diymy Chapter 87 The Funeral of Steel
Chapter 87 The Funeral of Steel
Chapter 87 The Funeral of Steel (Long Chapter)
June 5, 1940, 23:45, Saint-Roque railway marshalling yard, northwest of Amiens, France.
It rained harder and harder.
The cold rain, mixed with the smell of coal ash and engine oil, was sliced into countless silver whips by the ghastly beams of the searchlights, lashing the newly acquired station mercilessly.
But on the freight platform, the air was scorching hot.
That was a frenzy fueled by adrenaline, greed, and the frenzy of "zero-dollar purchases."
The four thousand exhausted British soldiers, who were already smelling musty and reeking of defeat, were now like a bunch of rats that had fallen into a rice jar, frantically scrambling in and out of the German freight cars.
"My God, what is this? Canned food? It's all meat?"
A private first class from the Norfolk Regiment pried open a wooden crate marked "WehrmachtVerpflegung" (Wehrmacht Supplies). When he saw the neatly arranged cans of beef and even chocolate wrapped in tin foil, the poor fellow, who had only eaten a few hard, granite-like compressed biscuits in the past three days, almost burst into tears.
"Stop fucking eating! You idiot!"
His platoon leader's current rank should be Untersturmfuhrer (SS-O-14) commander.
She slapped him on the helmet: "Take off that damn wool uniform first! Put this on!"
The platoon leader tossed him a camouflage smock that smelled of mothballs!
"This is German waterproof fabric! A hundred times better than the raincoats we desperately applied for! Put it on, throw away your Bren gun, and go get that MP40 over there! It only has thirty rounds, but it'll fire faster than your life!"
Similar scenes played out across the entire platform.
This team, which looks like beggars, is undergoing a dual transformation at an astonishing pace, both physically and chemically.
Those heavy, armor-like British brown tartan uniforms, soaked with rainwater, were ruthlessly stripped off and thrown into the mud. In their place came the lightweight, windproof M38 smocks, printed with the highly intimidating "sycamore" camouflage pattern.
The heavy gas mask pouches that used to hang around the soldiers' necks—usually filled with stolen wine—were thrown away and replaced with fine German-made Y-shaped straps and black 98k ammunition pouches.
The most popular loot is boots.
The short boots and leg wraps issued to British soldiers were a nightmare for infantrymen—if they were too tight, blood circulation was restricted; if they were too loose, they would fall apart after a few steps, and they offered no grip on muddy ground.
Now, the soldiers were overjoyed to don the German M39 black marching boots (Marschstiefel). These wide-opening leather boots with anti-slip studs on the soles made that famous "click-clack" sound when walking, but they perfectly protected the calves from getting muddy.
In just forty minutes.
When Arthur once again stood atop the command vehicle overlooking the entire field, he no longer saw a defeated British expeditionary force.
Beneath his feet stood a SS mechanized infantry regiment, the best-equipped and most formidable-looking of its time.
Only the swearing, still thick with Scottish accents, and the occasional idiot who tripped over his trousers backwards, reminded him of the true nature of his unit.
"This is simply magic."
Ryder, who had already changed into his SS First Rank Assault Battalion Commander uniform, stood next to Arthur, looking at his new gloves with a complicated expression.
His Etonian-style refined demeanor was accentuated by the sharp tailoring of his black uniform, adorned with silver skull collar tabs, giving it an eerie, cold quality.
"This isn't magic, Ryder."
Arthur, looking at the rearview mirror of the half-track, carefully adjusted the position of the Iron Cross on his collar—it had been stripped from a dead German officer—and said calmly, "This is evolution. Survival of the fittest. Now, we've evolved fangs."
Arthur turned around, his grey-blue eyes sweeping over the newly revamped soldiers before finally settling on a shadowy spot on the other side of the platform.
The atmosphere there was completely different from the revelry here.
The place was deathly still, even permeated with a sense of sadness.
"What's going on there?" Arthur frowned and pointed in that direction.
Ryder followed his finger, his expression changed, and he said somewhat awkwardly in a low voice, "It's those veterans from the 1st Army—and a few of my drivers. They're—saying goodbye."
"Farewell?" Arthur's eyes turned cold.
"Sir, as you know," Ryder sighed, "we've switched to German tanks and trucks, which means—we need to get rid of those Matildas, and those sixty-odd Bedford trucks that towed us all the way here."
