Hell On Tracks
Part 23
The morning was miserable. It was cold, and damp, and the M4 Sherman lacked the insulation needed to properly warm me up. My tanker jacket had a bit of padding to it, but whatever warmth I could get from that was ultimately lost by the Tankery-legal skirt. Actually fighting my tank during the match was going to be much worse, because there was no way I was commanding my tank buttoned up until they actually started shooting at us.
Right now, Haruna was meeting with the captain of the Maple team, doing the usual pre-match stuff. Everyone else was waiting in their tanks, thankful to at least be out of the rain, if not fully protected from the cold.
"Nervous?" Tuco asked, breaking me from my thoughts.
"A little. More cold than nervous, right now."
"Makes sense." Tuco shrugged. "Maybe the rain will clear up and we'll be able to not get soaked as soon as we stick our heads out the hatches."
"I seriously doubt that. Rain here ain't like it is on the ship. We can sail away from the weather there, but we're stuck with it here." Blondie commented. "Glad I ain't either'a you."
I scoffed, and then took a sip of my dwindling hot cocoa. Kay had been passing it out at the Tankery garage before we left, and I'd refilled my tea mug with the cocoa once I had consumed all of the caffeinated goodness. It was still warm, and therefore was one of the few things that didn't suck right now.
"All Tank Commanders, this is Haruna. Be careful, our opponent is Maple's overall commander." Haru announced over the radio. I clamped down on my knee before my foot could start tapping nervously. A bunch of tank crews that generally weren't Combat Company ready, versus some of the best that Maple could throw at us. This was going to be bad.
While all of the other TCs acknowledged, I took several deep breaths. Now was not the time for a panic attack. Just need to breathe. In and out. In, and then out.
"Okay everyone, keep an eye out. I heard from Arisa that Maple might have bought a few new tanks, so we should keep an eye out for anything special." I said into the radio, once I had sufficiently calmed down.
"Any idea what it could be?" Haru asked.
"No clue. Arisa just said that they'd made a few purchases, not what they were."
"And you think we might run into it."
"Why else would their overall commander be in the first small match instead of the big one against Kay?"
"A fair point. Platoon Houshou, you'll probably be first to make contact with Maple's forces in the town. Be on guard for anything that isn't a Ram or Grizzly." Haru said. "If you don't know what it is, call it out and Saratoga Platoon will head in as soon as we can to support you."
Everyone acknowledged that, and then we settled into an uneasy quiet. The pounding of the rain against the Sherman's hull drowned out any small noises anyone made inside the tank. The air was starting to get stale in here.
"Hey, Tuco? Do we have a tarp?" I asked, breaking the silence. "Or something waterproof and kinda camouflaged?"
"We should have something like that in one of the external storage bins. Why?"
"I want to crack open my hatch, but don't want to get soaked. If it's outside, I think I'll pass."
"I'll get it." Tuco offered. "You want to drape it over your hatch?"
"Yeah. The double door hatch is at least good for something here." I said with a smile.
Tuco nodded, and opened her hatch. Rain immediately started pouring in and gathering in the bottom of the tank. Blondie grumbled about wet shoes (despite them being waterproofed) as Tuco hopped out and rifled through the bins until she found a tarp. With a little coordination and a couple of bungee cables keeping the thing in place, I now had a makeshift cover for my open hatch. It wouldn't keep all of the rain out, and it certainly wouldn't keep the heat in, but at least I would be drier than everyone else if I fought the tank unbuttoned.
I was thoroughly cold when the match started. What little heat we'd maintained inside the tank had slipped away with the open hatch. Blondie had complained quite fervently when we started getting really cold, despite still being protected from the wind and rain, and even Angel got in on the complaining when the rain really picked up.
On the bright side, the poor weather would give us a little extra bit of cover when we pushed around the town, and might make shooting us that little bit harder with the very light 6-pdr ammo. If they had anything heavier, we might be in trouble, but we would be in trouble anyways if that was the case. Okay, so it wasn't much of a bright side right now.
"Best of luck, Houshous!" I called over the radio as the two platoons split up.
"Good luck to you, too!" Someone responded. I think it was One's TC, but I wasn't quite sure. She and Two had very similar voices.
