Hauptkommissar Harald Wachmann was picking through the as usual delicious curry from the corner shop, but on this 2nd December 1963 appetite failed him today. He was almost glad when the telephone rang and provided him with an excuse to stop what he was doing. Within five minutes he had shoved the curry into the freezer and grabbed coat and car keys from the small table beside the door. Downstairs he was met by the Australian whom he knew from the last three bodies of their elusive killer.
“Let's take the Landy, we'll be faster.”
Wachmann agreed, as his own battered '49 Beetle wasn't an official police car whereas the Land Rover was fitted with the necessary equipment.
That Lieutenant Charles Kelso turned on the sirens told Wachmann that something special was up. “So, who is it this time, Lieutenant?”
“A Kiw...New Zealander, part of the advance party for the 3rd Auckland when they are rotated in next month.”
“And what's so special about him?”
The Land Rover stopped at a traffic light and Kelso turned to Wachmann.
“The special thing is this time it seems as if the villian didn't get it all his way.”
When they reached the overpass where the body had been found Wachmann saw what Kelso had meant. The New Zealander had a distinctive wound, as with all the other cases, but this time the weapon was lying on the ground nearby.
Wachmann and Kelso watched as the scene was photographed, and once the photographer had withdrawn to a respectful distance Wachmann kneed down and picked up the knife with his handkerchief by the tip of the grip.
“This, Lieutenant, is a Hitler-Jugend-Fahrtenmesser[1], at least it used to be. The owner has taped over the grip, but I can still see it's the pre-1938 edition.”
“How can you tell, Wachmann?”
“Someone tried to file it off, but you can see it here on the blade. 'Blut und Ehre' or 'Blood and honour', it was inscribed on all of them before 1938.”
Wachmann motioned for the Photographer and had him take a close up of the manufacturer's stamp and the blade. When Kelso inquired as to the why, the German replied:
“There's thousands of these on the market for Nazi memorabilia both fake and original, and they are still making copies for the boy scouts, but of course with the lilly instead of the swastika.[2] Anyway, I know a certain someone who may be able to tell us first what one of these would fetch, and secondly with a lot of luck he might be able to tell us who owns this one. One this disfigured will catch eyes, especially since by the looks of it it's been done a while ago.”
“There is of course the chance that this is just the usual villains stabbing other villains?”
“Of course, but most of them are smart enough not to do this sort of thing a block from the Commonwealth Sector HQ.”
Commonwealth Sector HQ
“I give you that.” Kelso replied. The case just had become a lot more difficult. The Germans were very, very conscious about their past and the fact that there were those who wished for these times to return. The older generation tended to ignore what had happened with hope that it might disappear if ignored long enough, while the younger generation decried this.
“So what are we going to do now?” Wachmann asked. Technically this fell within the responsibilities of the Allied Military Police as it was within the zone around the Sector HQ even though most of the time they gave jurisdiction to the Germans these days. This however was a special case.
“I'll talk to my Poms and the Canucks, but I think that there won't be much of an issue. When you gave us your case files after the last one a week ago they didn't complain about your work either.”
“You do that, we can't do much until the pictures have been developed anyway, and I am in the mood for a Currywurst.”
“Gah.. blimey, how can you eat that stuff?” Kelso asked. “Wochester Sauce, Tomato Sauce, curry powder and a sausage.” Kelso shuddered as a cold feeling ran down his spine. “And I thought the Poms were bad.”
Wachmann laughed and wished that procedure didn't require him and Kelso to stand around and supervise until the body had been loaded and was on it's way to the morgue. Instead they withdrew to a respectable distance and instead shared the last two smokes out of a packet of Player's that Wachmann carried in his coat. As they lit up, Kelso finally gave in to his curiosity.
“How come you know so much about this?”
“Before I transferred to homicide I spent a couple of years with Organized Crime, and we spent more than a year of that busting a ring that was flogging memorabilia to everyone and their aunt, up to and including small arms and machine guns. We got them when they tried to flogg one of our men the turret from that failed heavy Tank they tested in '42...the..Tiger, that's it.”
He paused and took a greedy drag.
“Also, my father used to collect this rubbish until he died.” Another drag. “He never got over the Nuremberg Trials.”
“There are a lot of those, thanks to the Special Air Service and Accused Number One.”
“Can't be helped that. He was a pig anyway.”
