2 comments/ 14893 views/ 1 favorites Panther Knight By: william_chatham We travel by night to avoid enemy fighters: bomb-laden American P-47's, rocket-toting English Typhoons. Death angels. Twelve kilometers more. I can nearly smell Marie Colette's perfume sweat, bad breath, and sex through the road-dust clogging my straight, Teutonic nose. The long barrel jutting out ahead of our Panther G, a 75mm KwK 42 L/70 cannon, reminds me off my cock the first time she came to me naked. She had snuck away from her parents and bribed the sergeant on duty at the watch-post for directions to my bed. I remember turning when I heard the door to my room creak open. A foot slid through, then a narrow ankle, then the sublime curve of her leg. Mon nom est Marie Colette. Her first words as she stood before me, her dusky, Corsican skin glowing golden in the yellow light from the kerosene lamp on my desk. She wore a wool nightgown with buttons down the front and quickly undid the three holding the nightgown closed. My jaw dropped as the nightgown fell to the floor. She smiled, pleased, as my eyes devoured the curve of her neck, the taut globes of her Titten dangling from her chest, her soft hips, the curly tangle of brown hair above her sweet Fotze, beckoning for a man to become lost in. My eyes jerk open. I realize that I have been slouching against the commander's cupola and straighten, rubbing my burning eyes. She is so close. I can almost see her waiting in the upstairs window of her farmhouse, brown eyes searching the darkness for us as we lumber down the road. Himmel! I want her in my arms so badly. My crew would laugh if they saw the tears streaking the grime on my cheeks, especially Langer, the gunner. Das Arschlock. The asshole would guffaw in his braying mule voice and tell me that a whore's love is fool's gold. Then, perhaps, I would draw my sidearm and shoot him dead where he stands. I am Henri Jaeger, Hauptmann, 22nd Panzer Regiment. My hair is brown, not blond, but my eyes are blue. Marie Colette noticed none of this that first time we were with each other. Instead, she laughed at the four toes on my left foot. That first winter on the eastern front claimed more than my patriotic spirit. I try not to let her suspect that I am fond of her. I would be... politically difficult... if word were to get out that a Knight's Cross holder and veteran of two fronts was in love with a young French woman. Bist du verruckt? I ask myself. Yes, I probably am crazy. To be mentally masturbating while we are still in danger! Some lost, enemy parachutist could be aiming an anti-tank weapon at us from someplace along the road ahead. Our Panther G is the most dangerous of the armor-clad hunting cats. The Maybach V-12 behind me purrs deep in its pipes at the gibbous August moon rising from the eastern horizon. Seven hundred horsepower pushes all forty-five tons of us south from Feuguerolles-Bully toward our cantonment at Arnaye-Sur-Orne, following the pale, mute face shimmering in the L'Orne River to my left. We are not invincible. I sway in the commander's-cupola as our wide treads and try not to sleep. Jorgi-the driver-has almost driven us off the road twice already. Langer and our loader, Franz, are asleep in the turret below me. "Easy, Jorgi," I say as I activate the radio-intercom. "Just keep us in the middle of the road. We're almost home." # Arnaye-Sur-Orne is small, perhaps five hundred people divided into families spread out in shingle or thatched-roof homes that encircle the town square. Our cantonment area is in the large glen at the southern edge of town. There is another Panther there and five Panzer IV's mounted with the same cannon as we carry, some Mercedes trucks, several half-tracks. Two companies of infantry secure the town. Jorgi maneuvers into an open space beside the A-frame used to hoist out our Maybach engine when it needs repairs. Soft light glows from beneath the door of the small shack next to it. I hear movement below me when the engine noise goes quiet. "Ach! Finally!" says Langer as the gunners-hatch beside me opens and he climbs though it onto the top of the turret. His back pops as he stretches, then he climbs down onto the fender, then jumps to the ground. "We've been away for too long, I tell you. We should have been recalled days ago." His eyes find me in the darkness. "You should complain to Major Kurtz." "Someone must have shit in your brain and forgotten to stir it," I say as I disconnect myself from the wires of the radio-intercom, hang my headphones on the commander's machine gun and pull myself up through my clamshell hatch. "He's got enough to worry about, and he doesn't have to time to listen to idiots vomiting advice at him." "You are a holder of the Knight's Cross and a veteran of the Eastern front," Langer says. "I would hardly call you an idiot." Franz sticks his head up through the gunner's-hatch before I can reply. He is young, seventeen, a fresh recruit. He is trying desperately to grow a moustache, but only a few sparse hairs have taken root. "Captain, I must get to the post office." "Yes, of course," I say. He vaults from the turret straight to the ground. I can only shake my head. It is a fine way to ruin young legs. Franz