Assam lead her to a block of small flats which was roughly 5 storey's, Assam walked up to the glass door and on the side of the door was brickwork with a black pad with a small red light above it, Assam tapped a card on the pad, the door buzzed and the red light turned green, opening the door, they walked in and the automatic lights turned on showing about 10 doors with stairs at the end. They walked down the corridor to door number 7, with another black pad on the side of the door again Assam tapped the door with the card and it swung open. The room looked very similar to her old room at Boston. With a small toilet/shower space, with an open kitchen lounge area with a door to the bedroom.
"At least I can't lose my keys." Sarah remarked jokingly to Assam.
"This card is your ID card which opens the doors to the building, your door and other areas that you are permitted to enter on the ship such as the library. It also contains money to buy food from the shops etc. If you need to you can top up on the internet." Assam informed Sarah passing over the white card.
"So I know this is a silly question, but what can I wear for tomorrow as all of my clothes are back at my hotel." Sarah asked Assam.
"You will be fine. The fridges and cupboards are full of food and drink. I've got to get back unfortunately." Assam said back.
"Thank you, Assam for all your help today." Sarah said gratefully.
"No problem, tomorrow please arrive at tea room 1 for a Sensha-dō meeting, at 0900, if your lost ask someone and they will guide you." Assam responded closing the door behind her.
Sarah explored the studio looking around the cupboard and fridge, she walked into the bedroom to see her suitcase in front of the bed from the hotel here, she opened it up to see all the clothes folded beautifully and smelling fresh, which was definitely not the way she felt them. She opened up the wardrobe to see 5 uniforms' on hangers the same ones the others were wearing , white collared shirts, and a dark blue pullover's with the St. Gloriana Girls College emblem emblazoned on the chest. She looked in the draw below to see black ties, blue skirts and full-length black tights. She moved to the next wardrobe along and opened. Her eyes lit up, on the hanger was a red coat complete with gold buttons and shoulder epaulettes and on a separate hanger was a black skirt at the bottom of the wardrobe was a pair of high black boots. She never had a Tankery uniform at Boston just wore their school uniform.
She tried everything on it was a perfect fit.
"They must have used my clothes for measurements or something." Sarah thought to herself. She walked over to the mirror in the St. Gloriana Sensha-dō uniform and took a picture on her phone and sent to James, her dad and Beth, with the tag 'I think it suits me.' Minutes later James and her dad responded back.
"Well done Sarah you can't imagine how proud I am, show them the UK Tankery way!" texted her dad.
"Good luck out there Sarah, do it for England show them what we're made of, BTW I think I would look better than you in that if I had a wig." James texted back.
10 minutes later Beth video called her, she answered.
"Well done Sarah I knew you had it in you." Said Beth ecstatically.
"With your guidance over the last year really it did help me." Sarah responded. "But who will lead the Boston team?"
"Trust me it's fine, remember in the friendly's? I was giving everyone less and less orders and more freedom, to let them make their own decisions, the team basically were winning the battles by themselves I wasn't really needed. A commander just give's clarity in the time's when it is most needed, to be calm and composed keeps the team focused." Beth stated.
"Do you have any preference of who should take over?" Sarah questioned.
"I would say, Isabelle as I think as rook she can castle with the king and make a stronger position." Beth said cryptically.
"I would agree, she remained calm and collected during the whole Bovington match and she was right in the middle of it." Sarah nodding back.
They talked about the trial match and what happened afterwards in Darjeeling's office and all the other girls and what their personalities where like, Beth was intrigued to hear what was said about Darjeeling.
"Like I said a calm commander gives clarity but the most important question, so what's your name then!" Beth eagerly said.
"It's English breakfast." Mumbled Sarah hoping, Beth didn't hear it.
"English ha ha ha Breakfast ha ha ha." Beth said laughing "couldn't they be a bit more inventive about your name as it's a little on the dot."
"Well it's shortened down to English which isn't too bad, but I would of minded earl grey but I'm guessing it's been taken. But the positive is that I can only drink English breakfast tea which is delicious here by the way. I feel sorry for Assam as that tea if I remember tastes very malty and is not all that tasty." Sarah responded back. "I've got a Sensha-dō meeting tomorrow it's going to be fun, when I return to the UK I'll bring you back some goodies." Sarah smiled.
"They better be good ones." Beth said "again good luck Sarah!"
"Thanks Beth." The video call ended. She put back her clothes, back into the wardrobe walked over to her suitcase, picked up the picture in the frame and setting it on top of a set of draws by the top of her bed.
"It feels like home now. I hope your proud mum." Sarah said lying under the covers in her bed looking at the framed picture.
The next day arrived, put on her new uniform, she did her hair and ate some cereal with some orange juice. She took a small handbag with a long strap to hold her ID pass, her phone, a pen and pad and also her Beret just in case. She closed the door behind her and main building door, leaving 30 minutes early to make sure she would not be late.
She saw lots of girls all in the same uniform walking in the same direction down the main street she followed them. The street had British themed bakeries, tea shops, cafes, small convenient shops and others. In the distance was a large rectangular building which looked to have 5 floors with a schools emblem on it, she continued walking and reached the gates. There were some girls with black armbands with computer tablets in there hands at the front, she walked up to them.
"Sorry but do you know where tea room one is?" Sarah asked.
They looked up and down at her.
"ID card." One said forcibly.
Sarah fumbled in her handbag and pulled it out and passed it over to the girl, who snatched it off of her and tapped on the back of her tablet. She looked at the tablet and back at her.
"Your name!?" she asked again in a forceful tone.
