PFC Chapter 59 The Enemy is at the Gates
Chapter 59 The Enemy is at the Gates
Chapter 59 The Enemy is at the Gates
June 3, 1940, 9:15 AM, Bergner city, attic of a two-story building.
The standoff has lasted for almost an hour.
The sun rose higher and higher, bringing with it the stench of fermenting corpses from the ruins. Swarms of greenbottle flies buzzed in the air, like a disturbing requiem.
The pace of the offensive in this neighborhood was brought to a standstill by this unseen specter.
It sounds absurd that the mighty German 10th Panzer Division, with hundreds of tanks and half-tracks, could be held hostage by a mere rifle. But in the concrete maze of Berg, this is the cruelest reality.
Because in urban warfare, tanks are blind, while infantry are the eyes.
Without infantry clearing out anti-tank soldiers and indicating targets ahead, tanks that rashly advance will only be burned to scrap metal by Molotov cocktails hiding in sewers and second-floor windows.
The presence of that German sniper was precisely what "blinded" the Allied forces. He didn't need to kill everyone; he only needed to take out the officer in charge, the communications soldier carrying the radio, and the machine gunner who dared to peek out to paralyze the entire command chain of the defensive line.
Fear is a more effective roadblock than armor-piercing bullets.
Of course, the Germans clearly face the same dilemma.
"Clang! Clang! Clang!"
A sickening metallic clang, like the pounding of a cathedral bell, echoed at the street corner. Two German Panzer III tanks, attempting to force their way through, frantically shifted into reverse, their tracks screeching violently against the gravel, kicking up clouds of dust, as if they had encountered some incredible monster.
Opposite them, in the gradually dissipating smoke, the true form of the enemy was revealed—several Soma S35 medium tanks painted in French tricolor camouflage.
This French cavalry tank, hailed as the "best medium tank of 1940," now revealed its most ferocious and despairing side in this narrow urban warfare.
This is a contest of "material and thickness" that is completely unequal.
The German Panzer III E tank parked in the middle of the road looked like a boxy iron vessel. Its strengths lay in its mobility and excellent three-man turret, but its armor consisted of only 30 millimeters of vertical steel plate.
The S35, however, stood in its way, an expensive work of art. It boasted a 47mm thick all-cast hull and turret, and more fatally, its armor featured a perfectly streamlined, steeply angled design.
This means that when the German 37mm armor-piercing rounds were fired horizontally, the effective armor thickness they faced was even greater than 55mm!
For the German army's current mainstay 37mm KwK36L/45 tank gun—that toothpick gun jokingly called the "brick to the army"—it was simply an insurmountable wall of sighs.
"Fire!"
The German tank crewman pulled the trigger in terror.
A 37mm capped armor-piercing shell whistled as it struck the S35's rounded cast turret.
There was no penetration, and no explosion.
The bullet bounced off the smooth, curved armor the instant it touched it, accomplishing nothing except for a few dazzling sparks, a faint white spot on the armor surface, and a crisp "bell" sound.
It's like an egg being smashed on a pebble.
The S35's counterattack, however, was devastating.
boom!
The S35's 47mm SA35 tank gun roared.
Although its rate of fire was not as fast as the Germans', and although that damned single-man turret forced the commander to double as a loader, keeping him as busy as an acrobat, in close-quarters urban warfare where mobility was not required, this gun was deadly in every shot.
Its initial velocity is as high as 760 m/s, and it can penetrate 60 mm of vertical armor at a distance of 500 meters.
Piercing through the Panzer III's thin 30mm skin is as easy as a sniper shooting through an infantryman's helmet.
Bang!
A 47mm armor-piercing round precisely penetrated below the driver's window of the Panzer III tank.
There was no possibility of ricocheting. The enormous kinetic energy instantly tore through the Germans' prized carburized steel plates, and the deadly jet of metal penetrated into the vehicle's interior.
The Panzer III tank shuddered violently as if it had been kicked hard, and then black and red flames spewed out from the hatch.
"Reverse! Reverse now! That's an S35! We can't shoot it through!"
The German radio was filled with terrified screams.
On this narrow street, the German armored forces' pride in tactical mobility, radio coordination, and even numerical superiority became meaningless. It was a primitive gladiatorial contest, a battle of who had the thickest armor and the most powerful artillery.
