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.