And with that, we were off. Saratoga platoon was moving north into the riverbed, and Houshou platoon was going to take the town. I kept my head poking out of my hatch and had my binoculars ready for some long range spotting if I needed it. Right now, it was just jockeying for position and maneuvering around the opposing force.
We were nearly at the river when the first complication arose. The river, while not particularly deep most of the time, was flooded and overflowing. If we tried to use it even as partial cover, we would get stuck or start flooding our tank, some something equally bad.
"Think we can ford it?" I asked Haru as we investigated the river on foot. It wasn't nearly as wide or deep as anything at home, but that didn't mean we could get across it easily on our own.
"We might be able to get over it, but we can't guarantee getting back over it if Houshou needs our help." Haruna answered.
"So there goes our cover as we advance. Wonderful." I groused.
"It was never going to be very much cover anyways. Let's get back to our tanks and follow the river downstream. If we can't use it as cover, then Maple can't either."
"Right!" I said, eager to get out of the rain. The wind was very biting against my soaked and exposed legs, and I honestly wasn't sure if I wanted to stick around and watch Kay's match if it meant freezing my butt off in the stands.
We quickly remounted our tanks and got back on the move. Houshou platoon checked in and said they had yet to make contact with Maple's team. Everything was quiet. Too quiet, if you asked me. The match had been going long enough that we should have made some kind of contact by now.
Haruna and I were nearly directly north of the town when the second complication of the match struck. A shell tracer zipped overhead from somewhere across the flooded river. I ducked instinctivly, before bringing my binoculars up to my face and trying to spot where the offending tank was.
"Contact, ten o'clockish!" I called into my radio. "No eyes on. Blondie, keep us moving!"
The M4 lurched forward, barely dodging a second shell. It came in much faster than a 75mm shell would be. Probably a 6-pdr. Hopefully. If it was a Ram, we could probably deal with it. If it was a Firefly or something else with a 17-pdr, chances were less good.
Just behind me, the 75mm gun on Haru's tank fired, sending a tracer into a patch of trees near where the Maple tank had fired from. A hail of co-ax machine gun tracers followed the 75, and guided me to the target.
"Ram tank, ten thirty, 600 yards!" I called into the turret of the tank. Blondie slammed on the brakes as Angel slewed the gun onto target and serviced them with a burst of .30 cal. Confident that she was on target, Angel gave a quiet call of "On the way!" before firing.
The shot missed, though not by much. Maybe fifteen feet short, and a little to the left of the Ram. I gave corrections, but they were quickly made unimportant when a shell hit our tracks and sent the M4 off balance. We were a sitting duck now, and it was only a matter of time before the Ram knocked us out.
Haru's tank sent another shell downrange, and it was close enough to the target that the splash of dirt landed up on the Ram's glacis plate. Which meant that the Ram was still up. Worse, it was pulling back, so we wouldn't get many more shots into it.
"AP up!" Tuco called.
"On the way!" Angel called again, before sending another shot downrange.
This time, her aim was true. The shell arced beautifully through the rain and wind, and slammed into the upper glacis of the Ram. I wasn't quite sure at this range, but that might have been right around where the driver's hatch was placed on the Ram.
What was important was that when the smoke and debris cleared, there was a pretty little white flag waving in the wind.
"Four, this is Five. Tracks are damaged, and we'll need a bit to repair them. Cover us please." I said into my radio. Haru acknowledged, and I turned to Tuco and Blondie. "Well girls, we need to get this hunk of armor plate moving. You two are with me. Angel, keep an eye out for any more tanks."
"Right." Angel said. Tuco loaded a shell so that Angel would have something to protect us with while Blondie and I hopped out and set to work examining the damage.
"Well, good news is that the bogie is fine. All we gotta do is swap out the damaged wheel and fix the track." Blondie said.
"Time estimate?" I asked.
"Can't say, but it won't be awful. The more hands we have, the faster it'll go."
"Right. We'll, let's get to work. Where do we keep the spares?" I asked. The rain would make this miserable, but this day was already pretty bad, a little more misery wouldn't ruin anything.
