"Can you take me to the front line in the Pacific theatre?"
"You wish to go to another battlefield?" Kovacs nodded. "That can be done. May I ask why?"
"You may, but you"d be wasting your breath." Kovacs turned back to the others. "OK, I"m in."
"To business," the Doctor said loudly. "To close the rift I"m going to need some equipment from my transport, my TARDIS. What we really need to get the TARDIS out of the river is something with a lot of horsepower. A bridging tank, or something of that sort."
Kovacs shook his head. "You heard what Lewis said: no dice. He isn"t going to even ask McAuliffe, and even if he did, McAuliffe can"t spare any. No, you"re gonna have to rely on something else..."
Wiesniewski scratched his head. "A shame n.o.body"s got some tanks to spare."
"Except the Germans," Fitz said drily. Everyone looked at him.
"What did you say?" the Doctor asked.
"I said "except the Germans". They"ve got enough Panzers out there to " Fitz"s eyes widened as he began to suspect what the Doctor was thinking. "Now wait a minute, I didn"t mean "
"Why, that"s perfect!" the Doctor gave a broad grin. "The ideal solution: plenty of horsepower. It wouldn"t interfere with the defence of Bastogne, and " He broke off and started rooting through the maps and charts, tossing rejected ones aside. He clapped a hand on Wiesniewski"s shoulder. "We"d want to go northeast... Where can we find some suitable German tanks?"
"Just about anywhere," Wiesniewski said. He put his finger to a spot on the map. "But if we"re leaving to the northeast there"s some heavy action going down in Noville. Panthers, Tigers, a.s.sault guns, you name it."
Kovacs shook his head wonderingly. "Jesus Christ, you aren"t seriously listening to this c.r.a.p? This guy"s gonna get you all killed!" He s.n.a.t.c.hed the map back from under Wiesniewski"s fingertip.
Bearclaw shrugged. "What do you think we should do? Wait until the SS get here and shoot us all in another field? It looks to me like we"re getting killed anyway, so we might as well at least choose how we want to go."
Kovacs gave him a "watch it" look. "All I"m saying is that none of you have to go anywhere, especially not to get involved with some freakin" elves or pixies, or whatever the h.e.l.l line of c.r.a.p this guy"s been spinning you."
"Listen to me," the Doctor said sharply. "The Sidhe are an intelligent and dangerous energy-based life form with whom you share your planet. Deal with it." He turned away, angrily. "Besides, you agreed."
"Yeah, I agreed to go, but that doesn"t mean I think these guys should be risking their skins as well."
"We all feel the same way," Bearclaw pointed out.
"Believe me," the Doctor said, "I"d be much happier if this wasn"t going to endanger any of you." He rolled up the map. "Sam, you and Galastel liaise with t.i.tania if necessary, and keep a watch on the Eifel for German activity. The two of you should be able to go unhindered if you"re out of phase. The rest of us have to get to Noville on foot."
Noville was a smaller provincial town outside Bastogne. Galastel and some other Sidhe had helped out by making the Doctor"s party unnoticed by the Germans, but that stopped when they reached the centre of town.
"We can go no further," Galastel said. "There"s too much iron here. It would make us vulnerable."
"That iron is sadly necessary," the Doctor replied. "You and Sam get up to the Eifel. We"ll join you soon enough."
"Fare you well, Evergreen Man," Galastel said with a nod. He vanished.
The Doctor and his five human companions were now skulking at a junction just outside Noville"s cobbled market area. The Doctor peered around the corner. There were three tanks flanking the roadblock. All of them had sloping front armour quite unlike the usual German tanks, and two of them were larger, with oversized turrets. "A Panther and two King Tigers," the Doctor said. "We could take one of those."
"The Panther," Bearclaw suggested. "It"s faster and more reliable."
Kovacs looked at the pair of them. "Are you out of your G.o.ddam mind? There are three of them, remember. And it ain"t just the crew of the one we want, either. How the h.e.l.l are we supposed to off the two King Tigers, when we got no air support and no armour?"
Fitz spoke up. "We"ve enough grenades to "
Kovacs rounded on him. "Hey, who died and made you Ike? None of us are John freakin" Wayne. If you"re about to suggest we climb up and drop a couple of pineapples through the commander"s hatch, I"ll shoot you in the head right now. This is the real world we"re dealing with here."
Fitz had been about to suggest exactly that, but suddenly felt about two inches tall. He didn"t bother to answer.
"I suppose you"re gonna tell me you"ve got some crazy idea how to pull this off?" Kovacs asked the Doctor.
"Haven"t the foggiest," the Doctor admitted cheerily. "But I"m sure I will have by the time we get down there."
Bearclaw held Fitz back a moment as they began to spread out. "Don"t let the sarge get you down. I think it"s his subtle way of telling us he loves us."
