HaM Ch 35

Heads up: this is a long one and has fight scenes. Honestly I’ve had this ready since Wednesday but I never got around to posting it, sorry.

Ch 35

“So how were your travels down?”

“It was fairly hard and long. We tried to spark up conversations with Allison and Major Idek but he limited the conversations topics to only tactics, asking where your training was when I left and what the schedule was. He also asked how many tanks had minimal crews; he was generally focused around military propaganda and how we’re going to win. I’ll admit, he is pretty good at motivating you. That being said he’s a perfectionist.”

“We noticed.”

“He’s instilling it into Allison; I really don’t want a death-head tank. He straightened her so much I think there’s a legitimate iron rod in her engine he uses to right her if she is wrong.” That made Marion’s engine ache with sympathy pain. “So much is he instilling it he rerouted the train to where the Jews are. He stopped the train outside of one and told us to admire in Aryan strength. He made me take pictures to use to remember not who we’re fighting, he doesn’t view them as whos, and he told me to use them to remember what we’re fighting. I can’t describe them.” Eryka handed him the pictures, he thanked her and held up the pictures. They were of the concentration camp fences, the workers literally worked to the bone, the dead simply piled up, the massive ditches that Eryka could sit in that were filled with bodies, and he said that it smelled like burning meat and flesh for miles. Banker, who was the closest to the pictures, flew over them with his eyes, he turned pale, and he gagged and wobbled. His skin turned white and cold to the touch, an icy chill shot through his body. “The worst part is he convinced Allison this was right, she awed at the camp, she was moved by it, not like we are, no, moved more like Major Nazi is. That was when we thought for sure she was too far gone.” Banker pointed at one picture.

“Those are children!”

“Yes, there are women here,” Eryka showed on a picture, “these elderly people went into that building. The Major said it’s the best way to kill them-gas chamber.”

As the group looked through the pictures that were kept well out of Cindy’s innocence, Cindy called out “Mary, Mary, look! Is that your sister?” She was pointing at E; they had gotten back from their voyage.

“No, sweetie, that’s my replacement.”

“Actually,” Eryka started, “plans are I replace you and the E-75 replaces the Tigers.”

“So does that mean you’re being kick out of the army?” Cindy asked, though she was mentally about eight she knew that she needed Marion to get her home.

“No dear, they’ll use me until I die.” Hansel again realized what she was, a weapon of war owned by the government. He thought long and hard about it, about how he could keep her as his own. He figured he could use his pay in his favor, buy her freedom as soon as he can afford it by staying in the army. That’s the plan he came up with, that’s the plan he’ll follow. E and Irish came over, talked to them for a while, and looked at the pictures and learned more details about the SS Major. After that Irish and E went to the other and met with them and then the Major and Allison then they hung out with their friends. After a few days they began the assault.

They got their orders almost at last minute and moved to assault the thinly protected Allied line. News from forward assaulting forces was inspiring, the American line was crushed and they were plowing through the defenses. Because resources were few everything was allotted, not everybody had their maximum capacity for ammunition. The mediums especially suffered. The force was moving through the remains of the battles, nothing but some obliterated fox holes, body bags, destruction, trees splintered about ten feet above the ground, blood stains in the snow, and a few light skinned vehicles that were left to burn. Marion tried to keep Cindy away from the bodies but a child’s curiosity is a hard thing to control. Cindy got close to one body and only one body; she never left Marion’s side after that sight. Every day the sound of battle grew closer as they moved up to relieve units, every day Marion feared for Cindy’s wellbeing, every day she thought about the things that could happen to her human crew. Every day her nightmares grew worse. She felt an eagerness to fight, they all did, but the fear of death lingered in everyone’s minds.