Without a word, Arthur jumped out of the command vehicle and strode towards the shadows.
The iron nails on the soles of the boots struck the concrete pavement with a heart-pounding rhythm.
West side of the platform, an area where abandoned vehicles are gathered.
This place is like a temporary funeral parlor.
Rain washed over the eight battered Matilda I infantry tanks. Their armor plating was covered with countless shell craters and charred marks—medals earned from fighting their way from Alaska to Dunkirk, then to Flne and Niupt.
The paint scheme of these eight tanks looks extremely mismatched—the British Empire's logistics system was simply awful.
Two of them were painted in the standard "Avenger" camouflage, equipment originally deployed to the First Army in France. The other six were painted in a striking sandy yellow, a stark contrast to the surrounding rainy European environment—the "Desert Queen" camouflage intended for the North African campaign, but due to a damned logistical mismanagement, they were hastily unloaded at Dunkirk and then followed Arthur all the way here.
One of the tanks had its side skirts blown off, revealing a suspension system filled with mud. The turret of another tank was even stuck at the three o'clock position, a result of shrapnel from a 37mm shell.
A dozen or so tank crewmen were surrounding them. No one spoke.
Lieutenant Gray stood before the Matilda tank, codenamed "Pharaoh".
Against the backdrop of his striking, sandy-yellow camouflage, so out of place in the gloomy, rainy French weather, this second lieutenant engineer, who had only recently become an armored commander, still looked like that lost child.
The cold rain streamed down his blond hair and into his open collar. His disheveled appearance was strikingly similar to the scene when Arthur first met him in Fernand—when Arthur told him that the entire expeditionary force had already fled.
But fate played a cruel joke: that time, he was an orphan abandoned by the British Empire; this time, he had to play the role of that heartless abandoner.
No one understands the significance of these six "Desert Queens" better than him.
He and a platoon guarded that muddy swamp outside Flörn for a whole week.
He saved them once.
But now, he can't save them a second time.
Beside the tank, the stubble-faced commander—Sergeant Briggs—was mechanically and obsessively wiping the 2-pound gun barrel, blackened by gunpowder, with a rag stained with engine oil.
It was as if, if polished enough, this slender "toothpick" could survive the impending self-destructive explosion.
Even though the cannon barrel was as thin as a toothpick, and even though it couldn't fire high-explosive shells, this toothpick saved the entire crew's lives three times.
Nearby, dozens of truck drivers were smoking beside their old Bedford trucks. Some were touching their smashed windshields, others were kicking their flat tires.
These trucks are British-made junk.
They had stiff suspensions and low horsepower, making riding them feel like riding a mad bull. But it was this junk that carried nearly four thousand of their brethren out of Guderian's encirclement.
Now, they are leaving these old friends in this cold place.
"The officer has arrived!"
Someone shouted.
The crowd fell silent instantly, and everyone stood at attention, but the sadness and resistance still weighed heavily on everyone's heads.
Arthur pushed through the crowd and walked up to the "Desert Queen I," a vehicle also known as the "Queen."
He looked at the sergeant who was still wiping the cannon barrel, and then at the soldiers around him with red eyes.
"Is this what you're doing?"
Arthur's voice wasn't loud, but it sounded particularly jarring in the rainy night: "Everyone's busy loading shells into new tanks, and you're here holding a funeral for a pile of scrap metal?"
Arthur recognized the man, Sergeant Briggs, an old soldier from Birmingham—and stopped what he was doing.
He turned around and looked at Arthur, his eyes filled with a hint of stubbornness and pleading.
"Sir—this isn't just scrap metal." Briggs' voice was a little hoarse. "The Empress brought us out of General Guderian's encirclement. At Furny, it stopped three 37mm shells. If it weren't for it, we would have been charred to death."
"So?" Arthur asked coldly.
"So—" Briggs swallowed hard, "couldn't we just not blow them up? Even—even just push them into the woods over there and hide them? Maybe we can use them for a counterattack later—"
"You think you can come back and dig it out?" Arthur interrupted him, a mocking smile playing on his lips. "And then drive this bunch of tractors that can only go 15 kilometers per hour to fight the Germans' 88mm guns?"
A low murmur arose around them. The soldiers were furious at Arthur's indifference.
