1942

Chapter 5 | The Town of Savolinna

Fredericks POV: 

Paula was rolling down the forest road, towards Savolinna. Every so often, they could catch a glimpse of a castle, or a lake. Klaus was driving peacefully, with a picture of the Princess next to the optics. Simo was humming Nyet Molotov, while reading War and Peace. Karl was snoring away in the turret, while Hans and I were standing out of the hatches. We heard what sounded like screaming and yelling, but we just thought "Nah, its just the wind" but then we heard growling, and then screaming a lot closer to us. 
"Hans, grab the FG42" I told him just as 2 people burst from the clearing and onto the road. A wolf was heading straight to attack a girl. I grabbed my P38 from my holster and fired 3 rounds into the wolf. It fell down silently. The boy, clearly her twin brother by his looks, gazed at the tank in awe and shock. The girl turned and stifled a yelp when she saw the tank. She had long wavy light brown curly hair, brown eyes, a bit of freckles on her cheeks, and was wearing a white dress, now dirty from all the hustle. 

"Are you alright?" I asked her
"Fine..." she replied
"But what is that?" she said pointing at Paula
"This is a tank my dear" 

Hold on. Did I just flirt with her?? I didn't have time to process the thought when we heard more wolfs. 
"Shit, Hans over there!" I yelled
Hans bolted the Soumi and opened fire. 
Ratatatatatatat!

 Bullets whizzed over the tank and into the trees, hitting wolfs, ground and trees alike.

"GET ON!" I yelled at the twins
I got out of the cupula, and helped them up. Her touch was warm, a very strange, but comforting warm... "Ugh! What is up with me?" I think to myself. 

"Klaus, drop the clutch, drop it" I yelled. The tank lurched forward, the convoy got going again.
As the convoy was moving.

The tank rolled on through the road, and we came across a truck that had stopped on the side of the road, thanks to a tree thay blocked it. The driver looked in shock at how the tank simply crushed the dead tree as it went over.

The kid kept asking Hans questions like:

"What is the gun on this thing?"

"What's the thickness of the armour?"

Etc, etc. I looked down at Hans and his eyes said: Kill me please. I held in a laugh, and looked out of the cupula, and made eye contact with the girl. Her hair was messy, but beautiful, a butterfly had landed on her hand. Her white dress was loose, wavy in the wind. When she noticed me, she blushed, her cheeks turning red, which was kinda hot... I turned away, I bit embarrassed. 

We reached a small village on the outskirts of Savolinna without much trouble, people gasped, kids started running to the tank, and I had to yell at them "Look were you're goin' kid!" Another old man, yelled at us waving his stick, screaming "Commies! Get out!" and people had to explain that we were Swedes. One person, a priest I am guessing, ran into the church, and soon the bell was ringing. We reached the sentry, and the person on duty looked shocked. 

"Uhhh, are you the 2nd Royal?" he asked

"Yes" I told him, passing him the docs on the Battalion.

"Huh, ok, I was told yall were going to be in these" he said, passing us a photo of a Mark 4 tank.
I broke out laughing, and so did everyone in the tank. We radioed the message across the convoy, and everyone was going into hysterics. 

"Don't worry lad, we all make mistakes" I told him

We drove into the city, people were hanging Swedish as well as Finnish flags outside their homes and business's. Sandbags covered windows, and were really everywhere. We spotted a Bofors  gun on the roof of an apartment building. As we drove down, we spotted a shot up Yak fighter that had crashed in the road, causing a scar over 150 metres long. As we drove, I got the courage to ask the gal a question.