BSI Chapter 107 As long as he's still standing, we haven't lost.
Chapter 107 As long as he's still standing, we haven't lost.
Chapter 107 As long as he's still standing, we haven't lost (Long Chapter)
The Galatea's bombardment bought Arthur two invaluable hours. The German armored forces, severely damaged, retreated like a receding tide, regrouping in the distance to await support from heavy artillery and the air force.
But this is only temporary.
Arthur knew very well that the Galatea couldn't stay there forever.
When the skies clear again, the German Air Force will soon return.
Moreover, naval gun ammunition is limited, and at full speed, it only takes a few minutes to empty the main gun ammunition magazine of a cruiser.
For the next 14 hours, you have to rely on yourself.
"All commanders, come to me." Arthur spread out a map of Le Havre's defenses on the map table in the basement, which he had obtained from the officer who had previously been stationed there. His eyes had regained their absolute calm, as if the madman who had just been directing the naval bombardment was a completely different person.
"We are abandoning the outer defensive line."
Arthur drew a circle on the map with a red pen, which marked the city center of Le Havre and the surrounding buildings of Saint-Valéry.
"Concentrate all the troops of the 51st Division here."
"Another street battle?" Ryder paused, a flicker of fear crossing his bloodshot eyes. He recalled the bloody battle in Burgh, the images of tanks burning in the streets—street fighting was hell for both sides.
"Sir, this is different from Berg!" Ryder pointed at the map, his voice cracking slightly. "In Berg, the French 12th Motorized Division prepared three passes before the Germans arrived! We have ready-made concrete fortifications and a complete communications network."
At that time, we had depth; we could even calmly command various nodes to reinforce each other, trading space for time.
Ryder looked at the narrow defensive zone in Le Havre: "But it won't work here! We're squeezed onto the beach, with the sea right behind us. No depth. No pre-established positions. No margin for error."
"In Berg, if the defenses are breached, we can retreat to the next street. But here, if even one point is breached, the entire defensive system will collapse instantly!"
"No need to fill it all in."
Arthur interrupted him, saying coldly, "Ryder, you're right. There's no depth here. So, forget about Berg."
"In Berg, we play by geometry. We rely on lines, angles, and mutually supporting lines of fire to build our defensive system."
"But here, we don't have that luxurious geometric space. Similarly, a direct confrontation with a German armored division in the open would be certain death. If we try to erect a so-called 'defensive line,' it's also suicide, and could even lead to total annihilation."
Arthur raised his head, his eyes filled with madness and ferocity: "So, we don't build systems. We create chaos."
"We want to turn this city into a porcupine covered in quills."
"We don't need a continuous battle line. We don't need flank cover. Because we don't have flanks at all."
"Break the troops apart. In units of company, platoon, or even squad, nail yourselves into the most fortified ruins. Turn every firing point into an independent nail."
"There's no need for mutual reinforcements. Because there simply isn't enough time for reinforcements. Every point is an island. Every point is a death trap."
"Let the Germans in. Let them take over the streets. Then we'll shoot them in the stomach."
"Arthur!"
A gasp interrupted him.
It was Major General Fortune, who had remained silent until now, his aged face contorted with unbelievable rage. His hands trembled, a commander's instinctive instinct to protect his men's lives: "Do you know what this means?!"
"Breaking up the unit means that if your platoon fifty meters to your left is massacred, you can only watch helplessly!"
"It means the wounded can't be evacuated! It means that once the ammunition runs out, they can only wait to die! It means that every position will eventually become a graveyard!"
"This is like throwing 16,000 people into a meat grinder! This is murder!"
A deathly silence.
Sergeant McTavish and Major Ryder both lowered their heads, Jeanne stared wide-eyed, and no one knew what to say.
They all knew Fortune was right.
This violates all the principles of mutual support and special roles in the Army Field Regulations.
Arthur did not shy away from Fortune's gaze. He simply looked calmly at the old general, without a trace of emotion: "Sir."
"If we don't do it this way, then we'll just line up 16,000 people in the square and let Rommel shoot them all in half an hour."
"We're about to face at least two armored divisions. Conventional tactics won't save us. Only chaos and death can hold them off."
