Level: Observer

1947 AD
“Don’t move!” Tom whispered in German, holding his knife blade to the girl’s throat.
“But my brother will hear us!” she hissed back, struggling to escape his grip.
Tom squeezed her neck so tightly that she couldn’t breathe properly, making her voice rasp.
“You know what I want?” he hissed.
“Yes. I won’t struggle or scream, if you let me go.”
Tom slid his hand inside her flimsy nightgown and cupped a breast. It filled his hand, impossibly warm, soft and soothing against the terrible suffering of War. He felt her tremble, but the sound of effort in her voice, as if she were trying to hold back the urge that Tom believed all women couldn’t resist, excited him.
“Any sound, and you die. And your brother.”
Water in a cup, left on a sideboard, caught Tom’s eye. Blacker than ink, it drew his gaze inexorably, inexplicably, hypnotising him. Its very blackness seemed to expand until it engulfed everything. And yet, a dim light seemed to shine from the inky blackness. He almost let go of the girl for a moment, and she struggled, so he tightened his grip. Tom only tore his eyes away from the black water when a door opened. The brawny man from the bakery stepped out, sucking on a wine bottle.
The two men stared at each other. Tom almost screamed, because the man had no eyes, only endless depths of blackness. Tom looked desperately for any light in those black sockets while letting go of the girl.
Her brother pulled a revolver out of his pocket and before Tom could react, pointed it at the intruder and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
Swearing in German, the man grabbed his sister and backed toward his door.
The day had started quietly:
“All crews to stay in bunks, and that is an order! O-ffi-cial blanket drill!” Above the moans of the four tank crews in the tent, the corporal continued under his breath, “Scuttlebutt is; the next is the last action. After that, it’s home to your sweet-hearts fellas!”
“Brindley, you ninety-day wonder,” somebody shouted. “Why the fuck didn’t you let us get an extra hour instead of waking us then? Asshole!”
“You know what that means? No battle breakfast!” shouted somebody else.
“Sheet!” Deak added. “K–rations! That means biscuits and black coffee! Hardly ambrosia for the gods of death, is it?”
When they finally staggered out of the tent in their camp near ten miles from the Czech border, Lieutenant Thompson ‘Tom’ Merriweather finished shaving and waited for his crew.
“May 1947 and the War’s still on,” Deak continued to moan. “I haven’t had bacon and eggs since leave after Bastogne! And that was nearly a year ago!”
“Well, make yourself fit to look at and we’ll go into town and see what we can find!” Tom said, waving a wad of five-dollar bills. “My treat!”
His men met the offer with a general cheer of excitement and “Amen!”
The blonde had been wrapping a stale half-cake in the bakery next to a brawny man, a few years older than her. She smiled when she gave the half-cake to the short, but muscular and handsome, Lieutenant. When the lights had gone out in the tent in the camp that night, Tom sneaked out, making the excuse to a sentry that he wanted a smoke, but he had strolled back into town. He found the wooden door at the side of the bakery unlocked, slipped into the back garden unnoticed and jimmied a window. Unfortunately, the girl had heard him trying the doors and turned the landing light on to investigate.
Now, the German began to pull the door closed, but stopped he heard a voice outside.
“Lieutenant Merriweather! You in there?”
Still unable to move, Tom watched the German close his bedroom door.
Tom’s gunner, Chey ‘Mickey’ Ortego, cupped his hands in the street again and shouted:
“You have to be back in base in thirty minutes or they’ll send the pigs after you!”
Tom shook himself out of his shock and made a hasty retreat from the house.
“Goddam! Why do I always have to dig you out of messes?” the broad-faced, taciturn gunner said when Tom emerged through the gate, pushing a bang of greased black hair back off his forehead.
“How the fuck did you know I was in there?”
“Somebody said there was a pretty, blonde frau in the bakers. We all know what you are like. Pressburger has a briefing at 04.00 hours.”

