Rivalry

Mission one: fall gelb

Before the sun rose, Maria was sneaking around the entrenchment, waking up her tank crews. For some reason, the germans had still not attacked, and some believed that they had run back to Berlin with their tails between their legs. They were waiting for them! It made her blood boil just thinking about it.  She shook another soldier with a vicious hangover awake. Private first class Timothy Wong rolled over in anguish.

" arghh... not now you.... lieutenant!" He jumped bolt upright. Maria muttered under her breath at him.

" get me corporals Murray and Clifford, and sergeant  Macavoy!"

"Sir!" He saluted with a deathly expression. No one liked waking the officers, but Wong had been sleeping on duty. He ran to find the officers, who were likely passed out in the ' mess', a large tent behind the lines. Maria didn't want to be anywhere near there right now. The tent also served as a command base for captain gueveurre, and he would be bound to stop them.

Her fellow officers strode briskly towards where she was lounging in the shade of a tree, pausing to salute. Then The four huddled, crouching on the floor to discuss tactics.

" the suspense is wearing me out frankly." Fumed corporal Murray, who had taken to cracking his knuckles and dusting them off against his army greens. "Why don't the Hun just mow us down?"

"Humph! I'd like to see them try!" Boomed Clifford, nearly crushing the comparatively petite Maria, who nodded in agreement and looked at them with a grin, and a twinkle in her eye. Sergeant Macavoy, ex navy, had yet to comment. He stared at the ground deep in thought as Maria continued.

"Well, what do you say to giving the lads a bit of action then? Mow ourselves a few germans for Great Britain?" Macavoy looked up, and ran a hand through his bushy red beard and blue eyes.

"Disobey the captain's orders then?" Grinned Murray. " about bloody time"
" i like the set of your sail, sir." Said sergeant Macavoy quietly. Maria nodded in recognition. She retold what had happened that night when the germans had flashed her that message, and they looked incensed.

"Oh we'll get them alright, Lieutenant?" Said Clifford hopefully. She nodded, and drew a simple map of the valley and marked where they were.

"Now we're here. If the german commanders have any brains at all, which unfortunately I think they do, they'll draw us in, and then blow the bridge across the river and encircle us, picking us off one by one."

"A trap then." Suggested Macavoy.
"Exactly. And there are three companies in an armoured division."

We wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell!" Chuckled murray. "I take it you have a plan?"

She gave him a devilish look. "Don't I always?"

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From his new observation post, on a rocky spur on the hillside, Rommel scrutinised the tree line. His intelligence, a barmaid working in Dinant, told him that this commander was a bit of a hothead as well as an amateur. So his taunt should come into effect any second now... there. The row of english tanks crossing the bridge, heading for the thickly wooded valley. But suddenly, the five tanks parted ways once gaining the bank, heading in completely opposite directions!

"Mmm... going for speed and stealth then?" He said absent-mindedly, jotting coordinates on a small piece of paper. Time to initiate phase two.

Meanwhile, one company of heavy tanks were preparing to circumvent the invisible british tanks that they assumed would plunge directly into the murky depths and bombard the french behind them, When the radio set came to life. And with it came a change of orders.