10. LOGAN
AT SEA, THE
MEDITERRANEAN
NOVEMBER 8, 1942
H e had fought seasickness all his life, fought it now, stared into misty darkness, tried to distract the turmoil in his stomach by searching for silhouettes of the other ships. The bow of the ship rose again, and he braced himself, the movement too familiar now, the soft wallowing as the transport rolled over the swell, his gut rolling with it. In the darkness, he saw a small shadow, a glimpse of a break in the horizon. Destroyer, maybe? No, too small. Another of the landing craft, same size as this one. Full of miserable tank crews. He gripped the rail, tried to invent a new prayer, one of dozens now, another distraction, said in a low whisper:
“Please, O Lord, giveth me calm insides, forever and I will always…”
Always what? The words drifted away. He tried to see the ship again, searched in the darkness. He had never been religious, thought, does God know that? Yeah, probably does. Get to the end of the line, Logan. I’ll get to you after the True Believers. If I have time. You know, God, I wouldn’t ask You if it didn’t matter.
He realized the ship had slowed, unmistakable, the swells softer, less motion. There was activity behind him, and he turned, saw a brief glimpse of a flashlight, a hatch in the bulkhead opening, the light gone quickly. Voices began now, and he thought of Captain Gregg, and Hutchinson. Yeah, I know. You’ll be looking for me. Hell, I’m not lost, I’m just up here on top, trying to get my guts to behave.
The others were mostly below, the tank crews bunking in tight quarters that were no more than net hammocks slung from stout overhead plumbing. The smells had surprised him, oil and paint. There had been little sleep for those with tender stomachs, and so new smells came as well, sickness and cigarettes, the stale air of too many men huddled into too small a space. Logan had stayed mostly on deck, kept himself inconspicuous, out of the way of the officers and the British sailors, who seemed always in motion. He had grown used to the dampness, the hard, windy chill, went belowdecks only in the daytime, when the crews were assembled, lectured, schooled in what they might expect when they finally launched their tanks on the beach.
The ship was a Maracaibo class “landing ship, tank,” LST for short, had been converted from a shallow-draft oil tanker, originally designed to float on the relatively shallow waters of Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. The massive oil tanks had been replaced by a layer of decking, planks coated in asphalt, a floating parking lot that could fit eighteen tanks. She was nearly four hundred feet in length, even with her nose chopped off, the bow of the ship now a flat steel plate, an inch thick. It was the “door,” the passageway that would lower like the tongue of a drawbridge. Attached to the steel panel was a hinged extension that would unfold, lengthening the platform, creating a driving surface nearly a hundred feet long, long enough, it was hoped, for tanks to move from the LST itself onto some dry surface. The ship’s draft was shallow enough that in theory torpedoes would simply pass underneath, and once the ship had reached its landing zone, she could push close enough that the tanks, trucks, or jeeps could drive from ship to shore without drowning their crews. Logan learned quickly that shallow-draft ships had one distinct disadvantage, something the British sailors seemed delighted to bring to his attention. With so little of the hull below water, the ships were unstable in rough seas, tossing side to side in even the gentlest swells. It was an observation Logan had made his first hour at sea.
They had embarked from the Clyde, in Scotland, one part of the fleet that grew into a vast armada as they sailed beyond the coasts of England. Around Logan, the rumors had flowed far faster than the rolling sea, and he had tried to distract the torment in his gut by focusing on the astounding variety of claims as to where exactly they were going. Every rumor seemed to originate only from the most reliable source, every man claiming to pass along what had come from the mouth of only the most senior officer. Norway was a popular favorite, as well as France. Some were convinced with total certainty that they were in fact going back home. But Logan knew his stars, had spent too many hot nights on the perfect beaches near his home. The fleet was sailing south, and even the most stubborn had to admit that Norway might not be the destination after all. There was one unmistakable clue: none of them had been issued winter clothing. Those who clung to the idea of a landing on the French coast had to concede that such a journey would take hours, and not days. The talk turned to the Mediterranean, and again, the rumors flowed, word of landings at most points between Gibraltar and Palestine. Logan had kept his own thoughts quiet, silently agreed with those who believed they were heading straight for Rommel.
