#habicht

[longingforrotkehlchen]

Today in birds hated by Crowy: Habicht.

Habicht (goshawk) & Aaskrähe (carrion crow) im Rosensteinpark, Bad Cannstatt.

[besidethepath]

Northern Goshawk calling

[zocomotive]

Desert Hawk

This character, Habicht the Class 48, is Heimchen's character, although the art and writing is mine. Heimchen gave me permission to draw and write about her characters, go check her stories out before you read this, or you might be confused as to who Habicht is. No, really, you'll get very confused.

(I originally wrote this for before on ao3, but im revising it. Aaand I went over Habicht again.)

It was a chilly evening, maybe August, maybe November. They were loading him onto a ship, that much he knew. He had been repaired while in France, at one of their works, repairing his boiler and smokebox, straightening out warped metal and most to Habicht's relief, cleaning out the soot that clogged him thoroughly. It was all very good: it meant they wanted to keep him, or otherwise put him to work. He took a deep sharp breath as the reassuring ground under his wheels left, as he hung in the air. Engines weren't meant to hang about.

But it was over quick, as he felt the ground beneath him again, unsteady ground, that had a vague sense of rising and falling. The ship, of course.

"Hello," came a voice. "Could you know where we are going?" It was bad French, uttered by a gravelly female voice. A 'war rep' too, Habicht thought. "Hello," he said, smiling. "No, I am afraid I do not."

"I see..." the other engine said. Habicht was glad she did, because he definitely did not.

It was a long journey on the ship, and a cold one. About two hours into it he felt something soft— a tarp, most likely, being tossed over him, and he was grateful for it, as it had begun to rain, first softly, then a hard hiss that was reminiscent of bullets for both engines. Habicht soon drifted off to sleep, the dreams of which were filled with not darkness, but fire...

At an unknown point of his restless sleep, the Class 48 felt the tarp being pulled off, and chains being pulled underneath the entirety of his body. He was relieved but also getting very annoyed at this point with his limited knowledge of what was happening. He had gone on a ship from France, but where did he end up? Then again, Habicht's brief anger faded. He was not being scrapped, obviously, and that was some good news, and from what he could here of the docks where he was being unloaded, there were no German-speaking humans around him to relate whatever was going on. He would just have to do what he had always done, and accept.

One of the dock workers, more specifically, a friendly tank engine, was eager to greet the new ones. It wasn't every day that a new locomotive was brought over to Chemins de fer algériens. First they unloaded two of the odd, but proud new Garratt locomotives, one friendly old female tank engine, and a diesel. But that wasn't it, there was one more.

As the towering cranes slowly lowered him or her, a big ten-wheeler with a strange set of four leading wheels, the tank engine's smile faded to a look of poorly hidden fear and disgust. He suddenly wished it wasn't a faced engine.

"What happened to your face?" gasped the tank engine. For the ten-wheeler's face was maimed, from the upper right side of his forehead then descending down to the lower left cheek, and across his eyes, there was simply a wide dark scar, with smaller slashes of scar tissue across the edges. The engine's mouth twitched, perhaps from some minor annoyance.

By this point, the big Class 48 was indeed annoyed by the attention- worse yet, pity- he was receiving, mostly because he couldn't actually see how bad it was, even if he had a mirror of some sort. It stung with the weight of the stare, but he refused to show it.

"Good day," he said, then remembered that the engine spoke French. Habicht spoke very little French, he was only able to pick up a few greetings, and nouns and adjectives like guerre, triage, cassé...

He found one of these greetings to say to the other engine, who answered in like manner, yet was hesitant. Habicht smiled tightly, then the conversation dwindled into silence. aebicht doubted that he had made a new friend. He heard the tank engine say something and chuff past him, and come back behind him, and something was being coupled up.

Soon, he heard some foreign words near his cab, being spoken between two men, likely his new driver and fireman. He found himself in motion, with no knowledge of who was driving him, but his deep ingrained obedience didn't allow him to make any comment. Even if he did, Habicht knew that the humans wouldn't understand him, anyway. From what little of the French he could make out, he was now going to work "a long way?" Feeling his new driver's wordless command to accelerate forward, the German class 48 responded.

