The morning sun did not shine on Hazebrouck. Instead, a thick, choking fog laced with the acrid smell of burnt rubber hung over the streets.
It was a haze unique to war — a mix of smoke from burning vehicle wreckage, lime dust thrown up by explosions, and moisture blown in from the English Channel.
Visibility was less than fifty meters. For any group of broken soldiers trying to find their way out of this labyrinth, such weather was Death's own shroud — because you never knew which window the next bullet would come from.
But for Arthur Stirling, it was a gift from God.
"Halt."
Arthur raised his walking cane — dusty but still ramrod straight — in a stop signal.
The footsteps behind him vanished instantly.
To the Sergeant's left crouched Lance Corporal Jenkins, the Birmingham milkman's son who had nearly been ground into paste by the StuG III the day before. His face was still deathly pale, like paper soaked through with water, but his terrified eyes no longer darted about. Instead, they were fixed on Arthur's back — for a drowning man, it was instinct to cling to the only piece of driftwood.
Behind him was Corporal Williams, a silent miner from the Rhondda Valley in Wales. He held his gleaming Lee-Enfield rifle, his breathing as steady as if he were working in a gas-filled coal seam. In yesterday's fight, he had been the one to shatter a German's head like a walnut — the finest marksman in the unit.
Pressed against the right-hand wall was "Rat" O'Neill, a small man fluent in the argot of London's East End. His tactical vest bulged with loot stripped from German corpses: watches, lighters, even chocolate. A professional thief before the war, men like him often had a nose keener than any dog's on the battlefield.
Bringing up the rear was Private Miller, a Yorkshire farmer built like a brown bear. He carried the squad's last crate of ammunition and all their rations. A taciturn man, he now clutched a captured engineer's spade, as if ready at any moment to crush a spine like a rotten watermelon with it.
These five men — an angry Scottish sergeant, a terrified milkman's son, a cold-blooded Welsh miner, a greedy London pickpocket, and a silent Yorkshire farmer.
That was all the "army" that Lord Arthur Stirling currently commanded.
The dregs of society, cannon fodder for the British Empire. But now, under the gaze of the god-eye, they were becoming the most dangerous pack of wolves.
Arthur stood in the middle of the street, not bothering to take cover. He tilted his head slightly, as if listening to whispers on the wind. In reality, his consciousness had already linked into the holographic battlefield suspended in his mind.
In his vision, a corner of the dark fog of war had been forcibly pushed aside. At the intersection fifty meters ahead, three bright red dots were arranged in a triangular formation.
A German Sdkfz 222 armored reconnaissance car, its engine off, listening for sounds. Beside its 20mm autocannon, two infantrymen with MP40s crouched.
If they had blundered through that intersection just now, that autocannon would have mown them down like wheat.
"Left turn," Arthur ordered decisively. "The intersection ahead is blocked. A German scout car is sunbathing there."
Of course they had to detour. He didn't have a Matilda tank.
"Scout car?" Jenkins swallowed nervously, staring into the white blankness ahead. "Sir, I didn't hear a thing."
"That's because you haven't yet learned to see with your nose, Lance Corporal." Arthur turned, his grey-blue eyes devoid of emotion. "If you want to go shake hands with a 20mm autocannon, I won't stop you. Just don't get blood on my boots."
With that, he strode towards a narrow, rubble-filled alley on the left.
Sergeant MacTavish said nothing. He kicked the still-dazed Jenkins and immediately followed. After the battle in the wine cellar, this Scottish veteran had grasped one truth: don't ask how the Lord knew. Follow him, and you'd live.
As they threaded through the alley, Arthur finally had a moment to glance down at his left arm.
The uniform sleeve there was torn, revealing hastily wrapped bandages. Blood had seeped through, staining the expensive wool. The wound throbbed — the price paid for saving Jenkins from the marble.
The pain kept his mind in a state of morbid clarity. As he walked, he calculated his current situation.
Arthur Stirling — besides being the second son of the Earl of Stirling — held the official rank of Major and Battalion Commanding Officer of the 2nd Battalion, Coldstream Guards, 1st Guards Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, I Corps, British Expeditionary Force (BEF).
That was not just a title. It was a monumental irony.
The Coldstream Guards. Not some second-line regiment of conscripted Irish farmers.
