Since their advent in the First World War, tanks have been essential to combat. They can penetrate enemy territory, and provide the holy grail of all warfare, destroying the enemy's capability to wage war. They are real-world dragons, unleashing fire on whom or what they want to destroy, protected by thick armour, seemingly able to go wherever they want.
But, as in mythology, in the real world too, some heroes take on these dragons. With other tanks, with anti-tank artillery, and in some cases, like the mythological heroes, they stand up to the dragon's fire and destroy the dragons.
This is the story of such a hero.
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As a child, he had been fascinated by dragons. His mother had read those tales to him when he was very young. And as he grew older, he would read every story, every myth, from around the world that he could pick up at the local library, or later on, at college.
There it was - a dragon. A big one. It had come out of nowhere, engine roaring, long snout belching the first of the shells that hit the command car of the little convoy. Before they could react, the second vehicle, a truck, was in flames, his friends dead or dying, pitiful remains of what had been human, lying scattered around the track.
They had jumped out of the other two trucks, right into a hail of machine-gun fire from the tank. A mand scramble, and he now lay in a slight depression along the track, momentarily safe from the searching eyes of the monster. The roaring of the dragon filled his ears. rising above the screams of the dying, the burning men, above the crackle of flames from the burning vehicles. The very ground shook as the tank moved forward, its guns hungry for prey.
Near him lay one of the bazooka men of the unit. Machine gun bullets had found him, cut him almost in half as he had been trying to aim the little peashooter of a bazooka at the monster.
He was safe now. He wanted to remain safe. To remain hidden while the dragon destroyed others, rampaged among the few men that had survived. But that is not how you fight dragons. Not how St. George, or Jupiter, or Uttanka, or Beowulf would behave.
A short crawl took him to the dropped bazooka, already loaded by the unfortunate operator, and he was on his feet, aiming the unwieldy weapon over his shoulder. The monster came in focus through the aiming slot, and he saw the machine gun turn towards him. His fist tightened on the launching trigger, there was a whoosh of smoke and flame from the bazooka, as the rocket soared towards the dragon. And the machine gun bullets reached him.
They found him with a big smile on his face, seemingly unaware of his life's blood pumping out. "Tell Mama", he whispered, brokenly. "I killed the Dragon".
The tank burned in the background.
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