The Great War of the Quartet (The Imperial Timeline Book 1) (40 page)

Makoto didn’t mind them being way back in the column. After the engagement with the Russians, the whole regiment
had fallen behind and was now far from the bulk of the division. Because of their position this far back, Mou and Makoto had little to do. Akino had to keep listening to the radio, and Kai had to drive the tank, so both Mou and Makoto were left to their own devices after they had cleaned up the tank and were back on the road.

It was nice to get all the empty shells off the floor, and Makoto could lay himself out over the ammunition boxes with a rolled up blanket for a pillow next to Mou. It was a little cramped, but the two were small enough to spread themselves out over the ha
rd boxes.

The weeks they had spent sleeping inside the tank had made them almost impervious to
the discomfort, and Mou and Kai joked about their sleeping conditions being their great sacrifice to the nation. Most tankers were small, and while Mou was virtually the size of a boy, Makoto was no giant. None of the men were tall like strapping infantrymen. The sergeant was the tallest of the crew, but he barely ever left his seat up at the top of the turret where he listened to the radio to make sure that Kai kept the tank exactly where it was supposed to be in the column. Kai and Makoto were probably both just below the average height range for men and Akino and Sergeant Shibui pretty average, but Mou was the odd man out in the group—the bona fide shorty.

Makoto thought it was unfair that he was the only one who couldn’t kill someone
. Mou could tell that he had killed; and both the sergeant and Akino had fired their machineguns. Kai was doing his best, but he had yet to successfully run over a Russian. Makoto on the other hand had no means to kill. Mou had the main gun, the sergeant and Akino their machineguns, and Kai the tracks. Makoto only had his revolver, and a short carbine in case they had to get out and fight outside the tank. But how likely was that? He was starting to feel like Naoki Hiroshi, the stalwart soldier from the comical picture book stories. Like any boy would be, Makoto had been very impressed with Hiroshi and his long-running quest to get to actually kill someone in his monthly adventures. In the end, poor Naoki Hiroshi never manages to do it, bizarre events, freak accidents, and just bad luck constantly getting in his way. The stories were amusing, but nobody actually wanted to be Naoki Hiroshi. There probably was some moral to the story, but Makoto enjoyed the adventures as just a source of amusement, as well as looking out for the unlucky way in which Hiroshi’s schemes all fail and someone else comes out—seemingly from nowhere—and steals the kill away, be they friendly soldiers, wild animals, or something bizarre, like a jealous girl.

Makoto knew that Mom and D
ad wouldn’t be upset if he didn’t kill someone. It wasn’t really what mattered, right? Everyone couldn’t kill a devil, or else how could a heroic ace kill so many of them and still leaving enemies left for everybody to kill? No, some people wouldn’t kill anybody. Mou could do all the killing they had to do, yet Makoto still felt like he wasn’t doing anything. He kept Mou’s gun loaded with shells, but apart from that he was not really feeling like he did anything in combat. It was Kai who drove, Mou that fired, and the sergeant who oversaw the whole thing as the brain of their collective organism, assisted primarily by Akino on the radio.

The engines made the floor vibrate underneath him, but in a good way. It was like a massage of some kind—an ass massage—and it was a far more comfortable place in the crowded vehicle than to sit on the hard seat below the gunner’s seat.
In the corner of his eye, Makoto noticed that Mou was looking at something. Mou was turned over on his side with his back to Makoto. He raised himself just enough to look over Mou’s shoulder to see what it was. It was a small photo of a naked woman smiling. Apart from the young girl Makoto had slept with in Altay, he was not really familiar with women. His access to the picture was suddenly interrupted when Mou quickly pulled the picture away and looked over his shoulder. Makoto realized that there was no point in pretending like he hadn’t been peeking, and he sheepishly smiled. Mou looked a little embarrassed when he tucked away the picture in one of his chest pockets.

“You have a girl?” he
asked.

“No,” Makoto replied.

He didn’t talk all that much with Mou, it was usually just banter. Manly banter, like when they talked about killing.

“My wife wanted me to think of her,” Mou said as he sat up in the cr
amped space behind the driver’s and radio operator’s seats. “I wouldn’t mind seeing her soon.”

Makoto felt bad for peeking on Mrs. Mou. She didn’t look very bad, although obviously Makoto hadn’t seen very many nude women, so it wasn’t easy to tell.

“The war will be over by summer, right?”

