Hell On Tracks
Part 16
A long moment passed as Arisa's announcement really settled in. What had been a five vs four battle was now a three vs three. Our flag tank was safe for the moment, but we had zero intel on the enemy's forces. We were dug in and in an ambush position.
"Those dirty rotten little-!" Blondie growled from the driver's seat. "Who do they think they are, anyways?"
"Our opponents. But also our teammates." Tuco answered. I could almost hear the cheeky grin on her face.
I ignored their continuing banter, and instead picked up my mic. "Four, this is Five. What's the plan?"
"I, uh… I don't have a plan." Haruna answered. "It's all going to be okay, but I'm not very good at strategic planning and coming up with the overall plan. I was hoping that you could help me with that."
"Oh…" Was all I could respond with. My microphone slipped from my hand. Slowly, I sagged down and nearly collapsed into my seat.
This was bad. This was very bad. I couldn't do this. Not when the team was relying on me. I was an armchair commander, not an actual one! They should all have more experience than me in this sort of situation! I couldn't do this. I can't.
"Tally?" Someone asked. I couldn't tell who, and my body refused to look, instead curling in on itself.
This was all wrong. I shouldn't be here. Not in Japan, not attending Saunders, and most certainly not in a tank on the battlefield! I can't do this. I can't! Not like this! I can't think straight! I can't breathe! Why can't I breathe?!
I lost all sense of time as I curled further in on myself, retreating mentally from that massive responsibility. I didn't think I could take it, so I couldn't.
"-ally!" A hard impact to my side drew me back to reality. "C'mon Tally, focus!"
That was Tuco, shaking my arm and shouting at me. I shied away from her, ashamed of my panic attack. They couldn't rely on me.
"Are you okay, Tally?" Tuco asked, pulling back. I didn't respond until she shoved a water bottle into my face.
"No." How could I possibly be okay when I just had a panic attack?
"Take as long as you need. Now drink." Tuco said, again shoving the water bottle into my face. I didn't take it from her hand, and she dropped it into my lap, where I left it. "Four, this is Five's loader. We're combat effective, but our TC needs a minute."
"Roger that, Five."
I stared despondently into the side of the turret, not looking at anything in particular. How could I look at anything when it all reminded me of the massive failure that I was? I'd dropped all of my responsibility as a TC, hiding away inside myself at the first sign of things going south.
Slowly, I reached down to my lap and picked up the water bottle. It wasn't one of those plastic disposable ones, but a really nice insulated one. It was a dull sort of brown, with a couple stickers pasted to the side. Most prominently was a cowboy hat with revolvers crossed underneath it, and the label San'nin no Tōzoku. I wasn't 100% sure, but I think those were all props from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. The hat certainly looked right, though I wasn't completely sure about the revolvers.
I unscrewed the cap on the water bottle and took a nice long swig. The cold water was jarring against my mouth, but also incredibly refreshing. I started feeling better almost instantly. Having drank my fill, I replaced the cap and passed the water bottle back to Tuco.
"Thank you, Tuco. Any orders come in while I was…" I trailed off, not wanting to confront my recent screwup.
"We're to hold our position and wait in ambush." Tuco replied, stowing the water bottle.
I nodded, and took stock of what was going on in the tank. Angel's eyes were practically glued to her periscope, while Blondie was fuming quietly down in the driver's seat. Tuco had a 75mm shell in her lap, but was more focused on me than the gun right now.
After taking a moment to calm my nerves, I stuck my head back out of the TC's hatch. The humid air hit my face like a truck, in sharp contrast to the water I'd just drank. Still, getting fresh air into my system helped almost immediately, and my rapidly tapping leg slowed and stopped.
For the moment, all was quiet on the front. My tank was situated just off the main road running through this part of the hills, and decently well camouflaged under a net and local brush. Making matters even better was our hull down state, leaving only the turret and myself visible from the road. Further ahead was the Six Tank, in much the same state.
"Five, Six, this is Four. I have eyes on a blue flag climbing the slopes and approaching your position. No eyes on the tank, just the flag."
"Roger that, Four!" Six's TC responded over comms.
I waited a moment, fiddling with my mic before speaking into it. "Copy that, Four."
"Good to hear from you, Five. You feeling better?" Haruna asked.
I nodded, before realizing that she couldn't see me. "Yeah, feeling better. Sorry about that."
"It's fine, happens to everyone. You may have ditched your tank, but you got it out of the rut just fine."
That got a smile out of me, and I chuckled a little bit before pulling a straight face back on. "So, what's the plan, Four?"
"I was really hoping you could help me with that. I'm pretty bad at commanding anything more than platoon level." Haru admitted.