has an aunt in Berlin who seems to write to him every day. Even I am secretly jealous of this. According to her last letter, the enemy had stepped up its day-and-night bombing. That was two weeks ago. He has not heard from her since. "I swear," Langer says. "The only bad thing about this place is there are no women! If I don't find one tonight I will take a goat to bed." "Good idea," Jorgi says as he wearily climbs up through the driver's hatch. "A goat cannot tell anyone how small your Pimmel is." "You dare insult the great and invincible Langer? I'll show you!" Langer casts about until he spots a rock on the ground. In a quick motion he scoops it up and pitches it toward Jorgi. The rock sails over Jorgi's head and bounces off the front-slope armor of the turret. Jorgi laughs mockingly as he slides down off the hull. "What's wrong? Is the great and invincible Langer unable to hit anything smaller than a Canadian Sherman? Is a large stand of trees more to his skill, perhaps?" "Piss yourself away!" Langer says, his fists balled. "Enough of that!" I snap. "Get going, both of you. Go drink or sleep or whatever it is you've been thinking about for the last week. I don't want to see either of you again until tomorrow." "Yes, sir." They mumble a reply, salute, and go their separate ways into the night. In the dim light, my grandfather's gold-and-platinum pocket-watch points to 9:30. A pot-bellied figure emerges from the small shack erected next to the A-frame: Feldwebel Konig. Konig is the maintenance sergeant that keeps our Panther operational. "Good evening, captain," he says, slurring a bit. He might be drunk, be he does not sway, never sways. He is like oak. "It is good to see you back. Has there been good hunting?" "Some. On the road to St. Pierre-sur-Dives. We ambushed a column of Canadian Shermans. Killed five before the rest lost their nerve." "Do you need anything?" Konig asks. "Petrol, we're nearly dry. And lubricants. The tracks squeak over the road wheels so loudly that I couldn't sneak up on a dead man. One of the bastard guide-teeth is bent, I'm sure. We'll have to replace it." "I'll see what I can do," Konig says and bends to look at the eight road-wheels on the nearest side. I can take comfort, at least, that he is a man of his word. "Petrol has been in short supply lately. Haven't you heard?" But I am already gone. # I find Marie Colette de Germaine at the watering trough behind her farmhouse. She wears a white cotton shrift with embroidered vines across the front. Here-and-there the vines explode into blossoms of red and yellow thread. Her chestnut hair hangs in loose braids tied by scraps of white lace-the remnants of what I brought her from Paris. The moon glints off her arm as she lifts a cloth and dips it into the trough, squeezes, and scrubs damps streaks down the length of her long, well-toned calf-muscle. First one leg, then the other. She looks up, startled, as the creaking symphony of frogs from the nearby L'Orne River go quiet. Distant thunder, an anti-aircraft barrage, arrives from far to the north. The plow-horses I can hear inside their decrepit barn whinny in reply. "Be careful," I say in my awful French as I step out of the shadow of her house into the moonlight. "Not to scrub too hard. You must have enough strength left for me." "Henri!" She drops the rag and seems to float across the yard into my waiting arms. Her cheek presses against my chest, ignoring the smell of old sweat, and grime, and petrol exhaust that has permeated my green-gray uniform. "I was so worried for you today. The fighting seems so close!" "The English are bombing Caen." As bad as my French is, her German is even worse. We've been learning from each other for eight months. "There is nothing to be afraid of, for now. We are too small for their bombers to find us here." I am fairly certain that Marie Colette is Maqui, the French resistance. I suspect that most French women are, but Marie Colette has had many opportunities to kill me. Perhaps I talk in my sleep and give her secrets. "The Americans?" she asks. "West of Villers-Boccage." I strip off my service cap and toss it to the mossy, fecund ground. "Weeks away, at least." Her slim fingers find the buttons on my service jacket and quickly it slips from my shoulders. I sit, then lay back and close my eyes for, what I promise myself, will only be a moment. I wake when Marie Colette kneels at my feet and lifts one of my boots into her lap. She unknots the laces and pulls it off, dumping it to the side, then peels off a pungent sock. After a week spent rolling through the French countryside in the June heat, my feet smell like a goat's ass. Once my well-scuffed boots rest side-by-side, she reaches for my belt. Within moments I am clothed only in my undershorts, and soon, not even that. "What will happen to you, to us?" she asks as she rubs my filthy head with a bar of strong-smelling soap, the same kind that she uses to wash my clothes. "We will return to the front in two days. I suggest that you take your parents and go south. Try and reach Marseille. Get through the American lines if you can." "No, Henri, I would never leave." She squeezes the rag over my head and gray rinse run down my