Major Ryder arrived at this moment. Sensing the tense atmosphere, he quickly tried to smooth things over: "Sir, the soldiers are just... a little sentimental. After all, these vehicles are their home. How about we dismantle the key parts and bury the vehicles—"
"Shut up, Ryder."
Arthur turned around abruptly, his grey-blue eyes devoid of warmth, filled only with a chilling rationality.
He drew the Luger P08 pistol he had just seized from his waist and cocked it smoothly.
"Click."
The crisp metallic clang made everyone's heart skip a beat.
Arthur didn't point the gun at anyone, but at Matilda's car, which was riddled with bullet holes.
"emotion?"
Arthur sneered, a look that belonged to someone who had crawled out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood: "Nostalgia is a painkiller for the weak, and we are the survivors. Survivors don't need memories, they only need weapons."
He suddenly raised his foot and kicked Sergeant Briggs hard in the shin.
The kick was extremely heavy, showing no mercy whatsoever. Caught completely off guard, Briggs was kicked to one knee and fell into the muddy water full of engine oil.
"You kneel down too!"
Arthur pointed at another tank crewman who was about to charge forward, his gun slightly tilted, and the palpable killing intent made the soldier stop in his tracks.
"Stand up, all of you! Stop crying and whining like women!"
Arthur's voice suddenly rose in pitch.
He was no longer the elegant young nobleman; at this moment, he was nothing short of a tyrant.
He grabbed Briggs by the collar, pulled him out of the mud, then turned him around and pointed to a row of brand-new German tanks at the other end of the platform.
"Open your eyes and look!"
Arthur pointed to the row of gleaming Panzer IV D tanks and roared, "Look ahead! Those are the new toys the Germans gave us!"
"A 75mm KwK37 short-barreled gun! One high-explosive shell can blow a house to smithereens! What can your 2-pound toothpick do? Scratch the Germans' itch?!"
"A Maybach with a 12-cylinder gasoline engine! 300 horsepower! Top speed of 40 kilometers per hour! It can take you across the French plains like the wind, instead of letting you languish in the mud like a tortoise!"
"Most importantly—the radio! One FuG5 radio per vehicle!"
Arthur released his grip, shoving Briggs back several steps. "Tell me, Sergeant. How many brothers in Alas were surrounded and killed because they didn't have radios and couldn't receive the retreat order? How many were blown up like fish by the Stukas because these damn lousy tanks were too slow?"
The scene was deathly silent.
There was only the sound of rain and Arthur's heavy breathing.
Every question was like a sharp knife, precisely piercing the deepest, most painful scars in the hearts of these veterans.
Yes. They love these tanks because they are their comrades.
But it was precisely because of the obsolescence of these tanks that they lost even more comrades.
"You miss this pile of scrap metal?"
Arthur walked up to the Matilda and slammed his gun butt against the armor plating with a loud clang: "This pile of scrap metal that runs slower than an old lady, communicates by shouting, and can't even take down a machine gun nest? This pile of scrap metal is what killed half of your brothers!"
"Feelings? Can feelings stop an 88mm gun? Can feelings get you across the English Channel?"
Arthur whirled around, scanning the room: "If you want to die, then hold your Matilda and wait to die here. The Germans will be here tomorrow morning, and they'll be happy to bury you and this pile of scrap metal together."
"But if you want to live"
Arthur took a deep breath: "Then learn to drive German cars, speak German, and use German cannons."
"We want to become like them. We want to be more like the Germans than they are. We want to use their weapons, kill all their people, burn all their food, and then swagger home."
"Now, I'm giving you one last chance to choose."
Arthur turned the Luger pistol in his hand upside down and handed it to Sergeant Briggs, whose face was covered in mud, then pointed to the pile of British vehicles: "Either you kill me with this gun and then wait here to die with your junk."
"Or, you can go and plant the explosives and personally send your old friend on his way."
"Three minutes. I won't wait for cowards."
After saying that, Arthur turned around, his back to Briggs, and walked straight to the command vehicle without even glancing at the row of soldiers who could riot at any moment.
This was extreme arrogance and extreme self-confidence, but McTavish wasn't crazy.
The Scottish veteran stared intently at Briggs's gun-wielding hand, his muscles taut with tension, like a predatory wolf guarding its prey. In the shadows behind him, several Cold Creek Guards soldiers had already silently raised their rifles.