"Sara…." Remembering that Sensha-dō members have tea names. "English Breakfast." She responded back instantly.
"The school you transferred from!?"
"Boston High, United Kingdom."
"Follow me." she said wagging her index finger forward and back.
Sarah followed her, they did not enter the large building but walked along the outside with trees, flowers and benches. They got to the back of the building where there were three old looking cottages detached from one another with white plaster on brickwork and thatched roofs, beautiful flower gardens with red and white roses and many other different coloured flowers. Each cottage had little winding gravel path's leading to each individual cottage.
"Number one is on the left two in the middle and three on the right." The girl said pointing at each house.
"Thanks for your help." Sarah said excitedly.
She walked down the winding path and knocked using a lion head knocker on a well weathered wooden door. The door opened there was a brick stone fireplace in the opposite side of the front door with a warm raging fire, the main centrepiece was a very long very well polished maple table, which was in the centre of the room with Walnut grandfather chair's finished with red velvet along the table. The room was half empty as it was still 0840. She found a seat away for everyone, else who were chatting away and sat down, a girl wearing a white cooking apron over the top of her uniform, was standing to the far right of the cottage with a table with mainly kettles, plates and teacups seeing Sarah she poured a cup of tea placed it on a plate and walked over to Sarah.
"You English Breakfast?" Said in broken English.
"Yes I am." Sarah nodded.
The girl passed the tea over to her.
"Milk and sugar be over in moment miss English Breakfast." She responded.
She walked back over to her table bringing a small bowl and jug over and placed in front of her very delicately.
"Arigatōgozaimashita.(thank you)" Sarah said in her very limited Japanese.
At the head of the table was Darjeeling sipping on her tea with Orange pekoe and Assam standing behind her. Assam walked up to one of the girls chatting and pointed to Sarah, the girl nodded.
The girl walked over to Sarah.
"Well congratulations commander of getting in and getting through security they can be very annoying as you mostly found out." The girl said.
Sarah turned her head to see it was the gunner in the tetrarch. She was had dirty blond coloured hair, with orange/hazel eyes, with slightly tanned skin and the same build and height of Sarah.
"Thank you so much I never asked which was very rude of me but what is your name?"
"Jasmine Pearl." She responded.
"That's a lovely name compared to mine." Sarah giggled a little and so did Jasmine Pearl.
"Today I'll be translating for you." Jasmine Pearl said. "Hopefully in a year, you won't need my help."
"My plan is to master the language in about 6 months." Sarah responded back.
"I wish you the best of luck with that." Jasmine Pearl said back with a smile.
More and more people walked in until every seat was taken apart from one and everyone had a cup of tea.
Darjeeling stood up at nine on the dot.
"Good morning everyone, today we will be training for the upcoming quarter-final match against Yogurt Academy. Thanks to our intelligence department we know there line up for this battle.
2x Carro Veloce CV.33
1x 38(t) Ausf.G as flag tank
2x Hotchkiss H39
1x Sturmgeschütz III Ausf.F/G
1x IV Ausf.G/H
1x Jagdpanzer IV/70(V)
1x Jagdpanzer 38(t) Hetzer
1x V Ausf.D/G Panther
So we will have a mock battle the first team in our standard line up and the second team as Yogurt Academy we will get the closest tanks that represent each of their tanks so the tetrarch as CV.33's. A13 as 38(t) Ausf. Valentines as the Hotchkiss H39, a crusader III as IV Ausf.G/H. three Churchill gun carriers as the Jagdpanzer IV/70(V), Jagdpanzer 38(t) Hetzer and Sturmgeschütz III Ausf.F/G. And finally a Cromwell as a V Ausf.D/G Panther. We will be on battlefi…"
The door slammed open it was Rosehip running in, gasping for breath. "My apologies Darjeeling time was faster than me today." Rosehip said bowing "It will not happen again." She said with huge breaths in between each word.
"Please sit Rosehip." Darjeeling responded coldly. "As I was saying battlefield 12 is the closest to the actual battlefield It has one hill instead of the 2 conjoined hills on the actual battlefield." Behind Darjeeling, a white projector screen slid down and a projector lifted out of the table showing them the map, with a two hill's in the middle with grassland all around. "The one who controls the highlands will obtain dominance over the match outcome." Darjeeling was saying "Now to make this a fair fight I wish for the second team to go to tea room 3 and discuss your tactics as Yogurt Academy in beating us. We will rendezvous on battlefield 12 in 1100 hours. Luck is when opportunity knocks and you answer." Darjeeling said contently.
Jasmine Pearl translated everything. "That's us, Sarah, any plans to beat the first team?"
"Maybe will have to see what everyone else comes up with." Sarah said back. They got up and walked with the other girls to the other cottage, which was identical to number 1. Tea was served and they looked at the map, Rosehip stood up at the front where Darjeeling was in the other cottage.
"As commander of the second team, the main goal is to take the hill as Darjeeling said."
Sarah raised her hand after Jasmine Pearl had translated, Rosehip nodded. "Yes the hill is very important to this battle, we have the speed advantage, over the Matilda's and Churchill's which is most likely their tanks of choice. We need to be able to hold but able to withdraw from the hill as well. As we can't hold onto the hill if they take out our Tank Destroyers we need to use our speed to change locations and surprise them. If we lose well at least the 1st team will demolish Yogurt Academy." After being translated Rosehip smiled.
"Not so funny are you." Rosehip said in her best English smiling. "English Breakfast will be the flag tank in the A13 cruiser as she is well experienced in that tank. I obviously will be in my crusader III."
She told each commander their tanks and there plan of attack. Sarah was looking forward to fighting against St. Gloriana's best.