Ch 45
Time passed on and Hansel and Marion were appointed to frontline service, their final test had begun. It was late February and by now the allied advance was moving as fast as the Sherman tank could advance, the opposition floundered. Hansel and Marion pitied the German defenders and were horrified by how much younger they started looking the further in they traveled. They began hearing terrifying reports from other areas about the desperation Germany was in and the two prayed that it was just miscommunication and not at all true. They refused to believe the reports; Hansel swore that they had too much honor and dignity to do such things. Every town and city they conquered began looking darker and darker and darker, the population was in ruin and the homes were unrecognizable. They saw German women whoring themselves out for food and water, that’s all they asked for was food and water. It mentally fucked with Hansel, Meats, Whacker and Banker, Marion understood that it was all they could do but still felt it wrong. Constantly Meats, Whacker, Banker and Hansel would split one of their rations between them and give the three others to the women and children.
The combat was hard on the Germans, both sides, but for Hansel and his German allies it hurt to pull the trigger, to give the command, to extinguish the life of their home nation. Nonetheless they knew what atrocities that the Wehrmacht were unknowingly fighting for and knew that those atrocities must be ended no matter the cost. Marion never had to worry about her front being penetrated, not even by her own kind, but the one thing she feared were the PanzerFausts, the ‘Tank Fist’ will rip through her side and melt Meats, Hansel, and Whacker alive until they die. She made it her best interest to befriend the infantry so that they’d look out for her and after a few Panthers were put down under Marion’s gun they did indeed watch her back. The infantry definitely looked out for her because she’s the one that they’d use to remove any hardened positions and the one not afraid to stick out and take a hit. The infantry eventually nicknamed her ‘Heavy Angel’ for saving their asses many times.
In early March Hansel, Marion, and their little crew were driving with Cindy moving up, they were more towards the back and there on they could play with Cindy again. They liked playing with her; she always comforted them and got their minds off the war. Something caught Marion’s eye and she glanced up but had to double take. The reports were true. It was outside a village, a village of maybe four houses and a barn and this was happening. Marion furiously shook Hansel and got his attention towards what she was looking at. Cindy was going to turn as well but Marion covered her eyes and held Cindy’s turret toward herself. By now the whole German crew was looking on at it. Not one dared to admit its truth.
“Oh my God!” Those were the words spoken by Marion in horror. There just outside of a village of four houses, dangling from tree limbs, were six people. Four were in badly fitted Wehrmacht uniforms and two were unmistakably women in dresses, they all had wooden boards hung around their necks. The boards said they didn’t want to fight for Hitler, for the Fatherland, that they were cowards and pigs and Jew sympathizers. There was a team of Americans cutting them down from the trees, as Marion drew closer they saw three ropes behind the American team. As Marion got even closer they saw that the Wehrmacht soldier they were cutting down couldn’t have been older than thirteen. The uniform next to him had long girlish hair and a petite face. The two women were maybe in their sixties. One of the Americans picked up a sign and hurriedly ran over to Marion and handed Whacker the board.
“Kill these bastards!” And with that he ran off. Whacker read the board and all the reports he denied could be true suddenly were true.
“I don’t want to live in this world anymore!” He solemnly spoke through quivering lips as tears ran down his face; he retreated to his little cubbie and drank from his flask crying. Marion looked at the board and realized just how much she couldn’t read. She passed it to Hansel who read it aloud in German so Cindy wouldn’t understand half of it.
‘THE SS WILL HANG ALL TRAITORS OF THE FATHERLAND JUST AS WE HAVE DONE WITH THESE PIG-DOGS!’
“What has this world come to?” Hansel tossed down the board; Marion seized it and chucked it as hard as she could into the woods. It hit a tree and broke to pieces. Marion radioed to Zwei to cover Geoff’s eyes for at least a mile. She did so to Marion’s tone of voice. That was their first taste of the horror. More followed the deeper they went into Germany, soon their reactions went from terror and horror and disgust to anger and rage and hatred. They absolutely hated the SS, their anger and rage would build and fester until they at last had a vent; an SS division was holding on to a town with fanatical spirit. They liked it when they were fanatical, there would be no retreat. Marion and her crew insisted that they spearhead into the town and their angry tones easily persuaded the American major to allow this. They sat back and turned on their megaphone they’d use to dissuade any conflict only this time they spoke freely.