All along the trip southward, there had been briefings and drills, and Logan had no doubt that the exercises had been more about passing the time than honing their skills. Every crew knew their own tank, knew the sounds and smells, the feel of the steel tread on all types of terrain. But then, one briefing had changed the entire mood of the ship. It was the orders, specific assignments, maps, official and direct, passed through to the officers who would lead each tank squad. And there was news as well, reports from a place called El Alamein, a magnificent British victory, Rommel’s army in shambles. The reports had raised new rumors of course, but one had been put to rest. Their target was not Rommel after all, at least not yet.
Logan had hung on the captain’s every word, the others sitting in a small semicircle as the officer read them their orders. They were part of the Center Task Force, would land to the west of the Algerian city of Oran. The landing zone was designated as Beach X, a small bay, scooped out of the African coast alongside a point of land known as Cap Figalo. The landings at Oran would be a pincer, three prongs, combining infantry and armor. One attack would be aimed at the wharves of the city itself, a quick grab to prevent the French, or anyone else, from scuttling whatever ships were berthed there, possibly clogging the harbor with wreckage. The others would involve more infantry and armor, a rapid deployment across open beaches into short hills. The question in every man’s mind was answered before any of them could voice it. The officers had no idea if anyone was going to be above or behind the beaches shooting at them.
As the ship drew closer to the landing zone, the chatter became intense, low voices, the men revealing fears, curiosity, some speaking too loudly, shows of bravado that masked little of what they fought against inside themselves. Still Logan was mostly quiet, fought the churning in his stomach, magnified now by the raw excitement—when this ship finally came to a halt, he would climb aboard the tank, plant himself in the gunner’s seat, and begin the search for his first target.
Other men were moving toward the rail, and he could feel them, electric energy, men too nervous to sleep. Many were leaning out, trying to see toward the bow, some glimpse of the land that was surely close, brief comments from the ship’s crew that the landing was virtually on schedule. Along the rail, no one spoke, each man deep in his own mind, memories, images private to each one, prayers certainly, letters already written, envelopes marked: In the event I don’t return…
He heard a rumble, stared out toward a flash of light on the horizon. Men pointed, and more flashes came, the sounds reaching them, soft thumps. More men began to gather behind him, questions, and there was a voice, older, the deep, crusty growl of Captain Gregg.
“That’s Oran. They’ve hit the port.”
Logan stared in silence, felt the churn in his gut again, different now. Men were tight along the rail, alongside him, low voices.
“I thought they wasn’t gonna fight back.”
“Looks like a fight to me.”
“Back up, boys.” It was the captain again, Gregg, making his way to the rail. “Get below, prepare to disembark. You’ve got your instructions. You don’t need to be sightseeing up here.”
They began to move away, nervous chatter growing, men stumbling into each other in the dark. Logan waited, saw the short, thick shadow of the captain standing at the rail, staring out, watching the flickers of light to the east. The rumbles continued, and Logan moved closer to the stocky man, said, “How soon till we roll off this ship, sir?”
“Not long. You know where you’re supposed to be, soldier? It’s not up here, is it?”
“No, sir. I’m a tank gunner. Private Jack Logan.”
The captain ignored him, and Logan suddenly felt like an idiot. Yeah, of course, he wants to be my pal. He had always liked Gregg, had noticed him immediately on the grounds of the tank school, a man who drew attention by the way he walked, the orders he gave. Logan had no idea if Gregg had ever been in combat, though he didn’t seem old enough to have been in the Great War. The captain was just one of those men who commanded respect, a hard man who knew his job, none of the meaningless fury that some of the officers spewed out at their men. If you gave him no crap, he gave you none as well. Logan had wondered what the man would be like outside the army, if he was married, kids maybe, destined to follow their father into the service. When they’d first reached England, Logan had wondered if he would actually serve under the man, or if he would see no familiar officers at all, the tank crews scattered. He had heard the officers complaining, and so, more rumors had grown, that the battalion would be reorganized, units shifted from one command to another. But Gregg was still there, would still command the squadron of M-3 Lights, and no matter what kind of enemy they faced, no matter all the talk from the others, jabbering about combat, the unknown, the fear, the stupid bravado, Logan had convinced himself that if there was one man in the First Armored Division who simply had no fear, it was Captain Gregg. It was the one lesson he repeated to himself, that if the men simply did what the captain told them to do, there would be no screwups, no one would have to feel afraid of anything. The captain knows what the hell he’s doing, and if we stick our M-3 close to his, we’ll get the job done and get out of this in one piece.