Along the way to wherever he was going, Habicht could hear the rush of dry wind across open ground, the dust dulling his livery. It felt good to pull hard along an open line. He had been laid up for far too long, first in Dresden, then in the French works. His disability actually didn't interfere much with his work, as blindness was not as crippling to engines as it was to humans. He didn't need to see to move with certainty, as he had the steel rails under him, and his crew kept an eye out for obstructions. Still, they couldn't keep an eye out for pleasant sights, as if there were any. After a long while, he felt his driver pulling down on his throttle, and he responded, slowing down. He recognized the busy industrial sounds of a goods yard, and he realized he had a new purpose in this strange country: long distance freight work.

It was quite some time into cool night when Habicht retired to his berth at ? but he wouldn't be able to get the peaceful rest he hoped for.

"Who's that?"

"The new German, Habicht, remember? What's his class, again?"

"Hello!"

"Oh, it's you." said Reyhan disdainfully, as Habicht backed in. He smiled to himself. The other engine sounded almost like Lammergeier that time when—no, don't think about it, don't think about it. He made a point of saying a polite 'hello' to whatever other engines were adressing him, except Reyhan.

"So, you must be the new steamer, right?" Farid, one of the other engines eagerly threw in before Reyhan could say more. "I'm Farid, and the diesel beside me is Samia. I see you've met Reyhan, and that's her brother, Rauf. Say hi, Rauf. Anyway, there's also Manon, and one those class 50s who look like you should be arriving soon after they come back from Oran tomorrow. Who else..."

The engine appeared content to ramble on and on about CFAE's roster while Habicht kept up a mildly interested appearance to him. In reality, he was beginning to disassociate halfway through the conversation, holding his breath, tensing up, as he heard a whirring noise. Was it overhead? Oh, God don't let it be from overhead...

A horn blared in front of Habicht. He opened his eyes as he felt the rails beneath him thrum. It was of course, only a loud diesel engine approaching the sheds.

"Are you okay?" whispered one of the other unseen engines. Habicht didn't remember his name. "I am." He said, irritably. He despised pity. He closed his good eye, the only one that could fully close, as he wished for a long day of hard work to numb his feelings.

"Never complains, that engine. Decent fellow," praised Mr. Rousseau, one of the older drivers of the big German freight locomotives, to one of the other crewmen as they took a hasty lunch break between switching on to the next train that day. "Imagine what he could do overhauled. That would be something..."

It was a nice thought, but there would be no overhaul this year, or the next few, most likely. Habicht's mechanical parts were usually swabbed free of sand, and his boiler, dome, and cylinders were long patched up, but the 48 was aware that his performance wasn't what it once was. But for now, it was enough...

The jobs were hard, long trains of wood, steel, and even rails; for converting the Biskra to Touggourt and a couple other lines to meter gauge, but Habicht didn't mind the hard work a bit. He was glad to have a job, likely for a few more years to come. Unlike the narrow-gauge engines.

As for the other engines, most of the ones he met liked the hardworking, quiet freighter, but Reyhan, one of the two new streamlined garratts, was jealous of Habicht. She feared that the overpowered engine would take her jobs pulling passengers.and her fears were not unfounded. Habicht was powerful, and worked well.

Manon, a USATC S160, (well, now called a 140-U) also was rude.

"Ugh," pronounced Reyhan as she spotted Habicht reversing out of a siding one day out of the corner of her eye. "Ugh," agreed Manon reluctantly.

"He looks like roadkill. Why can't he go die somewhere?" seethed Reyhan. Manon suppressed her shock at the viciousness directed at her fellow engine. The big garrat raised an eyebrow. Habicht's expression was one of focus. He was listening. But Reyhan was there right next to her, and so much bigger.

"Yeah...it's... so sad," Manon said reluctantly. She gazed, troubled at the blind German, scarred worse than she, but he never responded.

She changed her mind- Habicht was clearly the bigger engine, as the young soldiers would say.

The worst part was the occasional plane. Then all the time and the hot wind and the accented French being spoken everywhere felt insignificant, he was back in Dresden.

Habicht breathed hard, but contentedly, forgetting Dresden for a time as he pulled into the siding where his next train was waiting in the busy yard. There was another engine pulling out on a line close by to his, as he felt the vibrations through the ground. They whistled to each other, but it went downhill from there.

