Nadzieja( Polish for Hope)

Chapter 17: Tank

The year is now 1917 and world war 1 is still raging on. Many soldiers have had enough of the war as many French and British soldiers have started staging mutinies. The German population was starving and started to rely on turnips, for most of their dishes, so much so that many German called the entire year, Turnip Year. The war also drained almost all of Russia's supplies including food and ammunition making masses of Russian civilians and soldiers very angry at the government. Britain started to save up metal and some resources for their new weapon which was now a secret prototype, because of this sentry soldiers became even rarer than before. Also, Germany started using mustard gas which was much worse than chlorine gas as the gas could penetrate through the skin and cause internal bleeding and in worse cases blindness that could be either temporarily or even permanent which something that chlorine gas couldn't do.

In February 1917 Brazil joined the Allies, as the Brazilians had enough of the Germans sinking their cargo ships.

In April 1917 the US joined the Allies because of the Zimmermann telegram scandal where Germany wanted to send some troops to help Mexico with their conflict against the US. The US didn't like that so that's why they decided to join the Allies. Of course, the US reminded the Allies that getting to Europe will take them around a year as they still need to solve their conflict with Mexico and also because they need to prepare and train their troops and gather the necessary resources.

In May 1917, Britain finally unleashed the weapon they were working which was an armored vehicle that was purposely called a tank to fool the Central Powers. However, while the tanks were pretty decent weapons but they were prone to mechanical failures and getting stuck in the trenches of course in the course of a few months, tanks would start getting better and more countries would start using tanks. Of course, the Germans started making special sniper rifles called panzer gewehr (German for tank gun) to penetrate to the metal of the tanks get a clear shot for the people inside the tank. May was also the Month in which Charles went back to using his standard gear before the battle of the Somme as his sentry gear was now completely broken and no longer had any use. During that month both Charles and David started their tank training in hopes of finally getting to use one.

The situation in Russia was becoming much worse so much so that in late October of 1917 there was a revolution, that put a complete end to the Russian tsar monarchy as a whole and a complete overhaul of the Russian government which was now a republic and a few days later it became a communist republic ruled by Vladimir Lenin. However, many Russians didn't like that and on 7th November 1917, a civil war erupted in Russia which cause all of Russia to pull out of World War 1 completely. This made Germany very happy as they can now have a better focus on fighting the French and British.

On 20th November 1917 was a special day for Charles and David as they got a special assignment. The started off with commander Smith approaching and asking them to come with him. And then they saw it, was a Mark V tank which was currently the latest model. The tank was 2.66 meters high and it was 8.5 meters long. The tank was green with black caterpillars, the tank was armed with 1 side cannon on both the right and left sides of the tank for people inside the tank to shoot from the sides, the tank also had the main cannon and twin machine guns at the front slightly below the main cannon these two weapons were for the tank driver.

A few seconds later a man came out of the tank who was dressed in a brown blazer with a bit of fur on its collar, trousers, and wore black elbow-length gloves, he had brown hair and blue eyes. "Hello everyone, I am Henry Vale and, I am this tank's mechanic and engineer" The man introduced himself to Smith, Charles, and David. Charles and David of course introduce themselves to Henry who replies to both of them with a smile. "A pleasure to meet you". With the introductions done and out of the way, our heroes along with Henry and Smith entered the tank.