Logan felt a jolt under his feet, a hard vibration, the ship now stopped completely. Gregg leaned out, stared into darkness, and a man moved past them quickly, his voice low, urgent.
“H hour minus two. Crew, man the plank!”
The voice was British, with the crisp efficiency of the sailors that had impressed Logan as well.
Gregg backed away from the rail, said, “Let’s get moving, Private.”
The captain led the way, and Logan followed, the two men moving toward the steps down to the main deck. Logan followed the stocky man down, reached the bottom, pitch-darkness, his eyes seeking shapes, the columns of tanks waiting for them. He hesitated, could tell that Gregg was still in front of him, and he waited for the man to move forward, to clear the way. The captain dropped to one knee, and Logan was surprised, thought, he’s praying, I guess. Never thought he would have needed that. Move on, let him be. Then the captain bent over, face close to the deck, and threw up.
A fter Pearl Harbor, the lines had wound around the Federal Building in St. Petersburg for more than a block, young men tossing aside thoughts of school and girls and jobs, for a chance to join the army. The posters had been colorful and direct, designed to inspire patriotism, a call to the brave, but the brave didn’t need posters to inspire them. There was glory in a soldier’s life, or so Logan had been told, stories from the older men, his best friend’s father, his own uncles. They spoke of heroes, Sergeant York, Eddie Rickenbacker, of whipping the Hun, marching into Germany to toss Kaiser Bill into a cesspool. But Logan had surprised his friends, had enlisted months before the Japanese attack, when so many still believed the country had no business joining anyone else’s war.
The army was always in his future, the path opened for him before he was born. Those who had joined up before him had seemed inspired by a kind of patriotism Logan couldn’t fathom, so much lust for glory, boys hoping to become men by mimicking Hollywood, Gary Cooper, Clark Gable. Logan had his own hero. His father had been a pilot in the Great War, had flown the absurdly fragile biplanes, had flown once too often, and so, he was still in France, buried in some piece of ground alongside a thousand comrades, some place Logan had never seen. His mother had told him as much as she could, but it was nothing a boy wanted to hear, a widow’s loss, the pain and loneliness. There were no artifacts, no uniforms, none of his father’s legacy except a handful of unmarked photographs. His mother had kept them carefully matted into wooden frames, the usual poses: his father in a uniform; another; a group of men, his father’s squad perhaps, boyish smiles. But Logan’s favorite photo was the smallest, no more than three inches tall, his father standing beside a two-winged Nieu-port, one hand up on the machine gun, the other a fist, raised like a fighter’s, a playful frown. His mother didn’t care for that one, and so, it became his.
The Great Depression had not hit them as hard as it had the cities up north, and even if a man couldn’t find a job with a good wage, he could provide for his family, netting fish, trading for vegetables and fruit from farms that spread out east of Tampa Bay. Logan’s uncle Henry had been the great teacher, had taken the boy out in a wide, flat-bottomed boat, fishing, while the boy stared down into crystal water, watching the trout and mackerel, or the heart-punching glimpse of the big sharks. When Logan was old enough to handle a fishing pole, his uncle revealed the closely guarded secrets, would carve a short stub of a stick to look like a minnow, wrap it in colored ribbon, one handmade hook dangling from the tail. The stick would float, Henry twitching it across the surface of the rippling water, irresistible to the predators below. The watery explosions were a pure delight to Logan, inspiring the boy to learn, and by the time he was ten, the bucket of fish they took home would just as likely have been his. There were other lessons as well, closer to shore, his uncle easing the boat silently past clusters of tangled mangroves, edging into shallow coves, looking for the vast, swirling schools of mullet. They were an easy target for a man like Henry, who had skills with a net that Logan could never match.
