Panzer Soldier

Langer awoke to the sound of engines starting up, which brought him to instant awareness. Gus was back with a helmet full of eggs and the hindquarter of a hog. He was breaking the egg tops off and sucking them out as fast as he could, smacking his lips and making that awful gurgling sucking sound he had when he normally fed.

'Here,' he said as he set the helmet full of eggs down. There were ten. 'These are for you and the others. I already ate mine.'

Grinning, Langer looked up, 'And how many was that, Gus?'

'Only a dozen, more or less. I didn't want to make a pig of myself, you know. Have to watch my figure.'

Stefan leaned out of the hatch. 'You don't have to worry about making a pig of yourself, you're already a walking piece of suet. God already took care of that for you.'

Nonplussed, Gus tossed him the hindquarter. 'None of your lip, now, or Uncle Gus will spank.

Here, put our lunch away and out of sight before any of the GD boys see it. It was to be their lunch, but the chef still has one left to spread around.'

The haunch quickly disappeared into the interior.

Major Kruger strode up to them, his eyes still red. 'Well, fellows, you can come with us or try to get back to your unit on your own, though I think we'll end up in the same place eventually. At any rate, I just wanted to let you know you did good work last night and if you ever want a transfer, give me a call. We're moving out now. The rest of the division is moving up. General Hoerlein wants us to take the bridge over the Psel south of Oboyan today, so we better get cracking.'

'Thanks for the offer. Major, but I think we better try and contact our own batallion first. Stefan, see if you can get the captain on the radio.'

Captain Heidemann's voice crackled over the earphones. Langer reported the night's activities and then turned the set off.

'We're to rendezvous with the batallion by the railroad track going from Belgorod to Rzhavka. There's a burned-out KV-I on a hill that we can spot on. It's only about five miles, so let's warm her up and get going.'

Hatches opened as he waved farewell to Kruger, and the Panther rumbled off up out of the gully, treads tearing up ground as they lurched and crested the lip and Gus swore as his head bounced and struck the edge of his open hatch. Crossing the field, the tank ground bodies underneath. As the forty-five tons of steel approached another pile of bodies, one suddenly got up and started sprinting away.

Langer swung the MG-34 around and fired a short burst in front of him: 'Stoi, Ruki verkh.'

The Russian froze in his tracks. Following orders, he raised his hand high crying out: 'Nix Schiessen! Tovarish, Nix Schiessen!'

The man had no weapon, so Langer motioned for him to come to the tank, which was sitting on idle. 'Idisodar charoscho. Come quickly.'

The Ivan obeyed with alacrity. Carl motioned for him to sit on the rear behind the turret, after making sure he had nothing that would go boom on him. The Russian had the face of one who had been born on the crossroads of Asia; bright dark eyes in a weathered face, three gold teeth when he smiled. Langer had to almost forcibly keep Gus at the controls when he saw the miniature gold mine in the prisoner's mouth. He already had his pliers out, ready to do a little digging. Sulking, he obeyed and went back to driving the tank, cursing at how unfair it was for a sergeant to interfere with free enterprise. The Russian kept close to Langer and pointed down the hatch at Gus: 'Germanski, Khrpikj djavol.'

Langer laughed. 'You got that right, Ivan. He is a crazy devil. Just keep your mouth shut around him and maybe he'll forget, though I wouldn't bet on it.'

Spotting the burned out KV-I on the hill, they swung past it and saw the rest of their batallion loading up with petrol and ammo.

'Good. We're low on both. Find a place in the line.'

Langer left the others to see to the servicing of the tank and took the Tatar with him to report to Captain Heidemann.

Heidemann was conferring with a dispatch rider on a motorcycle but waved him over. 'Glad to see you back, Langer. What do you have here?' He pointed to the Russian.

'Hitchhiker.'

Heidemann sighed, 'Well, we don't have time for a prisoner. You found him, you take care of him.'

The dark little man knew instinctively his life was being handed over to the man with the scarred face.

'Nix schiessen, spasibo Germanski, Yuri.' Then pointing to himself, 'Nix Stalin.' He made the rocking motion of a mother and child with his arms. Langer watched the little man and shook his head, smiling to show everything was all right.

'Germanski, nix schiessen, Yuri.' The little wiry man lit up, his gold teeth flashing. He knelt down and placed Langer's boot on the top of his head. ' Dosvedanya. Stalin kaputt.'

Teacher came up while this was going on and Langer told what the captain said. 'I guess we'll keep him for a while. You take him back and get him out of that Russian uniform or he won't make it through the day.'

Teacher nodded. 'You think it's wise to do that? We might wake up with our throats slit one morning. These devils are mighty handy with a blade.'

'I think it's all right. I know something of the people, and the little scene you witnessed where he put my foot on his head made me his master. He's not a true Russian, he's from the steppes to the east. Just a poor bastard who's been caught up in this thing like the rest of us, but once a Tatar acknowledges someone as his master, he's faithful to the death.'

Teacher still had a puzzled look on his face, but the tone which Langer used said he knew what he was talking about.