They started to notice that the units ahead moved so fast they left pockets of U.S. infantry behind, four times they were shot at by small arms, Cindy herself was shot at, the soldiers thinking that she was a captured Sherman being used by a German crew in need. The soldiers were dealt with swiftly but they went down like mad dogs, every one of them gave it their all. Hansel’s group had never encountered resistance so close before, he and his team marveled at their supreme bravery. While a mass of prisoners were taken, most of them were still bitter like they were ordered to surrender rather than willingly die for their cause, at least it seemed that way. All of their training proved itself, Eugene and Karl would suppress the sharp shooters while Marion or another tank dealt with hard resistance, and burst made at Eugene and Karl either missed or bounced off Marion’s armor. While that happened the infantry would enter the area and eliminate any threats. Because of her classification, Marion was put with heavies and Hansel was posted in direct command of three Tiger Is. They were three of four dead-metal Tiger Is; the other two were with Griffin and Gretchen under command of Fritz and Edwards. The tank destroyers were under the command of Jäger and they consisted of Rosa, Hetz, the Marders, and Frau, Frau was more of an assault gun so she more so went with the mediums. The mediums were formed into two teams; the first was Mini-Rommel, Kramia, Erin, and Faust, their commander wasn’t really met by them. The second group of mediums was led by Canine and that was the rest of the mediums, Frau, and the reconnaissance vehicles like Kitty the Puma and Selig the SdKfz 251, she had a Pak 40 mounted on her. The experimental vehicles were under command of the Major and consisted of Allison, Eryka and E.

Early one morning they encountered a village not on the map but it was on the route. The Colonel gave the go ahead and the first medium group and Marion’s heavy group entered with support of Kitty. The multistory houses formed to ninety degree turns before it opened up and crossed a bridge over the river. The experimentals sat on the hill that overlooked the bridge and had a small line of sight between two buildings that was in view of the road to the bridge. Faust was sent in first, then Marion followed, Cindy sat back with Frau and Canine. Then there was Kitty behind Marion in place to swoop around any dug in gun positions. From a building a rocket flared into the street at Faust. They instantly tried to turn towards them but the rocket missed and hit a church steeple, falling debris fell on Faust’s turret skirt and fell in on her right side.

“You okay, Faust?” Anton asked worried.

“I’m fine, baby.” She responded as she gave a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

“Load high explosive!” The commander yelled. Anton caught the AP shell spat out by Faust’s gun and replaced it with HE. With a ‘gun ready’ the gunner shot into the second floor. The wall exploded into pieces of bricks, wood, and furniture. They slowly advanced forwards, they came up to the second bent left and this is when Marion would take point. Faust moved along to the sidewalk of the road and had her gun down the road to cover Marion. As the length of the road came into view there sat an American Hellcat tank. “Fuck! Fire!”

Immediately they fired at the tank hunter, it harmlessly drove into the ground and the Hellcat returned the favor. Instantly Faust felt a stinging pain towards her rear, and felt hot liquids spew in her engine and crew compartment. Instantly a fire started. The crew raced to bail but Anton’s hatch was stuck, debris had locked it shut. As the fire heated her few shots left she wrapped all her arms around him and held him. The shots exploded and all anyone saw was fire, smoke, liquid metal and shrapnel tear through her sides and shoot out the hatches. The Hellcat had retreated behind a lone building.

