roccoschili Chapter 19 Ghost Battle Group
Chapter 19 Ghost Battle Group
At 16:20 on the French/Belgian border, on the south bank of the Lis River, along a branch of the D916 highway, it was raining, with low pressure and extremely poor visibility.
The weather in France, like the situation on this battlefield, is constantly changing.
Two hours earlier, Arthur was still able to use radio to guide that perfect "Stuka target killing," allowing the German Luftwaffe pilots to accurately drop each 500-kilogram bomb onto their own half-tracks and enjoy that spectacular fireworks display.
However, as if to cover up the traces of that massacre, after four o'clock in the afternoon, a low-pressure cold front from the North Sea quickly swept across the entire Dunkirk outer war zone.
Now, the rain, like a thick, cold film, covers the entire French land. The sky hangs low, seemingly within reach, displaying a depressing, deathly gray hue.
The reeds along the Lis River shivered in the cold wind mixed with rain, and a grayish-white mist spread across the river, enveloping this war zone, littered with shell craters and debris, like a chaotic underworld. Visibility quickly dropped to less than two hundred meters, and distant objects became blurry and distorted silhouettes.
This kind of awful weather is a nightmare for troops desperately needing air support, but for the "Ghosts" who need to conceal their movements and carry out infiltration raids, it's the best cloak God could give them.
Three mud-caked Opel Lightning trucks, like three silent steel beetles, slowly crawled along a hidden dirt road along the riverbank, a road so obscure it was hard to spot on a map. The wheels churning over the soft, wet mud with a sickening squeaking sound.
Arthur sat in the passenger seat, his captured German leather jacket soaked through by the rain, but he felt no cold. His fingers were still unconsciously stroking the charred rag doll in his inner breast pocket.
After "using someone else to do the dirty work," his nerves didn't relax; instead, they became even more tense.
On the RTS system interface in his mind, the red blocks representing the German encirclement were visibly pressing westward. Guderian's 19th Panzer Corps was still launching a fierce offensive towards the last few dozen kilometers of the Allied lines, attempting to crush these hundreds of thousands of Allied troops along with their hopes.
The German offensive intensified, becoming almost ferocious.
Arthur clearly remembered that, in the original historical trajectory, the Supreme Command issued the famous "ceasefire order" on May 24th, halting the armored forces along the Azhebrook-Kassel line for two full days. It was during these precious 48 hours that the Allied forces barely managed to establish the current fragile Azhebrook-Kassel line, as well as several subsequent lines of defense. Several Allied divisions even launched counterattacks against the German forces.
However, after the Supreme Command ordered the resumption of the offensive on May 26, history took a different turn.
In this time and space where Arthur, like a butterfly, frantically flaps his wings, the German offensive is no longer a methodical advance, but a cathartic outpouring of vengeance.
Perhaps it was Rommel's logistical artery, which was severed by the "Ghost," that triggered the intermittent neuralgia among the Junker officers at Army Group B's command.
Perhaps it was that "suicide bombing" personally orchestrated by Stuka that had completely extinguished the fuse of rationality in the frontline SS commanders;
Or perhaps it was the despicable act of pouring sugar into a precision engine, which deeply offended the Germans' almost religious fastidiousness regarding mechanical craftsmanship.
In short, the reasons are no longer important.
What matters is the result—in the cold, god-like perspective of RTS, those red arrows representing the German armored front are now charging forward at a rate exceeding 30% with a surge of enraged momentum.
The Kassel line, which should have bought more time for the retreat, is now under even greater pressure. The time to hold every inch of the position is being compressed, and the so-called "forgiveness" is being devoured by the hatred created by Arthur himself.
On the RTS map, Arthur did not see any yellow markers indicating "rest".
Conversely, the 1st Armoured Division of the 19th Armoured Corps had already forced its way across the Acre Canal, and the main force of Clyster's armored group was ramming into the British's fragile defenses like a mad bull. The radius of the encirclement had also shrunk by a full 30%.
In this Dunkirk of this time and space, there is no "miracle holiday" bestowed by God; every second of survival must be earned with blood and flesh.
The windshield wipers, like a dying old man, futilely scraped against the windshield, unable to clear the curtain of rain that seemed to engulf the world. The rain continued to intensify, visibility had dropped to less than ten meters, and the entire highway was shrouded in a thick, damp, and cold gray fog.
Just then, the RTS holographic interface on Arthur's retina refreshed without warning, as if some dormant algorithm had been suddenly awakened.
