PFC Chapter 97 Black Ink Liquor and 6-inch Steel
Chapter 97 Black Ink Liquor and 6-inch Steel
Chapter 97 Black Ink Liquor and Six-Inch Steel
June 6, 1940, 20:15, London, East End, Whitechapel, "Rusty Anchor" pub.
As the last syllable of Winston Churchill's deep voice faded into the static of the BBC broadcast, the cramped underground space, filled with the smoke of cheap tobacco, fell into a deathly silence for three full seconds.
The customers here are mostly dockworkers from the East District, junior sailors on leave, and refugees who have just lost their homes in the past week.
Their nerves had been stretched to the limit over the past two weeks. The piercing sirens of air raid sirens, rumors of the expeditionary force's defeat, and the fear of Nazi paratroopers landing in Trafalgar Square made the air so oppressive that it was almost impossible to breathe.
until that moment.
Until that name—"Sterling Battle Group"—pierced through the thick layer of air like an armor-piercing bullet.
"Clang!"
That was the crisp sound of glass breaking.
A burly dockworker, his face covered in coal dust, suddenly stood up. He slammed the thick-bottomed pint beer mug in his hand onto the sawdust-covered floor, shards of glass and amber liquid scattering everywhere.
It wasn't anger, but rather a release after long-term suppression.
The workers' shouts were hoarse, rough, and even cracked. This was no joyous celebration; it was the roar of a caged beast finally breaking through the iron bars: "He didn't retreat! That Sterling lad didn't retreat!!"
"He blew up the German tanks! He's attacking! Did you hear that?! We're attacking!!"
"We are not all dead! The British Empire is not all dead!"
When under extreme emotions, the human brain automatically filters out precise tactical modifiers. "Destroying the vanguard" is automatically processed by the cerebral cortex into "annihilating the main force," and "impeding the advance" is exaggerated into "driving Rommel back to Berlin."
But it is not important.
The important thing is that in this summer when everyone was used to retreating, used to failure, and used to watching the red line on the map keep moving backward, there was an Englishman who stood there and punched the Germans hard.
This punch shattered the glass called "fear".
"For Sterling!"
I don't know who shouted it first.
This emotion, like a virus, instantly infected everyone.
"For Sterling!"
"For that madman!"
The entire bar erupted in cheers. People had even forgotten that just ten minutes earlier they had been discussing whether to send their children to Canada. Men pumped their fists, and women wiped away tears. The owner opened the last remaining barrel of aged whiskey, and regardless of whether anyone paid, the golden liquid was poured into every container that could hold it.
This is a microcosm of London tonight.
No mobilization orders or leaflets are needed. A chemical substance called "Revenge" is being pumped wildly through the veins of this city.
20:30, Fleet Street, London, The Times printing press.
The enormous Heidelberg rotary printing press was emitting a deafening roar.
Every inch of air here is filled with the pungent smell of ink and hot lead vapor.
The editor-in-chief stood on the iron walkway, holding a copy of the recently discarded front page proof, which originally read "London Citizens' Guide to Air Defence and Evacuation".
He watched as the scrap of paper was thrown into the recycling bin, then turned to look at the machine below that was running wildly.
The new type templates have just been mounted on the rollers.
The huge roll of paper passes through the rollers at a speed of 300 meters per minute, and the black ink is pressed deeply into the pulp fibers by physical pressure.
As the first newspaper slid off the conveyor belt, the editor-in-chief picked it up and glanced at it.
The huge, bold headline took up almost half the page, creating an aggressive visual impact:
The Ghost of the Somme: Colonel Sterling's Counterattack
The subtitle is equally chilling:
The Dragon Slayer of Abbeville
The 51st Division: Scotland Has Not Forgotten
Below the title is a huge photo that takes up four columns.
Initially, photo editors and military personnel couldn't find a decent photo of Arthur Sterling in uniform in the Army archives.
All they could find were images of the First Inheritor being secretly photographed by tabloid reporters when he frequented upscale clubs in Mayfair before the war—wearing a custom-made Savile Row tuxedo, holding a martini glass, surrounded by up-and-coming actresses, with that annoying, nonchalant, dandy-like smile on his face.
Of course, this is also the image of the "second son of the Earl of Stirling" that is well-known to most people in London circles.
If that kind of photo were used, this report on "Heroes of the Empire" would become a farce.
But at the last minute before the layout was completed, a taciturn middle-aged man in a black trench coat walked into the editorial department.
No one knows how he got past the security guard.
He walked up to the editor-in-chief, took out an envelope with the Sterling family crest wax seal from his pocket, placed it on the table, and then turned and left without saying a word.
What slid out of the envelope was a standard portrait printed on glossy silver halide paper.
