"Do it. Drive like a bat outta hell."
The driver slammed his foot on to the accelerator and the tank's engine revved. The treads started to clatter as the massive vehicle rolled forwards, picking up speed. The whole crew felt the weight of the tank shift forward as it inclined to start going down the hill.
Charles stood up and opened the cupola above him and peered out. He peered through his binoculars and glanced ahead at the platoon of tanks they were heading for.
Five of them. What tanks were they? He didn't know.
The tank was started to bump and rock from the speed it was picking up from this steep incline. Charles pressed the button to send a transmission through his throat mic.
"Gunner, let them know we're coming," he said. "And don't miss."
"Yes, commander!" came the response.
The turret started to turn and set its sights on the closest tank. Despite the awful terrain, the auto stabilisation of the Centurion's gun kept the barrel next to completely level.
"Ready to fire!" Charles heard the loader over the radio.
"Fire when ready!" Charles ordered.
A quarter of a second later the 17 pounder drowned out the engine and a tracer round soared through the air and smashed into the closest tank, which was facing away. Charles looked through his binoculars and saw the white flag pop out.
"That's a kill!" He relayed. "Ready the next one!"
The Centurion gave one final large bump as the hill somewhat suddenly levelled out to even ground. The remaining four tanks were turning their turrets to face them. The gunner was turning the turret to the next closest tank in response.
"Ready!" the loader and gunner said in unison.
"Fire!"
Another loud bang and the target tank was propelled backward an inch and slumped, smoke somehow protruding from the engine block despite being a frontal hit. The white flag popped up.
The three remaining enemy tanks fired, one shot completely missing and kicking up dirt, the second scraping the paint on the turret side armour, a complete miracle they missed from just 20 metres away, the third shell hit the first tank wreckage as the driver veered to put it between them and the enemy.
"Keep us alive, driver!" Charles ordered.
"Yes, commander!"
The driver, still with his foot completely depressed on the accelerator, made a wide berth around the platoon.
"Commander, we're going too fast!" the gunner cried out. "I can't turn the turret fast enough!"
"Then drift the damn tank!" Charles slammed his fist down hard onto the cupola, which made a sound like hollow metal, somehow.
The turret started to turn to point forward again as the tank turned against it to skid on the grass.
"Ready!" the loader shouted.
A third bang from the cannon as the gunner saw an enemy tank glide into the middle of his sights as the tank drifted. Another direct hit. Another white flag.
The driver pulled and pushed levers in an attempt to not make the tank come to a stop at the end of the drift, which was doing a wide orbit around what was left of the platoon. He knew they'd be done for if they kept still when this close to the enemy.
The Centurion wobbled as the drifting stopped and it continued to drive forward, however it was facing toward the enemy.
"Drive straight through," Charles said, the tone in his voice proving he was serious.
"Yes, commander." The driver responded without a moment's hesitation. Nobody from the crew interjected to this order. The Centurion was now heading for the gap between the last two tanks.
The cannon of tank on the left looked like it was pointing straight at Charles, he could see down the barrel. A flash, a bang, Charles put up an arm in front of his face and gritted his teeth.
Nothing. Did they miss?
The other enemy tank was still turning the turret to keep up with the drift the Centurion had done. It was this tank that was the next to be destroyed.
"Fire!" Charles barked.
This shot didn't miss. A fourth flag added to the gunner's kill streak.
As the Centurion soared past the last tank, Charles bellowed another order, "TURN!"
The driver hit the brakes and sharply turned the Centurion to the left. The Centurion did a 180 flick in the dirt, and the barrel was now pointing right at the last tank's engine block.
"Charles, wake up!"
Charles jolted up in his seat. He looked ahead and saw his Maths teacher Miss Campbell, arms crossed, peering over a cluster of student heads all turned to look at him.
"Have a nice nap?" Miss Campbell asked.
Charles smirked and sat upright in his seat. He locked his fingers together and put them on the table.
"Yes, miss, but you interrupted my dream," keeping the smirk, he added, "You couldn't have given me five more minutes?"
That got a few "oooh"s from some of the students around the class. Charles heard the guy sat behind him snort as he held back a laugh, and his friend Rob on the other side of the room put his hand on his face and shook his head.
Miss Campbell rubbed her eyes with her thumb and index finger with an irritated sigh. This wasn't the first time she had to put up with Charles' attitude.
"See me in my office after class, Charles," she said.
"Should've expected that." Charles said, resting his head on his fist propped up on his elbow on the table. He knew he was going to be in trouble whether he spoke back or not, he thought he might as well pull out a one liner.
