SWDnovel Chapter 52 Knights and Beasts
Chapter 52 Knights and Beasts
Chapter 52 Knights and Beasts (8th Update)
1940年6月3日，02：15AM，伯尔格市政厅防线，距离下一次预计攻击：01：45：00。
The night was deep, but the battlefield never truly slept.
The stench of rusty blood and the putrid smell of entrails permeated the air above Berg, a sweet, cloying aroma of hundreds of corpses rapidly rotting in the summer night.
These smells were like a layer of viscous grease, coating the throats of every survivor, making each breath feel like swallowing corpse fluid.
On this defensive line, no one dares to close their eyes.
Even though their bodies were exhausted to the limit, and their eyelids felt as heavy as lead, the French soldiers huddled behind sandbags and in trenches still stared intently at the dark no-man's-land ahead with bloodshot eyes.
Fear spread silently through the trenches like a plague.
If the soldiers crouching in the opposite trenches were ordinary German soldiers of the Wehrmacht—those who, like them, longed to go home, were afraid of death, and would slack off when their officers weren't looking—then there would be at least a chorus of snores on the front line.
In that tacit understanding of old-school warfare, as soon as night falls, both sides tacitly put aside the "work" of killing. In the quiet of the night, sentries would even greet each other's mothers in broken foreign languages across the no-man's-land, or toss their extra cigarettes in exchange for a piece of hard chocolate. Though crude, it was at least full of "humanity."
But the irrational massacre that occurred this evening tore away even that last vestige of "humanity."
The opponents were no longer "competitors," but a group of things that didn't sleep, didn't breathe, and might even be able to charge forward without a heartbeat.
This collapse of perception destroyed the soldiers' psychological defenses more thoroughly than any heavy artillery bombardment.
"They—they are moving—"
A French soldier huddled in a corner, clutching a string of prayer beads tightly in his hand. He trembled nervously, staring at the shadow of a corpse swaying in the wind outside the trench. His chattering voice was particularly clear in the silent night: "I saw it—the German whose leg was blown off—he's crawling—he's crawling back—"
"Shut up! That's the wind! That's the damn wind!" the old soldier next to him hissed, but his head was unconsciously looking out of the trench. His hands were trembling, and when he tried to light a cigarette, he failed several times and finally crushed the cigarette in the mud in frustration.
This is not an isolated case.
In Arthur's eyes, this panic manifested as a direct and deadly statistic.
He sat in the command post on the rooftop, his coffee long since cold, covered with a dark brown film. He didn't move, watching everything like a weathered marble statue.
On his retina, the RTS system interface was flashing a chilling red light.
[Warning: Our morale is on the verge of collapse]
Current morale: 28% (Extreme Panic/Vulnerable)
Negative Status: Undead Nightmare
[Status Description: After witnessing the enemy units' inhuman, suicidal charges, the soldiers developed widespread irrational perceptions. They no longer viewed the enemy as human, but rather as some kind of supernatural being that could not be killed.]
Arthur frowned as he looked at the red health bar that was already flashing with warnings.
This is what makes the SS so terrifying.
They don't need to defeat you tactically; they just need to burn through your sanity with this inhuman madness. When soldiers start to doubt the effectiveness of bullets and whether the enemy will bleed, that unit is already a dead body.
When someone crawls towards you with their intestines spilling out, or when you blow someone in two and their comrades don't even glance at them and keep charging forward, you are no longer facing a human being, but an unknown creature in human skin.
This fear of the unknown is more corrosive to the soul of an army than the most intense artillery bombardment.
Arthur understood this fear.
Because his soldiers—those gentlemen of the Royal Artillery Regiment, those French conscripts who originally just wanted to earn a living—were all human beings.
"If we don't find a way to bring morale back," Arthur muttered to himself, looking at the still-dropping numbers, "the next attack won't even need to fire a shot. As soon as that whistle blows, these terrified Frenchmen will riot."
Just then, a low whimper drifted over on the night wind, like the whispers of countless wronged souls.
That was actually the sound of wind blowing through the heat sink of a Bofors anti-aircraft gun, but tonight, in this ghostly trench, it sounded like the hinges of the gates of hell turning.
[Next wave of attacks expected to begin: 01:44:32]
That number was like the fuse of a time bomb, ticking away to zero second by second.
"Sir."
Captain Higgins is back.
In the pale moonlight, his face was even paler than the moonlight itself. It was severe physical exhaustion—in just the past two hours, Arthur had seen him vomit three times.
"The guys down there—they can't hold on much longer."
Higgins' voice was rough, like he was chewing sand, the result of his throat being repeatedly burned by high concentrations of stomach acid: "There was a gunshot from the 3rd Company. It wasn't an enemy attack, it was a sign of an impending bombing. Two privates accidentally discharged their guns while nervously cleaning them, and the bullet grazed the platoon leader's helmet."