The family gatherings were mostly on Sundays, on the wide, breezy beach, the older men carting beer and smoked fish, the women carrying bowls of potato salad and cabbage slaw. Immediately, the small children would scamper away, mothers handling the inevitable crises as tender, bare feet collided with the occasional sandspur. With the beer flowing, the men would tell the stories, but to Logan, they seemed to be more like Hollywood than Hollywood itself. The men would lower their voices, drawing the younger boys in close, would roll out the bawdy stories, risqué jokes, tales of indiscreet French girls and too much wine. It was an annoying mystery to him that the veterans seemed so focused on stories about parties and drunken adventures, as though there had never been a war at all. But Logan had seen the photographs, the film clips, smoke and barbed wire and biplanes swooping out of the sky. In 1918 there had been combat, the dead and dying, outrageous weapons, a horror that swept away ten million men. He wanted a glimpse, some notion of what that was like, and so he pushed them, kept asking the hard questions, began to wonder if any of these men had been there at all, if their stories were more from stateside barrooms than any battlefield in France. He knew from his mother that Uncle Henry had been captured, had at least come face-to-face with Germans.
Even as a teen Logan had a deep curiosity about combat, not what Errol Flynn showed him, but the truth, what the sounds were, the smells, and the hardest question of all, what it was like to kill a man. Logan had rehearsed the questions, then waited for the right moment, a quiet time on the bay when the fishing was slow. His uncle Henry had made a point of avoiding Logan’s specific questions about the war, the fighting, never revealed any more than the others, instead told the same tired tales about adventures in Paris. This time, Logan insisted, probed his uncle for answers, experiences. He pushed him hard, too hard, and his uncle had exploded at him, had seemed to come apart, shouting at him to mind his own affairs. Logan was shocked at his uncle’s response, the man refusing to speak to him for many days. But soon, Henry had rejoined the others at the beach, had returned to entertain the high school boys, regaling them with more of the same harmless adventures. Logan tried to understand, wondered if Henry was embarrassed, ashamed that he had been captured, or perhaps there were memories that Henry had sealed away, secrets that were best left alone.
When Logan enlisted, he had tried to become a pilot, but his unwilling stomach betrayed him, and so, he had taken one piece of wisdom from all the tales he’d heard of the Great War. The veterans had spoken of the brutally absurd marches, comical tirades about endless roads, marches to nowhere that destroyed the feet. Logan absorbed that lesson with perfect clarity. If he was going to be a soldier, he would find some way to avoid the infantry. If he couldn’t fly, he would ride.
T he First Armored Division reached Northern Ireland in May of 1942, the tank crews training there for nearly five months, exercises that repeated many of the same drills and maneuvers Logan had endured at Fort Knox. Northern Ireland didn’t seem that different from Kentucky, enormous fields of green, patches of forest, but the rains were worse, and so the men had to learn to deal with mud, a great deal of mud. He had learned about tanks by training in the M-2, a machine considered obsolete now. With the astounding success of Hitler’s blitz across Europe, the American army had seemed to wake up to the brutal necessity of tanks, as though generals in Washington had completely forgotten their usefulness in the First World War. With the tank battles rolling across North Africa, the urgency for better armor had increased even more, and factories in the States began to churn out hundreds of machines that might at least compete on the battlefield with the exceptional German armor. Most of the heavier American tanks had been sent to the British, but once the American First Armored Division had been mobilized for England, their own tanks had gotten better as well. The M-2 was replaced by the M-3 Light tank, what the British called the Stuart. It was a strange salute from the British, that they would label the American machines with the names of famous American generals, particularly Civil War generals. “Jeb” Stuart had been the Confederacy’s finest cavalry commander, and so Logan had accepted the logic that this new, fast tank was the closest thing the Allies had to a fast armored horse. Another enormous improvement in the M-3 Light had special appeal to a man trained in the handling of rolling artillery. The M-2 had been armed only with machine guns. The M-3 Light had machine guns as well, but now, a real piece of artillery was attached, the turret mounted with a 37 mm cannon.