"More like his subtle way of telling us he wants to be thought of as a hard man," Fitz retorted. "Like he"s the only one who"s been screwed up by this b.l.o.o.d.y war," he added with feeling. Bearclaw shook his head. "He"s p.i.s.sed because he really really wants to kill j.a.ps, not Krauts. Kovacs was a weapons instructor until half his family got caught in the bombing of Pearl. Then he volunteered for combat duty, hoping he"d be sent to the Pacific. Instead they sent him to North Africa, then Sicily... Eventually he ended up here." wants to kill j.a.ps, not Krauts. Kovacs was a weapons instructor until half his family got caught in the bombing of Pearl. Then he volunteered for combat duty, hoping he"d be sent to the Pacific. Instead they sent him to North Africa, then Sicily... Eventually he ended up here."
Fitz sighed. "And eventually a hard man like him will only end up six feet under."
This hadn"t been quite what the Doctor had in mind, but it was too late for second thoughts now. He just hoped the others had got to the positions they had discussed, as the Panther advanced along the road. The trio had split up, the two King Tigers taking other roads on whatever patrol route they were following.
With a deep breath, and reminding himself that this kind of thing almost always worked, the Doctor stepped out into the middle of the road in front of the Panther. "Excuse me," he called out. "I"m an Allied spy. Could I have your attention for a moment?"
Even through the armour, the Doctor could hear the exclamations of the crew. He hurled himself forward and under the tank, just as the machine gun in its nose opened fire. He crawled frantically along the length of the tank"s underside as its engine roared back into life. If the driver thought to turn the tank on its axis, the Doctor would be smeared across the road.
The driver evidently didn"t think. In a couple of seconds, the Doctor was through, and the Panther had stopped right where he wanted it.
Wiesniewski leapt from a broken wall, landing on the narrow stretch of steel deck in front of the Panther"s turret.
Lying flat across the radio operator"s hatch, he stretched an arm down to shove his .45 in through the driver"s vision slit, and pulled the trigger as fast as he could. Something warm and wet splashed on to his hand, and Wiesniewski could feel the hatch under his midriff try to open. The crewman inside had Wiesniewski"s weight to deal with, and he was not for moving. There was a clang from above as the tank"s commander opened his hatch to see what was going on. Bearclaw, clinging to the roof of a clock tower on the corner of the marketplace, worked the bolt of his rifle. The Panther"s commander was so large in his scope that he could make out the Untersturmfuhrer Untersturmfuhrer"s rank pips on his collar.
The man had clambered out of the hatch, and was moving on all fours across the roof of the turret, with pistol in hand. Bearclaw could also see that Wiesniewski was stuck under the main gun.
He couldn"t tell whether this tank commander was one of those who had taken part in the ma.s.sacre, but to be honest he didn"t give a d.a.m.n. All he did care about was that he had one of the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in his sights, and none of them were innocent.
He caught himself in time, almost firing at the wrong moment. He was mad at the Krauts, yes, but he knew that if he really wanted to hurt them he had to do it right. He had a job to do. It"d hurt them well enough.
Wiesniewski tried to turn, but didn"t want to either stick his head to the left of the main gun, or drop over the bulge below the radio man"s hatch, since there were machine guns fixed in both positions.
He managed to twist his head around just far enough to see the tank"s commander appear above the gun mantelet. Wiesniewski knew he could never bring his pistol to bear on the officer from here.
The officer"s forehead exploded just the briefest instant before the shot rang out. His body, still wearing a surprised expression on the remains of its face, slumped and then tumbled down the front of the tank, crashing painfully into Wiesniewski on the way. The impact knocked him free, and they both fell into the wet road. The radio man didn"t fire, and Wiesniewski figured that he must have held back for fear of hitting his own superior.
Kovacs now emerged from hiding in a doorway, and clambered up on to the Panther. One man, then another, emerged from the hatch, and Kovacs shot them both. That left one man, whom Wiesniewski shot through the radio man"s hatch. He wasn"t comfortable with this way of doing things there was no guarantee that the tank crewmen were even personally armed. But the world was in enough trouble as it was, without letting Lewis, Leitz or Oberon ruin it further.
Wiesniewski had done what he had to do, and that was enough.
The interior of the Panther stank of cordite, oil and unwashed men. It also smelled like someone had c.r.a.pped themselves, but Fitz didn"t want to bring that up in case it turned out to be himself.
Fitz concentrated on bracing himself so as not to let his head bounce into any solid metal objects a tricky proposition, considering how many boxes, turnwheels and other obstacles filled the interior of the tank. He wasn"t sure why he had expected the inside to be as smooth as the outside, but he had.
The Doctor ducked down and squeezed himself into the driver"s seat.
"Bit violent for you, all this, isn"t it, Doctor?" Fitz asked mildly.
The Doctor stared at him. "Yes," he concluded, after a while. "I suppose I"m looking at the greater picture... and the devil"s in the detail. You know what we do is necessary."
There was a coldness in the Doctor"s tone that made Fitz uneasy. Do I? Fitz wondered. You don"t sound too sure yourself.
As the Doctor brought the engine to life he looked round at the others. "Unless one of you knows how...?" Everyone shook their head.
Kovacs propped himself up on the commander"s seat with a sigh. "OK, Doc, all yours. Bearclaw, you"re gunner. Kreiner, you"re loader "
"What?"