"They swore they heard a sound. A scraping sound."
"They thought those SS soldiers who had been smashed were not dead—it was the sound of corpses dragging their broken legs back through the mud."
Arthur did not turn around; his gaze remained fixed on the few faintly flickering dark purple dots in the depths of darkness.
"Tell the medics to give them sedatives. If they don't have any, force-feed them brandy. If that still doesn't work—"
Arthur paused, his voice suddenly turning cold: "Then tie them to the firing positions. Secure their hands and triggers with ropes. Tell them that if they don't want to be 'eaten' by those ghosts, they'd better keep their eyes wide open and stare straight ahead."
Higgins shivered. He looked at Arthur's profile and suddenly felt that this young officer was more of a stranger to him than the SS soldiers outside.
"Yes, sir."
Higgins withdrew. The rooftop fell silent once more, broken only by the whistling of the night wind whistling through the Bofors anti-aircraft gun's radiators, like the whispers of countless wronged souls.
Just then, the edge of the RTS minimap suddenly flashed with a rapid alternating yellow and red light, representing an "abnormal state".
It wasn't an enemy attack. It was worse than an enemy attack.
[WARNING: Friendly unit detected out of chain of command]
Location: Area E4, northwest of the city (outlet of the old drainage ditch)
[Unit Type: Part of the 3rd Company, 22nd Infantry Regiment, French Army (Morale Collapse/Desertion Order)]
[Number: 14 people]
Status: Captured
Arthur's eyes turned cold.
He suddenly raised his binoculars and turned them to the northwest.
In the pitch-black wilderness a few kilometers away, several blinding beams of vehicle-mounted searchlights suddenly pierced the night like swords, fixing their gaze on a group of figures running wildly through the mud.
Those were a dozen or so French soldiers.
They were clearly fed up with the fear of fighting "ghosts." Under the cover of night, they discarded their heavy weapons, stripped off their cumbersome rank insignia, and scurried out of the drainage ditch like a group of panicked rats, trying to escape Berg.
But they clearly underestimated the Germans' keen sense of smell and overestimated their own luck.
Da da da—!
Several trails of tracer rounds struck the muddy ground at their feet, sealing off all escape routes. Under the watchful eye of machine guns from several half-track armored vehicles, these deserters, who had just been trying to flee for their lives, could only kneel in despair in the mud, raising their hands high.
Some people are even frantically tearing off their white undershirts and waving them around in an attempt to show their compliance.
surrender.
If you surrender in battle, you might still be called a prisoner of war; but if you are captured while trying to escape, in the eyes of the enemy, you are just a coward waiting to be slaughtered.
Being captured by the enemy, in any conventional war, means the end of the battle and the beginning of receiving prisoner-of-war treatment under the Geneva Conventions.
But tonight, on this land in Berg, the rules have been rewritten.
Because what captured them was not the National Defense Force, but that black "key".
02:45 AM, in the middle of the no-man's land, on the front lines of the two armies.
It was an open area only 400 meters from the first line of defense of the French army in Berg.
Several pale magnesium flares rose into the sky with a piercing whistle, then slowly drifted down, trailed by parachutes.
This cold light source, known as the "dead man's lantern," illuminates the world below in minute detail, stretching all the shadows to an extremely long and distorted degree, like the stage for an absurd drama.
In the center of this stage, a group of French soldiers who had just been captured—or more accurately, a group of deserters—were roughly brought here.
There were about a dozen of them, most of them young, newly recruited soldiers from France. At this moment, their faces were filled with fear and exhaustion, their uniforms were tattered and covered in sewer filth, and their helmets were nowhere to be found.
Amidst the beatings and shouts of the SS rifle butts, this group of Frenchmen, stripped of their last shred of dignity, were forced to line up in a muddy field riddled with bullet holes and fragments of corpses, like a group of defective products awaiting destruction.
And standing opposite them was the protagonist of this drama.
A second-level SS assault team leader.
In Arthur's telescope, the man's image was so clear it was almost unbelievable.
He looked quite young, only twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old, with a typical Aryan face: blond hair, blue eyes, and prominent cheekbones. Even at this moment, his expression remained fervent and arrogant.
Unlike the mud-covered soldiers of the National Defense Army around him, the major's uniform was spotless.
The tailor-made black leather overcoat gleamed coldly under the flares, the silver double lightning bolt emblem on the collar and the "ADF" armband on his left arm polished to a shine. He wore pristine white gloves, and his riding boots were so bright they reflected his image.
He seemed to have just stepped out of the Berlin Opera House, rather than standing on a battlefield filled with the smell of corpses and excrement.
This is a deliberate, performative kind of "cleanliness".
It was declaring to everyone—whether enemy or ally—that it was a special being, the embodiment of the leader's will, and that it did not belong to this filthy quagmire; it was here to "cleanse" it.
