At the gates of El Alamein — December 19, 1941
The engine vibrated like a restrained heartbeat. They weren't moving yet. They weren't firing. They were just waiting. The tank stood in position, half hidden behind a sandy rise, with the gun aimed eastward.
Inside the Panzer IV, the silence was dense.Each one breathed, but did not speak. Each one lived—but inwardly.
**
Lukas had his eyes fixed on the small silver cross swinging gently in front of him. María's medallion caught slivers of sunlight that slipped through the narrow hatch slit. He had read her letter so many times he knew it by heart. Still, he kept it in his pocket, carefully folded, as if holding it closer might help him better understand the language of the heart.
He wasn't thinking about the battle.He was thinking about her voice.And whether he would ever hear it again—without the roar of steel in between.
**
Konrad had his eyes closed, but he wasn't sleeping. He was remembering. Poland. The Ardennes. The burning houses of Kyiv.He knew how many shots he had fired. How many had landed. How many men had died before they even had time to scream.
He didn't regret it.But he had started counting the silences.And those were worse.
**
Ernst stared at an old, creased photo he kept tucked in his inner pocket: a wooden table, three smiling faces: his brothers.One in the Kriegsmarine. The other, still at home with their parents. And him, the middle one, the strong one—the one who'd "handle any front."
He thought about his mother. Whether she still sent letters.Whether home still existed.Whether they thought of him, too… as if he were already far gone.
**
Helmut wasn't looking at anything. Just thinking.Why were they fighting the British?
He heard them on the radio. Their voices weren't monstrous. Their commands were identical. Same fear. Same strategies.Sometimes he couldn't tell if they were the enemy… or just another reflection of themselves.
**
Falk, perched at the hatch, saw everything—and yet stared at nothing.
He didn't hate the British.He saw them as soldiers. Professionals. Capable.But not enemies. Not like Russia.
Not like that muddy, fiery, fanatical beast that had breathed down his neck outside Kyiv.
He fought for his crew. So they wouldn't be alone. So he wouldn't fail them.Politics, the Reich, the orders… all of that was noise.
He saw objectives.And every time he fired, it was to bring the others home.
**
The engine growled again. The radio crackled. The offensive would begin soon.But in that moment, inside the tank, the silence still belonged to them.And beneath the steel, more than soldiers, they were just men trying to stay human.