Makoto had no idea when the war was supposed to end. Russia was pretty set on destroying Japan, so they would probably have to drive all the way to Petersburg
and beat up that king there. That was a long way from Annam, and Makoto was eager to leave this damn snow behind. As interesting as it had been at first, he had genuinely grown to hate this ugly climate. Human beings weren’t supposed to be in places this cold. It should be warm outside this time of year.

“I hope so,” Mou said absentmindedly.

Takenosuke had written two letters these past couple of days, but he hadn’t had time to mail them just yet. He kept them in his pocket, hoping that there would be time soon to give them to the military postal service so they could be delivered to his home. One letter was for Mom and Dad, and one for his wife. Even though they lived under one roof, Mom and Dad were sure to understand that a man might write things to his wife meant only for his wife—his beautiful little wife. Paying the extra ten sen postage would be worth it so he could make her blush a little.

“You think we’ll drive all the way to Europe?” Makoto asked.

He hardly knew anything about that place, other than that it was the home of the
white ghosts
. He couldn’t quite understand how western Japan was much closer to Europe than it was to his home, but it apparently was. Annam was two thousand miles away from Russia, but the distance from where they were now to Europe was far short of fifteen hundred miles. The scale of these things were difficult to comprehend, and Makoto couldn’t quite grasp how big the world outside Japan could be. Annam Province on its own was a huge place with millions of people, yet that was just a small part of the Empire—even rather small compared to the big provinces like the enormous Great Mongolia Province or the gargantuan Alaska Province.

“I hope not,” Mou said, shrugging his shoulders. “I’m tired already. If it’s this cold here, I’m sure in Europe your piss will freeze up before it hits the ground.”

Makoto smiled, picturing ice piss in his head. Would it freeze inside his dick? He agreed that the
white ghosts
lived in such a nasty place. Perhaps the reason they grew beards was to use as scarves to keep themselves warm. How humans could live comfortably in a place where a hunk of meat could be kept fresh just by putting it outside was a mystery to him. Mongolia was much too cold, and if it kept getting colder, he worried that his nose would freeze off. They had learned about the dangers of cold during training—like how your toes could freeze off if they got too cold.

“I miss home,” Makoto sighed.

“I do too,” Mou agreed. “But we have our duty, right? Once we kill the Russians we’ll go home.”

“Right,” Makoto mumbled with an absentminded nod.

He had no doubt that they would win since the war god Hachiman would protect and aid the Imperial Army. But how long it would take was a different story. The Liberation War had lasted for decades; could this war do that too? He hoped not.

Michael shuddered
as the tank shook, but within just a couple of moment the triumphal exclamation from the sergeant made it clear that the shell had hit its mark—his cheer screeching through Michael’s headphones. The sudden appearance of a Russian tank had made for a tense minute, but with it destroyed he was ordered to continue forward, the whole company advancing in a loose line to push the Russians back after Ivan had descended on their sector with horrible ferocity. Michael couldn’t really do anything. He waited impatiently, unnerved by the long wait. He couldn’t see nearly as much as the sergeant, and through his narrow field of vision he was left to wait for instruction on what to do. It was the others who were the tank’s arm; Michael was just controlling the feet.

He had no idea about the overarching goals of the generals—high and mighty—who had sent them on their mission, but his was to do what needed doing, not second-guess the mission. They had been constantly moving, fighting, and for half a day working on getting the engine up and running after a breakdown for the three weeks with only scattered hours of sleep here and there. The Russians had been attacking
pretty much nonstop for a week, and he had lost track of how many times they had had to restock the ammunition in the dead of night just in case the Russians would attack by dawn—or even in the dark.

The compartment was small, and there was not much space to move around back there, but Michael’s sole task was to get to where they were supposed to go while the sergeant, the gunner, and the loader made sure to keep him safe. All he could do was to listen to what the sergeant told him through the headphones over his cap. He hated the goggles, but he wore them all the same. He felt like an idiot with the headphones over his ears and the big goggles covering half his face. Not that he had too much time to worry about that. Nobody would see him looking like a twit anyway.

The company had lost six tanks in less than a month, two of which had been lost with the whole crew rather than just a couple of fatalities or injuries. It was a sobering thought to think how quickly so many comrades could die, and Michael couldn’t wait for more infantry to replace them with artillery pieces to hold back the Russians from proper defensive positions. It was a waste to use tanks as mobile artillery, going back and forth to counterattack in order to break off Russian attacks, and it increased the risk of falling victim to an ambush. The forest and the surrounding area was becoming an armored cemetery since there had not been that much time to remove destroyed vehicles, and the recovery only focused on machines that were seemingly salvageable by field mechanics working to get them running again.

