‘I’m going to bed,’ I said.
My VOQ room was so generic I lost track of where I was within
a minute of closing my door. I hung my uniform in the closet
and washed up and crawled between the sheets. They smelled
of the same detergent the army uses everywhere. I thought of
my mother in Paris and Joe in D.C. My mother was already in
bed, probably. Joe would still be working, at whatever it was he
did. I said six a. rn. to myself and closed my eyes.
Dawn broke at 0650 by which time I was standing next to
Summer at XII Corps’ east road gate. We had mugs of coffee in
our hands. The ground was frozen and there was mist in the air.
The sky was grey and the landscape was a shade of pastel
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green. It was low and undulating and unexciting, like a lot of
Europe. There were stands of small neat trees here and there.
Dormant winter earth, giving off cold organic smells. It was
very quiet.
The road ran through the gate and then turned and headed
east and a little north, into the fog, towards Russia. It was wide
and straight, made from reinforced concrete. The kerb stones
were nicked here and there by tank tracks. Big wedge-shaped
chunks had been knocked out of them. A tank is a difficult
thing to steer.
We waited. Still quiet.
Then we heard them.
What is the twentieth century’s signature sound? You could
have a debate about it. Some might say the slow drone of an
aero engine. Maybe from a lone fighter crawling across
an azure 1940s sky. Or the scream of a fast jet passing low
overhead, shaking the ground. Or the whup whup whup of a
helicopter. Or the roar of a laden 747 lifting off. Or the crump of
bombs falling on a city. All of those would qualify. They’re
all uniquely twentieth-century noises. They were never heard
before. Never, in all of history. Some crazy optimists might
lobby for a Beatles’ song. A yeah, yeah, yeah chorus fading
under the screams of their audience. I would have sympathy for
that choice. But a song and screaming could never qualify.
Music and desire have been around since the dawn of time.
They weren’t invented after 1900.
No, the twentieth century’s signature sound is the squeal and
clatter of tank tracks on a paved street. That sound was heard in
Warsaw, and Rotterdam, and Stalingrad, and Berlin. Then it was
heard again in Budapest and Prague, and Seoul and Saigon. It’s
a brutal sound. It’s the sound of fear. It speaks of a massive
overwhelming advantage in power. And it speaks of remote,
impersonal indifference. Tank treads squeal and clatter and the
very noise they make tells you they can’t be stopped. It tells you
you’re weak and powerless against the machine. Then one track
stops and the other keeps on going and the tank wheels around
and lurches straight towards you, roaring and squealing. That’s
the real twentieth-century sound.
We heard the XII Corps Abrams column a long time before
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we saw it. The noise came at us through the fog. We heard the
tracks, and the whine of the turbines. We heard the grind of
the drive gear and felt fast pattering bass shudders through the
soles of our feet as each new tread plate came off the cogs and
thumped down into position. We heard grit and stone crushed
under their weight.
Then we saw them. The lead tank loomed at us through
the mist. It was moving fast, pitching a little, staying flat, its
engine roaring. Behind it was another, and another. They
were all in line, single file, like an armada from hell. It was a
magnificent sight. The MIA1 Abrams is like a shark, evolved to
a point of absolute perfection. It is the undisputed king of the
jungle. No other tank on earth can even begin to damage it. It
is wrapped in armour made out of a depleted uranium core
sandwiched between rolled steel plate. The armour is dense and
impregnable. Battlefield shells and rockets and kinetic devices
bounce right off it. But its main trick is to stand off so far that