Those heavy Thompson M1928 submachine guns had already been put on their safety, with the cocking handles hanging at the rear, ready to fire at any moment.
If Briggs raised his arm an inch, or if the group of agitated tank crews showed any sign of rioting, those "Chicago Typewriters" would unleash a torrent of .45 caliber bullets at point-blank range, tearing his former comrades to shreds.
On the edge of life and death, the air was so thick it was suffocating.
Rainwater streamed down Sergeant Briggs's face, washing away the dirt and looking like black tears.
He gripped the cold Luger pistol, the veins on the back of his hand bulging. He was trembling.
The tank crews around him looked at him with struggle in their eyes.
One second. Two seconds. Ten seconds.
Suddenly, Sergeant Briggs let out a beast-like roar.
"ah!!!"
But he did not raise his gun to shoot Arthur.
He whirled around, shoved the Luger pistol back into his belt, and strode toward the "Queen".
He climbed up the turret and roughly tore off several family photos pasted on the inner wall, stuffing them into his clothes.
Then he jumped out of the car and snatched a bundle of TNT from the sapper Miller next to him.
"What are you looking at?!"
Briggs, his eyes red, roared at his stunned subordinates, "Didn't you hear what your superior said? This is just a fucking pile of scrap metal! Get moving!"
Sergeant Briggs roared, his voice cracking with anguish. He was venting, yet also forcing himself to accept this cruel reality.
With that roar, the deadly silence was finally broken.
The tank crew, their eyes red and swollen, wiped away tears mixed with rain and oil as they silently began to move the heavy box of TNT. They roughly opened the hood, as if strangling their lover, but this only proved that Arthur's coercion had worked.
Seeing this, Arthur stopped walking towards the command vehicle.
Using the reflection in the car window, he looked at the group of soldiers behind him who had finally started moving, and a faint, knowing smile appeared on his lips.
That was the satisfied expression on the animal trainer's face when he saw the beast finally lower its head and crawl through the ring of fire. The last psychological defense of this unit—its attachment to the old army—had been completely shattered by him.
Now that the mental preparation is complete, the real "dirty work" begins.
Just as everyone was preparing to place the explosives, Arthur suddenly stopped and turned around.
"etc."
Arthur raised his hand to stop Briggs, who was about to stuff explosives into the engine of the "Pharaoh": "Who gave you permission to blow it up here? Take the explosives out."
Briggs froze, clutching the tube of plastic explosives in his hand, looking completely bewildered: "Sir? Didn't you just say—"
"I told you to blow it up, but I didn't tell you to blow up the station too."
Arthur pointed to the more than one hundred German corpses scattered throughout the station, their throats slit and their bodies stripped naked by the Scots. If the tanks were left here to be destroyed, even a fool would be able to tell that a massacre and looting had taken place here.
"Use your brain, Sergeant."
Arthur's voice was shockingly flat: "What we're going to fake is an air raid, not a robbery."
He turned around and gave the order to McTavish behind him: "Move out all the German corpses."
"Put them in the cabs of these eight Matilda trucks, and in the back beds of those trucks. Fill them up like sandbags."
Lieutenant Gray's eyes widened, his face contorted with terror, as if he had encountered something filthy: "Sir? You're going to—cram those dead Germans into my tank?"
"Yes, Lieutenant. This is their last use—moving coffins."
Arthur said coldly, "Move this pile of British junk to that low-lying woodland three kilometers to the south. It's far from the railway and an open area."
"Shove the bodies in, drive the car over, and then use C2 plastic explosives to send them flying into the sky."
"That's called deceiving the real thing with a fake."
Arthur's lips curled into a cold smile: "When the German reconnaissance planes fly over tomorrow morning, all they'll see is a pile of destroyed British vehicles filled with charred corpses. They'll assume it's a convoy of retreating British 1st Army soldiers who were hit by air or artillery fire during their retreat."
"In the death-ridden north of France, a pile of scrap metal won't arouse suspicion. But it will perfectly conceal our re-equipment. Only then can the Sterling battle group truly disappear from the Germans' sights."
Lieutenant Gray shuddered.
He finally understood that in order to bring these three thousand people home, Arthur had sold his soul to the devil.
"—Yes, sir." Gray gritted his teeth, tears mingling with the rain as they streamed into his mouth. "Move the corpses! Stuff those damned Germans into the cockpit of the Pharaoh!"