The Americans had produced a larger weapon as well, the M-3 Medium tank, carrying a 75 mm cannon. Logan had heard enough talk from the tank commanders to know they were proud that the larger M-3s had been sent to the British, were in use now against Rommel, to respond to the power of the German armor. The British referred to the M-3 Mediums as Grants. Logan hadn’t spent much time studying the Civil War, but it made sense to him. The tank with the bigger gun should be named after the man who’d won the war.
LANDING BEACH X, CAP FIGALO, ALGERIA—NOVEMBER 8, 1942
The infantry had gone ashore first, squads of reconnaissance soldiers, fanning out through darkened houses that lay scattered along the beach. Behind them went more infantry, mortar carriers, and machine-gun crews. But for the tanks and heavy trucks, the gaping mouths of the LSTs had not provided easy passage to the beach. Hidden sandbars had nudged the ships to a halt more than three hundred yards from shore. The work had then fallen to the engineers, transport vessels hauling pontoons forward, the engineers working feverishly to hammer together a makeshift bridge. The bridge was only one delay. As the troops rolled ashore, one of the landing craft caught fire, nothing more sinister than mechanical failure. The men on board had safely escaped, but the flames from burning oil had provided an unmistakable beacon for miles in any direction. Any hope that the landings could remain a secret were erased.
By seven in the morning the last of the tank squadrons had rolled ashore, the machines pushing quickly across soft sands. Beyond the beach, the ground rose, a low, rocky escarpment that lined the coast far out in both directions. The reconnaissance battalions had already moved inland, had marked their way along several trails, cut into the crevasses of the escarpment. The trails were wide enough for the Stuarts to pass through, allowing them to climb the rise. The maps showed a single road, leading away from the beach, and the scouts had found that as well, a narrow strip of hard gravel. As the jeeps and light trucks came ashore, the infantry began to push off the beach, a tight column of anxious riflemen, engineers, and gunners, every man wondering when the shooting would start. Far out in the deeper water, British naval warships stood broadside to the shore, the big guns aimed toward the heights, nervous gunners waiting for the orders to fire the first salvo. To all of them the orders were specific and brief and had been passed down from officer to crewman, the same order that the tank commanders had been given, passed from General Oliver to Colonel Todd to Captain Gregg, and finally, to the crews of every tank, and every man with a rifle. The wording varied, but the message was clear: Do not fire upon any person unless that person first fires upon you. But out in front of the tank columns, the infantry had advanced unopposed, had not found a confrontation, had found almost no one at all.
L ogan sat in his perch, could see faint daylight through the magnification of the gunsight. The hatch above him was open, Hutchinson sitting up behind him, head and shoulders exposed. With no enemy yet in front of them, it was the best position for the tank commander to see the terrain, to spot whatever might be waiting for them. Logan shivered, had not stopped shivering since he had climbed down into the tank. Disembarking the LST had seemed to take endless frustrating hours, but once the tank was in motion, the impatience was gone, erased by the hard roar of the engine, the M-3s moving quickly to reach the heights, to find the road, to find out just what was out there. Logan moved his foot lightly over the pedal that fired the cannon, stared out now through the rectangular glass lens of his periscope. No one spoke, all eyes focused forward, watching for any movement, some flash of light, a flare, the streak of artillery fire, any sign the infantry had finally found a fight.
Nothing.
The intercom crackled now, startling him, the sound cutting him through his earphones.
“Easy, screwballs. Eyes sharp.”
It was Hutchinson, beside him, a needless order from a man Logan knew was probably more nervous than the other three men in his command. Brinkley Hutchinson was four years younger than Logan, had earned sergeant’s stripes as quickly as any man in the tank school. He was a Kentuckian, had come to the army from near Lexington, some of the loudmouths in the company claiming that his rise in rank had come only because he lived close to the base, indiscreetly joking that his mother must be friends with the base commander. Logan had arrived there the same week as Hutchinson, heard it every day, a relentless drill sergeant singling the unfortunate man out for his strangely aristocratic name. If the sergeant saw Hutchinson as a target for his sadistic playfulness, the others soon learned that Brinkley hated his name even more than he hated the drill sergeant.