face. She drops the soap into the trough. Her hand dives beneath the cloudy water after it. She finds my cock, twice. "What would I do without you?" Du bist ein Engel, mein schatz. My treasure, you are an angel. She has proved that time and time again. "You will find a new lover to bring you nice things. Try to get yourself an American, perhaps an officer. The English hate them for their large pockets, so we are told." I emerge, coughing and spluttering, as she pushes my head under the water. Her face is a mask of hurt. "You say things that make no sense." Marie Colette takes my head in her hands. Her chin juts forward proudly. "I am Captain Henri Jaeger's woman. I would do anything he asked. I would suck the cock of every man on his crew if he ordered me to. I would..." She is silent as I put a finger to her lips. # Her bed is a mattress filled with goose-down, hand stitched, and covered with cotton sheets that she got from God knows where. Her woolen nightgown hangs around her belly as Marie Colette lays back, poses for me, her dark hair cascading over her pillow, her legs drawn up side by side. A Philco 89 cathedral radio, that my influence has allowed her to keep, creaks out music from the nightstand. Marie Colette sings as a song that she knows when it comes on. She has a fine voice. The broadcast is from England. I know very little English, but hearing it sung with a French accent sends shivers up my spine: Gonna take a sentimental journey, Gonna set my heart at ease. Gonna make a sentimental journey, To renew old memories. She has used my razor to shave her armpits, and her legs, but her Muschi is as untamed as it was that first night, as thick as a wild forest. Marie Colette meets my stare as I reduce the light from the kerosene lamp on her dresser and turn to face her. The side of her lip curls into a smile of wicked anticipation. "Does my love enjoy it when I do this?" she asks. Her fingernails leave a red line on her skin as she drags them down her chest. "Does he wish to see how wet he makes me?" I nod as her hand covers her Muschi. Marie Colette shifts on her goose-down mattress and lets her muscular, freckled legs fall open. "Mmm... now he will see what he forces me to everyday that we are apart." She cradles her head with one arm and closes her eyes as her middle finger slips inside of her, begins making slow circles. "I will say..." She interrupts herself with an uncontrolled moan. "I will say the rosary on Sunday and pray for my forgiveness. More than once." Her lips shine in the lamplight as her tongue darts out to massage them. They swell invitingly. I long to kiss them, but the time is not yet right. Marie Colette's hips are swiveling in time to the motion of her fingers. Two dip into her, emerge glistening, and press down on her special button. Her eyes are squeezed tightly shut. She is someplace else. Her face is contorted, betraying ecstasy, and an eruption building as she begins a quiet, steady moaning that rises in volume. Oh Gott ich halt's nicht mehr aus! Ich krieg ja schon ein Rohr wenn ich das Madchen nur ansehe. Faust's famous words spring into my mind. I can't take it anymore. I get a hard-on just looking at the girl. She would look stunning in my wife's favorite red corset. Marie Colette's eyes snap open and her breath catches in her lungs as I seize her wrists and pull her fingers away from the tangle of her soft pelt. "No, please." She gasps. Her voice is surprised, meek. "My love, I was so close." "Perhaps, but you did not have permission." I release her hands, and naked, climb onto the mattress beside her. "We Germans do nothing without permission." She rolls her eyes with an angry, disappointed squeal. Her head turns away as my hand cups her left Titte, my course skin rasping against her soft flesh. Another quiet squeal, this one less angry, more... approving, as I give her Titte a gentle squeeze. Perhaps I have been away too long, her breasts seem fuller than I remember. "Has anyone told you how beautiful you are today?" I ask. Marie Colette shakes her head, still looking away. I sigh with tired genuflection. "Villains." I lower my head, feed her erect nipple into my mouth. Her body shudders once as I set my tongue to work, the same circling waltz that her own fingers had danced on her Muschi. Slowly, delicately, her left arm lifts off the mattress to caress the back of my head. Her face turns toward me now, yet her eyes are still closed. My right hand reaches across her chest. I find her other nipple with my thumb and stroke it until it, too, stands erect, at attention on the top of her breast. Her brown eyes are open, and staring into mine, when I have suckled enough and release her Kirsche-wet with saliva-from the grip of my gentle teeth, and lips. "What did you stop for?" she asks in a quiet, dreamy voice. "You have my permission, my love." My reply is silent. My lips press against hers and our breaths mingle. Her hands grasp for purchase in my short hair, pulling my face into hers. Her body embraces me; arms around my shoulders, legs around my waist, drawing me into her. I am a hard curve six inches long as I impale Marie Colette de Germaine. She groans as her hands grip my back for purchase. Even