Arthur focused his gaze entirely on the SS officer, and then a prominent message popped up on the RTS interface on his retina.
A red identification frame with a key symbol was tightly fitted over the officer's head.
[Target Recognition: Wilhelm Mohnke]
[Rank: SS-Sturmbannführer (Second-Class Assault Team Commander/Major)]
[Command of the 2nd Battalion, LSSAH (Leadership of the Armed Forces)]
【Attribute Traits: Selfish, Cruel, Hypocritical】
[System Note: This unit is extremely dangerous and is the key node that causes enemy troop morale to lock.]
"William Monk————"
Arthur silently repeated the name in his heart.
With his hands behind his back, Monk slowly walked past the row of trembling French prisoners of war, as if inspecting a guard of honor.
His face wore an almost merciful smile, the kind of smile one gives to a lamb to the slaughter.
On the other side, on the roof of Berg City Hall, besides Arthur, there was another pair of eyes behind that cold telescope lens.
Major General Jean-Pierre, commander of the 12th Motorized Infantry Division, had somehow appeared beside Arthur. The French general, over fifty years old, had a livid face and was breathing heavily. He snatched the binoculars from the staff officer beside him and stared intently at the group of kneeling figures begging for mercy in the distance.
When the major general realized that the uniforms were French and not British, and even recognized them as his own soldiers, his hand trembled violently—a furious outburst fueled by humiliation.
"These bastards—these spineless cowards!"
Sen gritted his teeth, his voice filled with a violent, disappointed rage: "They actually ran away? While the whole division was fighting desperately, they escaped like rats through the sewers? Damn it! If those Germans don't kill them, I'll personally send them to a military court to be executed! This is a disgrace to the 12th Division! A disgrace to France!"
For old-school soldiers like Jeanson, "deserter" was a more offensive and sordid term than "death in battle." He wished he could order the artillery to open fire right now and wipe these disgraceful fellows off French soil.
But the next second, his cursing stopped abruptly.
Through the binoculars, the SS officer in the black leather overcoat—without even giving the fleeing soldiers who were kneeling and begging for mercy a chance to speak—casually kicked aside like a pebble on the roadside, without even pausing his steps, and drew his Luger P08 from his waist.
He walked up to the first French soldier in the line. The young man was holding up his hands, his face filled with terror as he tried to explain something.
boom.
The gunshot could be heard throughout Berg.
There was no trial, no reprimand, not even anger. That 9mm bullet simply ripped the young soldier's skull open.
Monk stepped over the still-convulsing corpse and moved on to the next one.
boom.
Another shot.
Major General Mori's anger froze. He slowly lowered his binoculars, his eyes becoming extremely complex—a mixture of shock, disgust, and a deep, bone-chilling coldness.
He had initially thought it was just a routine prisoner-of-war capture or a discipline check on the battlefield.
But he was wrong.
"My God—"
The old general looked at the German officer who was carrying out the execution with the elegance of a stage actor, wearing white gloves, and his anger towards the deserter instantly shifted: "This is not war at all—that German is enjoying himself."
"He was enjoying slaughtering our soldiers like chickens."
"Damn it!"
Meanwhile, not far away on the opposite side, in the trenches of the National Defense Army, countless eyes were also watching this scene with similar complex emotions.
Those were soldiers and officers from the 10th Armored Division.
A sense of unease, resentment, and even nausea was rapidly spreading across the positions of this Wehrmacht force, which adhered to Prussian traditions. They watched as the arrogant SS swaggered in front of their defenses, and as the once glorious arena of soldiers was turning into a filthy execution ground.
For the officers of the Wehrmacht, who are deeply influenced by the Prussian military tradition, war is a profession, an art of killing, but it has its bottom line, its rules, and its own sense of honor.
To mistreat surrendered prisoners—even deserters—is, according to their moral code, an act of cowardice and butcherism.
"What is that bastard doing?"
An old captain of the 69th Infantry Regiment of the Wehrmacht, Friedrich von Kleist, frowned as he lowered his binoculars. A First Class Iron Cross, awarded during World War I, pinned to his chest, represented the glory of a bygone era.
"That's not how prisoners of war should be treated. That's massacre."
A terrible premonition washed over him. Captain von Kleist watched as Monk had killed his fourth man; the Frenchmen screamed and rolled in the mud like livestock, but they still couldn't escape the cold pistol.
The old captain could no longer restrain himself. His innate chivalry made it impossible for him to stand idly by and watch such an act tarnish his uniform.
"Orderly soldier! Follow me!"
The old-fashioned Prussian officer grabbed his submachine gun, climbed over the trench, and trudged toward the stage illuminated by flares.
He had to stop this farce. For the honor of the Wehrmacht, and for the last vestige of chivalry in his heart.