He managed to keep awake for the rest of the lesson, but his attention wasn't focused on it. He didn't need to, he was already quite good at mathematics. His mind wandered, basically dreaming again but with his eyes open.
Despite being so rudely interrupted, that was the best dream about Tankery Charles had ever had. It was difficult to recall all the details, and he was sure that there was no way in a real match he would've survived that encounter, but it was still a rush nonetheless. How he wished to crew a Centurion. How he wished to be a commander.
What time was it? He peered at the clock on the wall. Coming up to five. This visit to Miss Campbell's office was going to cut into Tankery time. Commander Chapman wasn't going to be happy. Maybe he should've kept his mouth shut for once.
The minutes finally ticked by and the last bell of the day rang. Charles started packing away his things, the odd one out amongst the rest of the students who had already done so and were already getting up to leave. Rob came over to Charles' desk, bag slung over shoulder.
"What d'you want me to tell Commander?" he sighed, not the first time he's had to ask the question.
"Just tell him the truth," Charles said, zipping his bag shut. "No point in lying."
"You can't keep screwing up like this, Charles," Rob said, shrugging his shoulders. "You're going to get kicked out of Tankery at this rate."
"And I'm sure that Harry will be pleased if I do."
"Oh for God's sake, you know that's bollocks. Commander Chapman needs you on the team, you're the best shot we've got and you're one of the only crew members we can find who doesn't piss themselves when they get shot at in the Achilles!"
"Rob, watch your language." Miss Campbell called over from her desk. She was just finishing stacking her papers. Charles stood up, ready to follow her when she left.
"Charles," Rob continued, "we've got a match coming up, we'll be on a five game lose streak if we don't win this one. Does that not matter to you?"
"Of course it matters to me, Rob. I'm sorry I'm going to miss out on practice again, but it's only for a bit this time. What's been done has been done. If we lose the match, we lose the match, it's not that big a deal."
Rob sighed.
"Come along now, boys. I need to lock the room." Miss Campbell was holding the door to the classroom open.
Charles and Rob left the room. Rob headed toward the stairs to go down. "I'll see you in practice," he said as he left, with a little more of a happier tone.
Charles followed Miss Campbell to her "office". It was actually the teachers' lounge, but Miss Campbell insisted on calling it her office. Thankfully, none of the other lecturers were here, that was going to save Charles an audience. And he hated it when teachers interjected in business like this that had nothing to do with them.
Miss Campbell sat at her desk in the corner of the room. It was recognisably hers as it was the tidiest. Despite being the start of the year when the desks should be theoretically at their neatest since no assignments or exams needed to be marked, the other lecturers had still somehow found ways to make their desks messy.
Charles sat in the seat on the other side of Miss Campbell's desk.
"Charles," she started, fingers locked together, resting on the desk. "What's going on? Why were you sleeping in my class?"
"I stayed up last night to watch the live Tankery match between Ooarai and Selection University in Japan." Charles didn't hesitate to answer, he didn't even bother starting to think of a lie.
"For goodness sake, Charles, again with the Tankery!" she held out her hands and leant back in her chair. "Tankery is affecting your educational opportunities, Charles, this isn't good for you!"
"Debbie, I-"
"Don't call me Debbie, Charles, we've had this discussion before."
"I don't see how in a college, by the time we've reached the mature age of seventeen we still need to be calling the people teaching us 'sir' and 'miss', especially when you still get to call us by our first names. We're equals here, why can't be address each other as such?"
"I've told you time and time again, using first names may be an acceptable policy in most colleges around the country but not here at Offkerb."
Charles huffed, rubbing his eyes. He had this argument with Miss Campbell nearly every time he spoke to her. He was glad they at least didn't need to wear school uniforms.
"Fine then. Miss Campbell," he put special care into enunciating her name, "my grades in Maths are just fine, they're just slipping in other subjects and I do stay awake for those lessons."
"Regardless, Charles, it's not appropriate to fall asleep in the middle of class!"
"Are you going to give me a punishment?" he asked impatiently. "I needn't be here if not."
As much as the college liked to adhere to secondary school traditions - what with the use of a bell and the use of "miss" and "sir" in class - they didn't tend to give out punishments or detentions because even the college admitted that was treating the students just a bit too much like children.
Miss Campbell once again sighed and rubbed her eyes with her thumb and index finger.
"You're a good man, Charles," she said, "you're clever, capable and when you have ambition for something you have buckets of it, I'm just worried your wasting opportunities. You chose to come to college, I'll remind you!"
In reality, Charles chose to go to college so he could join a Tankery club, since the sport wasn't introduced to Britain until just over a year ago when he left secondary. That's the reason he picked Offkerb College, the only reason. He somewhat regretted it since discovering it was a college very steeped in secondary school traditions.
