Sitting in the driver's seat of the truck, Logan rested his eyes, completely unaware that he had been cunningly "played" by someone. At this moment, he and his paratroopers were still basking in the joy of the Battle of Calvados Point: 75 enemies killed at the cost of zero casualties, along with capturing a batch of invaluable equipment. Such a victory rivaled the "Night of Bastion 32" a month ago - for the Allied forces, it was a tremendous triumph unseen in decades!
As a result, except for the unfortunate four soldiers who died during the landing, the 46 German soldiers who participated in Operation Stiletto, along with the more than one-ton equipment they captured, all sat in this convoy consisting of a "Braveheart" style four-wheeled armored car and three "Klaus-Lee" transport trucks, and were rapidly advancing toward the Port of Bournemouth according to the adjusted route plan.
"Hey, Captain! Look!"
As the cautious voice of Mentz Boggs entered his ears, Logan was pondering his plans after the end of this operation. The small exemplary airborne battalion was by no means his ultimate goal. Borrowing the words of Qin Shihuang, played by Chen Daoming in the Chinese movie "Hero": What are six states? I want to conquer a vast territory!
At this moment, the armored car leading the way had already slowed down. During the brief stop in Sandton Town, Logan had specifically asked Tom Bottrum about this "Braveheart" model. Ugly in appearance, devoid of aesthetics, equipped only with a Browning machine gun, and defended by thick oak boards and flat rolled steel armor, its performance in all aspects was mediocre. It was said that more than a thousand of these armored cars were produced when the war broke out, but over a hundred were abandoned in Dunkirk alone!
Although its appearance, speed, and firepower were inferior to Germany's current best wheeled armored car, the 222, this type of armored car should still be effective against ordinary infantry. Unfortunately, when it arrived in Sandton Town, the small-scale battle there had already ended. The German paratroopers, under the command of Lieutenant Stefanberg, easily annihilated this British local patrol and scattered police with a score of 0 to 14!
Under the illumination of the headlights, Logan saw a guy in khaki military uniform on the roadside pole, seemingly repairing telephone lines, with a soldier without a cap standing below, and a yellow-green painted sidecar motorcycle parked beside, which bore a striking resemblance to the German BMW R12 (Norton, a British company, produced 100,000 sidecar-equipped 16h motorcycles for the British Army during World War II).
Should he bluff his way through or take out these two unlucky fellows?
This question lingered in Logan's mind for a second. Well, who asked them to see what they shouldn't see and couldn't keep their mouths shut?
"Stop the car!" Logan calmly ordered.
The truck happened to stop beside the military motorcycle with a sidecar. Logan put on his "red top" military cap and got out of the car with a nonchalant air. Boggs also got out of the car, not carrying his valuable Zeiss camera - a standard German product!
"Hey, guys, which unit are you from?" Logan asked as he approached with his proud Scottish accent. Despite the machine gun turret on the armored car rotating its muzzle towards them, despite the soldiers on the truck holding rifles looking unfriendly, despite the large-caliber Webley revolver in Logan's holster itching to move, the two British soldiers in front of him still looked bewildered, their rifles firmly placed in the sidecar of the motorcycle.
"Sir, we're from the 97th Engineer Battalion, ordered to repair the telephone lines from Broding to Sandton!" the young soldier standing below replied earnestly. With their branch and rank, they had no authority to inquire about the duty and rank of the military police officer in front of them.
"Oh? Is there a problem?" Logan asked with apparent concern.
"The telephone line to Sandton is down, and we can't contact Calvados Point either. It may be that the strong wind last night knocked down the lines, so we were ordered to come and repair them overnight!" the soldier replied promptly.
Remembering that gust of wind, Logan still felt apprehensive: according to the original plan, the five gliders were supposed to land in the fields between Sandton and Calvados Point, but were blown several miles away by a gust coming from the east, nearly causing the one carrying Lieutenant Stefanberg to crash - the reason why paratroopers are an extremely resilient type of soldier is not only because they may find themselves surrounded by enemies as soon as they hit the battlefield, but also because they need to fight against cruel fate. Any small accident could lead to a catastrophe for them!
