xymnovel Chapter 61 The Last Reserve
Chapter 61 The Last Reserve
Chapter 61 The Last Reserve
"Good! Good! Good!"
Major General Mori's laughter echoed through the smoke-filled, blood-soaked corridor. The old man, who had just been teetering on the brink of death, now resembled a child who had received a beloved toy, vigorously patting the scorching hot MAS-38 submachine gun in his hand.
"Go back and drive these German bastards out of our basement!"
The old general turned around, his movements stiff and slow, like rusty gears meshing again.
He looked at the female lieutenant who had just pulled him back from the brink of death, his gaze passing through her ill-fitting French Republic combat uniform and over the menacing British Coldstream Guards soldiers behind her, brandishing Thompson submachine guns.
In that instant, the scene before him appeared as a strange double image.
The pervasive smell of sulfur in the air, the color of concrete dust, and the angry shouts in English around him were like a key that forcibly turned open a long-sealed door deep in his memory.
The cloudiness in my eyes vanished, replaced by a sharpness like a final burst of light.
Time and spacetime are out of place here.
In his dazed vision, what he saw was no longer the dilapidated Burgh basement of 1940, but rather 1916.
The Verdun fortress, shredded by the meat grinder of years past. The British soldiers in their khaki uniforms perfectly overlap with the figures of his comrades who fought alongside him on the banks of the Somme twenty-four years earlier.
"Support—support has arrived—"
The old man muttered to himself, his fingers nervously rubbing the scorching hot submachine gun in his hand, as if it were a Lebel rifle he had used in the trenches of World War I.
He looked at Jeanne, his gaze softening, yet through her he looked at someone else—perhaps the battlefield nurse from years ago, or perhaps a young communications officer who had long since perished in a gas attack.
"I knew it—the British wouldn't abandon us."
Suddenly, Sen straightened his back, and the hunched old man disappeared, replaced by a proud French commander who seemed to have stepped out of an old era.
"Lieutenant, please thank Sterling for me." Ronson wiped the blood from his face, his voice carrying a solemnity that transcended time. "Tell him the 12th Division is still here. As long as we old bones are still here, Verdun—"
No, Berger will not fall.
Jeanne did not salute; she simply tightened her grip on the Thompson submachine gun she had obtained from a British Guardsman, her uniform covered in dust.
"General, hold on here." Jeanne's voice was cold and hard. "The major said that as long as the division headquarters stands, this flag will not fall."
After saying that, she turned around and led her people out of the building, heading towards the next fire.
However, when Jeanne rushed out of the building and returned to the main road that had been riddled with artillery fire countless times, the joy brought by the small local victory was instantly extinguished by the cold reality.
Everywhere you look, there are broken walls and ruins.
The southern sky was completely blackened by thick smoke. Retreating French soldiers and stretcher bearers crammed the streets, the cries of the wounded drowning out the sparse gunfire. Over the radio, cries for help from various companies raged like a burst dam, filled with despair.
And on the ruins of the clock tower a few hundred meters away.
Arthur Sterling stood at the command post, the scene before him quantified on his retina as a series of breathtaking red characters.
The alarms of the RTS system screamed wildly in his mind, a death knell that only he could hear:
[Warning: All defense values have dropped to 15%]
[WARNING: Areas C, D, and E are simultaneously under emergency alert]
[WARNING: Ammo Depleted]
If we ignore the details and only look at the macro-level RTS tactical map, Berger is currently like a dying patient rapidly losing blood.
Although the sniper duel was won, although the engineers destroyed the east entrance, and although the B1 tank blocked the north entrance—all of this was just like putting a band-aid on a patient with a bleeding artery.
There are just too many Germans.
The soldiers of the 10th Armored Division, like a tireless pack of wolves, raided every crevice of the city—the sewers,
The collapsed walls, even the burning roofs—seeped in.
"Sir! The southern defense line has collapsed!"
"We're out of anti-tank grenades! Does anyone have gasoline?!"
"Requesting backup! Requesting reserves! Anyone will do!"
The shouts of the company commanders filled the headphones.
Arthur stood on the ruins, his face terribly grim.
In the lower right corner of his system interface, the value representing the [Reserves] had turned into a glaring red "0".
He played all his cards.
