Last Citadel

but now he felt competitive. He was in Leibstandarte, too. He felt the life of the partisan throb again in his knife hand. What has this captain done? Has he done that?

‘Yes,’ Luis said, ‘yes, of course they’re worth waiting for. Look at them. They were designed to be better than any tank in the world. What other tank has an 88 for a main gun? The Russians have just got 76s. Pop guns. The Tiger can sit back at two thousand meters and pick them off.

What have the Russians got to match that?’

The captain puffed, not looking at Luis but at the growling Tiger being shucked of its transport treads.

‘What the Russians do have is twenty-five T-34s manufactured for every one of these Tigers,’ he told Luis. ‘When the Kursk battle starts, we’ll have Mark IIIs, IVs, Mark V Panthers, Mark VI Tigers, all of them mixed together. How do we expect to keep spare parts available for so many models? Tracks, transmissions, engines, wheels. But the Reds, they were smart, you see. They put only one tank on the field. The fast little T-34. If something breaks, there’s plenty of parts laying around for it. And every one of their soldiers knows how to fix the damn thing, it’s as simple as a wind-up toy. The Russians make one tank and they produce thousands of them a month. But do you know it takes over three hundred thousand man hours to build one Tiger? Yes, the Reds. The Untermenschen. They are smart about this.’

The captain brandished his smoky fingers while extolling the intellect of the enemy. Luis frowned at the suggestion that the Russians had out-thought Hitler.

‘That’s crap. What does it matter, when none of them can stop a Tiger? I don’t care how many T-34s the Reds have got. Each Tiger is worth a hundred of them. The armor is so thick…’

‘One hundred twenty millimeters on the gun mantlet, one hundred millimeters on the hull front,’ the fetching young captain interrupted. ‘Eighty millimeters upper-hull sides and rear, sixty on the lower sides. Turret front has one hundred millimeters, turret sides and rear, eighty. Twenty-five millimeters all horizontal surfaces. Impervious to the Russian .76 gun at distances greater than four hundred meters. Impenetrable by Russian tanks at any distance head-on.’

Luis paused. This man knew the tanks’ specifications. Luis nodded at the captain, though the man’s blue eyes stayed fixed on his tanks. And they were his Tigers, Luis realized. He was the one who’d come to Belgorod station to claim them.

The captain stood away from the pillar. He dropped his cigarette and trod on it, walking toward the grounded tank and the hammering mechanics.

He raised a hand to point out his observations, assuming without looking that Luis was behind him.

‘Look at the armor. See how it’s straight up and down, like a giant shoe box? Hitler told his designers he wanted nothing of Russian design, those Untermenschen and their tanks. So instead of sloping the armor, which would have added a great deal of protection, the Tiger is a collection of flat faces. If the plating had been sloped like the T-34, the Tiger could have been made twenty to thirty percent lighter. Lighter means faster.

Better range and maneuverability. But this big bastard is too heavy for its engine. It’s ponderous even under the best conditions.’

The captain walked to the rear of the Tiger, inhaling its engine fumes like the scents of a woman. He knows these tanks, Luis thought. He’s fought in them, he’s lost them and seen them killed and is furious with their flaws because he loves them. He knows these tanks must save Germany.

And look at him. He wants a few more medals for himself. So he knows, too, the Tigers have to do their job before the Americans intervene, or there’ll be nothing left to win in Russia but your own life.

The captain talked on, breezy.

‘Look at all this back here. Exhaust covers, air filters, it’s a trap for shot. And this eighty-eight millimeter gun you’re so in love with. That’s the reason why this damn tank is so gigantic, just to carry it. There’s a new, long- barreled seventy-five on the Panthers that will do the trick. But Hitler wanted the eighty-eights, and so here they are. Do you know what the mileage for a Tiger is?’

Luis shook his head. The captain was showing off.

‘Point eight miles per U.S. gallon on roads. Less than half a mile per gallon cross-country. With a one- hundred-and-forty-two-gallon fuel capacity, that’s four to five hours of battle running.’

‘That’s not good.’

‘No,’ the captain laughed, ‘it’s not good.’

The man reached out to the idling Tiger and smacked it hard.

‘But so far, it’s been good enough.’ He thrust the hand at Luis.

‘Captain Erich Thoma. 1st SS Panzergrenadier Division. Pleased to meet you, Captain la Daga. Major Grimm sends his regards.’

The captain’s clasp was warm and enveloping. With the mention of his nickname, the partisan’s life beat harder in his bony mitt, there inside the handshake between the two SS captains,

‘Captain Luis Ruiz de Vega.’

‘ Si,’ Thoma said. ‘ Gracias por truer mis Tigres.’ Thank you for bringing my Tigers.

‘You were in Spain?’

‘Yes,’ Thoma said. He cast his eyes over Belgorod’s fading skyline. ‘I wish we were there now. I much preferred fighting in Spain. Beautiful country.’

Thoma left the handshake and tapped Luis in the arm with the gibe.

The gesture was manly, between warriors, with no concession or notice of Luis’s painful thinness. Thoma put his hand between Luis’s shoulder blades.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Major Grimm wants to see you.’

* * * *

July 3

2115 hours

Belgorod