Arthur paused, his gaze sweeping over each of the commanders present—Major General Fortune, Sergeant McTavish, Captain Higgins, and Major Ryder.
"Yes, many of us will die."
"Every position will become a death trap."
"But if we don't do it, everyone will die."
Major General Fortune opened his mouth, as if he wanted to refute something.
But looking into Arthur's calm eyes, all his anger finally turned into a heavy sigh.
The old general slumped back into his chair, removed his cap, revealing his gray hair. He fell silent. Because he knew the madman was right.
Arthur raised his head, his gaze sweeping over every commander present—Major General Fortune, Major McTavish, Captain Higgins, and Major Ryder.
"These are specific operational orders."
"They occupied sturdy buildings—banks, post offices, police stations, and even houses with basements—in platoons and squads."
"Each unit fights its own battle. Form independent circular defensive points. Each point must be able to fire from 360 degrees."
"As long as you keep firing there, the German tanks won't dare to advance recklessly. Cut off their infantry-tank coordination."
"Sapper battalion. Push all the bombed-out trucks, trams, and even furniture from residents' homes onto the main road."
"I want you to build anti-tank barricades. They don't need to be too sturdy, just enough to block the line of sight and force tanks to slow down."
"Place anti-tank mines behind the barricades. If there are no mines, use bundles of hand grenades. Even bury those duds."
"Miller." Arthur looked at the tank commander, whose face was covered in grease, and tossed him a pack of cigarettes. "Go find some lime or white paint for your remaining eighteen Panzer IV tanks and turn them grayish-white."
"Don't go to their deaths on the main roads. Drive them into the ruins, even smash through the walls and into the ground floor shops. Leave only the turrets exposed."
At this point, Arthur's voice suddenly turned cold, carrying a hint of cruelty and decisiveness: "This time, I will not allow you to move."
"There is no depth here, and no way to retreat. Once you leave the bunker, you will become targets for German artillery."
"Like soldiers, nail yourselves to your positions. Never abandon the vehicle before all the artillery shells and machine gun bullets are used up."
"If we run out of shells, we'll use grenades. If we run out of grenades too—"
Arthur paused, then lit Miller's cigarette. "Then lock the hatch. Make that tank your iron coffin. Understand?"
Miller took a deep drag on his cigarette and remained silent for a moment.
"Understood, sir. We'll stay there."
Higgins.
"Lower the muzzle of all the Bofors 40mm anti-aircraft guns in your company."
"We don't have the 88mm gun this time. But the Bofors is also a good weapon, suitable for engaging German half-tracks."
"A 40mm armor-piercing round is enough to penetrate German infantry fighting vehicles."
"Keep an eye on their infantry. Once the infantry is stripped away, the tanks are blind."
The instructions were given. Only heavy breathing remained in the command room.
Arthur raised his head, his gaze sweeping across every face in the room. He saw fear, but also a kind of madness born of desperation.
"One last thing."
Arthur's voice suddenly lowered, no longer filled with murderous intent, but with a hint of commitment as a commander: "I want you to hold out to the death, not to bury the 51st Highland Division in these ruins."
"My goal has never changed from the beginning—I want to bring as many people back alive as possible."
"I know what you're thinking."
"9
Arthur placed his hands on the map table: "You think this is an extremely cruel tactic. You think I'm sending the troops to their deaths by breaking them up."
"On the surface, yes. This style of play would have a very high casualty rate."
Arthur's voice suddenly became extremely calm: "But when facing an enemy with an absolute numerical advantage, especially an armored advantage, this is the only way to delay the German advance."
"If we maintain our front, Rommel only needs to break through at one point and we will collapse completely. We won't be able to hold out for even an hour."
"But what if we become nails?"
Arthur clenched his fist and slammed it heavily onto the city map of Le Havre: "The Germans will have to stop and pick us off one by one. We need to inflict massive casualties, chaos, and fear on them."
"We must make Rommel and Guderian hesitate when they see the burning wreckage all over the streets, force them to stop and rebuild, force them to waste time."