This was the oldest and proudest regiment of the British Royal Household Division. Their motto was Nulli Secundus (Second to None). At the top of the British Army's pecking order, they even looked down on the Grenadier Guards. In the entire BEF, they were King George VI's own sword — the elite of the elite, meant to be the backbone of I Corps, holding the most critical defensive lines.
And yet, this glorious regiment was in the hands of a useless waste.
Why?
The Stirling family.
Though the Stirling family crest rarely made newspaper headlines, it was deeply stamped on the empire's war machine.
From shipyards on the Clyde to steel furnaces in Sheffield, the Stirlings controlled the contracts for a third of the Royal Navy's destroyer keels and the supply of speciality steel for the army's heavy artillery. It was said that in the corridors of Whitehall, the First Lord of the Admiralty would tip his hat to the old Earl of Stirling, and the Chief of the Imperial General Staff even owed the Earl a substantial personal gambling debt.
It was this suffocating political power that had made this absurd appointment a reality.
Two months ago, simply because the family had "donated" — in the name of patriotic bonds — a sum large enough to equip two armored regiments to the War Office, the original battalion commander, a highly decorated and beloved old lieutenant colonel, had been kicked to a logistics post.
In his place came Major Arthur Stirling, who had no combat experience and couldn't even read a map without holding it upside down.
Consider this: at that very moment on the French battlefield, the famously meticulous and professional Bernard Montgomery was only a major general, commanding the 3rd Infantry Division, plugging gaps on the Louvain front like a firefighter. To reach that position, that teetotaling ascetic had struggled for thirty years, crawling up from the piles of dead at the Somme.
And Arthur Stirling? He only needed a signature.
That signature came from the commander-in-chief of the BEF, Lord Gort himself.
Why would the supreme commander personally involve himself in the appointment of a mere battalion commander?
Because Lord Gort was not only a schoolmate of the old Earl of Stirling at Harrow, but had also been a card-playing partner for twenty years at the Carlton Club in London. And there was an open secret whispered in the dark corners of Whitehall: Lord Gort had only been able to overcome enormous controversy and edge out Alan Brooke for the position of BEF commander precisely because the old Earl, during a closed-door hearing of the Parliamentary Defence Committee, had used the three seats his family controlled to cast the decisive votes in his favor.
This was naked power trading. The family needed a "World War II hero" title to pave the way for postwar politics, and the army's high command — indeed, the entire British Empire — had tacitly approved this gilded game.
By all rights, Arthur should have been at battalion headquarters, with his adjutant's assistance, commanding eight hundred elite soldiers.
But he was here with barely half a platoon because of that damned "aristocratic retreat" — when the line collapsed, the Major, in his panic, had not organized an orderly withdrawal of the battalion. Instead, he had "strategically advanced" with his guard platoon first.
The roads hadn't been laid out properly. He'd abandoned the main body of the 2nd Battalion to the Germans and driven himself straight into Guderian's encirclement.
"How ironic," Arthur sneered inwardly, his nails digging deep into his palm.
He wasn't just a deserter. He was a thief who had stolen the command of a heroic regiment and then smashed it to pieces.
No wonder Sergeant MacTavish had looked at him like a condemned man. If there were military police here, abandoning his unit like this would be enough to have him shot ten times over. Not even his Earl father could necessarily save him.
Because the MPs could shoot him on the spot. The Earl wasn't God — he couldn't reach across the Channel.
Now, though his rank was higher than anyone else here, he commanded fewer men than a full section.
"Sir," MacTavish sidled up, lowering his voice. "Are we just going to keep circling? Battalion HQ should be near the church."
"If the Germans haven't taken it yet," Arthur replied coldly. "We're looking for a route. One that isn't cut off by that damned Blitzkrieg."
He was lying. Or rather, he was micro-managing based on his god's-eye view.
On his mental map, the main roads leading to the church were thick with red arrows. The German penetration speed far exceeded the British command's imagination. He had to play like a Commando, using blind spots to thread these few survivors through the fingers of death.
Suddenly, a burst of gunfire shattered the morning silence.
RATATATAT—! BANG! BANG! BANG!
It wasn't the crisp crack of British Enfields, nor the tearing-canvas riiiip of a German machine gun. It was a deeper, slower rhythm.
Arthur stopped, frowning.
At the edge of his RTS vision, a previously grey area suddenly flashed with combat alerts. About two hundred meters ahead, in a small square with a fountain, blue friendly dots and red enemy dots were colliding violently.
But the blue dots looked odd — more fragile, and they were dwindling fast.