In that gray area of "fog of war" representing absolute unknown, within a deadly distance of only fifty meters from the front bumper of their vehicle, four huge green identification signals representing "friendly forces" suddenly appeared like ghosts.
???
Arthur was stunned.
In the midst of a time when the entire front line had collapsed like mud and hundreds of thousands of Allied troops were fleeing westward in a frantic retreat, there was still a well-organized resistance force deep in the heartland of this region, which had been thoroughly infiltrated by German armored divisions.
Arthur's gaze was fixed on the line of fluctuating attribute labels, and his breath even stopped for a moment.
The classification codes provided by the system are cold, heavy, and carry a suffocating, metallic oppression:
[Friendly/Heavy Armor Units]
They had no infrared signature, their engines were cold, and if you didn't look at the RTS, they looked like four lifeless, massive rocks, perfectly blended into the muddy background. Even the Stukas that had flown by earlier and the Skeleton Division scouts who had passed by couldn't find them.
But Arthur still found them!
With the absolute resolution of system data, they have nowhere to hide.
"Stop the car! Immediately!"
Arthur gave the order decisively, without any prelude of explanation.
Sergeant McTavish in the driver's seat didn't hesitate for even a second, nor did he foolishly ask "why."
This was the discipline ingrained in the bones of the Coldstream Guard, and also their near-blind, absolute obedience to Lord Sterling. His right foot slammed onto the brake pedal as if electrocuted—a muscle memory that transcended conscious judgment.
squeak--!!
The heavy Opel Lightning truck's tires locked up on the slippery mud, the vehicle jolted violently, and the inertia threw the people inside forward, before it came to a stop just a dozen meters away from the fog ahead.
Even after the car came to a complete stop, McTavish's hands remained tightly gripping the handbrake, only then did he have time to look ahead.
There was only rain, only fog, only suffocating silence.
"Sir? The road conditions show..." McTavish squinted, trying to see through the rain, but he couldn't see anything. "It seems to be empty ahead."
"No, it's not empty there."
Arthur opened his eyes, though he still couldn't understand anything. But he didn't need to confirm it with his own eyes, because the system had already provided detailed parameters for the four behemoths.
"Turn off the engine, Sergeant."
Arthur pushed open the car door, and the damp, cold air rushed in, but he simply pointed coldly to the seemingly ethereal fog in front of him.
"If you drive another twenty meters, we will crash into a 30-ton French steel wall."
Arthur pushed open the car door and jumped into the ankle-deep mud. His vision cut through the rain and mist, and ahead, around the bend in the road, stood several steel fortresses as large as small hills.
Those were four tanks.
But unlike the German Panzer I and II tanks, which are slender and compact, or the British Matilda, which is rounded, they are large, heavy, and angular. The sides of the hull are covered with thick chains and spare tracks, and a 75mm short-barreled howitzer is mounted on the towering front of the hull. On the rounded turret, a 47mm anti-tank gun also stands.
Char B1 bis heavy tank.
The pride of the French Army, and also a symbol of tragedy. In 1940, they were veritable "land cruisers," possessing 60mm thick sloped armor, enough to evade almost all German anti-tank fire at the time. German soldiers awe-inspiringly called them "Iron Monsters" (Eisenmonster).
However, in Arthur's RTS vision, these four green units representing friendly forces were now flashing a dim yellow light that indicated "extreme weakness/morale collapse".
They stood motionless, engines shut down, cannons lowered, like four prehistoric behemoths stranded in a quagmire, awaiting their death.
"Everyone get off the bus and remain on alert."
Arthur made a gesture, and the soldiers of the Cold Creek Guard quickly dispersed, using the roadside trees as cover to establish a defensive line.
Arthur straightened his collar and strode toward the tanks. Lieutenant Jeanne followed closely behind him, gripping her MP40 submachine gun tightly, her eyes fixed on the steel behemoths painted in French tricolor camouflage.
……
The closer you get, the stronger the sense of oppression becomes.
These four B1 heavy tanks had clearly been through fierce fighting. The lead tank was riddled with bullet holes, as if it had been gnawed by smallpox, but not a single shell could penetrate its armor. Half of a crushed German motorcycle was even hanging from its side skirts.
Its name, "Verdun," was painted in white on the vehicle.
A name filled with glory and bloodshed.