"And the only necessary condition for this tactic to work is—"
Arthur looked around at everyone: "It's this unit's determination to fight to the death."
He raised his wrist, pointed to the scratched watch, and his tone shifted from cold rationality to a solemn promise: "Tonight at 22:00 PM."
"That was the expected arrival time of the Royal Navy fleet."
37
"The assembly point is right behind us at the breakwater of the pier."
Arthur's gaze at that moment was like a lock, locking away everyone's escape route and their only hope: "But before that, without orders, no one may leave the position."
"But as long as you can stand there like nails and hold out until 10 PM —"
Arthur paused for a moment, then promised, "I can take most of you home."
The meeting ended. There were no grand pronouncements. No mobilization speeches. The commanders silently accepted their orders and left.
They knew that entering those buildings meant nailing themselves into coffins. But at least now, they knew when the coffin lid would be opened.
For that "ten o'clock," they were willing to endure the next fourteen hours in hell.
1
At 08:30, the German army's second offensive began.
This time, Rommel learned his lesson. He no longer used tanks in dense charges, but instead adopted a more cautious and ruthless tactic: heavy artillery clearing the way, advancing step by step.
第7装甲师的炮兵团调集了所有的105毫米IeFH18榴弹炮和150毫米sFH18重型榴弹炮。
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Le Havre was instantly engulfed in smoke and dust. Each 150mm shell that landed reduced a three-story building to rubble. Concrete crumbled, bricks flew everywhere. The entire city seemed to be being ground into powder bit by bit by an invisible giant hand.
But amidst that grayish-white dust, the "seeds" of the 51st Division continued to grow tenaciously.
Saint Valerian district, 2nd Battalion defense zone.
This is no longer a battlefield for humans; it is a gladiatorial arena for wild beasts.
The engagement distance was brought to its limit.
50 meters? No, sometimes it's negative distance—separated by a wall, or between floors.
Inside a department store that had been bombed down to just half its frame, Sergeant McTavish was leading a company of Cold Creek Guards in a resistance.
A German StuG III assault gun rumbled around the corner, its 75mm short-barreled gun pointed directly at the building entrance.
Behind it, a squad of IDF infantrymen in gray-green field uniforms crouched low, using assault guns as mobile cover, and were approaching the building.
"Machine guns! Seal off the stairwell!"
The Vickers heavy machine gun on the second floor roared.
Bullets struck the frontal armor of the assault gun, sending sparks flying, but the subsequent barrage knocked down two German infantrymen who were attempting to charge.
Boom! The assault gun fired.
A high-explosive shell pierced through a second-floor window. The explosion instantly engulfed the machine gun emplacement. Limbs and severed bodies rained down along with shards of broken glass.
"Fix bayonets!" McTavish didn't even look at the machine gun squad that had been blown to pieces.
His face was covered in dust and blood, but he didn't care.
They were running out of ammunition. But these Scotsmen had no habit of surrendering.
When the German infantry stormed into the lobby, they were met by a group of demons emerging from the smoke.
That was primitive hand-to-hand combat.
A Scottish sergeant was stabbed in the abdomen with a bayonet, but he did not fall. He threw down his empty pistol, let out a beastly roar, and lunged at the German soldier in front of him. He gripped the man's rifle barrel tightly with both hands, opened his blood-soaked mouth, and bit down hard on the German's throat.
*Snap.* That was the sound of teeth tearing through a carotid artery. Scalding blood gushed out, smearing the sergeant's face. He had finished his last "meal" before he died.
On another street, a German Panzer IV tank was attempting to break through a barricade made of furniture.
The anti-tank gun guarding this spot has been destroyed. The gunners' bodies are scattered around the gun carriage.
The tank tracks crushed the exquisite French furniture, making a creaking sound as they broke apart. Its coaxial machine gun was firing wildly, suppressing the surrounding British infantry.
Just then.
A window on the second floor suddenly shattered.
A figure jumped down. It was an engineering soldier.
He had no gun on him, only a long string of things hanging on his chest—seven Mills grenades tied together.
He was like a kite with a broken string, plummeting straight down onto the hood of the tank.
"Suicide attack!!"
