Last Citadel

‘Yes?’

‘What’s your mother’s name?’

Sasha grinned at Dimitri, as though telling the old driver that his, their sergeant, wasn’t so bad, see? He was a good hetman after all.’

‘Tamara.’

‘That’s our second shell, then. Ready? Papa?’

Dimitri told himself he was rarely ready for the things his son displayed. But there wasn’t time to ruminate over it right now. If they died together in the next minute, he could wrestle Valya all the way to heaven until the boy made sense to him. But now…

‘Ready. Good luck, my boys.’

Valentin paused, like the moment before horse and rider were cut loose in the village war games. Saber raised, melons strung from trees…

‘Go!’

Dimitri popped the clutch and hit the accelerator, the goosed tank spun up a cloud and took off. Dimitri was in second gear even before the General cleared the barn walls. Over the rumble of bounding steel Dimitri heard a ringing report; one of the Mark IVs had taken a pot-shot at them when their nose appeared around the building. The German missed, Dimitri’s revved-up General was too quick. But that was only for the first round, they were certainly loading another, and there were three other enemy tanks.

Now Valentin fired. The General heeled over onto the left track from the concussion of the blast, with the cannon fully sideways to the chassis and the treads bumping over corn rows. Jolted, Dimitri kept his hands and feet pressing more speed out of his machine, shifting into third gear even before the General could get both tracks back on the ground. Pasha fumbled the second AP shell, Dimitri heard it clang on the floor, but the boy scooped it up and got it into the breech in time. In his ear, Valentin urged,

‘Go, go, go…’

Dimitri wound the T-34 as far as he dared take the transmission. He watched the rpm’s shoot past the point where he should have shifted, he begged the General to mind him and hold a moment more with the building speed. His prayers were lost in the rising whine of the engine. He waited, then stamped on the clutch, threw the gearshift into fourth, and the General heaved forward, relieved and running for all it was worth. He looked at nothing, not through his small slit, not into his periscope, just at the jumping green walls around him; he reached out with his senses five hundred meters to his right, across the river, to the four German tank commanders, wishing them sudden blindness and palsy.

Then Valentin yelled, ‘ Now!’

Dimitri’s foot smashed on the brake. He downshifted as fast as he ever had any machine in his life, in his heart a horse reared its head at the suddenness of the pull on the bit but dug in its hooves, heeding its rider.

Dimitri leaned back in the saddle and pulled harder, the horse came still, the grinding tracks of the T-34 settled and dust flowed over them. They were motionless and in the open, broadside and six hundred meters from four enemy tanks.

Dimitri’s pulse pounded in the single second before Valentin moved.

He looked over his shoulder to watch his son. The boy laid his left foot on the firing pedal, the turret slipped a few degrees more to the right and Valentin hopped on the other boot to keep up with the rotating cannon. His eyes were locked in to his periscope. Pasha stood beside the loaded breech, another shell cradled in his arms. A further second pounded inside the tank as though it had come from a blow against the armor. Valentin’s hand turned the elevation wheel.

‘Yes,’ he muttered, ‘come on…’

Dimitri wanted to reach his hand up and push down the firing lever himself. Christ, boy! he thought, shoot! We’re not measuring them for a new fucking suit, we’re trying to kill them! Shoot!

Valentin’s boot toed the firing pedal: The cannon erupted. The report was thunderous, the breech shot back and the smoking casing flipped out, but before it could bounce twice Pasha had the next round in the big gun and Valentin made a small adjustment to the elevation. He toed the pedal again and the tank rocked, another immense bang shook the tank and the breech spit another shell. The compartment stank with the gases but Dimitri had no time to wrinkle his nose, he had to dodge his face away from Valentin’s oncoming boot, the signal to get the General running, and fast.

Dimitri worked the levers and gears to the sound of Pasha and Sasha shouting, ‘Go, go, Dima, come on! Go!’ Bounding away, Valentin traversed the turret around to face front again, for better balance and speed.

‘Well?’ shouted Dimitri. ‘Well?’

Valentin made no answer for a few moments. Dimitri guessed he was turning his periscope back to the Mark IVs, to read the damage while speeding away.

‘Two Mark IVs burning. One smoking. One missed.’

‘What about our tanks?’

‘Medvedenko,’ Valentin said. ‘Disabled. The crew got out.’

Dimitri drove hard, swerving up the hill, but he hadn’t gotten out of second gear yet. His shoulders and arms ached from grappling the levers.

‘What?’ he asked the frowning face of Sasha.

‘We go back. Right? They’re alive.’

Dimitri had been too busy flailing the tank back up the hill to consider this.

‘No,’ answered Valentin over the intercom. ‘We do not go back.’

‘But…’