Early in their training, Logan had made friends with the young man, had learned immediately that Hutchinson preferred to keep his privileged upbringing a secret. Hutchinson had none of the aristocrat’s snottiness, had not come into the army looking for a rich boy’s advantages. Logan knew that Hutchinson had earned his sergeant’s stripes only because he was one of the best tank commanders in the company. Logan was certain that in time the aristocratic young man would end up an officer on his own.
Hutchinson commanded Logan’s tank now, fitting well with Captain Gregg’s idea of how an armored squad should be run. To the left, in front of Logan, the driver, Skip Parnell, steered the tank along the narrow ribbon of road, and beside Parnell was the front machine-gunner and assistant driver, Pete Baxter. They were the lead tank in the column, a decision made by the captain. Behind them, nine more tanks spread out in a single, snaking line, half the tank force that had come ashore at Beach X. The rest of the battalion would hold back at the edge of the escarpment, allowing a gap to form in the advance, waiting for the order from the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel John Todd, to move out along the same route. It was a precaution against dive bombers; if enemy planes suddenly appeared overhead, the entire column wouldn’t become one fat target. But so far, there had been no sign of planes at all, no telltale antiaircraft fire from the infantry ahead of them.
The infantry was to move quickly to their first objective, a village called Lourmel, a crossroads, where the primary rail line in this part of Algeria extended east and west, connecting Oran to the border crossings that led into Morocco. At Lourmel, the column would turn eastward, on what was supposed to be a primary highway. That route would lead them toward the crucial airfield at La Sénia, one of two major airfields where the French maintained fighter wings. Whether or not the French had any intention of making a fight, capturing and occupying the airfields was a priority. Both La Sénia and the second field at Tafaraoui could be used by incoming German fighters and bombers, should the French call for reinforcements in counterattacking the Allied invaders. If the French welcomed the Americans as friends, the airstrips would allow British and American transports to begin the enormous job of supplying the men in the field. Tafaraoui was the objective of the easternmost pincer, another heavy column of armor and infantry that was to have come ashore east of Oran, a place designated Beach Z. Only when the armor and infantry forces had established secure bases across Algeria could the next part of the operation begin: the rapid push toward Tunisia, to occupy the primary seaports that had served as the crucial back door to Rommel’s army.
The M-3 had a top speed of just over thirty-five miles per hour, and Logan knew the rhythm of the engine, the familiar whine, the vibrations, knew through the rumble below him that Parnell was following orders, the tank moving only about twenty-five, a precaution to ensure that the column would stay close together. The gray sky above him had grown lighter still, the sun just breaking above the hills to the east, rising directly over the city of Oran, what the maps said was forty miles away. The tank crews knew nothing of the fighting there, no word of how or why there was a fight at all, no word either if the landings at Beach Z had been as uneventful as at Beach X, which, up until now, resembled a training exercise. But the action at the city itself had been serious, heavy artillery, either from British warships or French shore batteries, or both, and Logan had tried to hold on to the images, those curious thumps and flashes of light, the first sign of any real combat he had ever seen. But the dawn had swept it away, his attention focused only on the stretch of road that lay right in front of him, ribbons of tracks from the jeeps and small trucks of the infantry, still advancing far out in front of his gunsights.
They had driven along the smooth roadway for several minutes, Logan’s nervousness fading, the tension in all of them giving way to curiosity. Away from the beach, the ground settled into low, rolling waves of rock and scrub brush. Logan’s view was more limited than that of the other three, but even he could see across the vast stretches of open ground that spread out along both sides of the narrow road. It was no place to hide an army, no suitable spot for any kind of ambush. He heard a crackle in his earphones, the voice of Parnell.
“Hey, Hutch, this looks like home. You sure we’re in Africa?”
“Pay attention, Skip. We’re a long damned way from Texas.”