Fear exploded instantly. The infantry following closely behind, relying on the tanks for advance, all fled in panic like a tidal wave.
But the cumbersome Panzer IV was trapped in narrow streets and barricades made of furniture, with no way to escape.
The German tank commander looked up in alarm and saw the figure falling from the sky through the observation hole.
He was screaming.
Thud. A human body slammed into the rear cooling grille of the tank.
Boom—!
The cluster grenade detonated at point-blank range. There was no "all-inclusive" effect. The sapper was instantly reduced to a red mist. But the massive blast force pierced the Panzer IV's thin top armor. Shrapnel severed the fuel lines, and the intense heat ignited the gasoline.
The tank engine exploded into flames instantly. Flames shot out from the vents, turning the entire tank into a giant torch.
12: 00.
The battle had been going on for six hours. Rommel's "blitzkrieg" had turned into a "millstone" in the concrete jungle of Le Havre.
Every step the German army took forward came at a heavy cost. Every house they captured meant clearing away a mountain of corpses.
There were British people and German people.
Arthur sat in the command post in the basement. The chandelier overhead swayed with the constant explosions, and dust fell in clumps onto his map.
The blue dots on the RTS map are going out one by one. The disappearance of each blue dot represents the complete annihilation of a squad, or even a platoon.
The defensive line is being compressed.
-
They retreated from the outer Saint-Valéry neighborhood to the area around Place Victor in the city center.
"Sir." Major Ryder stumbled in, his face covered in blood. His left arm was injured and hastily bandaged with a rag.
"Sector C is lost. The Germans' flamethrowers were too ruthless. They didn't even go inside; they just sprayed fire into the windows. The whole building was on fire."
Arthur looked up, glanced at Ryder, and then at the clock on the wall.
12:00, eight hours until nightfall. Ten hours until the fleet arrives.
"We can't hold out, Arthur."
Ryder's voice carried a hint of despair, a psychological breakdown born from witnessing too much horrific death: "Miller's side only has three tanks left. Higgins' anti-aircraft guns are out of ammunition. Our men—are almost all dead."
Arthur did not answer immediately. His gaze swept quickly across the RTS holographic map projected onto his retina.
Yes, the local casualties were very heavy.
Red skull icons representing the dead kept popping up. But as a commander with a god-like perspective, he could see it clearly: Ryder was lying—or rather, fear was deceiving Ryder.
On that map, the blue dots representing the companies of the 51st Division are still densely distributed in every corner of the city.
The so-called "almost all dead" was simply because the unit had been broken up into countless isolated islands. Soldiers on the front lines had their vision obscured by the smoke of battle and could only see the corpses of their comrades, thus creating the illusion of total annihilation.
But Arthur saw it clearly: the division's casualty rate was just over 15%.
At least four-fifths of the population are still alive.
The skeleton of this unit is still intact; its backbone has not yet broken.
This is still a massive army of over ten thousand people, not the lone ghosts that Ryder described.
Arthur withdrew his gaze expressionlessly.
He pulled out the flattened box of "LuckyStrike" from his pocket, intending to take one out, only to find it was empty.
He crumpled the empty cigarette box into a ball and tossed it on the ground.
"Ryder," Arthur's voice remained calm, a calmness that sent a chill down Ryder's spine, "Do you know why we're still breathing?"
He pointed to the ceiling: "Because the Germans are afraid."
"If they weren't afraid, they would have charged forward long ago. It's because we've bled them dry in every corner that they've become so cautious."
Arthur stood up, draped Thompson around his neck, walked to the high-powered radio, and grabbed the microphone for full-band broadcasting.
"Attention all units. This is Sterling."
His voice pierced through the interference, echoing in every still-resisting position, every dust-filled ruin, and every tank holding out to the death, accompanied by the crackling of electricity: "Take a look out the window."
"Those are German corpses. Those are grey-green Wehrmacht uniforms."
"They bleed too. They screamed too. They died when they were hit by bullets."
"We don't need to defend this city. We just need to turn it into their nightmare."
Arthur released the microphone, straightened his collar, and gave the final order to Ryder and everyone on the radio: "Keep killing."