At that moment, the French forged steel monsters forced the Germans' welded iron boxes to retreat to their bunkers, trembling in fear.
The armored battle reached a stalemate, and the balance of power once again tipped in favor of the infantry.
If the Germans wanted to destroy the S35, they had to send assault engineers with explosives and mines to sneak up on it; and if they wanted to cover the engineers, they had to clear out those damned enemy strongpoints first.
Therefore, all the pressure fell on the two hunters.
However, to the German army's dismay, the German sniper—the one who had been so arrogant just moments before—had suddenly vanished without a trace, as if he had never existed.
The once extremely active death window is now deathly silent.
He sensed it.
This is an intuition unique to apex predators.
Just minutes ago, the thrill of the unbridled hunt vanished, replaced by a chilling sense of being watched intently by something colder and more deadly. He was a seasoned veteran, and he knew what that meant: a fellow hunter was approaching, and a fellow hunter who could send shivers down his spine.
He dared not fire again. He didn't even dare to peer through the scope. He knew that in some ruins three hundred meters away, a pair of eyes were watching his hiding place intently, and if even the slightest muzzle flash was exposed, death would be his only fate.
This silence is more unsettling than the sound of gunfire.
"He's hiding."
Arthur lowered the binoculars, his eyes cold and sharp.
Although the purple skull marker in the RTS system was still hovering above the building, the red circle showed no signs of shrinking. The opponent had entered a state of absolute defense.
Since you won't come out, I'll force you to stay away.
"Ned! Higgins! Turn all the ringers around!"
Arthur grabbed the handheld phone, his voice laced with a ferocious edge: "Don't hold back! Give that department store indiscriminate coverage!"
"Machine gunners! Anti-tank gunners! Seal off every window! Wherever you see dust rising, fire away at it!"
Da da da da!
The Anglo-French allied forces, who had been holding back their anger for a long time, suddenly erupted.
Four Vickers heavy machine guns, two 25mm anti-tank guns, and countless rifles simultaneously unleashed a dense hail of bullets at the department store.
Countless fragments of brick and stone exploded at the window, leaving the entire wall riddled with holes. Under such frenzied firepower, not even a fly could escape, let alone a sniper.
Arthur turned his head and looked toward another ruin a few hundred meters away—it was deathly silent there, without any muzzle flash or movement. But he knew that a pair of eyes were there, staring intently through the scope, just as he was at the suppressed window of death.
No radio needed. No shouting needed. It was an almost psychic understanding between hunter and hound, between commander and ace marksman.
Arthur whispered into the void, his voice drowned out by the roar of heavy machine guns: "Williams."
"I held his head down."
Arthur pressed his finger heavily on the purple skull mark on the map, as if to send the arrogant German to hell: "Now, it's your turn to plunge the knife into his neck."
Williams lay sprawled behind the tattered sofa, sweat trickling down his coal-dust-covered forehead and stinging his eyes. But he remained motionless.
He knew he couldn't wait any longer.
From Major Arthur's description, he knew the German was in the shadow of that load-bearing pillar. But the other man was clearly more composed—and he had the advantage of that damned shadow.
This is a dead end. Unless someone breaks the balance.
Williams slowly, extremely slowly, unfastened the British Brodie helmet with camouflage netting that he had picked up in the previous battle from his waist.
He tied a thin rope to the chin strap of the helmet and then slowly moved the helmet behind the pile of broken bricks below the windowsill.
This is an old and dangerous trick. In the trenches of World War I, countless green recruits used this trick to fool enemy bullets, while countless veterans, having failed to pull it off, were shot in the head by the enemy who deduced their position based on the trajectory of their helmets.
This is a gamble. The stakes are your life.
Williams took a deep breath, expelling the air from his lungs. His right index finger rested lightly on the trigger of the Lee-Enfield rifle, while his left hand gripped the thin rope.
One centimeter. Two centimeters.
The edge of that helmet, like the head of a curious recruit trying to secretly observe the battlefield, slowly and shakily peeked out from under the windowsill.
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.
There was no movement.
The ruins were deathly silent, save for the muffled sounds of gunfire in the distance and the buzzing of flies nearby. The German man stood there like a stone, completely unresponsive.
"Did he change seats?"
