Child, Lee – The Enemy

‘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

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