Molly's - Chapter 5 [Tankiverse Fanfic]

[Hippin_in_Hawaii 639]

Molly’s - Chapter 5
Fanfic in the Tankiverse by Hippin_in_Hawaii

Scrubbing links was a job that never went away. There was no end to it. If you owned a tank, and actually drove it, you were going to need replacement parts on your treads. Regularly. Secondhand tread components were a stable revenue stream for Molly’s, and as such, there were always parts to be cleaned and sorted. My mom talks about laundry as an endless task; for my father, it’s dishes. For Molly’s, anytime there was nothing more pressing to do, the wheelbarrow was waiting. This, of course, I see with the clarity of hindsight.

I spent two weeks out there in the sun, dressed in mopp gear, scrubbing. When I showed up the following Saturday, I expected nothing different. At least, until I reached the back gate. Not only was it unlocked, it was standing wide open, and had a red handkerchief tied to it, hanging limp in the still air.

As I got close to the warehouse, I heard the sounds of power tools, of heavy engines, of colliding steel parts. Even closer, I could hear shouts. As in, people. I’m sure my own mouth was hanging open as I walked around the garage to see cars and trucks parked outside. All three bays were open, and each had a tank inside. And there were people, dozens of people, swarming over both the tanks inside the bays and the hulks in the yard.

I was agog. I walked to within a few yards of the closest bay, sat on an old transmission, and watched, trying to wrap my head around it. The focused chaos was amazing. The tanks in the bays were coming apart at an amazing rate under the hands and tools of these mechanics. Parts and components were being forklifted onto massive trucks. Despite the clamor and the seeming frenzy, everything was moving smoothly. No one hit anyone else, no forklift backed into another.

The woman, when I spotted her, was deep in conversation with a ridiculously tall, gangly man. They were both bent over clipboards, he having to stoop nearly half his height to see what she was looking at. At some point she looked up and noticed me, and actually waved. I waved back, surprised, and not knowing what else to do. The tall man noticed.

“Who is that now, Mol?” he asked.

Ok, so she WAS Molly!

“Oh, just my new tadpole,” she replied.

“Come on over, Tad,” he called.

I jumped down and started to trot across to them, only to be honked at by a forklift returning for another load. “Watch where you’re going, kid!” came angrily through the air. Another nearby mechanic turned from her task, took me by the shoulder, and steered me safely to my destination.

“Always look first, Tadpole, or you won’t grow to be a frog,” she chided me as we walked.

His name was Olaf. In my mind, Olaf was a name for a short, fat, red-headed uncle with a bushy beard and a twinkle in his eyes. This man was wrong in every single characteristic except for the twinkle.

Molly made the introductions, such as they were: “Tadpole, this is Olaf. These are his crew. Watch everything, help however you can, and don’t get hurt.”

Olaf pointed at a bench in one corner. “Sit there. Watch Elsie and her team, they’re stripping the treads off that one.”

Elsie would periodically swing by my stool to talk about what was happening. After the tracks were completely disassembled, their crates forklifted off into the depths of the warehouse (presumably for me to scrub later), I learned about drive wheels, road wheels, return rollers, and idlers. I learned about suspension and transmission and linkage and brakes. By the time the weekend was over, they had pulled the entire powertrain from the tank.

Over the weeks to come, I learned a phenomenal amount about how to disassemble a tank. And I learned a bit about Olaf and his crew. They were like gypsies, or that’s how it seemed to me. “Migrant workers” is the term a grownup would use.

As odd as it seems, once you get outside of the big leagues (like Performance Armour, for example), it’s hard for an independent outfit to have enough work to employ fulltime mechanics. Molly’s did employ a few, but they worked weekdays, so I never encountered them. Anyway, in the tank support industry, there were more mechanics than there were jobs, so crews like Olaf’s evolved. They ran a circuit of salvage yards, moving their expertise and heavy equipment from one yard to the next. They descended on Molly’s like locusts, once a year, staying for maybe six weeks before moving on. Their pay was on commission: they stripped the parts, Molly sold the parts, and they received a healthy percentage.

I became Tadpole-on-the-spot. If a drip pan was getting full, I was there to swap it out before a drop sloshed over the edge and hit the floor. If someone’s wrench was juuuust out of reach, I was there to put it in their hand. I could judge the size of a bolt from across the garage, and be there with the right socket before the mechanic even realized what she needed. And I knew who to ask for what. Josie was one of the forklift drivers, but it was his job to deal with the waste barrels as they filled. Components that were being loaded into the warehouse, though, were Lars’ domain. I learned a lot about the interior layout of Molly’s from Lars. Elsie’s team were Shock, Marc, and Lisbon; they specialized in drive trains and engines. Frau’s team… well, you get the idea.

No matter how early I got there, the crew was at work. No matter how late I stayed (always remembering to call home, of course!), the crew was at work. If I stayed past dusk, one of them would drive me home. They had a bus outfitted with racks that could sleep ten people, and a kitchen-on-wheels that never closed. Their days were regimented like a military outfit.

I took no small amount of pride from being able to turn myself into a tiny cog in that never-idle machine, and from the smiles and pats on the head I began to accumulate.

Mahalo (thank you) for reading; I hope you enjoyed! This story is part of a series. Information on the series, and links to the other stories, can be found here.

[LOLKILLERTOTHEDEATH 1,921]

Approved!

 

A pleasure to approve, as always. I didn't actually spot any mistakes, so if there were any I might or might not have missed them.

[tweezers 1,034]

 

 I could judge the size of a bolt from across the garage, and be there with the right socket 

The mark of a true mechanic.

[Viking4s 10,791]

Finnaly some action. Good good.