The turret and top armor of the tank had vanished. The two massive treads had been toppled over, one to either side. The body had collapsed between them, and it was running sticky trickles of molten metal. He blinked, rubbed his eyes on the back of his hand, and looked again. Of all the many blasted and burned-out tanks, Soviet and U.N., that he had seen, this was the most completely wrecked thing in his experience. And he’d done that with one grenade. …
At that moment, there was a sudden rushing overhead, and an instant later the barrage began falling beyond the crest of the ridge. He looked at his watch, blinked, and looked again. That barrage was due at 0550; according to the watch, it was 0726. He was sure that, ten minutes ago, when he had looked at it, up there at the head of the ravine, it had been twenty minutes to six. He puzzled about that for a moment, and decided that he must have caught the stem on something and pulled it out, and then twisted it a little, setting the watch ahead. Then, somehow, the stem had gotten pushed back in, starting it at the new setting. That was a pretty farfetched explanation, but it was the only one he could think of.
But about this tank, now. He was positive that he could remember throwing a grenade. … Yet he’d used his last grenade back there at the supply dump. He saw his carbine, and picked it up. That silly blackout he’d had, for a second, there; he must have dropped it. Action was open, empty magazine on the ground where he’d dropped it. He wondered, stupidly, if one of his bullets couldn’t have gone down the muzzle of the tank’s gun and exploded the shell in the chamber. … Oh, the hell with it! The tank might have been hit by a premature shot from the barrage which was raging against the far slope of the ridge. He reset his watch by guess and looked down the valley. The big attack would be starting any minute, now, and there would be fleeing Commies coming up the valley ahead of the U.N. advance. He’d better get himself placed before they started coming in on him.
He stopped thinking about the mystery of the blown-up tank, a solution to which seemed to dance maddeningly just out of his mental reach, and found himself a place among the rocks to wait. Down the valley he could hear everything from pistols to mortars going off, and shouting in three or four racial intonations. After a while, fugitive Communists began coming, many of them without their equipment, stumbling in their haste and looking back over their shoulders. Most of them avoided the mouth of the ravine and hurried by to the left or right, but one little clump, eight or ten, came up the dry streambed, and stopped a hundred and fifty yards from his hiding-place to make a stand. They were Hindus, with outsize helmets over their turbans. Two of them came ahead, carrying a machine gun, followed by a third with a flamethrower; the others retreated more slowly, firing their rifles to delay pursuit.
Cuddling the stock of his carbine to his cheek, he divided a ten-shot burst between the two machine-gunners, then, as a matter of principle, he shot the man with the flamethrower. He had a dislike for flamethrowers; he killed every enemy he found with one. The others dropped their rifles and raised their hands, screaming: “Hey, Joe! Hey, Joe! You no shoot, me no shoot!”
A dozen men in U.N. battledress came up and took them prisoner. Benson shouted to them, and then rose and came down to join them. They were British—Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders, advertising the fact by inconspicuous bits of tartan on their uniforms. The subaltern in command looked at him and nodded.
“Captain Benson? We were warned to be on watch for your patrol,” he said. “Any of the rest of you lads get out?”
Benson shrugged. “We split up after the attack. You may run into a couple of them. Some are locals and don’t speak very good English. I’ve got to get back to Division, myself; what’s the best way?”
“Down that way. You’ll overtake a couple of our walking wounded. If you don’t mind going slowly, they’ll show you the way to advance dressing station, and you can hitch a ride on an ambulance from there.”
Benson nodded. Off on the left, there was a flurry of small-arms fire, ending in yells of “Hey, Joe! Hey, Joe!”—the World War IV version of “Kamarad”!
His company was a non-T/O outfit; he came directly under Division command and didn’t have to bother reporting to any regimental or brigade commanders. He walked for an hour with half a dozen lightly wounded Scots, rode for another hour on a big cat-truck loaded with casualties of six regiments and four races, and finally reached Division Rear, where both the