00:15. 3 kilometers south of St. Roque station, on the edge of an unnamed woodland.
All the British vehicles—two Avengers, six Desert Queens, and sixty-three mud-covered Bedford and Renault trucks—were pushed to this low-lying area.
They were huddled together, like a group of last witnesses to that epic defeat. The driver's cab of each vehicle was filled with the cold corpses of German soldiers.
The fuel tank cap was opened, and C2 plastic explosives were stuffed under the hood.
Arthur stood on a high ground several hundred meters away.
Behind him was the 999th SS Special Operations Battalion, which was already fully prepared for deployment.
The engines of the twenty-four Panzer IV tanks were warming up, emitting a series of deep and powerful roars, the distinctive roar of Maybach engines, much smoother and more resonant than the engines of British tanks.
Six StuG III assault guns lay lurking along the roadside like crocodiles.
Eighty Opel trucks were filled with soldiers wearing camouflage smocks and M35 helmets. If you didn't get a closer look at their somewhat youthful British faces, no one would doubt that this was a main SS unit.
"Everything is ready, sir."
Ryder walked over to Arthur, the detonator handle in his hand. The wire connected to that past.
"Let's do it." Arthur didn't turn around.
Ryder took a deep breath and pressed the handle hard.
"boom-!!!"
A deafening roar instantly shattered the silence of the rainy night.
A massive, orange-red fireball shot into the air, instantly engulfing the group of British vehicles. Then, a secondary explosion occurred.
The remaining fuel in the tank and the British ammunition that hadn't been unloaded from the truck bed joined this funeral of steel at that moment.
The shockwave from the explosion, mixed with heat, swept across the entire wasteland.
Flames shot into the sky.
In that instant, the darkness was forcibly dispelled.
The orange-red firelight shone on Arthur's newly donned SS captain's uniform (equivalent to a colonel), casting a blood-red outline on his figure.
The silver skull on his cap badge flickered in the dancing firelight, as if it had come alive, silently grinning at this absurd world.
Arthur watched the raging fire silently.
He watched as the Matilda trucks twisted and melted in the flames. He watched as the Bedford trucks turned into burning skeletons.
Those are relics of the 1st Army. Those are memories of Dunkirk.
Now, they have vanished into thin air.
In the towering flames, the last trace of weakness and nostalgia belonging to the "Sterling Mixed Brigade" was burned away completely.
"Is this what they call phoenix rebirth?" Ryder murmured to himself, staring at the raging fire.
"No, Ryder."
Arthur turned around, his back to the raging flames, and walked toward his command half-track.
His shadow stretched long in the firelight, like a huge monster cast upon the earth.
"The phoenix is a myth. We are ghosts."
Arthur jumped into the vehicle, grabbed the advanced German vehicle-mounted radio, and issued his first order in chilling, impeccable German:
"Achtung! Panzer marsch! (Attention! Tanks, advance!)"
"Target: Le Havre. Full speed ahead!"
With a screeching metallic scraping sound and the roar of engines, this steel torrent clad in camouflage slowly started up.
The tracks crushed the British steel helmets on the ground, and the wheels splashed up black mud.
They left the burning woodland, like a horde of demons just crawled out of hell, and plunged headlong into the vast, rainy night.
From that day forward, there was no more Sterling mixed brigade in the world.
Only one ghost roams the French soil—the 999th SS Special Operations Battalion.
00:45. On the march, 15 kilometers from Saint Roque station.
The convoy maintained an astonishing marching speed on the highway.
Thanks to the excellent suspension system and powerful engines of the German vehicles, they can now reach speeds of up to 35 kilometers per hour, a "top speed" that was unthinkable for previous British convoys.
Arthur sat in the passenger seat of the Sd.Kfz.251 half-track.
This vehicle is clearly the personal vehicle of a high-ranking SS officer. Although it has not yet been delivered, the seats are made of genuine leather, and it is even thoughtfully equipped with a folding chart table and a reading lamp.
The car was very quiet.
Captain Henry was fiddling with the high-powered FuG11 radio in the rear cabin, trying to eavesdrop on German communications frequencies.
"Any news, Henry?" Arthur lit a captured German cigarette and took a deep drag. This tobacco was much richer than the inferior British kind mixed with straw.