after eight months of steady fucking, she is still wonderfully tight. I attribute that to the fact that she has had no children. "Ahh! No, my love. Wait." She pushes me off. Her body wiggles as she changes positions, settling herself on her knees, gathering pillows in with her arms. She turns to face me, blinks slowly when she is prepared. Usually she likes to ride on top, sometimes she prefers my cock in her well-buttered ass, but tonight she has pulled the top of her nightgown down, and gathered up from below. It hangs around her soft, bulging belly. "I have been feeding you too well," I say and lay a hand onto the small of her back. "But not enough of the only thing I really want," she replies with a wicked leer. "Stop teasing me, my love. Fuck me as if I were your little farm-girl whore. Split me in two. Please, don't make me beg." I need no further encouragement. Marie Colette is a moaner. She throws her head back and yowls like a cat in heat as I build a slow rhythm. Her eyes bore into mine. "Ah, yes. Fuck your little French bitch. Make her your dog. She deserves no more than that." Her eyes squeeze shut as I find my own cadence. Her cheek glistens as a tear rolls from the corner of her right eye. A new song starts over the Philco 89. Henry James and his Orchestra. I know this one. You made me love you, I didn't want to do it, I didn't want to do it. You made me want you, and all the time you knew it, I guess you always knew it. You made me happy sometime, you made me glad. But there were times dear, you made me feel so bad. Marie Colette has a fistful of sheets gathered in one hand and is biting the knuckle of the index finger on the other. The night I met her, I showed her a technique that I wanted her to practice. I remember guiding her own hand down between her legs, spreading her Muschi with two fingers, and ordering her to use her muscles there to squeeze her fingers together. It is my wife's favorite exercise. At first Marie Colette did not believe that she could. Until it actually happened. From then on she was a believer. "You've been practicing, my love," I gasp out. It would be no use trying to pull out. She has me caught in a vaginal vise that I have no excuse to escape from. My hips slam my cock into her. She rocks back and forth on her knees like I had just ordered a shot from my Panther's cannon. Süß Gott! I let out a roar as suddenly she stops me, holds me in place, then begins to massage my Pimmel while I am still inside her. Sweet God! She leers at me again. Such power she has! It is infuriating to be so helpless. She will decide when I can remove my cock from her Muschi. I hold her hip close with one hand and push her face into the pillows with other. Ferociously, I piston into her. If she won't release me, then I'll have to fuck my way free. Marie Colette's yowls of passion quickly grow intense, and much louder. Surely she is keeping half the village of Arnaye-Sur-Orne awake tonight. Her cries reach a crescendo before she goes limp. I slip out of her in a warm flood of wetness. Marie Colette's naked skin is covered by a sheen of sweat. Strands of hair stick to her cheeks. The muscles in her left leg have developed a twitch. "Sit up, my love," I have my Pimmel in hand, using light strokes to keep it hard. My personal hydraulics leak pre-cum, and my cockhead glistens as a large bead trails a slick behind it as it rolls down my shaft. "Perhaps an aperitif would give you your strength back?" Slowly, as if dazed, she adjusts her position to sit cross-legged on the feather mattress. Her brown eyes are focused on one thing alone as she reaches for me: the curve of expansive tissue pulsating with its own little jig in time to my heartbeat. She moistens her plushy lips with a swipe of her tongue across them as her narrow fingers feed my cockhead into the "O" she forms with her mouth. Once it is engulfed, she applies suction, then presses it against the inside of her cheek until I pop out of her mouth with a delightfully wet sound. She calls this, "the French Method." Panther Knight She makes noises deep in her throat, as if she finds me delicious. Her hand is pumping my Pimmel, corkscrewing the length from my curly hairs to my cockhead, pausing only long enough for her to send the tip of her tongue squirming into my pee-hole, then flittering against the underside of my shaft like a butterflies wings. Marie Colette has practiced a technique that she calls her, "deep breath." As her hand releases its grip on me, her head lurches forward, pushing her nose into my curly hairs, and my Pimmel down her throat. I love this, she knows. She gags briefly, then removes her kiss, spits on my shaft and takes it back in again, as if with animal fury. I cannot hold. The sensation is too great and I can hold out no longer. With a low, guttural cry of release, I send hot semen coursing into her mouth, down her throat. Marie Colette pulls her head back when she feels my heat spilling inside her. Liquid pearl splashes across her freckled nose, cheeks, lips, and chin. She smiles as she scrapes up the mess with a finger and cleans it off with her tongue. "A feast fit for a queen." # It is hot the next day, at least ninety degrees. "You could