At this moment, however, the Verdun appeared utterly desolate. Several French tank crewmen in oil-stained leather jackets were gathered around the vehicle, blankly stuffing yellow explosive blocks into the tracks and turret rings.
A tall, bearded French captain leaned against a track plate, a cigarette burning almost to his fingers between his fingers, his eyes vacant as he stared at the gray sky. His uniform was tattered, a blood-soaked bandage wrapped around his left arm, and the gold insignia on his collar was stained black with oil.
Upon seeing Arthur and his group, the French soldiers showed little surprise; not a single one even raised their guns. They were utterly numb, as if they would have offered a cigarette even to Germans.
"Are you British?"
The captain tossed away his cigarette butt and asked in a voice almost devoid of emotion, his English thick with a southern accent, "If you're asking for directions, that bridge is broken. If you're looking for oil... ha, you've come to the wrong place."
Arthur did not answer. His gaze swept over the four tanks like a scanner, then landed on the soldiers who were installing explosives.
"Why?" Arthur pointed to the explosives.
"Out of fuel." The captain shrugged, a gesture brimming with despair and helplessness. "Out of ammunition too. Gearbox overheated, track pins broken. We're like a bunch of rats trapped in an iron coffin."
He patted the heavy armor plate behind him, which made a dull metallic echo.
"They're good tanks, really. Just yesterday, this 'Verdun' withstood the fire of an entire German anti-tank company, even crushing three of their 37mm 'door-knocking' guns into the mud. But..."
Captain Durand's lips twitched, revealing a smile more painful than a grimace—a helpless mockery of fate.
"Without gasoline, it's just a thirty-ton pile of scrap metal, an expensive, immobile iron coffin. I can't leave it to the Germans."
After saying that, he turned around, waved to the soldiers, and said in an extremely weary voice, "Hurry up. Set the fuse, and we'll walk to the Dunkirk coast... if we can still make it."
That deep-seated sense of defeatism was more suffocating than the damp, cold rain and fog.
"Captain Durand," Jeanne suddenly spoke, recognizing the captain's medal—the Legion of Honor, something no coward could obtain. "You're from the 37th Armored Battalion? Isn't your mission to hold the Lis River line?"
The captain raised his cloudy eyes and glanced at Jeanne, seemingly surprised to see a French female officer there, but he immediately shook his head: "Defense line? Where is the defense line? Rommel's tanks are already right behind us. The First Army is finished, miss. Everything is over."
"So you're just going to blow them up like a coward?"
Arthur stepped forward. He was no longer the observer he had been before; now he was like a drawn dagger—sharp, dangerous, and aggressive.
Captain Durand frowned, a flash of anger in his eyes: "Watch your tongue, Englishman. If you'd been in one of those metal boxes for three days and three nights, watching your comrades burn to death one by one, you wouldn't be standing here making sarcastic remarks. This is war, not your afternoon tea party."
"Yeah?"
Arthur gave a cold laugh.
Click.
The next second, a black revolver was pressed against Captain Durand's forehead without warning.
The surrounding air froze instantly.
Several French soldiers who were planting explosives flinched, dropping the explosives to the ground. Although they didn't know Lord Arthur's intentions, the British soldiers immediately raised their Thompson submachine guns and pointed them at the Frenchmen.
"Are you crazy?!" Durand's eyes widened; he hadn't expected this friendly officer to draw his gun so readily. "What do you want to do?"
"I'm helping you see reality clearly, Captain."
Arthur's voice was frighteningly calm, and the gun was as steady as a rock, the muzzle even pressing a dent into Durand's forehead.
"This is war. In war, there are only two kinds of people: the dead and the killers. Which do you want to be?"
Arthur's eyes held no hint of a joke; they held the cold indifference of someone looking at inanimate objects. "You have four of the most heavily armored monsters on the planet. Each one is equipped with a 75mm howitzer and a 47mm anti-tank gun. You're telling me that because they're out of fuel, you're going to blow them up? And then, like stray dogs, lead your men to the beach to line up and get blown to bits by the Stukas?"
"Did I have a choice?!" Durand roared, veins bulging in his neck—a burst of humiliation. "They can't move! No fuel! You want me to push a thirty-ton tank into the Germans?!"
"What if I had it?"
Arthur suddenly withdrew his gun and holstered it back in the back of his hand.
This sudden action stunned Durand, and the anger that had been on the verge of exploding instantly caught in his throat.
"Wh...what?"
Arthur turned around and pointed to the three mud-covered Opel trucks behind him.
