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"Porta whinnies with pleasure and offers her a seat on the rotten bench we are occupying.
She laughs, the sound ringing deep into the woods. She is standing with the sun behind her and we can see her body in silhouette. Her grey summer uniform skirt is made of thin transparent material. We'd like to stay there for ever. Her hair is long and golden, like a ripe cornfield. She cannot speak German and we have to make ourselves understood in a queer kind of lingua franca. Porta speaks something he says is Finnish, but the girl doesn't understand him.

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"After the fall of Kharkov the 27th Regiment was withdrawn and sent to Dnepropetrovsk, where we were allotted the armoured train 'Leipzig'. As soon as we were installed, we and another armoured train went to Kharol, 100 kilometres west of Poltava, where we did some firing practice to get acquainted with our new guns. We five were allotted a coach: The Old Man was coach commander and Porta was in charge of the eight machine guns and three automatic cannon; Stege was in charge of No. 1 Turret and I of No.

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It is 526 B.C. and the empire of the Pharaohs is dying, crushed by the weight of its own antiquity. Decay riddles its cities, infects its aristocracy, and weakens its armies. While across the expanse of Sinai, like jackals drawn to carrion, the forces of the King of Persia watch . . . and wait.

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He lived in the shadow of kings. One trusted him with his empire; the other feared his every move . . .
Memnon of Rhodes (375-333 BCE) walked in the footsteps of giants. As a soldier, sailor, statesman, and general, he was, in the words of Diodorus of Sicily, “outstanding in courage and strategic grasp.”