Skip Parnell had grown up in the rugged scrub country west of San Antonio, was no older than Hutchinson. Logan could only see the young man’s back, knew that Parnell was peering ahead through the driver’s hatch, a flap of steel that opened forward, giving the driver a clear view in front of the tank. The rugged ground spread out in endless gray waves, the road still only a faint, pale ribbon, and Logan thought of their first objective, the details on the map he had been ordered to memorize, Lourmel. Who the hell would build a town out here? He glanced at Parnell’s back again, could hear the man’s drawl in his head, stories of deer hunting and rattlesnakes. Well, somebody had a reason to build Uvalde, Texas, so I guess the damned Arabs can build a place out here. I’m guessing we’ll know it when we see it. This road’s gotta end somewhere.
The earphone spoke, Parnell again.
“Hey, Hutch, I thought there were Frenchies out here. How we supposed to know if they’re friendly if there ain’t nobody home? You absolutely sure we’re in Africa? Leave it to the damned limeys to send us ashore in godforsaken anywhere, and Colonel Todd not to admit that we’re just plain lost.”
The sprawl of words was familiar, the Texan never allowing silence to pass for long. Even through the hard roar of the tank engine, Parnell seemed uncomfortable if no one was talking. Hutchinson responded with his usual reaction to Parnell’s gripes.
“Shut up, Skip. Drive the damned tank.”
They had come more than five miles, no sign of an enemy, no sign of anything but scrub and rock. Logan hadn’t expected this, not after so many days of gut-twisting tension. Every tank crew had been lectured on what kind of fight might be in front of them. They were certainly prepared, loud boasts of confidence, the officers and instructors believing they had the right training and the right equipment. But Logan knew from the low talk, all those prayers and letters home. Every man had wondered if the officers or anyone else could really know what was going to happen, if they would advance their tank straight into some kind of hell. But now, moving deeper into what was supposed to be hostile ground, there was still no enemy, no artillery fire, no greeting at all. And so, the tension had begun to give way to the usual comical bellyaching between Parnell and Hutchinson, exactly as it had been for so many months of training. Logan leaned down slightly, glanced at the back of the man sitting close in front of him. Through it all, Baxter had stayed silent, the fourth man in the crew so quiet he might not have been there at all. He was another man barely twenty, the first soldier to emerge from a family of Indiana farmers. Baxter was small, barely tall enough to qualify for the army, but had made it through training as well as any of the others. His size was an obvious advantage to a man whose seat was forward in the compact hull of the M3.
“You keep your mouth shut about Colonel Todd.”
“Well, hell, Hutch, he’s an officer. Ain’t seen an officer yet who wouldn’t rather be sitting back in some liquor hole, stroking some sweetie. Even Captain Gregg…”
Logan smiled, had heard it before, knew that Parnell was pumping Hutchinson for a reaction, would push far enough to get the usual explosion. He waited for it, but the earphones were silent, and suddenly Hutch’s hand was on his shoulder, a hard grip. Parnell spoke, a single word.
“Hello.”
They had crested a low hill, and Logan saw it now, a dark shape, rolling into the road in front of them. The wireless spoke, orders from behind them, from Gregg, and Hutchinson responded into his microphone. Then the earphones crackled again.
“Driver, halt! Captain says let’s give him a chance to withdraw.”
The tank slowed, then jerked to a stop, and Logan felt the hand on his shoulder again, said, “I got him in the sights, Hutch.”
“He’s not one of us. French uniforms. Where the hell did he come from? The infantry must have run right past him, probably hidden in some hole.”
They were less than two hundred yards from the truck, and Logan watched through his gunsight, the truck moving slowly, turning toward them, halting as well, in the middle of the road. Hutchinson’s voice came again.
“Looks like a fifty caliber. No other vehicles.”
No one spoke, the training in each of them. The intercom belonged to the commander now, and there would be no chatter. Logan put his right hand on the turret wheel, turned it slightly, the hydraulics centering the gunsight just above the hood of the truck. He could see heads, three men, frantic movement, rifles propped up on the windshield, aiming toward…him. Hutchinson’s voice again:
“Easy. Let’s see what they’re gonna do. We can’t fire—”
There were flashes from the truck, the tank suddenly rattled with hard pings, small punches, Hutchinson shouting, “Ahh, damn! Hatches closed! Bastards!”
Hutchinson dropped down close behind Logan now, the hatch above him still gaped open. Hutchinson said, “Son of a bitch! Is he crazy?”
