HaM Ch 48

Ch 48

Major Cahrmicheal looked at the Henschel & Sohn headquarters in Kassel. The war had touched it but not ruined it, and being the headquarters where Germany’s most feared tanks were put on paper he was surprised that it still stood; all other buildings similar to this were flattened to keep German technology from the Americans. The army had already claimed the records and designs in the files and such, but anything incomplete and/or on the desks were free reign. The major watched G.I. after G.I, go by with drafting cases, tubes with drawings inside, and read their names carefully. Until one of them caught his attention; he recognized it from one of the breathers’ conversations.

PANTHER II AUSF. F TURM

“Hey, you!” He yelled and grabbed the G.I.’s arm. “I want that drawing.” The soldier looked into his eyes a little pissed off.

“No, I found it, it’s mine!” He had a harsh Brooklyn accent.

“I’ll buy it off of you.”

“Really? Sorry but I ain’t selling.” He started past the major.

“Two hundred dollars.” He stopped and went wide eyed. He turned over his shoulder and looked the major in the eye.

“Cash?” The major produced a roll of twenties from his inner jacket pocket.

“Washington mint.” The soldier had never seen that much money in one place before in his life. He spun around and instantly traded the drawing for ten twenty dollar bills. The soldier walked off, gawking at the money in his hand, the Major took the tube to his jeep and opened it; he took the rolled blueprints out and unraveled them. The corporal sitting in the driver’s seat looked on as the major spread the drawings out on the hood. “Corporal Smithers, you can ready the jeep. We can go back, now.”

“So, we came all the way out here for a Nazi drawing?”

“It looks like it,” he started while rolling up the drawings carefully, satisfied with their quality, “but these drawings are going to give us the edge in armor for the future.” The major sat in the jeep as they drove off to France, to the rally point of his unit, while he thought of the future. His family, specifically him, owned an auto factory, and since the start of the war his factory had been making hundreds of Sherman hulls each month. He wanted to see them in action so he wiggled his way in to the Army and at first was very satisfied with the Sherman in Africa, but saw how rapidly they were outclassed in combating armor and from there became fascinated with the complex German engineering. That Panther he bought from Patton was his prize, he’s going to study it back in America, study the drawings, he and his peers are going to adjust the faults for making a truly remarkable tank. They’re going to blend the excellent reliability of American tanks with the capability of the German advanced engineering and quality, emphasize crew survivability and comfort. Designs bounced all around his head already, this grizzled thirty year old man could barely contain his excitement as if he were a child.

They reunited with the unit at a French town, where the rest of Patton’s breathers from Bastogne and the front finally were reunited again. Along with them were Adler and Thirty-Four, who snuck over because she didn’t want Adler to grow up all alone with no peers, and as well as Shellproof. She made it seem that she was reluctant to go but really she liked Adam, she wanted to stay with him. Sneaking over really wasn’t hard, the two massive armies had pitched tents all over the place and one couldn’t separate what was American and what was Russian. The main problem was that in order to talk to them about anything Kramia, Mini, or Griffen (whom Thirty-Four was suspicious of until she thoroughly interrogated him) had to be there to translate. If they were stuck together that wouldn’t be a problem, but Shellproof and Thirty-Four tended to separate at random, Thirty-Four to be with Adler and his friends and Shellproof to talk to Adam and Kramia, sometimes the German tanks. When Thirty-Four first saw Tiger she was very very upset but once Thirty-Four found out Tiger was female it completely changed her relationship with Tiger, they were friends right off the bat. When Hansel arrived he met a very excited Joshua and was thus persuaded to follow him.

Hansel followed him through the town that nobody knew how to pronounce, he remembered walking these same streets when he met Marion. He didn’t remember leaving anything, they hurriedly left but they had gathered their things beforehand so all they really left were burning tanks- they weren’t there anymore. Hansel was led by Joshua to an old lady, she seemed familiar and she was, she was the same lady that gave Hansel the directions to the post office. “Oh!” She exclaimed, “is that really little Hansel? Little Hansel Walter?”