"But yes, you can go," she finally said.
"Thank you, Miss." he gripped the arms of the chair and pushed himself up, collecting his bag as he left.
"Good luck in your match." she added as he pulled on the door handle to leave the lounge.
"We'll need it," he said, shutting the door behind him.
Charles arrived at the tank garages to find the team just finishing a briefing from commander Harry Chapman. Guess he didn't miss much after all. Commander Chapman – or Harry as Charles liked to call him since he saw no reason for formalities – took Tankery a bit too seriously in Charles' eyes. Charles was sure that if Harry owned an army uniform, he would wear it in matches. Thankfully the team uniform was slightly more tasteful.
"Right, everyone," Harry was finishing his briefing, "get to your tanks, get practising. We'll cut field practice slightly short today to give the tanks extra maintenance attention to make sure they're in top form. Dismissed."
The team dispersed, and flocked toward their tanks. Charles noticed the atmosphere was kind of serious. Well… more serious than usual with commander Chapman in charge. He was expecting at least some excitement from the crew since they'd been away from their tanks all summer.
"So what did I miss?" Charles asked, approaching Harry.
"Nice you could finally join us," Harry said, turning to Charles. "We're having a match this weekend. Queen's Commonwealth College. I need you on top form, Ekins."
"Commonwealth College?" Charles settled his weight onto his leg and placed a hand on his hip. "Think we can beat them this time?"
"Well, after the embarrassing whitewash against Exemplum last June, Commonwealth said they don't want us to have a five match losing streak any more than we do," Charles could see the pain on Harry's face as he had to admit how poorly his team was performing. "So they're going to match their numbers to ours."
"Hey, then we might just have a chance!" Charles said cheerily, peering towards the tanks as their engines started.
Offkerb College was quite unlucky in the British Tankery scene. It had taken a lot of negotiation and tweaking of the equipment for the Senshado League to convince the British government that Tankery was "safe". They were finally convinced, and a British branch was opened in the Senshado League. The next hurdle the League encountered, however, was that without much public appeal for the sport (despite the bucket loads of appeal to participate in it) school's couldn't afford to purchase the tanks. And without this public appeal, it was next to impossible for school's to find sponsors.
The League introduced a sort of draft system to help kickstart the schools into the sport, in a desperate attempt to get Britain involved in Tankery, hoping it would become as much of a sport sensation there as it was in Japan.
The League had a whole load of British tanks constructed, and one by one, school's could pick the tanks they wanted. Those tanks then became theirs, no need to buy them, but maintenance and the like was the responsibility of the school's team.
Offkerb College had drawn the short straw in the draft. They got last pick, so they ended up with a fairly poor roster. By extension, the team performed badly, so the school saw no reason to invest more money into the sport, so they were stuck with what they had.
A Cromwell Mk. I, a 17pdr SP Achilles, an SP 17pdr Archer, a Valentine Mk. III, and the real pick of the litter, the last tank in the draft that nobody else wanted, a Light Tank Mk. VI.
"Get practising, Ekins," Harry said. "Don't want your aim getting sloppy."
"Get your drill voice warmed up," Charles said, smirking as he started for the Achilles. "Don't want your formations falling out of line."
Commander Chapman let that slide. He knew that that was a passive aggressive poke at his personal Tankery strategy beliefs, of which Charles was quite opposed.
Rob waved from the open-topped turret of the Achilles as Charles approached. The rest of the tanks had left through the garage door. It was almost quite literally a garage, albeit oversized for one. They could fit the five tanks in them quite snuggly, but anymore than that and they would have to play a game of Tetris to park them. The college never saw fit to give them a bigger garage since they weren't bringing in any more tanks.
Rob was, the commander of the Achilles. He had a bit of a large head for someone his height and age, but his jawline was as sharp as a knife. His hair was somewhat unkempt, but in the literal sense, it had somewhat of a glisten to it from all the grease. He had had bad acne as a kid, and to some extent still did now.
Charles was a normal looking kid, he would've had to put effort into his appearance if he wanted to stand out in a crowd. His eyes were green, and his dark hair was thick, and had been noted for being quite soft.
Rob leant over the turret and held out a hand, which was a bit of a running joke, since the first time they tried to get into the Achilles Charles had lost his footing on the tracks and needed a boost up. Charles was a little short for seventeen. Charles grabbed Rob's hand and was hoisted up into the turret. Rob handed him a throat mic.
"Just target practice today?" Charles raised his voice over the engine.