---

4th May, 1947
Dawn didn’t so much break, as inveigle, its way into the darkness. Thick fog caused drops of ice cold water to drip off everything, soaking the Sherman engines’ spark plugs and making them reluctant to start. But now the steady rumble of the V8s in the gaseous Hades between silent trees added a hypnotic quality, which soothed the crews.
Tom smoked a Lucky Strike while waiting outside Pressburger’s command tent. He recalled a vision he had while smoking his first cigarette in his bunk that morning. First, he had noticed the tent canvas shimmer, as if it wasn’t quite there. A slim man with dark hair and a beard looked at him, while holding a wooden cup between hands, palms pressed flat against the cup in the praying position. The face smiled at Tom, whereupon he noticed the libation in the cup to be completely black, blacker than ink. Staring at it gave him a warm feeling.
The pre-dawn briefing didn’t start well for Tom:
“Merriweather, that’s the third time you have gone AWOL under my command,” Pressburger bellowed, throwing down a wad of maps. “If you weren’t the best tank crew I have, you would be up for Courts Marshal. Just once more and … .” He left the consequences hanging.
While staring back at Pressburger Tom remembered the man at the bakery with no eyes, sockets that had seemed completely cold. Then Tom found he couldn’t remember what Pressburger had just been saying to him.
“You listening to me Merriweather?”
“Yes sir.”
The other five tank commanders, the last left in the 4th Armored Division’s 51st Armored Infantry Battalion, glanced at Tom, but he stared ahead, stone-faced.
“Now, down to business,” Pressburger continued. He rolled out a large map on a table and stuck his finger onto a black spider. “This here, is Pilsen. That’s where we’re going. Patton just got the go-ahead from Eisenhower and Bradley to invade Czechoslovakia. But we’re not to go beyond Pilsen. Why Pilsen?”
Pressburger looked at his men, as he were a teacher asking for a pupil to volunteer an answer. His men put this attitude down to his training as a teacher in a former life, but they still resented it. He had to answer the question himself:
“There’s the Skoda factory there, which the High Command want. We need to get there before Czech, Kraut forces capitulate, which judging by the strength we have seen lately, is probably going to be no later than the 10th May.”
“Why not wait until then?” Tom asked. “Then send a delegation?”
“Because, son, the Russkies are coming from the East and they might just get a delegation there before us. Now, we don’t expect the border to be heavily guarded, but then again, we are not exactly titans of the battlefield any more. Your six tanks will go ahead, followed by the infantry and supply trucks. I’m holding the half-tracks back, in case we need to get reinforcements to you quickly, or get wounded out.”
Tom glanced at the other five commanders to show his doubt.
“Just to the south of us is this road, the main road between Deggandorf and Pilsen. Only we’re not going to Pilsen, we’re diverting south to Ceske Budejovice. But that’s for later. Now, this road is wide enough for two of you, but keep single file. There may be mines. When you reach this crossroad, you will be at the border. Watch out. If there are any Tigers or what have you, they’ll be there. I’ll have four brigades each side of you to outflank ’em, if they are dug in. And there’ll be sappers behind ’em. Just keep going down this road as far as you can by… oh, about 4 pm. Pull up and radio what you see. If you see anything at all, I’ll be surprised! Within two days, with any luck, we’ll be in Strakonice. Any questions?”
“Yes. Can we have two platoons with us sir?” Tom asked.
“I can’t spare two.”
“One then. Give me Sweetwater. He’s good at this sort of thing.”
“But you’ll be moving fast. You would have to carry them.”
“Fine sir. He’s short anyway, so I think we can do it.”
“Very well. Brief him soon as you can.”
“Half-tracks held back in case we’re overwhelmed. Brigades to outflank ’em, if they’re dug in!” the shaven-headed commander to Tom’s right said, as they strode toward the mess tent.
“Concerned for our welfare Hardtail?” Tom replied.
“More than he is!” the other commander added.
“Yeah, and all we have to do is keep goin’!” Hardtail added.
“Quit belly aching!” Tom cut in, spitting on the ground. “Let’s just get this over with, before I start thinking too much.”
“You never think at all!” Hardtail concluded.
Within the hour, a platoon had lined up next to the six tanks, Tom’s with the name Carla painted in white on its turret, and radios had been checked.
“Mount up Lieutenant Sweetwater! Let’s move out. We’re lead tank, as usual!” Tom said, climbing onto the hard seat in the upper turret and settling his gloved fists on the hatch rim and his chin on his fists. He stared morosely into the gloom.
“Anything you say Tom!” the driver yelled.

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