HaM Ch 39

Ch 39
Hansel and Marion were tending to Cindy, Porscha and Ferdi both agreed on what Dora said as being true and they strongly recommended that Cindy be worked out. Cindy’s engine had just given out when Marion arrived to comfort her; Hansel had brought some oil to soothe her hurt engine. Cindy had an oil change, and got her engine a good rub down massage from Marion and her oil covered hands. Dora told Cindy that she’d be stronger and faster than before, and that if she kept working her engine it’d keep getting stronger and faster. Cindy asked if she’d one day go a hundred miles in a second, Marion said she could do anything if she tried hard enough. Marion towed Cindy over where Marion slept with her by her side and stayed there, letting Cindy sleep while bundled up in camo netting. “I wish you could have met my mom. You two are so nice.” Marion thought to herself, this was random and not at all expected. “But I know that she’s watching us, mommy and daddy are in heaven watching over me. They gave me to you because God knew you were a nice mom.” Marion was touched, she didn’t believe in God or Satan or anything, really, she had a small conception of religion in general. Marion felt warn tears touch her side, she knew Cindy was crying.
“Don’t cry, sweetie, I’m sure your mom and dad would want you to be strong.” She held Cindy tight against her side.
“That’s what they told me every day, to be strong.” She sobbed more. Marion stroked her turret roof and patted Cindy’s side. She remembered a little song that Hansel sung to her, the time seemed more right now than when Hansel sung it to Marion.
“”Hush little baby, don’t say a word. Momma’s gonna get you a mocking bird. And if that mocking bird doesn’t sing, momma’s gonna get you a diamond ring. And if that diamond ring turns brass, momma’s gonna get you a looking glass.” Cindy had calmed down; she picked up the lyrics from there. She sung until she fell asleep. It was only 1750 hours.
Marion let Cindy sleep under her wing, she waited for Chuck to get on and asked if they could possibly change the plans, it’d be something more engaging but still achieve the goal. Chuck wasn’t sure, neither was Joshua nor Rosa but Marion really put forth the energy to make them agree. Eventually they agreed, the old plan involved waiting for the German line to be pushed back where Marion and Cindy and the tag-along Rosa would be swallowed by the Americans at a certain part of the city. It was safer for Cindy, but much more dangerous for the others. The new plan was safer for the Americans, but more dangerous for Marion, Hansel, and Rosa, possibly Cindy, too. Marion had Hansel bring a white bed sheet and a stick to tuck away in Marion. The new one that was so dangerous for them was that they were going to leave the German line and drive over to the Americans where they’ll surrender; it was bold and maybe costly, depending on when they leave. The fuel lines had been stretched so far that fuel was scarce, Marion herself wasn’t near full and probably wasn’t going to get much more until the supply lines caught up. The Americans had reached the front line and were pushing up. After only a day they were about to knock on Bastogne. Marion prepared everybody, Rosa and Marion interrogated Chuck for his description and Katelyn’s. After that Marion gave the descriptions of herself, Rosa, and Cindy and entrusted Chuck to tell Katelyn. Once all the details were set the radio channel was left to the long distance lovers. They had gotten Rosa into the deal and surprisingly it was easy to get her in. Getting Marion and her crew in was difficult but getting Rosa in was very easy. Marion thinks it is because Rosa has no crew, people that instilled Nazi beliefs into her, when Rosa is probably more likely to destroy the Shermans than Marion. Cindy stirred awake and looked at her gun barrel, Marion saw her sneakily peek under the barrel wraps to check her gun. Marion smirked as Cindy picked at the rebuilt gray metal seam, scratching off flakes of green paint at the edges. She pulled out a flake of green paint and examined it carefully, glancing at its texture and consistency. She looked to Marion’s side and saw the long gray strike on her armor, a long gray stripe, and noticed that Marion’s paint was thick and wavy like a big cage was welded to her armor.
“Momma Marion,” she whispered in the dark, “why is your pant so big?”
“It’s not big, sweetie,” she picked at her scar until she got a flake off, “it’s thin, just like yours.”
“So, what’s that?” She probed Marion’s Zimmerit paint.
“That’s Zimmerit,” Hansel said he jumped down from Marion’s roof and went to one of her storage boxes, “it makes sure that magnet bombs can’t blow her up.” He pulled out a magnet for making a compass. He smacked it against Marion’s side repeatedly. “See? It doesn’t stick, but,” he walked over to the end of the gash on Marion’s side, “it sticks to her metal hull.” He stuck it to Marion’s bare metal frame, Marion giggled. Hansel plucked it off and stuck it to Cindy’s stern.
“Ha ha! Hansel that tickles!” He removed it from her body and went to put it away. “But we don’t have any magnetic bombs, so why do you guys put that on your tanks?” Hansel stopped, he didn’t ever hear of the Russians using them either.
