Reincarnated: Vive La France
Chapter 95: "A technical gift and a logistical insult in one delivery."

Chapter 95: "A technical gift and a logistical insult in one delivery."

The train pulled into the station outside Reims nearly three hours late.

The soldiers on the platform barely noticed the delay.

They were watching the flatbed cars as they passed, cargo that had only existed in rumors until now.

Moreau stood beside de Gaulle at the platform edge, coat buttoned up to the neck, gloved hands clenched around a clipboard.

Twelve Renault ADR trucks.

Three Char D1 tanks.

Two wooden crates stamped with "Équipement Radio – Type ER-26 bis."

Six pallets of fuel drums.

One sealed container marked "Aéronautique, Liaison Only."

No speeches.

No officers from Paris.

Only a handwritten note clipped to the manifest: On direct authorization of General Gamelin.

De Gaulle exhaled slowly. "Now we see if the vision can move."

"It moves," Moreau replied, "or it dies here."

Unloading began before the frost thawed.

The trucks were freshly painted, the smell of fresh oil still clinging to the chassis.

Sergeant Lemoine, head of the motor pool, walked a slow circle around the first one, boots thumping on the platform, tapping tires with a crowbar.

"Still smells like a factory. That’ll change fast," he muttered.

The Renault ADRs weren’t ideal top-heavy on rough terrain, stubborn in low gear but they were reliable enough and far better than the cobbled-together convoy they’d trained with for weeks.

More importantly, they gave the unit mobility it could trust.

Chauvet arrived with his maintenance team just as the first Char D1 tank rolled off the flatbed.

Olive green.

47mm SA34 cannon mounted on a squat hull.

Boxy, awkward but dangerous-looking.

At least on paper.

"This thing climbs like a mule with arthritis," Chauvet said, walking a lap around it. "But it’s got teeth."

De Gaulle knelt near the treads. "It’s not for dueling. It’s for breaking lines."

"And what holds them after the break?" Chauvet asked.

"The infantry," Moreau said from behind him. "Tanks pierce. Men secure. Then we move again."

It was a doctrine alien to most in the French army built not on defense, but disruption.

That was what made it so fragile.

And so dangerous.

The radio crates were offloaded with unusual care.

Inside were three complete sets of the new ER-26 Bis radio transceivers barely field-tested outside artillery coordination and one partially damaged unit missing a battery housing.

A technical gift and a logistical insult in one delivery.

Lieutenant Renard, newly assigned from the signal corps, examined the units under the watchful eyes of two corporals.

"They gave me two working sets and one that looks like it fell off a truck in 1919," he said.

"You have forty-eight hours," Moreau said.

Renard blinked. "For calibration? Sir, these need tuned grounding loops and stable transmission frequencies..."

"Thirty-six," Moreau interrupted. "And I want a voice test on a moving truck by morning."

The lieutenant sighed but nodded. "Understood."

De Gaulle ordered the command staff to prepare the lead three vehicles for immediate retrofit.

Portable aerial masts were bolted to their frames.

Wire was stripped, rewired, rechecked. .

Battery backups were soldered with borrowed kit from a local airfield.

Three days later, they ran their first test.

Just static at first.

Then the unmistakable voice of a corporal from the recon unit, somewhere in the trees, complaining about the mud and asking if anyone had stolen his coffee.

It was rough.

But it worked.

With real hardware came real pressure.

Moreau scheduled a full-unit maneuver: a fast assault drill across split ridgelines with timed armored thrusts and live radio command.

No observers.

No invitations.

Just a trial by mud, steel, and motion.

At sunrise, the unit assembled on the south edge of the training zone.

Fuel drums lined the staging line.

Mechanics warmed engines with torches.

Radiomen tested frequencies one final time.

Inside a makeshift command tent, Moreau keyed his mic.

"Fox Actual to all callsigns. We roll in ten. Maintain formation delta. No improvisation unless radio contact fails. Let’s move."

The Char D1s rolled first, slow but sure, their tracks biting into frosted grass.

Each vehicle was assigned a radio handler now one to receive, one to relay.

Infantry trucks followed, better spaced than before, each flanked by rifle squads with practiced dismount orders.

Recon units had already gone forward, feeding terrain updates by code phrases.

In the distance, artillery crews raised colored panels to simulate firing data an old trick used before spotter planes.

A runner passed Moreau, saluted, and vanished into the brush.

It worked.

Slowly, chaotically but it worked.

By the time the unit crested the second ridge, the formation had begun to tighten.

The first objective a simulated trench line made from hay bales and mannequins was reached in just under nine minutes.

A second tank suffered a minor transmission lag but recovered.

Infantry dismounted, swept the position, and signaled secure.

One radio signal came through garbled; Lieutenant Renard corrected the frequency within thirty seconds.

The entire maneuver tanks forward, trucks in reserve, signals coordinated by voice and flare lasted seventeen minutes.

Compared to traditional drills, it was unorthodox.

Compared to the chaos of weeks before, it was a triumph.

They debriefed in a field shelter over maps and lukewarm stew.

Chauvet tossed down a muddy helmet. "Tank One lost power on the incline. We had to tow it after the drill."

"Good," Moreau said.

Chauvet stared at him. "Good?"

"It broke under stress. That’s better than breaking under fire."

De Gaulle nodded. "We’ll need better fuel logistics. And the tanks must be warmed longer before climb."

Lieutenant Renard entered with a clipboard. "All three radio sets held frequency within fifty meters of drift. Range held across five kilometers. Signal clarity rated above 80%."

Moreau raised an eyebrow. "And the garbled call?"

"Operator error. We’ll run refresh drills tonight."

No one cheered.

But no one objected.

They were starting to think like a unit.

A week later, a Ministry attaché visited the camp, followed quietly by two "civilians" from the British legation.

Moreau didn’t greet them.

He didn’t need to.

The liaison simply observed, asked no questions, then left with a file folder under his arm.

Two days after that, the note arrived.

A sealed envelope.

Inside: five handwritten lines.

"Consider the division formalized. Further support authorized. Prepare for summer readiness inspection."

- M.G.

De Gaulle read it aloud to the staff during briefing.

No one spoke for a moment.

Then Chauvet said, "So they believe in it now?"

"No," Moreau said. "They believe they can’t ignore it."

He walked outside into the chill.

Three tanks sat covered near the maintenance tents.

A signal truck’s antenna caught the wind, swaying gently.

It was ugly.

Unstable.

And real.