of the officers were furious. They had all expected to race to the attack, to thrust deeply and dramatically into West Germany, each man in accordance with his own fantasy of himself. Then they were given the distinctly less glamorous mission of providing flank security. The battalion commander had protested that it was a poor use of his new tanks. But orders were orders. Zirinsky had occupied his defensive positions in the dark, disappointed that the battalion commander had not chosen his company to be held back behind the other two, where it could act as a mobile force in response to any threat that developed. Instead, Govolov’s company had been positioned to the rear. Zirinsky wondered where in the hell Govolov was now.
The sky had cracked open with artillery fire, totally without warning, catching some of the tanks with their hatches open. Then the enemy tanks had come on swiftly, hampered only by the necessity of sticking closely to the roads. The enemy tanks were enormous Leopards, almost twice the bulk of Zirinsky’s own vehicles. And the enemy’s fire superiority made it clear very quickly that they had superior night-fighting equipment on board. The Leopards had initiated the engagement at what seemed an excessive range for night combat, and Zirinsky had lost a platoon before he could effectively range the enemy. Then the firefight had begun in earnest.
When you hit the enemy tanks, they died. Zirinsky had taken that one positive lesson to heart as his only consolation. He listened to the pleas of his platoon leaders for help, but he had no help to offer them. He brusquely ordered them to take control of themselves and fight back.
The engagement seemed lost. The enemy tanks surged forward behind another deluge of artillery, moving very well, unbothered by any need to maintain close formations. At first, the wet terrain seemed to cooperate, accepting the weight of the Leopards as they maneuvered off the lifeline of the road. And Zirinsky accepted that he was going to die. But he was determined to fight it out. He felt himself fill with a wordless, unreasoning hatred of the enemy, with a desire not only to destroy them, but to cause them all possible pain in the process. He let his gunner and driver know beyond any doubt that they were there to fight. He coolly began to seek fresh targets, awaiting the fatal enemy round that would finish him off and give the enemy the crossroads.
But the enemy pulled back. They had been so close. Zirinsky could not understand it. The enemy’s losses had been minimal in comparison to his own.
Then they came again. Zirinsky had found a good fighting position, tucked as closely as the heat would allow behind the smoldering wreck of one of his own tanks. Again, the enemy delivered artillery in his vicinity. But this time it seemed little more than a drizzle in contrast to the earlier storm.
The enemy tanks dashed forward in bounds. Zirinsky waited, holding back his gunner until the targets were properly illuminated by the infrared searchlight. He identified three enemy tanks that could not get away if he did his work properly. They were obviously searching for him. He waited.
At the last possible moment, Zirinsky engaged the enemy tanks in quick succession, methodically destroying all three. Now it seemed as though the enemy could not even see him, as though he were a ghost. They fired in his general direction, but the rounds went wild, exploding along the treeline.
Zirinsky had already shot up half of his on-board ammunition in the series of engagements. He was especially low on high-velocity sabot now, the best tank killer. He tried his dead radio again, aching to communicate. It seemed to him that holding the crossroads was the most important thing on earth now, and he could not believe that no one had come to reinforce him.
The battlefield glowed with the light of slow-burning hulks, like random campfires. Zirinsky believed that he could count nine enemy tanks that had been put out of action.
The enemy tried a new tactic. A tank platoon raced at full speed down the road off to Zirinsky’s left flank, firing smoke grenades out into the darkness. Soon, the familiar accompaniment of artillery came back to search for Zirinsky’s lone tank. He ordered his driver to back up in order to reposition for a better range of shots.
The tank surged and heaved. But it could not break free of the earth. They were stuck.
Hurriedly, Zirinsky sought the lead tank of the enemy platoon before it reached the dead space behind the hulk that also served as Zirinsky’s protection.
His first shot missed.
Forcing himself to execute each step methodically, Zirinsky sent off another round. This one found its mark. The enemy tank began to trail flames, veering off its course.
Zirinsky hunted down the next tank in line and killed that one, too. Two trail vehicles fired madly in his direction.
Zirinsky’s universe was reduced now to the mechanics of destroying tanks. Come on, he thought. Just come on, you bastards. I’m waiting.
After the chief of staff had gone to transform the front commander’s intentions into activities, Malinsky fell
