“They look like ours … I think,” Adi said slowly. “But sweet jumping Jesus! They’re fucking enormous!”
“Ja,” Theo said once more, concurring with both judgments at the same time. The panzers-there were half a dozen of them-did have a slab-sided, Germanic look. Russian machines used sloped armor much more: it helped deflect or defeat enemy fire. The Russian scheme was better; anyone who faced a T-34 would say the same thing, assuming he survived the encounter. But you didn’t need to be an engineer to tell the two design philosophies apart at a glance.
As for enormous … At first, Theo thought he was looking at some of the new Panzer IVs, the ones with the long-barreled 75s. He needed only that glance, though, and his ears, to be sure he was wrong. These beasts dwarfed Panzer IVs. They dwarfed every German panzer he’d ever seen up till now. About the only panzer they didn’t dwarf was the monstrous Russian KV-1.
Closer and closer they came. They had the black German cross on their turrets, not the Ivans’ red star. Of course, if the Russians were pulling some kind of stunt, they wouldn’t forget a detail like that. But Theo didn’t believe it. These were German panzers. They just weren’t German panzers he recognized. Details, details, he thought giddily.
Adi let out a low, awe-filled whistle. “Fry me for a pork chop if they don’t have 88s in their turrets. I told you they ought to do that!”
Theo whistled, too, on a nearly identical note. The 88 was the only German gun that could certainly make a T-34 say uncle. But a big, clumsy towed antipanzer cannon had trouble getting to the right place at the right time. When Russian roads were bad-which was to say, almost always-they had trouble getting anywhere.
“That guy in the long-snouted Panzer IV said something big was in the works,” Adi went on. “Boy, he wasn’t kidding. These critters are huge!”
Panzer crewmen from Theo’s company ran toward the new machines. They might have run toward a troupe of strippers with more eagerness. But then again, they might not have. Women were wonderful fun, no doubt about it. They reminded you why you were alive. But these panzers would help keep you that way. Which counted for more?
Theo found himself running, too. Adi loped along beside him. The driver could have outrun him-Adi could outrun just about anybody-but didn’t bother. “What do you call these babies?” he shouted to the man standing head and shoulders out of the cupola on the closest panzer’s tremendous turret.
“Panzerkampfwagen Mark V,” replied the fellow in the big machine. Theo wanted to throw a clod of dirt at him. What a bloodless answer! Mark I, Mark II, Mark III, Mark IV-yes, of course, Mark V. But something better was surely called for, wasn’t it? Grinning, the newcomer went on, “The other name is Tiger.”
“All right!” Adi pumped a fist in the air. Theo didn’t; that wasn’t his style. But he came closer than he usually did. Tiger! There was a name to conjure with! When a Tiger bit you, you stayed bit.
Someone else asked, “How far out can you hit with that gun?”
“Past two kilometers,” the panzer crewman-probably the commander, since he used the cupola-answered confidently. “And what we can hit, we can kill.”
There, Theo believed him. Jealousy stabbed the radioman: pure sea-green envy. He wasn’t sure his Panzer III’s 37mm gun could even reach out 2,000 meters. If it could, he wasn’t sure it would knock over a man, much less an enemy panzer. Life wasn’t fair.
Adi found a new question: “How many more of those beauties are coming after you?”
“More?” The Tiger crewman sounded offended. “What do you want, egg in your beer? We’re here. We’ll do for the Ivans. You think a T-34 can beat a panzer like this?”
“Um, the Ivans have a lot of ’em,” Adi said. The guy in the Tiger waved that aside. Theo wondered whether he’d ever fought Russians before. If he hadn’t, he was about to get an education. Yes, half a dozen of these brutes could turn a lot of T-34s to scrap metal. But the Red Army had a lot of T-34s. It had a hell of a lot of them, as a matter of fact. Sooner or later, they’d get lucky against the Tigers. They were bound to. Then what?
Theo found out the next day. They went hunting Russians: the Tigers, with a few Panzer IIIs along as guides. Theo’s was one of them. That left him less than thrilled. The Tigers were also splotchily whitewashed, which in spring made sure T-34s would find them.
Finding the Tigers, the Russian panzers roared to the attack. Smoky diesel exhaust spewed from their tailpipes. Maybe they thought the German machines were long-gunned Panzer IVs, against which they still stood an excellent chance. They discovered their mistake in a hurry. The Tigers could hit from as far out as that crewman claimed. And sloped armor didn’t keep out rounds from an 88. One T-34’s turret flew through the air and landed, upside down and blazing, by the chassis.
“The T-34 tips its hat to the Tiger!” someone from another panzer yelled in Theo’s earphones. He would have liked the joke better if he hadn’t heard it before.
Pretty soon, the surviving Russians decided they wanted to go on surviving. They fled. The Tigers raced after them, as well as anything that heavy could race. One of the Panzer III commanders shouted a radio warning to them. Arrogant in their land dreadnoughts, the Tiger crews went right on racing. One of them raced over a mine and threw a track. It slewed sideways and stopped. The others quit charging ahead at top speed, anyhow.
“Fucking told you so, you asslicks,” the Panzer III commander said. There in his small, old-fashioned machine, Theo smiled. He couldn’t have put it better himself.
France and England might be back in the war against Hitler, but Alistair Walsh still wasn’t sure how serious about it they were. He hoped it was just the same attitude he’d seen in the trenches the last time around: a sensible reluctance to get shot without the prospect of a decent reward.
Back then, the Germans had shown the same spirit. Not now. Now the Fritzes in Belgium were angry and embittered that they had a war on their hands. A wounded prisoner who spoke some English scowled at Walsh. “Your folk are traitors to Aryanhood. You are traitors to Western civilization.”
“Too bloody bad, mate,” Walsh said cheerily. “Want a fag?” He held out a packet of Navy Cuts.
“Danke.” The Landser took one. Walsh gave him a light. After a deep drag, he went on, “Wait until you see our geheime weapons. Then you sing a not so happy song.”
“What’s geheime?” asked Walsh, whose German didn’t run much further than Hande hoch!
“It is secret,” the German answered after a little thought of his own.
“What d’you mean, it’s secret? You’ll sing like a canary if we want you to,” Walsh growled. Neither of them had enough of the other’s language to clear up the confusion in a hurry. Light did dawn at last. Walsh went on, “Well, what kind of secret weapons have you got?”
“If I knew, they would not secret be,” the Fritz said. “But the Fuhrer has them promised, and the Fuhrer is always right.”
“My left one,” Walsh jeered. That meant nothing to the German, and the sergeant didn’t bother explaining. He sent the prisoner off to the rear to let someone who could really talk to him ask him questions. He even told the men taking him back not to do for him unless he tried to run for it. With one arm all bandaged up, that didn’t seem likely, but you never could tell.
The Tommies pushed toward Chimay, one more place that had seen a boatload of hard fighting a generation earlier. The Germans pushed back every chance they got. Whenever they had to abandon a farmhouse or a village, they booby-trapped it to a fare-thee-well. One luckless Englishman incautiously lifted a toilet seat and never got the chance to flush.