“I don’t know, Cindy. May just be paranoia, we have them, why not our enemies?” He locked up the box and climbed back onto Marion. They went to sleep for the night, but Marion wasn’t actually asleep, she was running through scenarios again and again in her mind, planning and planning for the operation. She was running through what would happen if they were encountered by a German patrol when she heard screaming, not from a man or woman, rather from a demon, a banshee.
“ARTILLERY!” She threw her arms around Cindy and pulled her close. Fritz and Jäger rushed over, Fritz flanked Cindy and Jäger covered the front, Cindy’s rear was open when out of nowhere Allison rushed up from behind and closed the rear. The shells streamed from the sky, the Germans shouted commands, the soldiers scrambled, the hummels and other SPGs aimed to the sky and fired back, firing blindly into the night. Shells crashed everywhere, a stray shot hit the church and made a loud ‘gong’ noise as the tower crashed to the ground, buildings soon became infernos, bunkers and fox holes were the hottest shit, and Cindy was the most armored tank around, except for her top. Her top was the only thing that worried Marion, shrapnel could fly at her from any direction and she was safe, but a direct hit or a shell landing in the space around her was bad, very bad. The barrage seemed like forever, Cindy was petrified while Fritz wanted a real fight, not this pussy barrage shit. Jäger also wanted a fight, Allison was just happy that the American shrapnel couldn’t harm any of them. Once the three hour barrage was finally over they assessed the wounds, Fritz and Jäger got a good load of shrapnel from a shell that landed off Jäger’s stern and Fritz’s front, Cindy was unharmed. Allison, Marion and Jäger comforted Cindy before they went to sleep again; Fritz went to go make sure Edwards didn’t get his ass blasted by a bombshell. Edwards was fine and so was Franz, during the shells’ screaming Franz crawled inside Fritz and was safe inside. Marion held Cindy close to her side and put the chin of her turret on Cindy’s mantle. “It’ll be okay, Cindy, it’ll be okay, tomorrow night we’ll get you home. We’ll get you home tomorrow night.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Cindy cried into Marion’s side as she grabbed onto Marion’s hull and turret for comfort. “I love you, mommy Marion!”
“I love you, too sweetie, I love you too.” Cindy fell asleep again shortly after, Marion didn’t sleep or even act like she was. She kept her eyes open and searching, watching the sky for bombers, searching the black horizon for trouble, checking anything suspicious with tiger stares. She noticed she was low on fuel but Chuck said that they weren’t that far, that Marion could get there with the fuel she had. She still felt that it wasn’t enough.
The following morning she ate food to help fuel; she ate some meat and ate the stale bread. The bread tastes revolting and the meat was undercooked but she didn’t stop, she knew what she must do. Her crew gathered and boarded and they dropped Cindy off with Dora for the day. Dora said that today she’ll be helping heal Cindy’s engine, Marion thanked her and wished them luck, Cindy and Dora did the same for Marion and the boys. Marion turned around and headed off through the city, she used the roads so that she wouldn’t use her engine and it would conserve fuel. She was moving at a good jogging speed when Hansel asked if anyone else has heard of the new American tank. They all shook their heads no.
“Apparently it’s been giving our guys a hard time, but I’m sure we’ll show it who the big boss is. Right baby?”
“We’ll fuck him up.” She said confidently, she wasn’t sure though. Chuck had never mentioned a new tank. Later that day they were moved to the edge of Bastogne, they were on the front. Marion had perched herself in an alley, she had pushed some snow onto her glacis plate and she was sitting out with a clear view of a field, all the way to the tree line about two kilometers away. Hansel stood proudly in his hatch, scanning the fields with his binoculars. He stopped on six green boxes moving in a flank towards the city, two had rounded tops and the other four had square top turrets. He adjusted the binoculars as Marion trained on the green speckled vehicles. “Hansel, that one to the left, second in, it has a rounded hull and turret, yeah it has a mark on it. It’s on the turret.”
“Yeah I noticed..,” he cleaned the lenses and peered through, striving to see the mark before it’s too late, “Marion, Chuck’s girl, you said she had a heart on her, right?”
“Yeah, it was a sideways heart on the mantle.”
“Don’t fire! Don’t fire!” He wrapped in Marion’s roof to get her attention.
“What are we supposed to do then? Let our soldiers and friends die?” Marion said. Meats piped up.
“They’re bound to see us, start a fire on the engine deck.” He and Whacker poured alcohol on some paper and wood and lit a fire on the deck while Marion got Banker to cut his lip and face plant the snow on her armor.
Smoke billowed from the deck and there was no commotion around the Tiger, the Sherman crews looked on and saw a man slumped over the drivers’ hatch with red snow beneath him. “Poor bastards.” The Sherman E3 commander said as he looked on. “Katelyn, what’er think did ’em in?” The Firefly thought.
“Satchel charge and the infantry.” The commander nodded.