help, you know," Franz says and shoots an evil glare at Langer. "Instead you sit there and let us break our asses in this hot sun." "I would help," Langer says. He lays sprawled in the grass beside our Panther with his shirt off and his hands behind his head. "But I worry that one of you oafs would crush my hands. Imagine what it would do to my aim!" "Piss on your aim," Jorgi says between grunts. "Langer the artiste." I laugh and turn my attention to the pry-bar that I have jammed into the leading edge of the left track. "More like prima-dona," says Feldwebel Konig. "One, two, three, push!" Jorgi hollers. "Beefisha!" I am dressed in gray fatigue trousers and a matching, sweat stained shirt, now spotted with track grease. A grunt escapes me as I lean into a two-meter long steel bar, levering one end of the left track toward the other so that Jorgi can pin it into place over the sprocket teeth. "Good! Hold it there!" he says. It is grueling work. I have more important matters to attend to, and I tell Feldwebel Konig so. "I am sorry, captain," Konig says and wipes his hands on a rag once Jorgi has worked the pin into place. It is now impossible to tell what color the rag, or Konig's hands, were originally. "I truly am, but many of my men have been killed by air raids." He waves the rag toward the town. "Most of the French that we use to help with repairs have fled." At least the large oaks surrounding the glen give us some shelter from the sun, and from the eyes of prowling enemy fighters. "Captain!" I turn as a shout comes from the other side of the repair yard. An infantry corporal stands at the entrance next to a middle-aged French couple. I recognize them on sight: Marie Colette's parents. I motion them forward with two fingers. Was der Hölle en? "Everyone take a break," I say and immediately there are groans of relief. Jorgi plops down next to Langer and unscrews the top of his canteen. Franz scurries off in the direction of the post office. "Excuse us, Captain Jaeger," says Mssr. de Germaine when they draw close enough to speak. He is dressed in a white shirt, dark tie, and sturdy, indigo trousers attached with suspenders. "We do not mean to interrupt, we understand you are busy." "Please, captain," says Mdme. de Germaine interrupts as she wrings her hands. She is frumpy, with curly hair going gray, and nearly indistinguishable from the average German hausfrau. "There is something we must discuss with you." "Yes? What is it?" My French is not so good, so I use my native tongue. Let them struggle with it. "I have no time today." "It regards Marie Colette, of course," says Mssr. de Germaine as he wipes his forehead with a handkerchief, staring at the ground. His German is passable. "The local surgeon visited earlier in the week. Marie Colette is, well, she is pregnant." Ach, zo. An inadvertent, heavy sigh escapes me. Part of me suspected this. Northern France is so fertile that a farmer could plant a rock and have something grow from it. Marie Colette is no exception. "You must be very happy to have such good news." Mssr. and Mdme. de Germaine's crestfallen faces betray their disagreement. "Oh yes, very much," says Mssr. de Germaine. "Captain, we have been hearing things," Mdme. de Germaine says firmly, determined to come to the point. She is a bold woman. I can see where Marie Colette gets her petulance. "In towns that have been liberated. Young women that have collaborated are...treated very poorly." "Very poorly," echoes Mssr. de Germaine with a sad shake of his head. "Your relationship with Marie Colette is no secret," Mdme. de Germaine observes. "Many have envied the privileges she...we...have earned from your favor. We fear for her." "And what would you have me do, eh?" I switch to French, just to prove to them that I consider the matter as serious as they. My voice drops with anger. "It is my understanding that France still belongs to the Reich." And will still, if those lazy bastards in 12th SS Panzer can stop drinking and whoring in Pas-De-Calais long enough to push the Anglos back into the sea. "Yes," Mssr. de Germaine takes a hesitant step forward, determined to broach the subject carefully. "But Heaven forbid, what if a time comes when this is no longer the case?" His question is punctuated by the arrival of distant thunder from the north. Carpet-bombing this time, not anti-aircraft barrages. "Go away. Let me think." I catch the corporal's eye and nod toward the entrance to the repair yard. "If your unborn child matters at all to you," says Mdme. de Germaine as the corporal takes her by the arm and gives her a shove. "If you are not a monster, you will think very carefully about what must be done." Franz brushes past them at a run as they are led back toward the entrance. He has a wide-eyed, mouth agape look of fear on his scrawny face. A sheet of white letter paper flutters in one hand. "Captain! Captain!" Bessere Nachrichten kein Zweifel. More good news, no doubt. "Calm down, Franz, you look like you're being chased by demons...or Russians." Jorgi guffaws at that. He knows firsthand what I mean. "Have you heard from your aunt. Is she all right?" I lean against the fender, patting down my pockets for a light to the cigarette