In the photograph, Arthur Sterling is wearing the full Cold Creek Guard uniform, his collar crisp and his expression solemn. It's noteworthy that the rank insignia on his shoulder boards at this time is not the current colonel, but a crown—his rank of major before he joined the expeditionary force.
The background of the photo is a magnificent building deliberately blurred by a large aperture lens, in which one can vaguely discern the ancient Tudor-style chimneys and the maze of bushes trimmed like geometric shapes.
To the editors of Fleet Street, it was just an "unknown manor" filled with the air of a mysterious noble family.
But if Arthur himself were standing here, his memory would tell him that it was the eastern wing of Strindberg.
This photo was certainly not a candid shot.
It was months earlier, on the eve of his departure for the troop transport ship to France, when his cheap father—the fourteenth Earl of Stirling—forced him to stand on the lawn of the manor for his "official portrait."
According to the old count's original script, this negative was supposed to be sealed in a safe until the day the war was won.
At that time, the empire needed this face on the front page of The Times; it was a necessary political stepping stone.
That was the old count paving the way for Arthur. Every step had been meticulously calculated.
But this shrewd behind-the-scenes tycoon miscalculated one thing.
As he wished, the photograph appeared on the most prestigious pages; and as he wished, Arthur became a hero of the entire British Empire.
Unfortunately, he miscalculated the time.
This photograph did not appear as expected in the final chapter of the Allied victory in 45, when the Allied armored groups crushed the Siegfried Line, crossed the Rhine, and marched straight towards Berlin.
Instead, it arrived ahead of schedule.
Its backdrop is not the victor's Arc de Triomphe, but the collapsing European continent, a desperate situation where survival depends on holding one's breath, and the darkest moment for the entire Western and even world civilization.
He wanted to mold his son into a victor. But fate turned his son into a beacon.
The young officer in the photo stands sideways with his chin slightly raised. His uniform is impeccably straight, and his gray-blue eyes, even in the rough black-and-white printing ink, exude a chilling coldness and determination.
This is the kind of hero the empire desperately needs right now.
The editor-in-chief didn't ask any questions. He knew the significance of this photograph. It was immediately sent to the printing press to replace the photo of the person holding the wine glass.
The image will be transformed the following morning when hundreds of thousands of copies of the final version of the newspaper are delivered to every corner of the British Isles.
He was no longer a specific army colonel. He would become a symbol. A "St. George" of the British Empire.
In the darkest hour, he stood alone, holding a torch, a totem against darkness on the European continent.
This is a movement to create a god.
This prestige, forged by public opinion, will become the most solid physical armor. From this moment on, even the most stubborn old fogies in the War Department who want to lay a finger on Arthur will have to ask the 40 million people of Britain for their permission first.
20:45, Perthshire, Scotland, 51st Highland Division Family Quarter.
It's not as bustling as London here. The Scottish Highlands are currently shrouded in a cold night rain.
Inside these ancient stone houses built of granite, peat is burning in the fireplace, making a crackling sound.
An elderly man with gray hair sat in a rocking chair, his knees covered with a checkered blanket from the Black Guard. His left leg had been broken by a German Maxim machine gun during the Battle of the Somme in World War I, and was now fitted with a piece of wood.
The radio had been silent for a long time.
But the old man remained in that position, motionless.
His son was in the 51st Hill Division, within the Saint-Valerie siege known as the "Dead Zone." For a whole week, all the families there awaited the inevitable devastating news in despair—the entire army either killed or surrendered.
But tonight, the voice from London told him:
Someone saved them. An English noble officer, leading a group of madmen, smashed open the gates of hell that were about to close.
With trembling hands, the old man pulled a silver wine pot from his pocket and unscrewed the lid.
He didn't drink it.
He struggled to his feet, supporting himself on the wooden leg, and walked to the window.
Outside the window, it was a dark, rainy night, with the faint outline of the Scottish Highlands in the distance.
Sterling————
The old man gazed out at the darkness, muttering in a thick Scottish accent, "Though you are an Englishman—from this day forward, you are a brother to all of us Highlanders."
He slowly poured the whiskey from the jug onto the windowsill as an ancient ritual and vow.
At that very moment in the Scottish Highlands, in Aberdeen, in Inverness, thousands of families were doing the same thing. The name Arthur Sterling was etched into the very blood of this most xenophobic and warlike land that night.
At the same time, in Portsmouth Royal Naval Hospital, southern England, ward 302.
The air here is filled with high concentrations of ether and iodine.
Major General Jeanson, commander of the French 12th Motorized Rifle Division, was lying flat on an orthopedic hospital bed.
His left arm was suspended high in a complex metal brace and pulley traction system. A thick plaster cast covered the entire arm, and several stainless steel pins pierced through the skin and muscles, driving directly into the bone.
Forty-eight hours ago, he underwent a four-hour surgery.
It was not an amputation.