There was a pause, the heavy machine gun on the truck silent, the only sound the low idle of the tank engine. Logan heard the wireless, Hutchinson adjusting his own headset, talking into the microphone, more orders from behind them. Logan felt the hand again, another grip on his shoulder, the voice in his earphones.
“Orders. Gunner…fire.”
Logan leaned forward, his shoulders settling against the curved rests, his heel pressed hard on the trigger pedal. He stared at the truck, could see the men, rifles still pointing at him, a wisp of smoke trailing from the big machine gun. He felt a chill, his heart racing, one word ripping through his brain: stupid…stupid…
He pressed his toe forward and the gun erupted, the recoil of the gun jolting him back. The truck erupted in a flash of fire, black smoke, seemed to come apart, the doors falling away, metal in the air…men. Logan stared into the sight, frozen, felt quick motion below him, Baxter feeding another shell into the gun. Baxter spoke now, the earphones bursting into Logan’s head:
“Loaded. Ready!”
“Hold your fire!”
Logan responded to Hutchinson’s order, raised his foot away from the pedal, realized he was shaking, the cold all through him. Hutchinson stood up behind him, peered above the hatch, and the wireless spoke again, Hutchinson relaying the order.
“Driver, advance. Let’s take a look, Skip.”
The tank rolled forward, the smell of exhaust rolling around them. Logan kept his eye at the sight, a voice in his head, the lessons, watch for movement, watch the fifty cal, someone could still be at the gun. But there was no gun at all now. The truck was on fire, the smoke spilling out to one side, caught by the low breeze.
“Driver, halt.” The tank stopped again, Hutchinson’s voice. “Man those thirties. Could be more around here. Keep an eye out.”
Logan put a hand on the trigger of the machine gun, mounted alongside the cannon, felt for another gun on his right side. The M-3 had five thirty-caliber machine guns, guns that were cursed all through training, the guns that took up precious space inside the hull of the tank. There was silence now, no one cursing anything. He heard Hutchinson speak, outside the tank, realized another tank had moved up alongside. The talk continued, voices, his earphones blocking the words. He shifted to the periscope, saw men in front of him now, walking out past the tank, Gregg, two others. They moved around the truck, away from the flow of smoke, Gregg holding a pistol, the others carrying small carbines, stared at the remains of the truck for a long moment. Gregg moved back toward the tanks again, out of Logan’s sight, more voices, Hutchinson talking, and the earphones coming alive.
“The captain says, good shooting, Jack. He’s cursing the infantry a blue streak. They should have rooted out these guys. They were Frenchies. Hey, Jack, you got our first kill.”
More orders came through the wireless, the command to advance, to continue along the road, seeking targets, seeking the enemy or the town or the airfield. Logan closed his eyes, sat back in his seat, felt the sway of the tank, the rumble beneath his feet, the power. He could still smell the smoke from the cannon fire, the remnants of gunpowder, blending with the exhaust and the dust, coating the insides of the tank, coating his skin, filling his lungs. He had wondered about this moment, what it would feel like, all those questions that his uncle would not answer. At Fort Knox, there had been so much talk about killing the enemy, so much of the training focused on taking the thought out of it, seeing the enemy as the enemy and not as a man. Or a truck full of men. He had wanted to climb out of the tank, to see for himself, to see what Gregg saw, what the thirty-seven had done to those men. It was my responsibility, dammit. He scolded himself, no, it’s not your responsibility, not for this, not for any of it. What if those bastards had had a seventy-five, or a German eighty-eight. I wouldn’t be sitting here having this little chat with myself. We’d be blown to hell, more pieces than that damned truck. That damned truck. The image wouldn’t leave, and he felt angry, thought of the three men, the one in command, the one who’d ordered a fifty-caliber machine gun to fire at this great steel machine. A stupid, moronic mistake. My first kill, and I killed a truck full of idiots.
He opened his eyes now, felt the cool, dusty air swirling through the tank, focused on the periscope. There was silence in the earphones, no more of the chatter, no more playful insults from Parnell, no more Fort Knox and no more Ireland, no more drills and lessons. The training was over.