that Feldwebel Konig offers me. "Next time you write, ask her to send us more of that tasty Marzipan." "I...well, I..." At a loss for words, he offers the paper forward. The top is embossed with the Kriegsmarine seal. Interesting. I keep my face a stony mask to keep from choking with laughter as I read further. Franz has been inducted into the navy, it seems. "Bad news, Franz," I say and fold the paper slowly. "Orders to report to Le Havre for U-boat training." I cluck my tongue in sympathy and shake my head. "Please, captain." Franz drops to his knees and clutches at my undershirt. "I would die if they sent me out on a submarine. I would go mad being underwater. Please say there is something you can do." "You are a good man, Franz. Our brothers in the submarine service need all the good men they can get. The letter has been stamped by Admiral Meisel." I shrug helplessly and wave the letter at him. "I am only a mere captain." "Major Kurtz then!" Franz insists. I have no intention of shipping Franz off to the Kriegsmarine, Admiral Meisel's stamp regardless. Still, it would be a shame to waste an opportunity to have some fun. "Well, perhaps," I say and make a show of rubbing my chin thoughtfully. "Langer did mention you well in the major's presence not long ago." I shoot a glance at Langer, who has rolled onto his side and is eavesdropping with great interest, and hope that the fool keeps silent. "He did?" Franz says happily and spins to grin at Langer, who shrugs indifferently. "Yes, he said that you were not totally incompetent, and at times have made yourself marginally useful." I pat him on the shoulder with one hand and stuff the letter into my trouser pocket with the other. "It would be inconvenient to train a new loader right now, so I will speak to Major Kurtz for you." # My small room is hot, and I cannot sleep, so I stand outside the barracks in the cooler night air and smoke a Karavan cigarette. I lament two things: one, that this shitty Estonian tobacco burns and tastes like wet burlap, and two, that there are no days or nights without thunder anymore. What to do about Marie Colette? What to do, what to do. I had not expected to remain in France indefinitely. No, certainly not. Our division had been resting and recovering in preparation for a return to the Eastern front when the Anglos came ashore. My grandfather's pocket-watch would fetch perhaps 100 Francs from the right buyer. I have twenty more left from my trip to Paris. The next time the paymaster comes through, I will have another 220 ReichsMarks, convertible to perhaps double that amount of Francs. Still not enough to escape through enemy lines and create a new life for her and my child, not enough by far. I pitch the awful Karavan to the ground and crush it beneath my boot. I must visit Major Kurtz. He will know what to do. When I explain my situation to him, he laughs so hard that schnapps goes up his nose. # Our unit is preparing to move. We received reinforcements during the night, the remnants of shattered divisions from the south-a few tanks, but mostly truck-mounted Panzergrenadiers. The morning briefing has run long and suddenly I have no time. Jorgi and Feldwebel Konig have agreed to pretend that our Maybach engine needs some minor repair, but it will buy me precious little time. "Marie Colette!" I yell at her window. "Come down here. Hurry!" Still in her nightgown, she opens the shutters and notices the suitcase in my hand. The door to her old farmhouse creaks open and she appears framed in the doorway. "Leaving so soon, my love?" she asks and pads out onto the dirt road in just her bare feet. "No, my sweet. You are." I push the suitcase against her chest. "Today." I nod at the suitcase. "Open it." Marie Colette opens the lid and gasps at the bundles of Francs that fill the inside. "I don't understand," she says, although I can tell by the look in her eyes that knows more than she admits to. "You are leaving for Paris. Take your family if you can. You will take the next available transport south and go through the American lines. You will forget the name Henri Jaeger. You will have that baby and you will do your best to raise it properly." "No, don't send me away!" She drops the suitcase to the ground and rushes to my arms. "I told you, I am Henri Jaeger's woman!" "If that's true then stop this goddamned disobedience and do what I say!" I snap at her. It pains me to do so, but I must be firm. "Captain Jaeger, come on!" Franz is waving at me from the gate. "We cannot wait any longer!" "But I'll never see you again," she protests. On a note I have scribbled an address in Germany, just off a winding country road in the hills outside of Heidelberg. I take it from my pocket and press it into her hands. "Once this madness is over, look for me here, but carry no hope. There is still much fighting to be done." In a smooth motion she steps into me and pulls my combat knife from the scabbard on my belt. Perhaps she is Maqui after all. She gathers a few fingers-full of her hair and uses the blade to slice the bundle away. "So I will always be with you," she says as she binds the hair with a strip of cloth and presses it into my hands. "For luck." Then Marie Colette de Germaine