“DEAR S S, WE HAVE SEEN YOUR WORK WITH ‘TRAITORS’ AND WE ARE NOT HAPPY. YOU HIDE BEHIND CHILDREN, YOU HIDE BEHIND WOMEN, AND YOU ARE ALL WORTHLESS WASTES OF GERMAN FLESH! MY GERMAN TANK AND MY GERMAN CREW WILL LOVE TEARING YOU TO BITS. WE WILL FLATTEN ALL RESISTANCE! WE WILL RUIN YOUR PRECIOUS REICH MADE OF MAD DOGS AND SEE TO THE EXTINCTION OF ALL YOU STAND FOR! WE WILL KILL YOU IN THE NAME OF THE FATHERLAND, NOT FOR HITLER, WE KILL YOU FOR GERMANY! NOW PREPARE TO DIE!”
With that Hansel ordered Marion to push on and instantly she was away. In her path was a line of sandbags and dug in MGs and a Pak 38 that stretched across the main road. Her gaze was in a fierce stance that was affixed on that Pak gun, the gun crew hastily loaded and aimed but she knew they couldn’t do anything. They were only wasting precious time to run. The Pak fired into her upper and glanced off; Marion didn’t feel a thing and smiled as she slammed into the barricades. She heard the men screaming as her treads pushed them into the road and she and Whacker ripped any SS infantry they saw to pieces with their 42’s. They pushed through the town streets gunning down every SS soldier they saw. They HE bombed out any nests and sniper towers and trampled over any SS that stood in their way. Their blind push forward at first let the infantry swarm and absolutely overrun the SS soldiers but then it led Marion too far away from the infantry and, as she went through a narrow street, head long into another Tiger II. At first the Tiger II was hesitant to shoot because Hansel and them had rolled up the US star banners and Marion was portraying her German Iron Crosses, but Marion and Whacker spraying down infantry soon gave the Tiger II a rude awakening and a fight for its life. Hansel was the first to come to grips that they had no infantry support and he unbuttoned his hatch and grabbed his 42 so he could help watch her sides. As he was standing up out of the hatch he heard a blood curdling scream.
“TRAITOR PIG!” Hansel snapped his head to the right as a SS camouflaged soldier leapt from a window onto Marion’s roof. He slid into Hansel’s cupola swinging into him with his fists, Hansel narrowly dodged a few but one caught him in the head, knocking his headset off. Hansel punched the soldier in the nose blooding it. “YOU PIG! I’LL KILL YA!” He stood up and drew his P38 handgun and chambered a round, “AND THEN I’M GONNA HANG YA!” He pointed the gun at Hansel, Hansel dropped the 42 inside and lunged at the gun and grabbed it with his left.
“Get off my TANK!” He pulled as hard as he could and punched a right hook into the soldier’s jaw. The soldier lunged himself into Hansel and grabbed him, taking Hansel down with him. Hansel’s back bent and ground against the MG rail as he fell out of Marion and slid to the ground. Hansel felt immense pain as he most likely cut his back severely and possibly broke a rib landing. He and the SS soldier stumbled to their feet and the soldier, unable to have held onto his pistol, draws his bayonet and stands in a wide stance. Once Hansel regains his balance he strains to dodge and parry his attacker’s mad swings. Marion’s side and a brick wall constrain Hansel to fight head on and while Hansel was much taller with a longer reach than his attacker he also needed a bigger space to evade. He was running out of stamina, his adrenaline was pumping as much as possible but he was malnourished and tired. He looked to Marion for help but she was super focused on fighting the other tank. He screamed for her and smacked her side when he could but she didn’t seem to notice. He saw an opening and lunged at his attacker. He in turn took the knife and swiped from left to right at Hansel, missing and getting the long blade wedged deep in between the brick and mortar. At this time one of Marion’s arms shot out towards the soldier, who evaded, and struck the knife hilt and thus breaking the blade. The soldier recovered and spat out a wad of blood before lunging at Hansel again. Hansel had no balance and only had time to grab the arm.
It was too late.
The broken knife blade pierced through Hansel in his gut. Hansel’s grip prevented the soldier from moving the knife any more than it was but damage had been done. The soldier smiled and looked into Hansel’s scared eyes with a wicked grin; his teeth were covered in blood and his nose was broken. Hansel’s right arm and hand were free and with one swift movement he drew his father’s knife from its hip sheathe and jammed the blade into the soldier’s temple. The blade easily broke the temple, just under the stalnhelm and hit the brain, the blow broke the soldier’s bearing and his dying body released and crumpled to the floor. Hansel, too, collapsed forward but caught himself before he fell to his left side, the side the knife was on. Marion screamed out and grabbed Hansel, her eye searched over him a thousand times a second, her mind was going a million miles an hour but she had no idea what to do. She kept calling him again and again but he would only moan. She panicked and shook him crying out medic, medic, medic, her other eye caught the white circle with a superimposed red cross and her arms lashed at it. She slapped the rifle from his hands and pulled the medic over to Hansel’s body and with a sobbing voice she pleaded him to do something, to save him. The medic was very fresh and had only been ‘bloodied’ the day before; he laid Hansel flat on his back and undid his Panzer black tunic. He had no idea that he was working on an American conscripted tanker, all he knew was that the tank was crying and this German tanker needed help. Being a little bit thrown off by a living tank he carefully removed the knife and ignored Marion’s wails while he opened up the tunic. He stuffed his hand into the gash to apply pressure as his other hand gathered clean rags and bandages. He then replaced his hand with the rags and put on as much pressure as he could.