~*~---~*~
The 12. Panzer-Regiment wasn't equipped with the last model of Centurion tanks, coming out of British surplus stocks where they were elderly by now. They didn't have the gyro-stabilized turret and the latest infra-red equipment, also lacking the 105mm L7[3] gun that was the staple of Allied Tank guns. But the men trained hard with what they had, as they knew that this was just a temporary measure, for they were slated to be the first unit to receive the new German-designed and produced tank in four months.[4]
Manoeuvres had been taking a toll on the vehicles, so when Drescher reported for duty, six examples of Kampfpanzer Centurion M5[5] were out of action, and as it happened Achalm[6], the vehicle he had been assigned to. So instead of training with the rest of the Squadron he, as the gunner was sitting on top of the turret, dismounting the machine gun, trying to fix the jam that had happened during the last firing trial. Drescher hated the MG1, which was basically an MG42 re-chambered for the Allied .280 round and with a reworked action and recoil amplifier that reduced firing speed to in effect 300 rounds a minute. It wasn't because of that why he hated it, it was because a lot of them were actually rebuilt wartime '42s, which aside from having the Nazi Eagle superficially removed or painted over were usually perfectly fine except that Achalm had but extremely annoying lemons that refused to work properly.
Drescher was close to hitting it with a hammer in a desperate attempt to get it loose when he heard the voice of his tank commander, Oberleutnant Jens Haake.
“Any progress?”
“None, Herr Oberleutnant.
Haake was wearing the once-piece Panzer suit in the new and odd camouflage pattern that so departed from the one the British were starting to use and the M61 Steel helmet that was so criticised for it's superficial similarities to the war-time M42 it was based on[7], showing everyone that he had just come from the shooting range where the Panzer troops qualified in small arms, set to be done once a year at least.
“The mounting won't budge, Sir, but I did manage to loosen these ridiculous screws at least. Whoever decided to scram this gun onto this tank without boring out the holes for proper screws should be made to carry the entire turret around with him.” Drescher ranted before he realized who he was talking to.
“Sorry, Sir.”
“Not your fault, Drescher. This one probably went with Field Marshal Rommel into Operation Wachturm[8].”
With that the offending Machine Gun snapped off and almost toppled Drescher off the turret of the tank. Cursing as much as a beer delivery man he climbed off the tank with the gun under his arm. He saluted the Lieutenant and walked over to the back of the revetment Achalm was parked in and laid the MG1 down on a table before beginning to take it apart. As he had suspected the recoil spring was broken and prevented the action from moving back, ejecting the casing and thus jamming the gun. He cursed again and replaced the spring. After putting the gun back together he tested the function of the action and then declared it operational again.
Drescher wrestled the gun onto the turret again and saw that Haake was checking the commander's opticts.
“Lieutenant, are we still scheduled for range time?”
“As soon as you can make this damn thing work Drescher, we're off.”
“It works now, Leutnant.”
“I'll gather the others.”
Surplus British Centurion Mk.III on delivery to the new German Army, 1961.“On target!” Drescher yelled into the intercom.
“FIRE!” came the order, and as soon as the trigger was pulled the 105 barked and ejected the casing as the round flew across the range towards one of the ex-Soviet T-44 dotted around the range as hard targets. It hit the tank square in the turret.
The German Centurion moved to the next firing position, churning up the muddy ground where the snow never lingered and trained the gun at the next target and boomed once again almost instantly after the tank had come to a halt. Covered in mid driving through the slush falling from the sky the tank looked like one of the monsters that would appear in future episodes of a recently premièred TV show as it came to a halt after driving back onto the tarmac road that led back to the maintenance halls and as Drescher climbed out he unleashed a stream of profanities at the Infra-red light that provided illumination for the system fitted when the tank had entered Heer service as banged his knee against it. The problem was that said light had loosened itself when Achalm had crossed a wide ditch and now covered part of the optics, obscuring his view through the gunsights and making it impossible to aim at anything.
He slipped back inside and praised whoever had decided to fit the basic centurion with full climate control, because as uncomfortable as the seats were, it was warm in winter and cool in summer.
First troop of the new Kampfpanzer Leopard M1. Note the lack of infra-red equipment on some of the vehicles which denotes them as formerly pre-series vehicles have not yet fitted with, the only thing added for actual series production.
+-+-+-+-+-
Comments, questions, rotten tomatoes?
[1] Hitler Youth Knife
[2] True! My oldest brother owns one of the Post-war ones.
[3] In British Service officially known as the “41 inch L7” it was developed to a precise metric instead of Imperial measurement mainly because it was meant as the standard Allied Tank gun. Going into too much detail would reveal far more than I am willing to disclose at the moment.
[4] I was actually toying with having the Germans follow the line and adopt the Chieftain instead of the Leopard but I came to the conclusion that this wouldn't fit with what I am going for with this story in particular and the entire universe in general.
[5] Plain Mk.3 with an MG3 on top and German-made radios inside, along with retrofitted Night-vision equipment and a few other bits. The new Panzers are organized after the British pattern, i.e. Squadrons instead of Company, etc.
[6] The local mountain of the Commander's (and the author's) hometown.
[7] Optically somewhere between the modern M92 and the old M42. There isn't really a picture of it anywhere except in my twisted mind. Just as the 'new' US helmet rehabilitated the shape in OTL, the events of this story will rehabilitate it in the AAO-verse, at the very least this variant of it. And for information: German firefighters still use that shape almost unchanged to this day.
[8] Operation Watchtower.
No comments:
Post a Comment