Hell On Tracks
Part 24

By some miracle, nothing went wrong while we fixed the track. It wasn't the easiest job to do in the pouring rain, and it took Blondie, Tuco, and I about twenty minutes to fix, with a bit of assistance from Haru's tank. The river was still rising, and I was quite happy that we got out of there before it started swamping the tank.

I was up on the Sherman's engine deck packing away the jack when Angel called from inside the turret. "TC, radio!"

Tuco nodded at me and I passed the jack off to her before slipping into the turret, past my makeshift canopy. "What's up, Angel?"

"Houshou has made contact with the enemy. Two was disabled. Four wants you."

"Gotcha. Thanks, Angel." I said, before turning to the radio. "Five here. What's the situation?"

"We're pinned down in the town!" Three called into the radio, panic evident in her voice. In the background, I heard the blast of a shell, and the boom of a 75mm cannon. "Two got taken out in an ambush, and we lost a track as we backed into cover! One made it out, but I don't know how much longer we'll last under this fire!"

"Calm down, Three." Haru interjected. "We're on our way. What are you facing?"

"Uh, right. Two Grizzlies, I think. And, I don't-" Three was momentarily cut off by a resounding boom. "It kinda looks like a fat Sherman? I think it's the flag, but our gun isn't hurting it!"

I reached over around the gun breech and dug Tuco's identification book out of its storage compartment. Pages flipped by and I scanned the images for tanks that looked like Shermans. There was the obvious M4, and all of its variants, but beyond the Jumbo, none of them really counted as a 'fat Sherman' in my mind.

"Three, does it look like a Jumbo?" I asked.

"N-no. It's got sloped sides, and is a lot wider than us. I don't know-" Three was cut off again, but this time didn't come back on the radio moments later.

"Saratoga, this is One. Three's been knocked out. We're retreating."

"Copy that, One. Stay safe. Five, you ready to go?" Haru said.

Tuco gave me a thumbs up as she dropped into her seat. Blondie was already mounted and good to go. "Ready and willing, Four. Lead the way."


For all of the rain and the mud, we made very good time towards the town. One kept us updated as she retreated, baiting the pursuing three tanks north, towards our incoming pair. Her tank managed to break the tracks on one of the Grizzlies, but didn't knock it out.

Tuco flipped through her identification book, trying to find what the 'fat Sherman' could be, since nobody had any ideas. One's much clearer report described a 75mm gun armed heavy tank that she was easily outrunning, with heavy armor on the front and sloped side plates. Our best guess to what it's identity was an M4A3 Sherman with the Easy Nine suspension extenders, wide tracks, and spaced armor plates on the sides. I had no idea if that was even a thing in the war, but nobody had anything better.

Blondie and Tuco argued about the up-to-dateness of Tuco's book, with Tuco insisting her book was up to date and had every tank owned by the Japanese school ship teams, and a few that were only used at the university level. While it obviously wasn't the case, I believed that she had the most up to date version she could have. If Arisa didn't know what Maple had bought, Tuco certainly wouldn't.

All arguments stopped as Saratoga Platoon entered the town. Mud and gravel paths turned into cobblestone roads, and the rolling hills and open plains turned into flat ground with wooden mockup buildings as cover. This was where we were going to fight Maple's tanks, not argue semantics.

Our tank moved ahead of Haru's, ultimately more expendable in the context of the match. Angel kept the gun pointed straight ahead, while Tuco and I stuck our heads back out into the rain to try and spot targets coming down side paths.


I was looking off to the tank's right when the 75mm boomed suddenly. My body rocked back and forth with the weapon's recoil, and I quickly pivoted to look forward. A Sherman was sitting in the middle of the road, its white flag sticking up and waving in the wind.

"Good shooting, Angel!" Blondie cheered from the hull. I heard Tuco give the gunner an energetic high five, but I wasn't nearly as enthusiastic about the KO. The logo sitting proudly on the Sherman's upper glacis wasn't that of a moose on a shield. It was the blue star and yellow lightning bolt of Saunders.

Angel had just knocked out a friendly tank.

"Five, what was that?" Haru asked, sounding very upset about what just happened.

"That wasn't my order. My gunner and I will be having words about target identification after the match." I said, my cool tone completely masking how livid I was.

She shot a friendly tank! Even now, I could see the crew members crawling out of their disabled tank and giving rude gestures to us. They were probably shouting some nasty phrases as well, given how irate they looked at this distance.

"Angel, check your fire."

"Nothing else is allied out there besides Four. Don't need to check my fire anymore." Angel retorted. That only served to make me more angry.