"All we have left is a platoon." I grumbled, suppressing the panic the rose in my throat at the concept of helping plan this. Ignoring it was hard, but I dutifully pulled my map back out and spread it out over the turret's roof. "Okay, so Five and Six are dug in here, at map grid H5. Four is on an overlook at G5, right?"
"That's correct."
"Where would you say you saw the flag tank?"
"Hrm. J6? Or thereabouts."
"Okay, give me one minute, please." I said, before ducking down into the M4. "Hey Blondie, how long would you say it takes for a Sherman to get up the hill and to our position following the road, starting from Training's spawn point?"
The driver turned in her seat and looked at me. "I dunno, about ten, fifteen minutes? Less if they were pushing their tanks hard. Terrain's pretty rough here, even on the road."
"Right, so let's call that five minutes. Thanks!" I said, before going back to my map. "Okay Four, here's my plan. We have roughly five to ten minutes before Training's flag rolls right into our ambush. So what we are going to do is follow our original plan, stay right where we are, hold the ambush, and let them come. If they avoid us or go around, we react as appropriately. The area is heavily biased towards the defenders, so if we can stay put and let them come to us, we'll be better off."
"Thank you, Five!" Haruna replied, before comms went quiet once more.
I had no idea if that was a good plan or not. My confidence was shaken by my panic attack, and my mind just kept rolling to flaws in my basically nonexistent plan. Hold tight and wait for them to roll right into our ambush. What was I thinking? They had to know that this area was great for the defenders. How else could they have taken the two tanks of Union Platoon so quickly that there wasn't a call over radio?
"Stop that." Angel Eyes said firmly, not bothering to look away from her periscope. I looked at her back for a moment, confused, before I realized what she had meant and rested my hand on my tapping leg.
"Sorry." I responded. Great, now my nerves were getting to me in more ways than just a rapidly spinning mind.
"Four, Five? This is Six. I'm seeing two contacts coming down the road. Want me to open fire?"
"Hold on, Six. Let them come more into range. We'll take the one on the right, you get the one on the left." I replied. "You hear that, Angel? Tank on the right is our target."
The gunner nodded, not saying anything.
"Roger that, Five. We'll wait on your word." Six said, and then the radio went quiet once more.
It was a waiting game, now. Would the Training teams spot us as they advanced, or were our tanks well enough concealed that we could get the drop on them?
As it turned out, we were well enough hidden. Two M4s came up the road into view, and didn't spot us. Neither one was the flag tank, but that didn't matter right now. A three on one was much better odds than a three on three, and we were about to make it those odds.
"Ready?" I asked my crew. The Training tanks were almost in the perfect spot to shoot. Angel nodded, while Blondie gave an affirmative. Tuco gave a big grin and a thumbs up, patting the shell in her lap. "Six, on three."
"Roger."
I took a deep breath, steadying myself. "One, two, three."
The 75mm guns roared. The lead tank stopped dead in its tracks, and the little white flag popped out with an audible 'thwip.' The trailing tank, however, didn't stop. Tuco slammed her shell into the breech of the gun, Angel shifted the turret, and fired again. No flag on the second tank. And now its turret was tracking towards us.
Well, that wasn't good.
"Blondie, get us moving!" I definitely didn't shout into the tank's intercom. Our tank lurched forward and onto the road, barely dodging the shell that was coming our way. "Six, you still up?"
Nothing.
"Four, this is Five. We've been engaged. Six is disabled, and we've only taken out one!" I managed to blurt out into my radio before Angel fired again. We were moving fast, the Sherman's radial engine roaring as Blondie put all of the power she could into getting us around that M4 and giving Angel a clear shot.
I stuck my head out the hatch just after a 75mm shell soared over it, and took stock of the situation. The road here was barely wide enough to drive side by side, which naturally meant that the two tanks scraped each other as Blondie took us past the spinning opponent M4. I rocked back and forth from the impact, but the crazy woman had managed to get us behind our opponent.
A quick maneuver stopped our tank in its tracks, shifted it, and Angellet loose with the 75. At this range, it would be very hard for her to miss.
The Training tank's white flag popped up with a 'thwip.'
"Training tanks have been dealt with. They weren't the flag." I reported over comms.
"Roger that, Five. Pull back to my location." Haruna responded.
"Got it. We're on our way." That was exciting! I'd always loved watching tanks shoot at each other, but actually taking part in it was something else entirely! The roar of the engines, the thunder of guns, and the sound of shells whizzing overhead. It was awesome! Not to mention the wonderful little thwip of the white flag. I couldn't think of a more satisfying sound than an opponent's tank being disabled and popping the white flag.
The shame of my panic attack had been washed away by adrenaline, and I'm pretty sure I was grinning like an idiot.