Hansel couldn’t move, his whole body was hurting. He felt blood oozing from gashes on his back, he felt all numb and hurt in his lower left gut where he’d been stabbed, and he felt Marion’s hands grabbing at him. He felt that one warm hand on his cheek, that one hand on his right cheek, the creases and folds where it bends, the textured grips, the blunt corners of each finger, all three fingers and the thumb, the palm, and the wrist. He felt their warm, passionate kiss, her lips enveloping his lips and the metallic and fleshy taste of her mouth on his tongue and the warmth that those kisses brought to him. He felt their embraces when it was cold, her tight and rimmed arms surrounding his torso keeping him warm on a cold night. He felt her relaxing hull, her platform that he’d sleep on like a mattress that was always warm when it’s cold and cool when it’s hot. He felt all of it, and he loved it. Her hand, it calmed him, his memories, it made him feel giddy, their love, it made him feel like everything was alright. Like nothing would separate them. He knew he was dying, and images of his friends flashed by him but he never took his gaze off of Marion. He thought to himself about death, he knew that their love was dangerous, that their lives were filled with death, and he constantly thought about this. He was once again thinking of death, about when he’s gone, he thought that when he dies today that he’ll be with her forever. He didn’t worry about not being with her, he would be her guardian angel, her consoling spirit, nor if there was no god and no spirits than she’s have his memories, memories of him and their love. He was alright if she moved on and loved another, he didn’t fear or dislike that. After all, he is dead, and he knows that she wouldn’t ever forget him. And he would never forget her. That brought a smile to his face. He wished he could get up and walk to her but he hurt too much, he wished he could tell her it was okay but his voice was weak. So instead he continued to smile and look at her.
The medic had been toiling away at his task with Marion carefully watching while the infantry caught up, fighting their way through the fanatical resistance. They saw that their beloved friends were still and they rushed up to help. They swarmed around and secured the area, holding the medic at gunpoint. Marion vouched for him, pleaded them to leave him. They brought up an American medic to take over and escorted the disgruntled SS medic to the other captured SS soldiers. Marion grabbed the dead SS soldier that assaulted her lover and threw him across the street into the burning Tiger II hulk. His body smacked against the metal making a loud cracking noise as many bones inside his corpse shattered. His rag body slumps to the ground leaving a large blood splat on the Tiger II’s armor. Marion had noticed their commotion on her roof but all her focus was making sure that the Tiger II was dead. She first put a shot right into the hull machine gun and second the coaxial, after countless shots wasted on the armor she noticed that the SS would back in and out of an intersection and shoot into her armor, she grew tired of it and so she pulled up just enough to HE rip their right track off. She backed up and just in time because they pulled out-or at least tried to. The left track drug their left flank into view and Marion put one into the driver’s seat killing him. The tank could only sit there and take her punishment and punishment is what she gave. Round after round she pumped into the side until a fire was set and the survivors tried to bail. Whacker and Marion gunned them down before they could get anywhere. Now that it was all done and over Marion noticed that the SS crew painted a pair of eyes on the turret, one on each side just as she had it only their eyes had a yellow eyeball and red irises. She didn’t care if it was alive or not, if it was she’d still kill it. She knows that her people are few in numbers but she knows that if it was in the gene pool, the same gene pool she was in, she would forcibly remove it for machine kind. Marion and her crew were relieved after that, they had shown that they were strong, showed that they were dutiful and trustworthy. General Patton received word of their results and arranged plans for them based on their performance. They didn’t know it then but that battle would be their last for the Second Great War. The U.S. forces took eighty-six prisoners of war from that town and the efforts of Marion saved many children and women forced to serve Hitler by the SS. Whenever they met a group of forced warriors she disarmed them and ordered to stand down. That helped Marion sleep at night, helped ease her burdens. She kept Hansel by her side while he recovered from his ailments, the stab wound severed his appendix from his intestines, at least now he didn’t need to worry about it exploding-something frequent in his bloodline.
Fin Ch 45
Well this is not the ending to their story but this pretty much ends their military combat for the U.S. Hansel’s injury puts him in a sickbed for the rest of the war, which ends for Europe on May 8th. I’m sorry that this was posted later than normal, it was a mix of missing the usual date and making this extra dramatic. I know, I’m a bastard.