Hansel watched in horror. His heart raced when he saw the fire spike up on Faust’s engine deck then he had indescribable fear as it exploded. Faust still sat there mostly intact, crying. Hansel screamed no repeatedly, he had nothing but instinct to guide him. He tore open Marion’s hatch and vaulted himself out, Marion tried to catch him but missed. Hansel fell into the snow and madly raced to Faust. Marion moved forward but looked for that Hellcat, she saw it looking at her frontal from behind the building when all of a sudden the wall exploded and a shot ripped its way through the Hellcat. Instantly smoke bled into the sky and the crew abandoned, Marion turned all attention to Hansel and plucked him off of Faust, who was crying and convulsing. Hansel resisted all restraints Marion made, he was dropped and he turned into a raging beast, he watched as the Hellcat crew survivors ran into a bar. Hansel ran blindly into the building, Meats ripped the MG-42 off the interior wall and stood in the commander’s hatch. Infantry raced to the bar to deal with the personnel while Marion moved in front. Hansel ran into the bar and knocked the pistol out of the American’s hand, decked him in the jaw, kneed him in the gut then tackled him. They struggled and ended up with Hansel straddling the American and choking him out. He only stared at his hands in blood boiling rage, not flinching to the American’s attempts to save his life. The other survivors stood up from behind the counter with grease guns. Before they did anything else they were cut down by Meats and the MP-40 soldiers. Hansel choked his enemy out until his face was purple. He stood up over him and admired at what he did. He wiped blood from his ear and walked back to Marion. She picked him up and put him inside. He started to cry. The town had no other incidents and was moved through with only Faust as the tank casualty, the whole time she and Hansel cried.

They pressed on, the next day they were on the edge of Bastogne, the city rooftops were in view. Hansel had somewhat recovered and was commanding his Tigers in a arrowhead formation. They advanced in a field when all of a sudden American AT guns opened fire from a forest position. The guns bounced off the heavy armor and after a few tries were zeroed in on and dealt with ease. Hansel commanded forward when one last shot tore through the trees and destroyed a Tiger to Marion’s right.

“WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED!?” The Tiger exploded, no American tank has ever done that, no American gun can do that, not from the front nor this far. The Tiger to the right was hit in the lower glacis plate and disabled the transmission. “What the FUCK!?” From the trees a Tiger tank came out, covered with big white stars.

“A fucking tiger?! Why-” the commander asked terrified as a shell from the American Tiger shot off the antenna.

“ALL GUNS FREE!” Hansel yelled, almost in unison the German force fired but the one without the antenna fired in response, one grazing off the turret, Marion’s flying under the belly, another bouncing off because of his angle, and the last one glanced off the roof. “FIRE AT WILL! FIRE AT WILL!” The Tigers’ and Panthers’ suspension was designed to keep the tank as steady as possible so that firing on the move would be more accurate, even with this improvement it was still tricky business and undisciplined to fire on the move. Given the opposition, moving targets are also harder to hit. Shot after shot flew at the Tiger, most missing or glancing off hardened points. The American Tiger was well disciplined, after a German volley he stopped and fired off a shot before moving again, this hurt Hansel’s task force. Hansel dispersed the formation sending them to angle themselves; soon the only one who could pen the other was Marion. She was loading AP and punched him right in the center of the flat hull plate. She expected the crew to bail but Hansel and Whacker knew better, German hulls were very sound integrity wise. It instantly fired upon her, trying to hit her lower but hit high. That was the worst hit she’s ever felt and jerked her response of another shot, it passed right by the Tiger.

“Marion you need to his the corners!” Whacker yelled, Hansel repeated it and then another shot hit them, bouncing off her mantle.

“They’re going for the boar sight! Hit the corner now!”

“Goddammit! NOW!” She panicked and fired at the Tiger, she hit its gun as it fired at her again, it hit her along her side, scraping down her body leaving a long gash on her hull, she couldn’t keep her cool and screamed in pain. Hansel had enough, he climbed into the gunner’s seat and aimed and fired. The shot pierced through the corner of the Tiger I and struck the ammunition, the tank exploded and kicked the turret off the hull in the largest fireball they’ve seen. Hansel shakily got back into his commander’s seat and leaned against the wall. He got on the comms and reported in to command with heavy breaths.

“Heavy group one (hard breath) reporting in, (hard breath) confrontation with (hard breath) confiscated Tiger model leaves (hard breath) one destroyed and three (hard breath) heavily damaged Tiger ones. (Hard breath) Requesting assistance at (hard breath) our location. (hard breath) Coordinates follows as-” he got off and called to Whacker. “Whacker, (hard breath) where the fuck are we?”

“The doorstep to hell.”

Fin Ch 35