Panzer Soldier

Now go!'

Langer left Heidemann mumbling to himself as they headed off across the field. Gus was happy as a child with a new train set as he played with his toy, all the time keeping Manny informed of the best way to cook a hog's head and keep the flavor in.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Stopping a kilometer outside Prokhorovka in an orchard, Langer was getting ready to send Gus in to get some paint so they could redo the camouflage and put on their battalion markings when Gus let out a yelp of joy. Walking in the open was one of the women's mortar crews.

Spotting the Tiger facing them, they froze and slowly put up their hands. The woman commanding the crew was all that Gus had dreamed of, massive tits that bulged the front of her drab uniform to the bursting point and legs like tree stumps sitting in high leather boots. Gus rushed her crying out, 'Ya Cheybya Loobloo Djavuschka, I love you girls.'

Sergeant Tina Yurenova caught the look in his eyes and took off, tank or no tank. She ran into the orchard dodging between trees, Gus racing after her giving off cries of passion concerning her Alik (sexual organs). 'Don't run from Uncle Gus, my little pigeon.' He caught her tunic with one square- fingered hand and she turned and slugged him square in the face, crossing his eyes.

'She loves me,' he cried and began tearing the clothes off her.

Langer and the others merely stared in amazement. Teacher started to stop him but Carl said to leave him alone. 'When he's in heat he just might turn his attention to you. Besides, I'm not sure if she can't whip him in a fair fight.'

Tina Yurenova defended herself and her honor from the assault of this human tank. She kicked, clawed and fought, trying to knee him in the balls, but all to no avail, and soon all that was left on her were her boots. Gus was on her, the two floundering in the trees and grass, resembling two pink pigmy dinosaurs. They grappled, grunting and squealing, Tina Yurenova threatening to feed Gus his balls when Russia won the war. She kicked and cursed. The bushes shook until Langer thought the roots were going to be torn up. Suddenly the screams and curses stopped and gurgles of pleasure began to emerge. He caught a quick glimpse of fleshy white thighs over black boots, heels drumming the ground. A feminine giggle seemed out of place coming from the mouth of this woman. Her giggles were punctuated by roars of laughter from Gus as he demonstrated the merits of the German helmet. Soon both were completely involved, oblivious to anything else. Twice Gus tried to get up, only to be dragged back into the bushes. After what seemed to be hours, the two emerged stark naked, holding hands like teenagers, Yurenova's head on Gus's shoulder. Looking up she saw the rest of the crew watching her and ran back into the bushes to dress. She tossed Gus his uniform. While he was getting his trousers back on, Gus told Langer she promised to get him a job in a tractor factory in Ryazhsk where her brother was a foreman if he would desert. 'Do you think I should?'

Teacher merely looked at him as if he were the personification of every base instinct known to mankind. 'No,' said Langer, 'I don't think it's a love match that would endure. Now get your ass into town and find me some paint or I'll have your guts for suspenders.' Gus looked back at his lady love. 'Don't worry,' Carl said. 'We'll let them go. Now move it!'

Gus complied unwillingly and trotted off down the road. As the women disappeared from sight, Teacher asked, 'What do you think they'll do to her for collaborating with the enemy?'

Langer chuckled. 'They'll probably give her the Order of Lenin. I'm sure by now she's told the others she sacrificed her honor to save them from the same horrible fate and that she only pretended to enjoy it for their sakes.'

Teacher lit up his pipe, thought for a moment and then dismissed them from his mind with one statement. 'You're probably right, but sometimes Gus worries me.'

Three hours later, Gus was back, riding a motorcycle with a side car and inside enough paint to do three tanks.

'Where did you get the motorcycle?' Then, imitating Heidemann's response, 'Never mind, I don't want to know. Just leave it in the trees.'

The rest of the day was spent turning their new Tiger I into a different tank, which was fortunate because shortly after they had finished and the paint barely dry, two SD headhunters came by in a Kubelwagen asking if they had seen a Tiger with Totenkopf markings on it go by lately, being driven by a maniac who said he was with the 7th Panzer Division. Gus had an angelic expression on his face as he told them he had seen one earlier and pointed to a distant ridge to the north. The headhunters thanked him and wheeled their vehicle around, bounced off and headed in the direction indicated.

Langer stood confused for a moment and then turned to Teacher after checking his map. 'Isn't that the ridge we bypassed yesterday where the Russian antitank guns were dug in?'

The sound of the Kubelwagen exploding answered the question for him. Gus just smiled and said, 'Well, are we going to hang around here all day? Let's get on into town. It's about suppertime and I spotted a field kitchen while there that bears looking into.' The smoke from the burning Volkswagen jeep sent up one lonely black tendril behind them as their new home clanked on the dirt road to join the rest of their unit.

In Prokhorovka, Heidemann said nothing as they rumbled in. As far as he was concerned, they were still riding a Panther. In the next few days, the front collapsed as divisions were moved out of the line for transfer to Italy. Gus moaned at the thought of others going to Rome. He was going to miss the food and the women. He cursed fate for leaving him behind.

Every hour the Russian pressure became greater. The Germans fought a running battle as they withdrew, making Ivan pay for every step, but Ivan always seemed to have more men than they had bullets and by 15 July, they were in a defensive perimeter outside Kharkov. The city itself was burned out. Only a shell was left from the fighting that had taken place when the Germans captured it the last time.

Teacher fell in love with the Tiger's 88 mm gun. It fired a twenty-two-pound shell at 2,657 feet per second, heavy enough and fast enough to cut the turret of a T-34 like butter. It was slower, but the increased armor gave them a feeling of security. They were positioned near a battery of 88 mm flak guns which could serve dual purpose as antitank. Between them they had accounted for fourteen enemy tanks in the last three days without getting a scratch on their paint, but Ivan was keeping the pressure on them, bringing up an ever increasing amount of artillery and 'Stalin organs' firing those horrendous barrages night and day.

General Voronezh massed two infantry armies, the 5th and 6th Guards, along with two tank armies packed into a front of no more than two miles, backed up with the support of 370 pieces of artillery per mile of front. The tanks had a depth of 100 to the mile. To the north, Koniev was to attack Belgorod and then move southwards and hit Kharkov and also keep army detachment Kempf from being able to lend any support to the defenders.