A flicker of doubt crossed Williams' mind, but he immediately dismissed the idea. Major Arthur had said so, and his intuition confirmed Arthur's words—that was a top-tier expert. An expert wouldn't easily give up a perfect hunting position.
He's waiting. He's waiting for a more certain opportunity.
Williams gritted his teeth and decided to raise the stakes.
If small actions can't fool you, then offer an even bigger temptation.
He flicked his wrist, causing the helmet to stick up a little more, and even deliberately tilted it slightly, like a recruit adjusting his posture out of nervousness, trying to find a better view.
In that very instant.
Snapped!
A crisp, short pop shattered the silence!
That voice is right across from us!
Williams's grip on the rope suddenly loosened. Out of the corner of his eye, he clearly saw the helmet seem to have been slapped hard by an invisible giant hand. A fist-sized hole instantly exploded on the top of the helmet, which spun with tremendous kinetic energy and flew out, crashing into the wall behind it with a loud thud.
They've taken the bait!
At the very instant the gunshot rang out—even before the helmet hit the ground—Williams, who had been poised to strike, suddenly peeked out from the shadows.
This was probably the fastest move he had ever made in his life.
His eyes were fixed on the scope like an eagle's.
Three hundred and fifty meters away, behind the previously pitch-black inverted triangular gap, a tiny, faint plume of smoke rose as the gunfire commenced.
That was muzzle flash! So blinding in the shadows!
found it!
At that moment, Williams' world consisted only of that window. Time seemed to slow down. Through the 3.5x lens, he even saw a fleeting gray figure behind the window, and the reflection on the barrel of the Mauser 98k sniper rifle that hadn't yet been retracted.
No thinking is required. No calculation is required.
That was the muscle memory etched into his bones from countless hunts of bucks in the Welsh Highlands.
The crosshairs of the scope instantly locked onto the outline of the gray figure's chest.
Williams held his breath, his index finger steadily pressing the trigger.
boom!
The Lee-Enfield No. 4 rifle roared as its butt slammed heavily against Williams' shoulder.
Whoosh! Just a fraction of a second after he fired, almost at the same instant, a second 7.92mm Mauser bullet, with the shriek of death, flew past his left cheek.
The German fired a second shot! It was his last-ditch effort before he was hit!
puff!
Williams felt a searing pain in his left ear, as if it had been branded with a red-hot iron. Warm blood gushed out instantly, flowing down his neck and into his collar, staining his worn military uniform red.
His helmet was blown off by the blast wave of the bullet.
He was shot.
But Williams didn't even glance at his wound. He didn't even blink.
He stared intently at the scope, as if trying to see through the smoke to get a clear view of the outcome.
With his vision magnified 3.5 times, he clearly saw the gray figure behind the window suddenly lean back. A plume of blood exploded on the German's chest, staining the gray wall behind him crimson.
The Mauser rifle fell out of the window, tumbled in the air, and finally crashed into the rubble below.
Threat Removal
[Kill confirmed: Pvt. David Williams (Cold Creek Sentinel)]
[Rating: Perfect Hunt]
Arthur looked at the notification that suddenly popped up in the RTS, his voice filled with excitement: "Good, Williams. That stag is yours."
Williams slowly retreated into his bunker, leaning against the cold wall.
Only then did he feel the excruciating pain in his left ear. He reached up and touched it, his hand covered in sticky blood. A third of his left earlobe had been sliced off by the bullet, leaving it a bloody mess.
He grimaced in pain, but on his face, covered in soot and paint, came a bloody smile that was more hideous than a grimace.
He won.
"Wells Miners — 1 point."
He muttered something in a voice only he could hear, then pulled a dirty handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it against his bleeding ear.
P.S.: Don't worry, Arthur doesn't need to swim back, although his physical fitness is indeed quite good.
Everyone was watching the HMS Shikari depart at 3:40 a.m. on June 4th, the last train of Operation Generator in history. But for Arthur now, going to the dock and squeezing onto that "retreat" ticket with the fleeing soldiers was the cheapest charity he could offer.
Arthur might as well not accept this ticket, which he had obtained through charity.
Since the north gate is closed, we'll just smash down the south wall. Real men don't queue; real men only use the VIP lane—even if it takes a tank to carve that lane.