"That's... an MAS-36 rifle," Arthur identified the distinctive report. "And a Hotchkiss heavy machine gun."
"French?" MacTavish's face immediately fell into undisguised disgust. "Bloody frogs."
The squad moved forward. Soon, hiding behind a collapsed wall, they could see the situation in the square.
A typical small French square, with a Baroque fountain sculpture at its center. By now, the sculpture was riddled with holes, and the water jets were mingled with blood, staining the pool red.
About a dozen French soldiers in khaki greatcoats and Adrian helmets were pinned down behind the fountain and a few abandoned wagons around it.
On the other side of the square, a German strongpoint occupying a two-story building was laying down devastating fire. An MG34 machine gun was mounted on a second-floor window, dominating all escape routes for the French.
The French had clearly been ambushed. Their bodies lay strewn across the cobblestones. Those still alive could only fire back in desperation, but under the precise German fire, their line was collapsing.
"Let's go, sir."
MacTavish glanced once and pulled his head back, as indifferent as if discussing leftover dinner.
"They're Frenchies. None of our business."
The other soldiers nodded in agreement. By this point in 1940, the BEF's opinion of the French army had hit rock bottom. In their eyes, these allies were a bunch of cowards who only knew how to drink wine, collapsed at the first push, and would sell out their allies to save their own skins.
History was a nasty old bitch. It always repeated the same joke: brothers could share wealth, but never hardship.
The only time these two had danced naked together like long-lost siblings was when they were looting porcelain and silk from the Old Summer Palace.
But when the loot was unevenly divided, or when a powerful enemy pressed close, that bond glued together by greed would instantly shatter.
The Anglo-French alliance? Just two drowning men trying to breathe by stepping on each other's heads.
The French knew perfectly well that Britain's specialty was fighting "to the last Frenchman." The telegrams from London were full of "shared fate," but every British ship on the Dunkirk beaches was frantically hiding the "British only" sign.
And the British knew that the French spine had been snapped in the meat grinder of Verdun in the Great War. The Maginot Line had not only locked in the Germans — it had locked out French initiative. Once breached, the proud Gallic rooster would instantly revert to a docile hen.
This was a marriage doomed to fail. The German tanks were just the thugs kicking down the bedroom door and catching them in flagrante.
Look at them now — the "good brothers" who once set fires together. One was practicing his German for surrender, the other busy selling out his teammate and running for the coast. The so-called Entente Cordiale wasn't worth a sheet of toilet paper.
"Saving them won't do any good. They'll just surrender anyway," Jenkins muttered.
Arthur didn't move.
He stood behind the wall. His gaze was not on the French about to be slaughtered, but penetrating through the battlefield, fixing on a figure at the French core — someone carrying a large square backpack.
In his god's-eye view, that figure was tagged with a special symbol: [Communications Unit] .
A radio.
In this great rout, when communication was by shouting and liaison by running, a working field radio was more precious than gold. With it, Arthur could find out where the damned encirclement had gaps — or at least call for air support that might not exist.
More importantly, Arthur saw the German deployment. The MG34 not only suppressed the French, but its field of fire also covered the next street that Arthur and his men had to pass.
If the French were wiped out, that machine gun would turn around and fire at Arthur's backside.
Arthur straightened his blood-stained collar, his long fingers brushing dust from his cuffs.
"Sergeant," Arthur said, his voice devoid of pity, full of cold calculation, "you're right. The French do fight badly. As bad as their moldy cheese."
He turned to look at his reluctant soldiers.
"But right now, those pathetic French are the only meat shields drawing German fire."
Arthur pulled out the MP40 submachine gun from around his neck — a trophy from the wine cellar. German-made, yes, but he had to admit, it was far more useful right now than his revolver or even the future Sten gun they didn't yet have.
"Whether we like it or not, they're our flank. If they die, that machine gun will make us the next appetizer. And besides..."
Arthur's gaze locked onto the figure carrying the radio.
"...they have something I want."
"Prepare for combat."
Those two words cracked like whips across the soldiers' faces. MacTavish, though thoroughly unwilling, still cursed under his breath as he worked the bolt. "Fine. Just to keep the Germans from knocking off early."
Tactical Deployment.
In Arthur's mind, the battlefield had been divided into countless grids.
"Listen up. We're not attacking head-on. That's for brainless cavalry."
Arthur pointed to a drainage ditch on the right side of the square, which led directly to the flank and rear of the German-held building.
