The Sangliers stood like sentinels in the ruined square of Bruges.
Their hulls were scorched, streaked with soot and shell impact marks, but they were whole. Smoke still curled from their mufflers. Belgian civilians lined the cathedral steps with disbelief and awe, pointing, murmuring. Children crept closer until a French officer shooed them back.
In the shadow of the Notre-Dame tower, Emil Dufort sat on an overturned crate with his sleeves rolled and his face streaked in oil and ash. He didn't feel like a hero.
He felt exposed.
"Sir," Marianne said quietly, handing him a ration tin. "You should eat something before the next convoy arrives."
He nodded vaguely but didn't touch it.
The telegram from Paris still burned in his mind:
British and American observers en route.
Arrival of the Outsiders
Two days later, they came—six men in tailored trench coats and wide-brimmed hats, stepping off a special dispatch train flanked by a dozen armed guards. Two wore the insignia of the Royal Tank Regiment, their boots caked with Salisbury mud. One, tall and rail-thin, introduced himself with a clipped American accent.
"Captain Theodore Marsh, U.S. Military Intelligence Liaison. You must be the man behind the iron monsters."
"I'm the man behind the factory," Emil replied. "The monsters made themselves."
They laughed, but the air remained sharp.
Marsh examined the Sanglier Mk III with open fascination, walking slow laps around the hull and muttering notes into a wire-bound journal. One of the British engineers—an older gentleman named Colonel Haversham—scoffed as he ran his gloved hand along the armor plates.
"Riveted armor? Bold choice. You'll get spalling like rain in a hailstorm."
"It's transitional," Emil said. "Mk IV will use cast sections. We're refining alloy compositions now."
Haversham raised an eyebrow. "Are you?"
The Presentation
Henriette organized a formal briefing inside a commandeered hotel-turned-command post on the Rue d'Or. The walls were cracked and the chairs didn't match, but the map table had been cleaned, and Emil's blueprints lay in neat stacks beneath brass paperweights.
Emil stood before them in his oil-streaked field uniform. He didn't try to impress. He laid out the facts.
"France cannot fight a twentieth-century war with nineteenth-century doctrine. We've seen what happens when men charge trenches with bayonets. These machines—our tanks—change the very equation of war. They create shock, fear, and breaches."
He pointed to a chart of battlefield casualties pre- and post-Sanglier deployment.
"Reduced infantry losses by 42% in forward units. Increased penetration of enemy lines by 60%. The Sanglier isn't a gimmick. It's the spearhead of modern warfare."
Captain Marsh tapped the paper thoughtfully. "How many can you produce in a month?"
Emil didn't hesitate. "With current resources? Eight. With rail priority, doubled steel allowance, and a guaranteed oil reserve? Twenty-five."
Colonel Haversham leaned forward. "And if we gave you access to British engines?"
"I'd give you a machine that makes the Mark I look like a bread cart."
The room went still.
Enemies in the Ranks
Later that evening, Roland found Emil in the hotel courtyard, smoking a cigarette with shaking hands. He hadn't smoked in years, but today he needed the burn.
"They don't trust you," Roland said, leaning against the stone balustrade.
"They shouldn't," Emil replied. "They don't know me."
"That American does," Roland said. "Too well."
Emil glanced up.
Roland tossed him a sealed envelope.
"We intercepted a coded signal from Marsh's escort. It was directed not to Washington, but to the British embassy in Bern. It referenced 'advanced French armored doctrines incompatible with Allied unity.'"
"So he's here to audit—and to undercut."
"Welcome to international politics," Roland said.
The Pressure Mounts
Back at Leclerc Works, production had become a frenzy. Henriette now oversaw five sub-assembly zones with rotating day-and-night shifts. The upgraded Mk IV chassis was complete, featuring a new angled armor plate configuration and redesigned periscope system.
But with success came resistance.
Colonel Varin sent word that several senior staff at the Ministry of War believed Emil was overstepping. That his designs represented a threat to traditional command structures. That he was making "a cult of machinery."
Even some of his own staff whispered. Bruno, recovering with a shattered leg, had muttered to Henriette:
"We build iron beasts, and one day we'll need them to fight each other."
Word reached Emil.
He didn't argue. He simply kept building.
A New Directive
A week later, a military courier arrived with a formal document signed by the President of the Republic himself.
"In recognition of demonstrated strategic innovation and battlefield effectiveness, Émile Dufort is hereby appointed Special Armored Advisor to the Ministry of War, with clearance to operate independently of standard command hierarchy, under joint review."
It was a promotion.
And a leash.
Henriette read the fine print first.
"They're giving you control—but watching everything you do."
"I've been watched since Bruges," Emil said. "This just makes it official."
He posted the notice in the factory main hall anyway.
The workers cheered.
Sabotage Revisited
Success bred jealousy. And jealousy bred knives.
Late one night, one of the casting sheds caught fire. A barrel of chemical coolant had been tampered with—replaced with kerosene. The blaze tore through a quarter of the foundry line before fire teams put it out. Two apprentices were hospitalized. One died.
Emil arrived at the scene barefoot, dragging a hose with one hand and barking orders.
The next morning, Roland handed him a charred uniform scrap with a familiar insignia.
"A plant," Roland said. "From the Ministry. Likely military intelligence. Someone on the inside doesn't want you building any more monsters."
"Then we double our output," Emil said.
The Ministry's Visit
Ten days later, a delegation arrived from Paris—civilian ministers, military brass, and a representative from Renault. They asked polite questions. They smiled for photographs. They nodded at Emil's demonstrations.
But behind their eyes, Emil saw it.
Fear.
Not of the Germans.
Of him.
📦 Secrets in TransitAt Henriette's urging, Emil began organizing encrypted delivery routes. Each tank shipped to the front now traveled under escort, with false crates, diversionary stops, and armed engineers. Even fuel reserves were guarded.
The Sanglier Mk IV rolled out with a redesigned front hull, two rotating 37mm guns, and a multi-layered armor plate based on naval cladding. It was heavier. Slower. But nearly invulnerable to small arms.
And it roared like a dragon.
Marianne nicknamed it La Gargouille—The Gargoyle.
Its first trial came not in Belgium—but in Lorraine.
Where rumors whispered the Germans had their own beast.