All the Cold Creek Guardsmen were fighting desperately on the front lines; all the remnants of the French army were filling in the pits; even the cook, who was only responsible for cooking, had been taken away by McTavish to move landmines half an hour ago.
"Sir."
Jeanne appeared behind him without him noticing. Her hair, which had just been cut short with a bayonet, was disheveled in the wind, and the barrel of the Thompson submachine gun in her hand was still steaming.
"The 3rd Company is wiped out. The 2nd Company has less than 40 men left. Major Ryder's tank is completely out of fuel and can only be used as a stationary gun emplacement now. We—we're all gone."
Her voice was soft, but it was exceptionally clear amidst the gunfire.
Arthur didn't turn around. He kept staring at the green dots on the map that were constantly fading.
"No, there are still people."
Arthur suddenly turned around, a chilling glint flashing in his grey-blue eyes.
He pointed behind him to the dilapidated monastery that still bore the Red Cross flag—the only field hospital and logistics center at the moment.
"There are still people there."
Jeanne froze, her eyes widening. "Sir? That's a hospital! It's full of wounded soldiers, nurses, and clerks and cooks who can't even fire a gun! You can't—"
"Would the Germans let them go just because they were carrying scalpels instead of bayonets?"
Arthur interrupted her, his tone as cold as granite: "Jeanne, look down there."
He pointed to the bodies on the street that had just been mowed down by German machine guns—one of them was wearing a nurse's white coat and was still clutching a roll of bandages tightly in his hand.
"When the defense line was breached, there were no civilians, no wounded, only dead."
Arthur straightened his collar and drew the bloodstained Webley revolver that he never parted with from his waist.
"Come with me. We'll go assemble the final legion."
16:15 PM, Berg Field Hospital, former basement of St. Mary's Monastery.
This is another facet of hell.
If the hell outside is the roar of fire and steel, then the hell here is the wailing of blood and flesh.
The dimly lit basement reeked of alcohol, blood, and the stench of rotting wounds. Hundreds of wounded soldiers huddled on the damp floor, their groans, cries, and prayers mingling together.
Several blood-covered medics were performing amputations on a makeshift wooden table. Without anesthesia, the screams of the wounded were chilling. In a corner, a group of cooks in greasy aprons, a bespectacled clerk, and several trembling transport soldiers huddled together, their eyes filled with the terror of death.
The sound of artillery fire outside grew closer, and each explosion sent clouds of dust falling from above.
"Bang!"
The heavy oak door to the basement was kicked open.
The noise stopped abruptly. Everyone looked towards the door in horror.
Arthur Sterling walked in.
He had long since changed back into the Cold Creek Guard's standard khaki uniform—although it was now covered in mud, oil, and dried black blood.
But the suffocating sense of oppression was stronger than ever before.
His left hand didn't hold a command sword like Major General Renson's; instead, it gripped a large-caliber Webley revolver tightly, the hammer already cocked. His right hand held a bloodstained bayonet. His grey-blue eyes shone frighteningly in the dim light, like a wolf cornered and ready to devour its prey.
Jeanne followed closely behind him, the muzzle of her Thompson submachine gun drooping, but the chilling aura emanating from her made everyone involuntarily shrink back.
"It seems everyone is still alive."
Arthur's voice was not loud, carrying that signature, languid London accent, which seemed out of place in this deathly basement.
He walked across the blood-stained floor to the central altar, where severed limbs and dirty bandages were now piled up.
"I am Major Arthur Sterling, the highest-ranking officer here."
He looked around. No one dared to meet his gaze. The lightly wounded lowered their heads, and the clerical staff trembled with fear.
"I know what you're thinking."
"You're thinking that the British Guards are holding the line outside, and your 12th Division soldiers are holding the line too. You just need to stay here and pray to God, and maybe when the Germans come in, they'll have mercy, abide by the Geneva Convention, give you a cup of hot coffee, and then send you to a prisoner-of-war camp."
Arthur gave a cold laugh.
Wake up.
"A few minutes ago, on the east side of the block, the SS stormed into a house. They threw all the wounded out of the windows and then opened fire with machine guns."
A suppressed gasp of surprise rippled through the crowd.
"The German tanks are only two streets away. Our brothers' intestines are hanging from their tracks."
When they kick down this door, they won't care if you're missing a leg or only know how to use a spatula. In their eyes, you're just pieces of meat blocking their way.