"Put the sh.e.l.ls in the gun," Kovacs said, with exaggerated patience. "Pointed end to the front." Who needed to waste taxpayers" money on weeks of training? Being scared out your wits made anyone a great student. "Wiesniewski, take that machine gun beside the Doctor." It didn"t seem to bother Wiesniewski that he was being ordered around by a subordinate. Fitz supposed that experience must outrank rank.
"What about me?" Garcia asked.
"Keep an eye out behind us, just in case."
The radio buzzed suddenly. Everybody looked at it, reluctant to touch the machine. What would be worse: remaining silent, or being recognised as imposters?
It kept buzzing insistently. Fitz couldn"t stand it any longer, and reached out and the noise stopped, the instant before he could lift the handset.
"Get us out of here, Doc," Kovacs instructed. "I think we"re going to have company soon."
Without warning, the wall of one terraced house burst outward in a cloud of dust and bricks. A leviathan lumbered unsteadily out of the destruction, like a chick tumbling from an eggsh.e.l.l. It had a sloping front like the Panther they were in, but was much larger. Steel skirts protected the tops of the wheels and tracks, while the vaguely diamond-shaped turret narrowed to a small square at the front. The fiddly details were lost to Fitz, because his eyes had developed a horrible fixation on the biggest gun he had ever seen.
It was stretched out from that small square front of the turret, and seemed to be pointed right between his eyes.
"Sweet Jesus," he breathed, in a very small voice in case it heard him.
"Yeah," Kovacs agreed. "King Tiger. We"re screwed." He grinned down at Fitz and Bearclaw. "Armour-piercing; lock and load."
"I thought you said we were screwed."
"If someone"s gonna kill me, I want the b.a.s.t.a.r.d to feel it was more trouble than it was worth, not enjoy it. You got a problem with that?"
"Only with the getting-killed part," Fitz said plaintively.
"What"s the matter you wanna live for ever?"
"I dunno yet," said Fitz. "Ask me again in five hundred years."
Kovacs laughed; the first genuine sound of mirth Fitz had heard him make. "Oh h.e.l.l. We better stay alive! Guy as smart as that just has to be saved."
With that, Bearclaw fired the Panther"s gun.
The sh.e.l.l hit the King Tiger square on, and the blast momentarily blotted out all view of it. "Yippee-ki a..." Fitz"s elated voice died as the smoke and dust cleared. Though a few flames licked ineffectually at its hull, the King Tiger shook itself free of the remains of the wall, and turned its turret to aim at them.
The Doctor pushed and pulled at the steering levers frantically. "I hate driving stick-shift..." The Panther lurched and turned, then darted backwards just as the King Tiger fired. There was a bone-shaking crash like being in an earthquake, and Fitz thought the ceiling was falling in, though the sh.e.l.l explosion came from somewhere off to the right. He realised the Doctor had reversed into a building, chunks of which had collapsed on top of them.
"Jesus! How do we kill it?" Fitz gasped.
"Even a Tiger has its Achilles" heel " the Doctor began.
"But," Kovacs interrupted, "in this case its his Achilles" a.s.s. If we want to be the ones who get out of this neighbourhood in one piece, we gotta get behind him and hit him right in the b.u.t.t."
Another sh.e.l.l burst in the place where the Panther had been, as the Doctor sent it careening through a terraced house.
The King Tiger spun around with a strange and ma.s.sive agility, and rumbled down the next street.
"Where are we going?" Garcia asked.
"To find the second King Tiger," the Doctor said cheerily. Fitz got the terrifying impression that he was actually enjoying this in some way.
"The other one?" everybody in the Panther exclaimed.
"Trust me. And hope I judge this right."
The Panther slammed through another wall, cutting across the path of a King Tiger. The first King Tiger was coming up behind that, and its gunner fired instinctively.
The Doctor, however, had judged things perfectly. The shot hit the rear of the second King Tiger, which was jerked sideways by the blast. In flames, and its crew not knowing why they were being fired upon, it returned fire. Bearclaw joined in, and both tanks pounded the first King Tiger.
The front armour was strong enough to not breach, and the Doctor called "The steeple!" Fitz saw that the King Tiger they were fighting had backed into the corner of a small chapel.
Bearclaw fired at the building"s steeple. Fitz almost burned his hand against the ejecting sh.e.l.l case as he loaded a second round almost before the first had time to hit its target.
Both sh.e.l.ls burst in rapid succession against the base of the steeple. Smoke and dust billowed around it like exhaust from a rocket launch, but the steeple toppled sideways rather than rising into the air. It slumped down across the King Tiger with an indescribable noise, and Fitz wondered if the tank could have survived even that.
Out of the viewing port, he could see the visible part of the enemy tank"s turret attempt to turn its gun on them. There was too much stone resting on the front deck, and the barrel couldn"t shift it aside. The King Tiger"s engine revved, and it started trying to pull itself free of the collapsed steeple.
"Try not to kill them," the Doctor suggested, with something unspoken belying the softness of his tone.
"Not kill them?" Kovacs asked incredulously. "They"re n.a.z.is in that tank!"
"Aim for the tracks."