collects the suitcase, turns on her heel, and disappears into her farmhouse. Franz is looking at me very quizzically when I reach him waiting at the gate. "Is everything all right?" "Only time will tell." "What was in that suitcase?" he asks. "My grandfather's pocket-watch," I say as we amble down the road toward our waiting Panther. "And ten thousand Francs." His young face registers shock. "Where did you get ten thousand Francs?" "From Major Kurtz, as a loan, I suppose. And where did he get it? He told me it was best not to ask." # I slouch forward on my elbows and lift my 6x30 binoculars. There is a column of Sherman tanks, olive-drab half-tracks, and trucks below us kicking up dust on the road to Flers. We are camouflaged just inside the crescent-shaped tree-line, en defilade below the top of a hill a dozen meters north from where the enemy convoy rolls past. They are in a hurry, and their speed has made them careless. "Observe, Franz." My loader lies across the top of the turret to my left with binoculars pressed to his eyes. "They have tanks set us as the vanguard, and as the rear-guard. This will be their undoing." "I don't understand," Franz says. He lowers his binoculars. I can feel him looking at me. "Shermans are large, thirty-five tons. Very difficult to maneuver around one that is disabled, particularly here, where the ground is so soft." I have my two companies of infantry, with some Panzergrenadiers, set up in the points of the crescent. Each company has a Panzershreck, our copy of the American Bazooka, and an MG-42. "Button up," I say to Franz and he slides off the back of the turret, pulls open the hatch behind me and climbs inside. We have rehearsed this many times. The Panzershrecks will attack the lead vehicle and the trailing vehicle in the column. This will prevent the enemy from moving forward or retreating the way they came. Once they are in disarray, our Panther G, and the Panzer IV waiting beside us, will begin our attack. Our MG- 42 machine guns will suppress their bazookas. I almost feel pity for the English below us. The center of the column has rolled right in front of us when it is time to act. I click open the transmitter hanging against my throat. "Target, front," I call through the radio/intercom. "Zero degrees." "I see him!" Langer responds. I know his eyes are to the gun-sight. "Fire!" Our Panther G rocks on its wide treads, absorbing the recoil of the main gun. I barely hear the hair-raising sound of the cannon shot anymore. Our 75mm hyper-velocity round almost instantly punches through the side armor of the English Sherman like hot steel through warm chocolate. His turret is torn completely off the hull by the force of our projectile. Worse, it is the signal for the Panzergrendiers laying in ambush to attack. The "KRAK!" of the Panzershrecks firing arrives at nearly the same instant that I see the lead tank explode in a ball of orange-black smoke. The AT gunner targeting the rear-guard is a poor shot and his round sails over the target Sherman to detonate in the woods on the other side of the road. "Take the rear-guard! Cut off their escape!" I shout to Leutnant Richter, crouching in the commander's hatch of the Panzer IV. He salutes, speaks into his radio/intercom, and his Panzer IV lurches forward. He is young but I have seen him in action. He reminds me of me. "Target! Ten degrees right!" I have my binoculars trained on the next Sherman, which has stopped, training its 76mm gun nowhere near us. "I see him!" Langer reports as the electric turret traverse motor swings the main gun around. Franz has already shoved another 75mm round into the firing chamber. "Fire!" The muzzle blast obliterates the remnants of the twigs and branches we have tied to the barrel. Sparks fly as our round strikes home, followed by the sound of the Shermans ammunition cooking off. There is a reason we call the Shermans, "Feuerungen" -- fire-engines. Once hit, they burn easily, like cigarette lighters. The English infantry is dismounting, leaping from the backs of their half-tracks and trucks, scrambling for cover in the ditch on the far side of the road, chased by the "Bruuuuup!" of MG-42's spraying bullets. "Jorgi, get us moving." I order, the sound of the engine drops as he changes gears and our Panther G lurches forward out of the tree-line. The third Sherman in line has brought his cannon around, is trying to outflank us, and has us targeted. "SPANG!" His round bounces off the hull a meter from the loaders 7.92mm machine gun. I manage to drop into the turret before it arrives, but not before I am deafened by the impact of the high-explosive round. The world goes silent as I stand up again. I can feel my mouth forming commands, but I cannot hear them. A Typhoon streaks overhead, its wingtips trailing vortices of white vapor, riddling the infantry position in our southern crescent-point with 20mm fire. An ugly vulture, the Typhoon, they operate in pairs. My head strains upward, I look left and right. His friend also carries rockets, no doubt. Langer brings the gun around and dispatches the Sherman. He is only fifty meters away. Close enough to spit at. I am happy that I cannot see the Sherman commander as our shot hits