"Sergeant, lift the tarpaulin."
As the canvas was roughly ripped off, dozens of 20-liter German standard oil drums (Jerry cans), neatly stacked like gray gold bricks, were revealed in the gloomy, gray light.
The unique "X" shaped stamping pattern, the precise three-handle design, and the "Kraftstoff 20L" (20 liters of fuel) stamped on the barrel and the conspicuous German eagle emblem all stand out so strikingly at this moment, exuding a sense of order unique to German industry.
Captain Durand's Adam's apple bobbed violently. As an armored soldier, he knew his stuff all too well. Compared to the Allied's leaky, flimsy tin cans, these German cans were practically works of art—sturdy, airtight, and wouldn't splatter when poured.
"This is synthetic gasoline from the Germans, the top-of-the-line product from IG Farben's coal liquefaction plant."
Arthur casually picked up a bucket and tapped his knuckles on the thick steel plate, producing a dull, pleasant sound.
"It has an octane rating of 74 or higher, extremely high combustion efficiency, and no impurities. Compared to the inferior fuel that your French logistics department distributes, which is mixed with alcohol or even water, this stuff is a hundred times better."
Arthur turned around, looked at the dumbfounded Durand, and smiled, a smile that spoke of absolute confidence born from controlling core resources: "Don't worry about your engines not being able to handle it. I know your B1 tanks use Renault Naeder-derived aircraft engines, those delicate machines can't handle rough fuel, but with this high-octane German stuff? Trust me, with this stuff, your old monsters will run at even more power than when they came from the factory, and it'll burn all the carbon buildup in the exhaust pipes."
He patted the oil drum as if he were patting a treasure chest full of gold coins.
"These were originally intended for Erwin Rommel's 7th Panzer Division, but I intercepted them. This truckload is enough to feed your four hungry monsters, and there's even room for you to drive around Berlin with the heater on."
Durand stared at the truckload of oil drums, his Adam's apple bobbing violently. That wasn't oil; it was blood, it was life, it was the capital for revenge.
"You... what do you want?" Durand's voice was stuttering as he realized that the Englishman in front of him was no pushover either.
"A transaction."
Arthur took a step closer, and that oppressive feeling came again.
"I provide oil, logistics, and ammunition—I also have several boxes of captured German 75mm high-explosive shells on my vehicle."
Arthur walked over to the Opel truck, pried open a wooden crate, and revealed neatly arranged, short, stubby artillery shells painted in field gray.
"Those were 7.5cm Gr.34 high-explosive shells prepared for German Panzer IV tanks or infantry guns."
Captain Durand glanced at it and immediately frowned. As a veteran tank crewman, he instinctively retorted, "That's impossible. The caliber may be the same, but the cartridge shape is different. Our SA 35 gun is an older design, using a rimmed cartridge, while the Germans..."
"That's why I said we need to 'make a slight change'."
Arthur interrupted him, grabbed a cannonball, and pointed it at the bottom of the brass cartridge.
"Your SA 35 hull gun is essentially a shortened 75mm field gun. Its breech locking mechanism has an astonishingly large tolerance, like a starving peasant woman who doesn't pick and choose her food at all."
He ran his fingernail across the copper band.
"The Germans use soft copper ammunition belts, which are softer than yours. Although the cartridge case length is 2 millimeters different, as long as you loosen the fuse safety cap half a turn and then slam it into the breech with a wooden mallet, that damn locking block will close. As for firing..."
Arthur pulled a rather crude screwdriver out of his pocket and waved it in front of Durand.
"The German primer is very sensitive. If your gunner pulls the fuse hard enough, the firing pin can strike the primer and create sparks. This can cause difficulty in ejecting the spent cartridge case, or even a barrel explosion—but before it explodes, the 680 grams of high explosives inside are enough to send anything in its path flying."
He shoved the heavy shell into Durand's arms; its weight felt like a devil's contract.
"What's the choice, Captain? Stay here and wait to die, guarding that pile of unfireable scrap metal? Or risk a barrel explosion and teach the Germans a lesson with their shells?"
Arthur stretched out a finger and poked Durand's greasy Legion of Honor medal on his chest.
"And you, hand over your men and your tanks to me. Forget about any damn surrender, and forget about sunbathing on the beach."
The moment Durand nodded in agreement to join, the RTS interface in Arthur's mind refreshed the data once again. As these French units changed from "neutral/defeated" to "friendly/subordinate," a patch of the fog of war that had shrouded the western river channel dissipated.