"Yeah, that's all we're doing today," Rob responded. "Sean's finally admitted he's been sloppy on the loading."
They both peered toward Sean sitting in the loader's seat, a quiet lad with short, cropped hair that some people saw as brown, others saw as ginger. He flipped them off at Rob's remark and the crew laughed before sitting in their seats.
"Alright, Russell," Rob said over the radio, "take us to the range."
From the driver's seat, Russell shifted the tank into gear and the Achilles lurched forward.
After a ways, once they were cruising comfortably across the field toward the firing range, a fresh British autumn breeze chilling the faces of the crew in the open topped turret, Russell piped up over the radio, the wind somewhat annoyingly pounding against his mic as he stuck his head out of the driver's hatch. "You guys catch the Ooarai match last night?"
"Damn right I did!" Charles immediately responded with a grin.
"It was amazing, wasn't it?!" Russell cried.
"How on Earth was the Karl approved?" Charles asked.
"I know right? How can an open topped vehicle be approved for use in Tankery?"
"This vehicle's open topped, dumbass!" Rob laughed.
"Not like the Karl," Charles turned to Rob. "It was just a cannon unit on wheels, it had railings. Open topped is an understatement, it was basically open sided."
"Why would you take that into a Tankery match?" Rob questioned, a genuinely confused look on his face. He clearly hadn't seen the match.
"Because it had a 60 centimetre siege mortar!" Russell excitedly blurted, remembering the cacophony and visuals the cameras had caught when the Karl fired.
Rob paused for a moment, his look becoming even more confused. Then he realised… centimetres? Cannon calibres were usually given in millimetres so he thought nothing of the number at first.
"Six hundred millimetres?!" He exclaimed.
"I KNOW RIGHT?!" Russell blurted again, beaming.
"And it was a siege mortar?" Rob asked.
"Yep," Charles nodded, "it got at least a double kill with one shot."
"Never mind the open sided, how was the mortar legal?" Rob pondered. "How did they destroy it?"
Russell and Charles paused for a moment.
"You have to see it to believe it," Charles summarised.
"Yeah, that's the best way to put it," Russell agreed. "Not far now, guys."
"Actually, could we stop here?" Charles asked.
"Why?" Rob asked.
"I just want to start practice from this far back."
Rob sighed. "Russell, stop the tank," he ordered.
Russell glided the Achilles to a halt, easing on the brakes.
"You sure you want to start from far away?" Rob questioned as Charles shuffled in his gunner seat, shoving his face into the optics. "I'll remind you the last time you shot that thing was before the summer break, three months ago." He knew it was inevitable to argue, so he pre-emptively grabbed the binoculars and stood up.
"Some asshole's been fiddling with the sights!" Charles ignored the commander, adjusting the dials.
Sean gave a silent laugh at Charles' obvious attempts to ignore his superior, glancing to Rob. Rob shrugged and shook his head at him with a 'Why do I even bother?' expression. He looked down range at the targets, they were small smudges on the side of the mound at this distance. They were a good few hundred metres further back than the rest of the tanks. He could see the Archer struggling to turn so it could get its weirdly designed rear facing semi-fixed turret to aim the right way.
"Range, 700 metres," Rob said.
"What, 700 exactly?" Charles challenged.
Rob sighed. He forgot how pedantic Charles was with his aiming. It was one of the best and worst things about having him on the crew. "Fine, mister Rachel Riley, you figure it out."
"2.5 metre width, times 1000 divided by the 3.5 Stricht is..." he paused, but only momentarily, "714.3 metres."
The whirring of the turret could be heard, and Sean grunted as he hoisted a shell from the ammo rack and shoved it into the cannon.
"Loaded," he said in his strangely deep voice.
Charles stuck his tongue out, a habit he did unironically when concentrating on shooting. He pulled the trigger, and the loud bang from the 17 Pounder 76.2mm cannon deafened them. They had forgot how loud the thing was.
Rob watched the tracer soar through the air and smash the target. He waited for the dust and dirt to settle. He saw the hit target and sucked through his teeth.
"Looks like you were about an inch off the bullseye, old bean, you're out of practice," he put as much effort into sounding as patronising as possible.
"I know where you live, Rob!" Charles adjusted his aim.
The crew laughed. It was nice to have the gang back together. They took their practice seriously though. Nobody wanted to lose in the upcoming match.
Not again.
A/N:
For anyone who isn't quite sure how the years work in British education, secondary school is for ages 12-16 (known as years 7 to 11), and then students are free to either immediately start working or go for further education in college, up until their 18 (usually). Even further education goes into university where students are 18+.
So I'm treating secondary school and college as being in the same league.