“Yes aunt Madalyne!” He nodded; he turned to Hansel then, “Hansel, we’re cousins!”

“What?” Hansel was confused. “How?”

“Hansel, I’m your aunt Madalyne, the last time I saw you it was your third birthday! I’m you mother’s cousin, and sister to Joshua’s mom.” Hansel’s mind was blown. So while they explored the family tree Marion was with Cindy, crushing spent shells for her to eat. As Cindy finished off one of the shells a captain came up and instructed Marion and Cindy to follow him. Marion took Cindy’s hand and followed the captain out into the fields where Marion ambushed the Sherman column; they waited and soon, over the top of the hill where Marion once laid in wait, came two tanks. They had rounded top turrets and rounded top turrets, she couldn’t see well what with the sun in her eyes but Cindy instantly recognized the tanks. She broke contact from Marion’s hands and drove, drove as fast as she could, kicking on her engine and flooring it. The two Shermans at the hill came halfway and turned together as Cindy collided into them, bawling tears of joy. Cindy’s parents were alive. Marion felt something inside her stir, and no it wasn’t jealousy or anything of the like, she felt a warm spot in her ‘heart’ the way she felt around Hansel after he was away for the day or night. She managed without Hansel but still felt alone, lonely, like she wasn’t complete; it made her fear what Cindy felt every day without her parents. A truly remarkable moment in her life.

The captain asked Marion if she could wait for them a take them back to where the breathers were while he went to go file their statements and logs. She agreed and waited, she saw on the parents a few shot holes, and also a few squares, they were all silver-gray like Cindy’s wound earlier. She watched the family rejoice and cheer, hug and kiss, cry and sniffle. Marion watched it all and she couldn’t stop watching, it really was beautiful, Cindy had been without her parents for over a year now and she couldn’t stop herself, nobody would have or could have stopped her. Nobody could stop her blind rush, her constant crying, her constant hold, her constant “I missed you”s, nobody could but nobody would. Marion sat there waiting on them for an eternity and she didn’t mind it at all. After the initial surge of joy passed them, Cindy asked her mom and dad to meet someone who had taken care of her while they were gone, they agreed and Cindy immediately pointed back to Marion, assuring them that she was nice and friendly. Cindy waved to Marion to come over; Marion had a stroke of shyness yet again. She forced herself into a gear while Cindy grabbed her parents’ hands and drug them along. As much as they’d like to meet each other they both were scared of the other.

“Marion! It’s mom and dad!” Cindy didn’t care about the tension; she was too careless and excited to do so. “Say hi! She won’t hurt you!” They four had grouped together, while with the massive size different coupled with Cindy’s persistence did help Marion feel better, she could see that her parents were still terrified of Marion.

“He-llo?” Marion asked before forcing herself to smile.

“She’s a King Tiger! Well, Hansel calls her a Queen Tiger but everyone else calls her a Royal Tiger. Isn’t she big?”

“Yeah,” the father said, “she’s big.” He sounded a little parched.

“Well, I’m Rudy, and this is Ruffles.” The mother said finally. “And you’re Marion?”

“Yes, I’m Marion.”

“There are lots of others, too! Like Fritz, and Jäger! Mini and Kramia! Rosa, Frau, Hetz, Griffin, and Faust! And there’s still Zwei and Tiger, but we also have Katelyn and Chuck! Oh and Skip! She’s cool! We also have Kitty, Tiffany, Anna and Susan and the Hummel twins, Dora, and Ferdi and Porsche! And they’re all alive like us! Isn’t that cool!” Before anyone could talk more Cindy egged them to go to the base. Marion showed them the way home.

Fin Ch 48

This is going to be it for a while, and it kinda has been late already but that’s because of German Battleships being added to WoWS and they’re fun and I got the next Japanese ship in my way of the Yamato and she’s fun so yeah. I’ve been busy. And the next little bit I put out will be of one of the new ships I’ve acquired.., go on and guess which one it will be.