just to the left of their cannon. The commander's hatch shoots straight up into the air on a column of flame and the tank rolls to a stop. "Target! Five degrees right!" I am screaming when my hearing comes back. "I have him!" says Langer. "Fire!" Our Panther rocks again but this time Langer's aim is off. A tree behind the target Sherman is reduced to splinters. "Reload! Quickly!" Explosions draw my attention left. Fountains of dirt erupt around Richter's Panzer IV. A fireball boils up from the rear deck as a rocket strikes home. Richter skews to the left and rolls for a several meters before stopping to burn. Another Typhoon roars overhead into the unblemished blue sky, climbs into a victory roll. "Ready!" Langer says. "Fire!" Langer's aim, this time, is true and another Sherman becomes a heap of smoking scrap. The English have only three tanks left, and they chose this moment to falter. Their infantry throw smoke grenades to obscure their retreat. As the sound of small arms fire diminishes, I slump forward against my machine gun, suddenly exhausted. I lift my head as a cruciform shape eclipses the Sun. A shadow from it passes over us. The Typhoon has returned. It approaches at a shallow angle, almost head on, somehow in slow motion. I can see the wide air intake on the nose, the four-bladed propeller turning, the pilot's face, encased by a brown leather flying helmet and a rubber oxygen mask. Three rockets separate from the wing and kick out plumes of flame and gray smoke. I can see their yellow-tipped warheads as they streak towards me. My muscles are frozen. I cannot move. My eyes feel impossibly dry but I cannot blink. The Typhoon banks right as tracers from the infantry MG-42's chase him, score a few hits. Ach, scheisse. Someplace inside me I am disappointed that my last words are not more... well, epic. Oh, shit. The first rocket impacts twenty meters to my left, the second digs a crater into the earth a dozen meters closer. The last one will hit us, there is no doubt. I follow it all the way down. It strikes less than a meter away on the right side, flashing as the warhead explodes. Shrapnel pings off the clamshell hatch-cover as the air is blasted from my lungs. I feel myself lifted by an invisible hand, pulled out of the turret, and suddenly I am floating. I hit the ground, see stars and spirals as I register brief pain, then there is merciful darkness. # "He's awake," a voice says. Gott en Himmel. I would rather be sleeping. My head throbs. Each beat of my heart creates a corresponding pulse of excruciation between my temples. I open my eyes. The oppressive heat of the day has been replaced by night. I am lying on my back, strapped to a stretcher across the back deck of our Panther. There are eight infantrymen sitting around me, most riding on the small fenders. Panther Knight "Welcome back," the same voice says. It is a panzergrenadier sergeant who wears a broad grin but no helmet. "Perhaps you should transfer to the Luftwaffe, captain. We noticed how well you fly." "Like Superman!" says a corporal seated nearby with an MG-42 across his lap. He lifts his arms into some semblance of the Superman flying pose. "Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive..." Guffaws all around. The sergeant takes a puff of the cigarette dangling between his lips and lifts his canteen to my mouth. I slurp greedily at the trickle of water flowing from it. "Easy, not too much." He screws the cap onto the canteen and slings it over his shoulder. "How do you feel?" "I haven't had a day this shitty in a long time." I try to sit up but the straps on the stretcher keep me down. "Untie me. Do it." "As you wish." The sergeant pitches his cigarette into the darkness and reaches for the straps restraining me. Once loose, my head spins as I try to stand. Every part of me is sore. Langer is standing upright in the commander's cupola. This means that he has delegated Franz as his replacement gunner. He half turns when I climb up onto the turret. "Where are we?" There is a river to my right with the moon glowing between the gentle ripples in the water. "A few kilometers from Arnaye-Sur-Orne," Langer says. He too, is smoking a cigarette. "You've been unconscious for several hours. I was afraid that we would have to send you east on a meat-wagon." "What happened?" Langer tosses a nod at the infantrymen riding the fenders. "The Typhoons shot up their truck." He removes a blood-speckled packet of cigarettes from his pocket and shakes one out. "One of them found a few packs on a dead English. Would you like to smoke?" I would, but the smell of it is making me nauseous. "Is everything alright?" "That depends on the captain's definition," Langer says and pockets the cigarettes when I shake my head. "If by that you mean, 'did we barely scrape by with the skin of our asses,' then yes, everything is alright." "Good, good." I want to sit down before I puke. When we reach Arnaye-Sur-Orne, Franz alarms several Panzergrenadiers as he pops the turret hatch and scurries off to the post office before our Panther stops moving. I climb down off the rear deck and follow a path toward paradise that I know well, but when I arrive, the farmhouse behind the old gate is empty.