“Chuck likes them Nazi crosses, right?” Katelyn nodded. “Think dey got any of ’em?” Katelyn looked back to the tank; they were in a pretty lousy position to fight infantry.
“No, they ain’t got any.” They kept on into the city. Once they were well out of sight Marion snuffed the fire and picked up Banker.
“You alright, Banker?” She covered his lip where they cut it and applied pressure. The blood had gone from the lip all the way up to his forehead.
“How the hell did you convince me to do that?”
“We’d die if you didn’t.” He stopped, nodded and carried on. Meats kicked the charred materials off Marion and Hansel stood up in the hatch and leaned over, kissing Marion.
“My conscience isn’t happy.” Whacker said as he sat back down in his chair.
“Neither’s mine, Whacker.” Marion said, she hugged Hansel. Meats tapped on the turret’s lifting eye loop.
“We could warn the other infantries, y’know, say they slipped past us.” Whacker instantly got on that right away. The infantry guys took it well, they bought that the Shermans out maneuvered her gun and slipped into the city. Later there was an SPG moved into the field, Hansel watched them set up while Marion looked to disable them. They weren’t spotted until it was too late; Marion’s gun sang as a shell broke the sound barrier and pierced right through the gun housing, dropping the huge American artillery gun onto the hull where it was useless. The soldiers dropped to the snow for cover.
“Whacker scare the shit outta them!” Whacker let the 42 rip, Hitler’s buzz saw sent pops of snow and dirt up everywhere, and sparks flew as the bullets bounced off the artillery’s thin armor. The G.I.s slowly crawled away. “If they point a gun at us knock them down.” Not too long after the G.I.s disappeared a half-track with a gun on its back appeared from the brush. Hansel dropped into the turret while Marion slammed it shut. “Hit the halftrack!” The halftrack fired and the building wall next to Marion exploded, obscuring Marion’s view. She waited until the dust cleared, it shot again and hit Marion’s upper glacis right in the center, messing up her shot as she fired. It passed harmlessly over the halftrack, it moved while it was reloading, Marion felt Meats chuck another round in the breech and readied her gun. She trained on it, adjusted and fired a screaming shot through the halftrack. It kept moving.
“I fucking hate their shitty armor!” She yelled agitated as Meats tossed in a HE round. She waited for the Americans to fire again, a miss hitting the dirt in front of her, and she fired once more and silenced the halftrack for good. For added measure she put one into the useless artillery tractor as well. They decided to move before artillery rained down from the sky, they relocated deeper into the city. They decided to grab Karl and Eugene and they went and assisted a group of infantry with dug in Americans, they had Whacker spray the street, Karl and Eugene spraying the buildings, and Marion during her coaxial in bursts down the road and into fox holes. Hansel even came out with the 42 and gunned down a balcony MG nest. He thought of Anton the whole time. They were dug in so deep and were so unrelenting, they just wouldn’t die Hansel said, he ordered the building down. Not the floor, or the wall, he wanted the whole dammed building to the ground. Marion complied and blasted the first floor with a few shots; the building crumbled and caved in on the Americans. Hansel and them over watched the soldiers that were taking prisoners and clearing rubble. Whenever they came to a G.I. that was pinned under too much rubble they shot him. It would later hurt their consciences but at the time Marion’s gang didn’t feel anything, anything but revenge. They came across a regular Sherman, it was a new one apparently, and the two Panzer IVs weren’t getting through the armor, it fired once into a Panzer IV and set it on fire, the crew bailed in order: driver, radio operator, loader, gunner then commander, while the Sherman focused on the other Panzer. The Panzer shot hit right on the drive sprocket and destroyed it, leaving the Sherman immobile. Marion rolled up in front of the Panzers, laughed as shot after shot flew harmlessly off her body. Is this how Fritz feels? She wondered. She looked at the Sherman, the driver tried to move it back helplessly. She couldn’t help but smile, the man in the cupola looked terrified, she shot only once. It zipped through the armor and blew the turret clean off the tank. The hull was smashed against the ground, splitting open the hydraulic suspension and popping off one of the wheels while the turret flew towards the heavens with a fiery tail. It tumbled in the sky and came crashing down on top of a house, disappearing into the structure. Every American Hansel saw it seemed to heighten his anger even more; it made him full of indescribable rage.
Blood didn’t seem to touch them that day, death didn’t faze them, destruction didn’t scare them, it only fueled their thirst for Anton’s revenge. They never encountered Katelyn but if they did, they’d do what Fritz did to Cindy and Marion would probably knock her over, call for help, and take Katelyn with them across the line that night. They fought for the rest of the day, using a little bit of Marion’s fuel but not too much, she hoped. She let all the boys sleep while she returned to the base, she discretely caressed Hansel, making sure he had a very good dream. She had them gather their things discretely and they loaded it into her hull while she flattened her spent shells, they had everything ready, Rosa was always ready, all they needed was Cindy and darkness. Two hours after sundown they all were ready.
Fin Ch 39