A striking red "X" appeared prominently on the St. Morales Bridge, five kilometers ahead.
[Bridge Status: Completely Destroyed]
Arthur's eyes narrowed slightly. The French captain wasn't lying; the bad news was that their shortest route westward to Dunkirk had indeed been cut off. If they forced a bridge to be built or took a detour, they would inevitably be crushed into mincemeat by the Skeleton Division that was chasing them from behind.
But then, Arthur glanced at the thick, lead-like rain clouds overhead, and then at the four steel behemoths beside him that had just been fueled, and a crazy and audacious plan instantly took shape in his mind.
The good news is that in this terrible weather with visibility of less than 200 meters, the German Stuka bombers were all rendered blind and deaf.
On the ground, with four Char B1 bis heavy tanks at his disposal, he was no longer a mouse struggling to survive in the cracks, but a wolf with sharp fangs.
Since the road to the west was blocked, and since the Germans believed that all the Allied forces were fleeing to the coast like stray dogs, they decided to do the opposite.
A meaningful smile crept onto Arthur's lips. At that moment, he thought of that great man from the East, and the military legend who had outmaneuvered hundreds of thousands of enemy troops with four flanking maneuvers along the Chishui River.
Soldiers who, deception also.
The enemy wants me to take a straight line, but I'll deliberately take a zigzag path. The enemy thinks I'm fleeing, but I'm actually attacking.
Arthur turned around, pointed to the road leading into German territory, and said in a calm tone, as if deciding on a dinner menu: "Since that bridge has been blown up and the road to the west is a dead end, we have no choice but to turn back and continue east this time."
"east?!"
Durand's pupils contracted sharply as he stared at Arthur as if he were a madman. "Are you crazy? We just escaped from that side! That's the Germans' direction! That's suicide!"
"No, Captain."
Arthur patted the Verdun's 60-millimeter-thick frontal armor, feeling its indestructible, cold touch.
"If this had happened half an hour ago, it would have been suicide. But now, with these huge machines and this damn weather..."
Arthur turned his head, a flame of ambition burning in his icy blue eyes: "It's to kill. We're going to launch a surprise attack on them."
"Dunkirk was a dead end. Hundreds of thousands of people were crowding the beaches waiting for a miracle. But I'm not the kind of person who waits for miracles; I'm the one who creates them."
He turned his head and looked at Jeanne.
"Tell him, Lieutenant. Tell him who we are."
Jeanne de Valois took a deep breath, stepped forward, and removed her soot-covered boat-shaped hat, revealing her blond hair and resolute face.
"I am Jeanne de Valois." Her voice was clear and proud, carrying the unique dignity of an ancient family. "My ancestors fought alongside you in Agincourt and in Orléans. Today, I stand here not as a nobleman, but as a Frenchman who does not want to see her country perish."
"Valois..." Durand murmured to himself. For any Frenchman, this surname represents a heavy history.
Jeanne pointed to the Verdun, tears welling in her eyes, but her voice was firm and resolute: "Captain, this vehicle is called the Verdun. In that battle, your predecessors said something like, 'They can't get through (Ils ne passeront pas)'. And today, are you going to blow it up with your own hands and then run away like a coward?"
These words were like a slap in the face to all the French tank crew members present.
That feeling of shame instantly transformed into an indescribable grief and indignation.
Captain Durand looked down at his oil-stained hands, then at the expectant eyes of the young soldiers behind him. They didn't want to blow up the tanks; they considered these tanks their home, their brothers. No one wanted to kill their own comrades.
There was a long silence.
Durand let out a long breath, as if exhaling all the despair of the past few days.
He raised his head again, looking at Arthur, the turbidity in his eyes dissipating, replaced by a resolute determination.
How much oil do you have?
"Three tons," Arthur said calmly. "Plus spare lubricant and tools. Besides, I know mechanics. I can fix that damn track pin for you."
"Three tons..." Durand calculated, a glint of light flashing in his eyes, "enough for us to run all the way to Berlin and back."
He stretched out his dirty, large hand.
"Jean-Pierre Durand, commander of the 2nd Company, 37th Independent Armored Battalion. From now on, these four B1 bis are under your command, sir."
Arthur grasped that hand, feeling the calluses and strength within it.
"Arthur Sterling. Cold Creek Guard. Welcome to the 'Ghost' battle group."