After saying that, he pushed open the heavy iron door of the command post and strode into the smoke-filled street.
noon.
London, 10 Downing Street, underground operations room.
Winston Churchill clutched the black bakelite microphone tightly in his hand, his bulldog-like face etched with gloom. His other hand held a cigar, its ash piled high, but he'd forgotten to flick it.
On the other end of the phone was French Prime Minister Reynolds.
"Winston————"
Renault's voice sounded sore, tired, and even tinged with barely concealed shame: "I just received an urgent report from the 10th Army's front lines. They reported that fighting is still going on in Le Havre. It's even fiercer than yesterday."
"Your commander—that Major Sterling."
Renault paused, seemingly confirming the accuracy of the information: "If my information is correct, he's Earl Sterling's son? The young man you mentioned on the radio who stopped Rommel in Abbeville?"
"Yes."
Churchill took a deep drag on his cigar and exhaled a thick cloud of smoke. His gaze pierced through the smoke and landed on the huge map of Europe on the wall, where vast swathes of red were engulfing the blue.
"Although he's still a troublemaker, he certainly has Sterling blood in his veins. And the 51st Division is the toughest bone in the Scottish Highlands." Churchill's voice was deep, arrogant, and proud. "And to correct you, Paul, given his previous performance, the wartime cabinet approved his promotion two days ago. He's now a colonel."
A bitter laugh came from the other end of the phone.
"Ha—a colonel. The son of an earl."
Renault's voice was filled with absurdity, a kind of irony that lashed at French dignity like a whip: "How ironic, Winston. This is the worst joke God has ever played."
"An English earl's heir, a distinguished colonel, is now lying in the ruins of Le Havre, leading a group of Scots to shed blood on every inch of French soil —"
"And our supreme commander, the renowned General Wei Gang, is currently in a train carriage in the Compiègne Forest, discussing with Marshal Pétain how to dignify signing the armistice terms to that corporal."
A suffocating silence ensued.
Reno's voice rang out again, tinged with a self-deprecating tremor, almost a sob: "It reminds me of that old joke—the English always fight to the last Frenchman."
"But today, in Le Havre, reality seems to be the opposite."
"Your nobles are dying in battle, while our generals are surrendering."
Churchill slammed the black bakelite microphone back onto its base.
He couldn't refute Renault's self-deprecating humor. Because it was true. That joke about "British nobles bleeding and French generals surrendering" would become the most accurate and most shameful epitaph for the Third French Republic.
Churchill turned around and looked at General Ismail beside him.
"Send a telegram to the 51st Division. Highest priority."
Churchill's voice suddenly turned incredibly low; he was now like an enraged lion. He didn't want to comfort the French; diplomatic rhetoric was meaningless from this moment on. What he wanted to ensure now was the value of the Englishman fighting in dire straits: "Whatever the French do, whatever documents Wei Gang signs in that train carriage."
"Whether it's unconditional surrender or ceding territory and paying reparations, that's the French's business."
"Tell Lord Sterling, and his 51st Highland Division as well."
Churchill took a deep drag on his cigar, the smoke reeking of gunpowder: "Tell him that the 'Operation Bicycle' fleet has left Portsmouth and is heading full speed toward the Channel."
"Furthermore, Air Marshal Dowding has signed the order. Two Royal Air Force bomber squadrons and three Spitfire squadrons will arrive over Le Havre this afternoon."
"He will get all the air support he wants."
Churchill's gaze pierced through the smoke, fixed on the solitary blue dot surrounded by red on the map, his tone revealing a bloodthirsty ruthlessness: "Tell him to go all out and fight."
"Fuck the Hague Convention, fuck the Allied Treaty."
"I do not restrict his rules of engagement."
"If we need to flatten Le Havre to stop the Germans, then flatten it! If we need to set the whole city on fire to block Rommel's view, then burn it!"
Churchill slammed his fist on the table, making the coffee cup vibrate. "We have nowhere left to retreat! This is not the time for gentlemanly conduct!"
"Tell Sterling that the British Empire is watching him."
"Even if only one person remains, even if the last drop of blood is shed!"
"As long as he's still standing, we haven't lost!"
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