"Ugh. Another ugly foreigner." the other one said in perfect French, with a snobbish female voice. Habicht was disenchanted.

"It is nice to meet you too," he growled, meaning it was the opposite of nice to meet her. The other engine snorted. "You're the new freighters, aren't you? Just stay out of my stretch of track."

"You own the tracks?" Habicht's long-dormant pride couldn't let him puff away without goading the rude engine.

"I might as well," insisted the stranger. "My class and I, we're the lifeblood that pumps across the rails, built for this desert. You're just one of the newcomers, and a strange one at that."

"This foreign stranger is probably half your weight and can definitely pull heavier loads than you can." Hanging was glad to be learning some more French from listening to his crew converse.

The other engine, Reyhan, was furious. Who did this deformed German think he was, trying to take her job, and calling her weak, she thought. Then her fury gave way to intimidation as she saw just how many loaded freight cars the 4-10-0 was pulling. And not just little open trucks either. Hissing furiously, the four-six-two plus two-six-four puffed away, her pride shaken, but determined not to show it.

The big class 48's life continued in this manner; wake up, pull trains, exchange small talk with the other engines (and small insults with that rude garratt, Reyhan). It was not mistreatment, at the very least.

The worst part was the occasional plane that tore across the sky overhead, engines roaring. It was those times when all the time that had passed for Habicht to 'get over it' became meaningless, he was back in Dresden, hot, blistering Dresden hotter than the desert sand that occasionally flew against him as he made his runs.

Then there was Reyhan's bullying, but Habicht was a proud, tough engine, he could take a bit of heckling. Another issue was the advancing threat of dieselization, but Habicht suspected they had another decade or so before their usefulness was outlived. And indeed, it was nearly ten years until the National Liberation Front called for independence, in the year 1954.

Talk of revolution against France had started as early as when the 48 first came to Algerian Railways, but most of the engines were not worried.

"There's talk of war. The humans talk of war on the horizon," Habicht said.

"If there's a war, I suppose we'll be pulled out of service," remarked Manon, the young American freighter, one of the few engines that Habicht considered a friend. Reyhan scoffed. "You little engines worry about everything, you're so insecure."

"Technically, by non-garratt standards, Mannie isn't little at all," Farid said brightly.

"Algeria is France," said Rauf affirming his sister's words. "There will never be a war."

"That's what they said about Germany," warned Habicht. "It's divided now, and it took a whole bloody war."

"Well, this isn't Germany," said Reyhan "—in case you haven't noticed. Oh wait, how can you notice— you're blind."

"Don't waste your breath, Habicht," whispered Manon. The Class 48 knew not to. Reyhan and her brother were built after the war. They were not worried about withdrawal. Until 1951.

Habicht heard Reyhan crying bitterly over in her side of the shed. He considered comforting her, after all, he knew what it was like to lose a brother, but decided not to, judging by how furiously the garratt turned on Farid when the little diesel tried to soothe her. She despised pity, not unlike himself, Habicht thought. She was so like him, proud, until the day that the war became real to her...

[bergsmotiv]

Europabrücke bei Schönberg, (Brennerautobahn) - Tirol

Blick gegen Serles 2719 m, Habicht 3280 m und Stubaier Gletscher

Länge der Brücke 820 m Höhe über dem tal 190 m Größte Spannweite 198 m Breite der Brücke 22,8 m

[melwillow]

[classic-asian-art]

Goshawk on a pine tree with a rainbow above by Ohara Koson (colour woodblock print)

[laka69]

Ospite gradito. Willkommener Gast.

[wildlifegermany]

Habicht (Accipiter gentillis) Das Männchen ist deutlich kleiner als das Weibchen. Ebenso unterschiedlich ist die Größe der Beute, die sie nach kurzem Verfolgungsflug überwältigen können. Während das Männchen meist taubengrosse Vögel erbeutet, kann das Weibchen sogar große Hühnervögel schlagen. Im Winter frisst der Habicht auch Mäuse und Kaninchen. Goshawk (Accipiter gentillis) The male is significantly smaller than the female. Equally different is the size of the prey they can overpower after a short pursuit flight. While the male usually captures birds the size of pigeons, the female can even strike large fowl. In winter, the goshawk also eats mice and rabbits.