"I see. We just came from Sandton, and there was no abnormality there!" Logan took a step forward, seemingly casually asking, "When did you receive the repair order?"
"It was around 3:30, and now... oh, it's already 4:30! We've only repaired less than two kilometers!" the soldier looked up and said to his companion on the pole, "Hey, Wes, looks like we need to pick up the pace!"
"Yeah, this section should be fine!"
The soldier with the lanky figure tidied up and quickly climbed down with special shoe covers. When he brushed off the dust and saluted Logan, Logan suddenly noticed that despite the lack of sharp eyes under his thick eyebrows, and despite his small nose lacking in grandeur, it was still a very pleasant face to look at.
It was a smile, an innocent and amiable smile.
If it weren't for this cruel war, he might have come to Britain just for travel and had pleasant conversations with such simple indigenous people.
Two seconds later, Logan put away his compassion. It seemed that the British command didn't realize the telephone lines were down until nearly half an hour after the battle ended. As time passed, their worries would surely deepen, and they might have already sent liaisons to the radar station in Calvados Point - since the battle ended, Logan and his soldiers had not wasted a single minute, but disassembling those radar equipment was time-consuming, taking a full hour!
Logan looked at his watch, 4:32, still dark. If everything went smoothly, they should be able to reach the Port of Bournemouth within half an hour.
"Guys, bring down two bottles of wine!" Logan waved to the soldiers in the truck. Mark Ayler and Gerald Hether were his old subordinates and should understand what he meant.
As soon as they heard wine, the friendly-looking British soldier hastened to say, "Sir, thank you for your kindness, but we're currently on a mission..."
"Fool!" Logan laughed, "Why can't we bring the wine back? We went through some trouble to get these bottles of gin!"
"Gin? That's good stuff! Thank you so much, sir!" The other British soldier, who had just climbed onto the motorcycle, was all smiles. It was the first time he had heard of a military police officer giving gifts.
When the two "military policemen" jumped off the truck and each took a bottle of wine, the last trace of suspicion was probably dispelled. Little did they know that behind these two guys lurked sharp knives. At the onset of the assault on the British Expeditionary Force headquarters, both Mark Ayler and Gerald Hether each slew a British guard!
On the other side, Logan chuckled awkwardly as he asked the two British soldiers where they were born. One said Manchester, and the other said North London. When the two tall "assassins" approached, Logan intended to step forward, ready to intervene if necessary. But at that critical moment, the amiable-looking slender man seemed to sense something amiss. He halted, his foot poised to step into the sidecar of the motorcycle. Then, as the cold gleam of the knives flickered under the car's headlights, he shouted, "Run!"—like an athlete hearing the starting pistol, he dashed for the fields on the other side of the road.
Ayler swiftly dealt with the British soldier sitting on the motorcycle waiting for the wine, while Hether sprinted after the fleeing man. But the speed difference between the two sides was so apparent that the other seemed about to vanish from sight.
"Oliver!" Logan called out to Scoop's name.
Two seconds later, a gunshot shattered the nearby silence. The running British soldier collapsed to the ground like a rabbit, convulsed a few times, and lay still.
Hether, panting heavily, caught up and kicked the fallen man a few times, clearly frustrated.
"What a pain!"
Logan murmured softly to himself. Of course, in such a situation, if one could avoid using firearms, they should. He had initially considered whether to lift the two bodies onto the truck and let his soldiers ride off on the motorcycle. But checking his watch, he realized they had just wasted some time again. If they didn't leave the port before dawn, the situation would become quite troublesome.
"Get on the truck quickly, we're running out of time!" he called out.
There's an ancient Eastern saying, "Haste makes waste." The convoy had only been driving for about ten minutes when they encountered another car parked on the roadside, with a woman in a large dress suddenly rushing out and desperately waving her arms. Encountering such a thing at dawn, Logan almost thought he was seeing things!