Although the British military doctor who performed the surgery had suggested amputating the arm to prevent necrosis, in the last second before the anesthesia took effect, Sen grabbed the doctor's white coat tightly with his right hand and refused in an almost threatening tone.
"I need this hand. I need it if I need to hold a gun or salute. Keep it, or don't touch me."
""
The effects of the anesthetic are now waning due to metabolism. The comminuted fracture of the humerus and the torn deltoid muscle are sending intense pain signals to the cerebral cortex.
But he did not ring the call bell to ask for morphine.
The intense phantom pain and nerve twitching at the fracture site kept him awake, but he just stared intently at the swaying incandescent light on the ceiling.
The halo reminded him of that scene.
Three days ago, the eastern breakwater of Dunkirk.
That was the last time he saw Arthur Sterling.
Even now, thinking back on it, Sen still feels that it all seems so unreal.
Jean-Jacques and his remaining men were standing on the deck of the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Hikari. It was a Noah's Ark about to sail to Britain, to safety.
Arthur Sterling, the young British colonel, stood on the oil-stained planks of the breakwater, his back to the sea and his face to the burning European continent.
Mori clearly remembers that conversation.
He was trying to pull Arthur onto the ship.
But Arthur simply shook his head, a cold smile on his face.
"Get on board, General. France needs people to go back alive to rebuild the army."
"And what about you, Sterling?"
Arthur pointed south, to the inland area already overrun by German armored formations: "Me? I won't abandon my soldiers. There are still unfortunate souls waiting for me to save them."
Then, the Englishman turned around and, with his convoy, disappeared into the depths of the smoke and fire.
This struck Sen as ironic.
A French general abandoned his homeland and fled to a hospital in Kent like a refugee, where he lingered on for the rest of his life.
Meanwhile, a British officer fought to the death to defend French cities on land that should have been protected by the French.
Over the past hour, Sen had countless times imagined that, based on tactical logic, the Englishman was dead.
On that beach surrounded by hundreds of thousands of German troops, there were only two possible outcomes: either become a corpse on the beach or become a series of numbers in a prisoner-of-war camp.
Arthur Sterling traded his life for the life of Jensen and for the lives of a thousand soldiers of the 12th Division.
This realization plunged the French general into deep self-loathing.
For a professional officer who has received a formal education at the Saint-Cyr Military School and regards honor as his second backbone, this kind of "survival" built on the sacrifice of allies is more suffocating on a physiological level than dying on the battlefield.
Every breath of English air that I inhaled felt like poisonous gas contaminated with shame.
But deep within his subconscious, overwhelmed by guilt, he stubbornly clung to a sliver of hope:
That British nobleman named Arthur Sterling was not someone who would die easily.
That arrogant bastard, since he had enough means to drag them, a group of doomed men, out of the impenetrable death blockade of the 10th Panzer Division, he should also be able to shake off the Germans' pursuit.
Or rather—he never intended to escape.
Until just now.
A nurse on duty pushed a dressing cart into the ward and casually turned on the radio in the corner.
Winston Churchill's deep voice, accompanied by the static of radio waves, assaulted Jensen's eardrums.
"————Sterling Battle Group————Abbeville———— Destroyed the vanguard of the German 7th Panzer Division———— Linked up with the 51st Hill Division————"
It was a string of disjointed words.
But for a professional officer, this is enough to instantly piece together a complete tactical situation map.
This made Major General Mori's eyes widen in surprise.
The surge of adrenaline instantly overwhelmed the excruciating pain at his fracture site. He gripped the bed rail with his only remaining right hand, ignoring the metallic scraping of the traction frame, and struggled to sit up.
"He's still alive—"
A dry whisper escaped from Sen's throat.
He trembled as he used his right hand to prop himself up to sit up.
"He is not only alive—"
Sen's mind quickly constructed a map of northern France in the void.
Dunkirk was in the north, Abbeville in the south, separated by the depth of two entire German army groups.
Logic told him that Arthur should retreat to the sea, find a fishing boat, or even swim further out.
But the truth is, that madman chose to go south.
Without any supplies, he led a hastily assembled force and charged back into German-controlled territory.
He precisely broke through the junction between Guderian and Rommel to rescue the 51st Highland Division, which everyone had already condemned to death on the map.
Tears welled up in Jensen's eyes without warning.
This is not the literary figure "tears welling up in one's eyes." It is a physiological overload of tear secretion caused by the tear glands under extreme emotional stress.
But he didn't let the tears flow for long. He raised his right hand and fiercely wiped the wetness from his face.
The previous dejection, self-blame, and listlessness of a defeated general completely disappeared from his eyes at this moment.
Instead, it possesses an unprecedented sharpness, like that of a quenched steel knife.
He understood Arthur's intentions.
