PART 1

 

Alison loaded a shell into the breech of the tank’s gun and Claire gave her the thumbs up from the commander’s position. Claire looked outside where the tank was stationary in a wide wooded gulley; not the best landscape for the large tracked vehicle she thought.

 

“Have you sighted the soldiers yet?” Claire asked Sally the gun aimer.

 

“No, I think they are laying low,” returned Sally.

 

“Ok Anna,” Claire said to the driver, “take her slowly ahead.”

 

The loud diesel clattered into life and they could all feel that the cold winter day suited the engine. The tank moved along the gulley, able to drive directly over smaller trees.

 

Claire worried that they were heading into a trap but there was little choice to their current course. She decided not to tell the others of her concerns. Soon the insides of the tank were hot again. It was always like this, she reflected, the engine heated them while on the move, then the cool again while it was turned off and they rested. They all wore slim outfits designed for living in the tank. The material breathed in the hot but kept them warm again when the tank cooled. Claire thought of her life in the tank, as she felt the tracks rumbling over the rough stones of the gulley bed. It had been the same all her adult life, always on the run, always hunting or being hunted by the soldiers.

 

--

 

Further up the gulley the soldiers were waiting. They had come down the sides of the wide misty valley to where the trees were thicker. James eyed his binoculars and said to Peter, his second in command, “No sign of the tank yet.” Steam rose from his mouth in the cold air. Peter took his own binoculars from a bulky pack, “No, I think we have them this time though, they must be following the gulley.”

 

“Definitely, Sir,” added Dave, one of the privates.

 

“This has been a long time coming,” said James, “too long.”

 

He thought of the years they had been trying to catch the tank. Living off the grey land while catching and eating small animals. The land beyond the gullies scared him: vast tracts of waste land where nothing lived or grew.

 

--

 

Claire could see Anna watching carefully ahead through the thick small glass of her driving slit window. Wet sleet was lashing the tank and the little wiper pushed it aside frantically. She could also see Sally eyeing the grey rocky landscape through the gun aimer’s turret windows; Claire knew that all the time Sally made calculations in her head; working out the trajectory of the shells to bombard certain areas she sighted. They had not needed to fire for a few weeks now but always there were calculations, as each new attack could be the last.

 

Claire watched the same scene from her squat commander’s turret. She had a better view of the bleak landscape than the others. She reflected that this could be the reason she was more cautious than them. Her bleak world was bigger. She noted that the trees were thinning here and there were less of the big wood obstacles. The tank had more power in this atmosphere and could drive over most of the saplings. She could see that, unfortunately, up ahead they thickened again. She considered taking the tank up into the land beyond the gullies to loose the soldiers, but she thought that it had absorbed too much radiation the last time. Then the Geiger counter had been beyond maximum, but they had had to stay out of the gullies as the soldiers had been thick then.

 

“Can you see anything of them?” she asked Sally.

 

“No, but I think they must be ahead.”

 

Claire thought of the soldiers. She often felt an overwhelming desire for their big bodies, such a contrast to the slim women in the tank. Why were they like this all the time? She wondered what the war was about. When she saw them stripped to the waist she wanted in invite one inside, but no, this was war and further, she really was very afraid of them.

 

--

 

The soldiers had tracked the tank all day. It was now stopped, resting. They knew it would rest for an hour and they took the chance to rest and eat themselves. A few of the small caught creatures were cooking on the fire. The soldiers were, as was customary, stripped to the waist. This, they knew, made them stronger and James took the cold with a manly strength on his strong body.

 

He thought over their battle plan. The pincer movement was working and, though the tank did not know it, they were finally closing in for the kill. He was looking forward to breaking the tank open and finding out its secrets.

 

“What will we do after we break the tank?” Peter asked him.

 

“Oh there must be more out there to get.”

 

“Do you know of any?” asked Peter, a look of concern on his face.

 

“Sure, don’t you?”

 

“No, not really.”

 

“Well, no time for that now,” said James, dismissing doubts from his head. “We are soldiers, it is what we do.”

 

If anyone else, but his second in command, had said this he would have berated them, but his bond with Peter went back many years. All that time as comrades who could rely on each other in battle. Peter was the person he was closest to. He wanted to stop talking as the same doubts were in his head and he wondered if there was something missing: something he wanted but could not place.

 

--

 

Inside the tank it was quiet again as they ate the rations: small compact pots of nutrition. The cold was coming and after an hour they would have to start the engine or freeze. It was always the way, always had been, thought Claire. She looked though one of the windows, as she ate, at the grey and cold.

 

“Do you think there is more to find out there?” she asked Sally.

 

“No, I think we have it all under control.”

 

“I mean more than this fighting.”

 

“What? I don’t know what you mean.”

 

“No, it is fine,” she said wishing she had said nothing.

 

Claire remained quiet, but worried Sally would think from her comments, that she was no longer an able commander. It had happened before that the gun aimer became the commander. Claire, her world made bigger by the commander’s turret, found it hard to let her mind focus these days. Always now she had small doubts, it had been different when she used to be a gunner like Alison. Just loading the shells and looking after the gun; such a more simple life it had been.

 

Once they had finished eating they fired up the engine again and the tank started to follow the gulley to its final resting place. Little did Claire now that her world was about to change forever.