This was a team sport, and she just shot at a teammate! If we didn't make combat roster or the tournament team because of this friendly fire incident, I was going to talk to Kay and get a new crew. Heck, I might do it anyway, because that was unacceptable.

"Next time, you check your goddamn fire, Sentenza." My voice was solid, unwavering. Deathly cold.

"Yes'm."

"Good."

With that argument pushed to the backburner for the moment, we pushed further into town, past where One's tank had come from. I received a very angry earful of curses from One's crew as we drove past, and honestly? I couldn't blame them.

The streets were quiet as Haru and my tanks pushed through them. The judges called out the elimination of One's tank. One must have done a wonderful job of losing her pursuers, because they were nowhere to be found. Absolutely nowhere. Haru and I must have swept the entire eastern half of the town, looking for some sign of tanks, and we found nothing.

I could feel my adrenaline and anger fading away during the fruitless search, and I sagged down into my seat and let myself rest for a long minute. Two against four wasn't good odds, even when one of the four was an unknown heavy tank with armor resistant to any of the two's weapons. A victory would have to come from something creative to leverage the advantages of urban fighting.

Even that would require finding the opposing team.

"Hey, Tally?" Tuco asked, breaking me from my reverie.

"Hmm?"

"Did Houshou platoon manage to knock out any tanks?"

"Nope. It's two against four."

"Good." Angel said, her voice bitter and angry. I was about to ask what she meant when the gun fired. Immediately, I reached for my periscope and brought it over to where the gun was aimed.

We were in the town square, where Two and Three had been knocked out. But that didn't explain the third tank which had its barrel depressed as far down as it would go, and now had a white flag flying overhead.

"Okay, two against three. Still not great odds." I amended my previous statement.

"Maple High School, M4A1 Grizzly, disabled!" One of the judges called.

The judges called the knock out quickly. That usually meant that either the flag was disabled, or the situation was very clearcut. And since that Grizzly clearly wasn't the mystery heavy tank with the flag, that meant there weren't any more Maple tanks directly engaged here.

A good thing to know, but also a concerning one. Just what was going on here?


My question was answered only a few minutes later, as the Maple heavy tank rounded a corner with two tanks in escort. It rounded a corner right in front of us, and I could immediately see why it had been called a fat Sherman. The turret and general shape were unmistakable.

Unfortunately, that meant there was now a heavy tank and two mediums only a couple hundred meters away, with their frontal armor facing directly at us, and a few of their guns pointed this way, too.

"Blondie, full reverse! Angel, hit the Ram!" I called, as a shell impacted the road maybe ten feet in front of our tank. Rock sprayed up and scattered all over the Sherman's front, but that wasn't enough to stop us.

Two 75mm cannons fired nearly in sync, and while I watched our shot go wide, Haru's gunner was right on the money. The Ram's dangerous 6-pdr gun was put out of action swiftly, as a shell hit its turret mantlet and deflected downward into the upper hull of the tank.

The return fire was almost as effective, though. Haru's tank took a shell to the tracks as it was backing around a corner into cover, leaving her half exposed, if at a good angle. That wasn't good.

Angel's next shot bounced off the lower glacis of the heavy tank, deflecting down into the cobblestones. Things were rapidly escalating from bad to worse. Our flag stuck out of cover and just waiting to be eliminated, and their flag, also out of cover, but with armor resistant enough to our shells to not be at risk.

"Blondie, get us behind that heavy. Angel, gun for the Grizzly until we're behind the heavy, then hammer them!" I ordered. A shell whizzed just overhead, and I was very glad to be using the periscope instead of my head for spotting right now.

People acknowledged, and we pushed forward despite the incoming shells. One bounced off our flank at an oblique angle, and another slammed into our bow without disabling us. A lucky hit for certain.

Our 75mm hammered out fire as fast as Tuco could load the gun. Firing on the move was never the best idea, but right now, it was better than stopping to aim. We needed to get behind that heavy. Now.

A shell from Haru's tank slammed into the Grizzly's left track, stopping its advance. A shot from Angel bounced off its bow at a really steep angle, and then my line of sight was blocked by the heavy tank passing between us and the Grizzly.

The heavy was turning, to keep both its gun and its heavy armor pointed towards us. It wasn't quite fast enough, and we zipped past it at 25 miles an hour. Its armor should be weakest in the rear, like almost all tanks, so it was just a matter of slipping around it.

"There! Hit the engine!" I called.

Angel Eyes didn't even need the order. The gun fired as soon as she had a clean shot. At this range, even the 75mm could punch through its heavy armor.

"Maple High School flag tank, T14, disabled! Saunders University High School wins!"