That British madman not only saved his life, but he also showed him through his actions: Don't kneel. Even if you're the only one left, don't kneel.
"madman----"
Jean-Jacques pressed his right hand to his heaving chest, to his heart. His voice, no longer choked with emotion, became deep and firm, revealing an ambition to reshape France: "You utterly insane madman."
"You lied to me—you never intended to die."
He turned to look at the dark night sky outside the window, as if he could see the burning port of Le Havre through the English Channel, and the figure of someone directing tanks amidst the ruins.
"Good—very good."
Letsen looked down at his left arm, which was in a cast: "Since you, an Englishman, were able to beat Rommel to a pulp even in dire straits..."
"Then I, as a French general, if I were to continue crying and wailing like a woman here, I would truly not deserve this ticket."
He looked at the nurse who walked in, his murderous gaze startling her. She thought the general was about to attack someone because he was having a mental breakdown.
"Nurse, please connect me to the military attaché's office at the French Embassy in London."
"Tell them to wake Mori up."
"Have them send a car over immediately. Also, find me a military uniform. If they don't have French uniforms, British general's uniforms will do, just change the collar insignia. It needs to be ironed."
The nurse was intimidated by his aura and subconsciously asked, "General, where are you going? Your wound still needs to be examined." Sen ignored the pain in his wound. He supported himself with his only remaining right hand, his gaze passing through the window to the brightly lit naval port dock in the distance.
There, Royal Navy cruisers were weighing anchor; they had a mission for the night—to sail to the burning shore across the river.
"I need to go to the dock."
Rang Sen straightened the collar of his sweat-soaked hospital gown, as if he were adjusting his formal attire when he received his award at Versailles: "Since that English madman has fought his way back to hell for us..."
"Then, as a French general, I must stand on the shore closest to him."
"I want to personally welcome my friend home."
21:30, Portsmouth Naval Base, berth of Cruiser Squadron 2.
The aft deck of the light cruiser "Galatiana" was brightly lit.
This is an Aretosha-class light cruiser.
As a product of the London Naval Treaty era, it was not the kind of heavily armored sea fortress. Its standard...
With a displacement of only 5220 tons, its side armor was so thin that it could hardly withstand direct fire from German destroyers.
It was a "light cavalry" designed by the Royal Navy to maintain fleet size within a limited tonnage quota—aiming for a high speed of 32 knots and projectile power.
But for the army, which was on the French coastline at that moment, it was God.
Because it has three twin-mounted BL 6-inch (152 mm) MkXXII main guns.
At this moment, the three massive turrets, located at positions A, B, and X respectively, had been rotated to their maintenance angle. The cold gun barrels gleamed with a ghostly blue metallic sheen under the beams of the searchlights.
Huge cranes are hoisting tons of ammunition and supplies into the aft deck of the Galatea.
These emergency supply missions carried out late at night are usually accompanied by the sailors' curses and complaints.
Royal Navy sailors hated the army, especially after Dunkirk, when this sentiment reached its peak—they felt they had risked German bombs to rescue those army gentlemen who only knew how to abandon their armor and weapons.
But tonight, the atmosphere on deck is completely different.
No complaints. No slacking off.
Beside the crane responsible for hoisting heavy warheads, sailors, shirtless, formed a long line in the sea breeze, which was only a dozen degrees Celsius.
Even the 6-inch high-explosive warhead, weighing 112 pounds (50 kilograms), was carried by strong loaders like babies, their eyes bloodshot, as they slung it over their shoulders and ran towards the hoisting well.
On the other side, brass-colored propellant cartridges were being rapidly passed between countless rough hands, the clanging of metal sounding like the urgent drumbeats of war.
Their movements were astonishingly fast, even carrying an unsettling excitement.
"Faster! Faster!"
A sergeant major, covered in grease, kicked aside an empty wooden crate and yelled at his men, "Didn't you hear the announcement? That's Colonel Sterling! That's the hero who beat up the Germans in Abbeyville!"
"He's waiting for us there! He's waiting for our artillery support!"
"If anyone dares to let those Scottish brothers die on the beach because they're too slow, I'll shove him into a torpedo tube and launch him!"
This is a direct manifestation of the "hero effect" in military logistics.
Arthur Sterling's name broke down the barriers between the military branches that had previously looked down on each other.
On the bridge, Lieutenant Commander Simon, watching the bustling scene on the deck, turned to the first mate and said, "Preheat the boilers. We need to leave port an hour early."
"Why, sir? This violates navigation regulations."
"To hell with the regulations."
Lieutenant Colonel Simon gazed intently at the dark southern horizon, his eyes burning with fervor: "Young Master Sterling is helping us save face for the British Empire. As the Royal Navy, we cannot be late."
"Full speed ahead south. Destination: Le Havre."
"We're going to deliver a 6-inch caliber gift to Rommel."
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