"It's a mess, sir—no, my Führer."
Captain Henry subconsciously corrected himself, though the original form of address gave him goosebumps: "This radio is fantastic. I can hear communications from the entire Army Group A. The Kleist armored group is charging south; they seem to have encountered some sporadic resistance from the French, but their advance is rapid."
"Also, I intercepted an urgent telegram from the 296th Infantry Division."
Henry adjusted his headphones, his expression turning somewhat strange. "They're asking about the situation at St. Rock Station. The explosions over there were so loud that even Amiens, two thousand kilometers away, could see the flames. They thought it was a bombing raid by the British Royal Air Force."
"Very good." Arthur exhaled a smoke ring, a slight smile playing on his lips. "Then let them continue to believe that. This has bought us at least six hours."
Just then, Major Ryder, who had been silent all along, suddenly spoke. He held a German marching manual that had been found in the car, his brow furrowed.
"Sir, I have a question."
Ryder pointed to the pitch-black night outside the window: "We're heading south now. At this pace, we can cross the Somme before dawn. But—but what?"
"How are we going to cross the bridge?" Ryder closed the manual, looking worried. "The main bridges over the Somme have all been bombed, and the ones that weren't are definitely heavily guarded. Even though we're wearing this uniform, if we encounter real SS or military police, they can easily spot us by checking our identification or passwords."
"We have four thousand people, such a large convoy, it's impossible for us to slip by unnoticed."
Arthur turned his head and looked at Ryder.
In the dim light of the reading lamp, Arthur's young and handsome face was illuminated.
"Who said we were going to sneak over?"
Arthur flicked his cigarette ash: "Ryder, you still haven't gotten into character. Who are we now?"
"Uh... the 999th SS Special Operations Battalion?"
"Wrong." Arthur shook his head, holding up a finger and wagging it. "We are the Führer's favorites. We are a special forces unit with the highest priority. We are carrying out a top-secret mission concerning the fate of the Empire."
"What would you do if such an important person passed through a checkpoint? Would you check their identification?"
Ryder paused for a moment, then said, "This—"
"You won't," Arthur sneered. "You'll be so scared you'll wet your pants, and then frantically move the roadblocks, afraid of delaying the important person by even a second."
"As for the password—"
Arthur picked up the captured signal codebook from the chart table, flipped through a few pages, and tossed it aside: "If we don't know the password, it just means that the password doesn't meet our security level."
"Remember, Ryder."
Arthur leaned closer to Ryder, staring into his eyes. He was already in character, his eyes full of acting skills: "In this world, as long as you act arrogant enough, rude enough, and like a jerk enough, no one will dare to check your ID."
"This is what is known as SS privilege."
"Notify the vanguard tank company."
Arthur sat back in his chair, looked again at the dark road ahead, and gave the order: "Turn on the headlights."
"Open everything. Don't sneak away in the dark like a thief."
"We're going to drive right through here. If anyone dares to block our way—"
Arthur made a throat-slitting gesture: "Then run them over."
01:00. Highway D901, west of Amiens.
Two blinding white beams pierced the rain curtain, followed by a river of light formed by countless car headlights.
If an Allied reconnaissance plane were to fly by at this moment, they would be surprised to find that on this war zone highway, which should have been under blackout, a huge German armored column was brazenly speeding along with its headlights on, displaying an arrogant and domineering attitude.
The tracks of the Panzer IV kicked up mud, and the roar of the Opel truck's engine shattered the tranquility of the night.
This is no longer a retreat.
This was an armed march.
At the very front of the convoy, in the command half-track, Arthur Sterling was sitting with his legs crossed, humming a tune from the future that should never have existed in this era.
It was a song about armored soldiers.
Although he deliberately changed the lyrics to German when he hummed it, the stirring melody still got people excited.
"Ob s stürmt oder schneit, Ob die Sonne uns lacht, Der Tag glühend heiB
Oder eiskalt die Nacht...
"Whether it's a raging wind or a blizzard, whether it's scorching sun or day and night, his face is covered in dust—"
That is "Panzerlied".
In this pitch-black, rainy night, this "Spectre SS" composed of British soldiers was singing German war songs and driving German tanks, speeding towards freedom or hell.
There will be another update tonight. Please recommend, vote with monthly tickets, and I'm definitely following along.