However, my sleep didn't last long.
About an hour or two later, I was awoken by the sound of an explosion.
The Americans must have lost patience with me because they were bombarding the whole area with shells.
None of them got me, though a few came too close.
Eventually, the bombing ceased.
Now what?
I felt like I wanted to go back to sleep, but if they actually decided to drive around looking for me, then I couldn't take that chance.
With adrenaline pumping through my veins, I managed to stay awake and stay on the lookout for the remaining enemy tanks.
Eventually, another M4A3E8 crossed the bridge looking for me.
However, it was the tank that came after it – an unknown heavy tank – that I was more interested in.
When this tank passed by, I threw the netting off, quickly cranked the turret around, and fired.
BOOM!
That tank was gone!
When he was destroyed, I started my engine up and checked radio traffic to see what their plans were:
"Able Two, why are you late with that report!?"
"Able Two, respond!"
"We've lost contact with Able Two. Able Four, check it out, over!"
"Roger that, Able One! Heading there now! Able Four out!"
I'm not sure why I didn't do this before.
I was probably more focused on rescuing Goliath.
I crossed the bridge, which was surprisingly strong, but when I was across, someone else fired a round at me.
"This is Charlie Three! I see him! Over!"
His round didn't hit me, but it came uncomfortably close.
As usual, I aimed in his direction and fired.
BOOM!
Once I was done with him, I turned around just in time to catch that E8.
"This is Able Four, I've got him now! Over!"
I had no time to reload before he could shoot me, so I used one of my remaining anti-tank grenades to dispose of him.
After the E8 was killed, I continued onwards to the southern area, following any tank tracks that I came across.
When I was closing in, I was fired upon by another unknown tank, who missed me.
It resembled the M4-like vehicle with the pyramid-shaped hull, but as far as I could see, it had a different turret.
Regardless, I took aim and fired at it.
Unfortunately, I missed.
I kept driving, hoping that he'd miss me.
Both shots hit me, but only did minimal damage.
With another round loaded, I took aim, and…
BOOM!
I kept going.
When I made it to the southern area, there was no one else save an M7 Priest and an unidentified SPG.
However, they were all out of ammo, so they were no trouble.
Ordinarily, I would've headed home without a care in the world, but my experience told me that this stage in the battle was when a really powerful enemy tank was about to come upon me, so I stayed alert.
Sure enough, a radio call confirmed that notion:
"Hey man, you've been lucky so far, but nobody outfoxes the Swamp Foxes!"
I replied to him: "Really? Well, I'm sure we'll find out who the true victor is!"
I spotted an unknown heavy tank emerge from the center swamp.
I was quicker on the draw than him, though, so I did a significant amount of damage to his tank.
He managed to hit me, though, and Goliath was doing terribly at this point.
Using my last anti-tank grenade, I broke his track.
Rather than dismounting, though, the tank crew stayed inside their tank and continued to engage me.
I closed in on him and maneuvered around him, similar to what happened at Murovanka.
His next shot damaged Goliath, but amazingly, it was still alive.
I didn't know how much more punishment it could take, though.
My next shot damaged the enemy tank badly but did not kill it.
In this little dance of death, the enemy missed a shot at close range and hit me another time, but did no damage.
It was now or never.
I reloaded as quickly as I possibly could, and…
BOOM!
Enemy vehicle destroyed!
Now that the battle was finished, I did my usual round of investigations.
As I had discovered earlier, my opponents were called "The Swamp Foxes", who, as it turned out, were named after Francis "Swamp Fox" Marion, an American general who had fought in the American War of Independence.
Like their namesake, these guys were cunning survivalists who excelled at stealth, field repairs and constructing improvised traps.
They also had a tendency to shoot first and not ask questions later, which probably explained their casual attitude towards friendly fire.
Now, as for their tanks, here's what I found:
One of their heavy tanks was called an M6.
They also had two tank destroyers based on the M4 Sherman chassis: The M36 and the M10.
Wait…tank destroyers?
Aren't tank destroyers supposed to be turretless?
Ah, the Americans probably had new ideas about what counted as a tank destroyer.
The mystery SPG I saw was called an M41, which was based on the chassis of one of their light tanks, the M24 "Chaffee".
As I had learned during the battle, the M24 was not actually that dangerous.
Nevertheless, I vowed to be careful when sighting any suspicious tanks.
Finally, their other heavy was known as the T29.
I decided to refer to it as the "Terrible 29" because of its firepower and armor.
As usual, the handbook stated that the Terrible 29 could be equipped with varying guns.
The one I faced was armed with a 90mm gun, which, while not the most powerful gun in its arsenal, was certainly dangerous.
After this investigation, I fixed up Goliath as well as I could and headed home.
Criticism is gold. Negativity and nitpicking are pyrite.