Arthur pointed his bayonet at the group of trembling office workers in the corner: "You, the one with glasses. You're in charge of the warehouse, right? Do you know how to use a gun?"
The clerk shook his head, trembling: "No—sir, I only know how to do accounting—"
"Very well. The Germans love to calculate," Arthur said coldly. "They can calculate whether a bullet can penetrate two people's heads."
He then pointed to the group of cooks: "And you? All you can do is cut potatoes? That's perfect, Germans' brains aren't much harder than potatoes."
A deathly silence.
Despair and fear fermented in the air.
"Sir—but we—we're just logistics—" a slightly older quartermaster stammered, "This is against regulations—"
"Regulations?"
Arthur laughed, a ferocious and insane laugh.
"Screw the regulations."
He suddenly raised his voice, his words booming like thunder in the basement: "The Germans are right outside the door! They're going to kill us all! Kill everyone here!"
"We have no reinforcements! No reserves! We don't even have a way out! The sea is right behind us, but the ship has already left!"
Arthur raised the bloodstained bayonet, his gaze sweeping across every face—whether you were a crippled infantryman or a terrified cook.
"Now, there are only two kinds of people here: the dead, and the soldiers who are not yet dead."
"Who can still move? Even if they can only use one hand? Even if they can only crawl?"
"If you can move, get up! Grab your guns! Grab your kitchen knives! Grab your stones! Go outside and pull the trigger!"
Go bite the Germans' throats off!
"Those who want to live, come with me and fight their way out! Those who want to die, stay here and wait for the Germans to slit your throats!"
silence.
A suffocating silence. Only the distant, muffled roar of artillery echoed, shaking dust from the ceiling.
Suddenly, a rustling sound from the corner broke the silence.
A lightly wounded soldier, his head wrapped in thick bandages and blood seeping from his left eye, struggled to his feet, leaning against the wall. He was wearing a torn French army sky-blue shirt, and was probably only nineteen years old, a young conscript from Provence.
"Commander (Mon Capitaine) ————"
His French, thick with a southern accent, was hoarse yet unusually firm: "I can still pull the trigger. Give me a gun."
Arthur looked at him. Although he couldn't understand the specific dialect word, he understood the look in his eyes—the stubbornness unique to a Gallic rooster driven to the brink. He nodded.
It's like toppling the first domino.
An elderly French sergeant, his left arm severed, tied a knot in the bandage with his teeth, picked up an entrenching tool from the ground with his remaining right hand, and spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva: "Count me in. I've been cooped up on the Maginot Line for half a year, and I haven't killed enough yet."
The foreman of the group of chefs, a fat chef with a face full of scars and two exaggerated mustaches, suddenly ripped off the white apron stained with oil and threw it on the ground, then turned around and picked up the heavy cleaver from the cutting board.
He swore, a curse only the French would understand: "Merde! I'll give it my all! I've cut tons of steaks for those picky officers my whole life, today I'll try cutting German bastards! Let them taste the skills of a French chef!"
The Parisian clerk, wearing round-framed glasses and looking rather refined, stood up shakily, took off his glasses and wiped them, then picked up two hand grenades from the ground and stuffed them into his pocket, muttering under his breath, "I—I don't want to die in the basement. I haven't even had time to go back to Montmartre and finish my painting."
[Morale Boost: Success]
[Unit conversion: Non-combat personnel → Militia/Suicide Squad]
[Acquire temporary unit: The Crippled Legion]
Current number of personnel: 320 (all French soldiers)
Looking into those eyes that had turned from fear to madness, Arthur put away the Webberly revolver and turned to look at Jeanne.
"Distribute weapons."
Jeanne stood in the doorway. She watched this scene unfold, seeing her compatriots who usually only complained about the food and hid in the logistics department's office getting stamps, now standing tall and proud. Her gaze became extremely complex.
She ordered the soldiers behind her to dump the two large bags of collected firearms and ammunition—including Mauser rifles pulled from corpses, damaged MP40s, and even several signal pistols—onto the ground with a clatter.
"Don't be picky, gentlemen."
The Valkyrie expertly cocked the Thompson submachine gun and shouted in fluent French, "This thing can shoot fire as long as you hold it down. This is our country, don't let that Englishman look down on us when he's killing Germans!"
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