The field of vision he had through the front of the tank left him unable to see much around the tank, and whenever they moved without infantry support he imagined a little Ivan creeping up with some tank-busting bomb like they would do in his nightmare vision—and he felt really paranoid about the threat. He forced those thoughts away, appreciating instead the recent kill. How many did that make it? By his count, that should have been their seventh armored fighting vehicle, and maybe if they kept this up they would end up being interviewed by correspondents from a paper. Maybe get their picture taken by a war photographer. Or they’d just get killed chasing all that honor. It seemed safer to just do the job and not go out of your way and try for the extra mile that might just lead to a pretty ugly place.

The sergeant ordered him to press on after the short duel, and the engine revved up as the big vehicle started moving again. The woods and the ridges made it difficult to see, especially when a ditch or some other significant unevenness made the tank go upwards or downwards and mess up his view of what was ahead of them. It was really the sergeant who had to keep his eyes on the ball and look out for the enemy and guide Michael through all the ups and downs.

Werner kept radio contact with the rest of the platoon, and the constant dialogue between him and the sergeant left Michael with some semblance of understanding a bit of what was going on outside their steel casket with treads. Why wasn’t there at least a couple of infantry guys out here to add some extra perspective and protection from sneaky little Ivans? Dying from an anti-tank shell was one thing, but dying from a bomb carried by just some guy would be ridiculously easy to avoid.

All of this going back and forth to envelop and destroy the Russian attacks was exhausting work, and he remembered going over pretty much this exact same spot the other day when the Russians made a previous attempt on their positions. God, when would they stop doing this? Hadn’t they lost enough tanks to call off their attacks?

“Dammit, there’s another,” the sergeant snapped, but Michael hardly had time to register it before a loud crack shook the tank.

“Turn just a couple degrees to the right, you should see it,” the sergeant snapped, hardly letting the men even feel the discomfort of the blow before he yelled for the gunner.

Michael was as calm as he always was, surprising himself by his discipline. Like the sergeant had said, he only had to pivot the tank a little to bring the two tanks facing each other about half a mile apart. The Russian tank was right up on a slight elevation, and from its position it must have just been driving on its merry way before spotting them and firing off a shell. Like two one-eyed men accidentally bumping into each other. Thank God it had been a lousy hit.
Fucking worthless Russian trash!

“Again, again,” the sergeant yelled after the gunner hit the tank with little apparent effect.

Another tank in the section missed it, and Michael couldn’t really do anything but pray that the guys back there would hit. His job was done, and his fate was in other people’s hands. The fact that they had been hit while moving made Michael fear that the Ivan in that tank was some kind of sharpshooter who could hit a fly a mile away. Everybody said that the Russians were stupid peasants, but this might just be that one damned exception. That one guy who’s bitch of a mother hadn’t been knocked up by her drooling brother.

It felt like forever, and he just kept mumbling to himself, cursing his comrades for being so slow. The sergeant was all over the poor little guy back there for firing too low while he was aiming the gun in the hope that this next one would be the lucky charm. Michael glanced over at Werner, but the radio operator was staring straight ahead, like an entranced lunatic who could see nothing but that rough steel shape they were facing off against.

Come on, come on
…
We don’t have all fucking day here!

Together with Werner he stared at the tank as if by some miracle his eyes would shoot lightning bolts and destroy the Russian tank. Before the gun fired again, Michael could see smoke billowing up from the Russian tank. It was on fire! God, bless them! The shell slammed the Russian tank, but despite not doing much good, the Russian tank was obviously on fire.

“Eat it Ivan, eat it,” the sergeant cheered when he saw that the Russians had started to fry. “He’s done for,” he curtly added, back at his usual calmness in a snap. “Is everyone okay?”

“I—I think so,” Michael hesitantly said, loud enough for the sergeant to hear him
through the intercom.

Once the sergeant was satisfied that the hit hadn’t penetrated the armor, he ordered Michael to move forward again
, and the tank just started to move when the ammunition in the Russian tank ignited, and the turret popped off the tank, falling to the side like the head of a decapitated animal.

“Let’s give it to Ivan,”
the sergeant gleefully exclaimed, keeping his cheer despite the circumstances.

Michael would have felt a lot more relieved if this would have been the end, but apparently the platoon would keep on going. Maybe next time one of the other bloody tanks could actually see Ivan before he fired his first shot.

As they rolled in the direction of the burning Russian tank, Werner fired a few bursts from his machinegun at it in case some of the Russians had crawled out, and he was obviously excited as they moved closer, keeping an eye out to see if any of the little Russians would pop up into his sights. He seemed pretty excited about killing the little rats.