"MacTavish, take two men. That bloody Thompson is only accurate at that range. Follow the ditch. I want you to drop a grenade right in his crotch when the machine gunner is changing his belt."
"Williams, find a high spot. Watch for a German sniper on the left side of the second floor. Don't let him interfere with the Sergeant."
"What about me, sir?" Jenkins asked nervously, gripping his rifle.
"You?" Arthur glanced at the anxious newbie. "You're with me. We'll make noise. Make the Germans think there's a whole company of British over here."
...
The fight began three minutes later.
There was no earth-shattering charge.
The moment Williams's Enfield fired its first round and precisely shattered the binoculars of the German spotter on the second floor, the fight entered Arthur's rhythm.
"Open fire!"
Arthur and Jenkins leaned out from behind the rubble. The MP40 and rifle blazed away at the first-floor windows of the building. Their accuracy wasn't great, but the sudden flanking fire startled the Germans.
"Engländer! Flanke!" (English! Flank!)
The German machine gunner instinctively tried to swing his weapon around to suppress this new threat.
That was exactly what Arthur wanted.
In that brief window when the machine gun stopped suppressing the French, Sergeant MacTavish's shadow shot out of the drainage ditch like an angry Scottish wildcat.
He had reached the base of the building's wall.
A Mills bomb arced through the air in a perfect parabola, flying straight through a second-floor window.
"Fire in the hole!"
BOOM!
The explosion blasted out of the window, along with machine gun parts and human fragments. That deadly MG34 fell silent instantly.
"Go! Clear the ground floor!"
MacTavish kicked open a side door, and the Thompson began dispensing death indoors.
The German infantry, deprived of their machine gun cover, fell into chaos. The previously suppressed French finally reacted. Though the British despised them, their survival instinct now ignited astonishing fighting spirit.
"Pour la France!" (For France!)
The surviving French soldiers launched a counter-charge, a dozen bayonets glinting as they stormed the building.
Two minutes later, the shooting stopped.
Arthur did not join the final cleanup. He stood at the edge of the square, wiping oil and grime from the MP40 with a relatively clean handkerchief, as if it were something filthy. The wound on his left arm had reopened from the exertion, soaking his entire sleeve in blood, but he didn't even frown.
From the ruins, a French officer, supported by two soldiers, staggered over.
The officer was covered in dust, his khaki greatcoat torn and bloodstained, helmet gone, revealing short grey-white hair singed by gunpowder smoke.
But what surprised Arthur, as the figure drew closer, was that it was a woman.
Though her face was smeared with black grime and mud, it could not hide her strikingly bright, almost feral amber eyes. Her figure was hidden by the oversized greatcoat, but her upright bearing and the pride she maintained even in her disheveled state showed she was no ordinary clerk.
Lieutenant Jeanne, Liaison Office, French 1st Army.
Jeanne stopped before Arthur. She did not immediately thank him. Instead, she swept a wary gaze over these British soldiers in khaki, finally settling on Arthur's face — dirty but still impossibly handsome — and the gleaming major's insignia on his shoulder.
"British?"
Her English had a strong accent, her voice hoarse, her tone carrying a complex, almost provocative edge.
"I thought you'd all be on the coast by now, sunbathing."
Sergeant MacTavish spat to the side. "We'd be having afternoon tea if we hadn't saved your lot, ma'am."
Arthur raised a hand to silence the Sergeant.
He looked at Jeanne, a faint, aristocratic, detached smile curling at the corner of his mouth. He was neither angered by her sarcasm nor did he display any gentlemanly courtesy because she was a woman.
His gaze passed over Jeanne's shoulder, fixed on the radio carried by the soldier behind her.
That was the real "beauty" in his eyes.
"God is busy, Lieutenant. He doesn't care where we sunbathe."
Arthur's smile vanished, his tone cold and polite, like a salesman being rejected.
"It was the Coldstream Guards who saved you. Now, I don't think we have time for a party here."
He pointed at the radio.
"Does that thing still work?"
Jeanne blinked, clearly not expecting such direct, utilitarian bluntness from this British officer. She instinctively moved to shield the radioman behind her.
"It works. What do you want?"
"Good."
Arthur turned, waving his cane to signal the squad to move.
"Then keep close, Lieutenant. If you fall behind, I won't come back to save you a second time. After all..."
He glanced back at the still-panting French soldiers, a cold glint in his eyes.
"...my bullets are expensive. I don't waste them on dead men."
Jeanne bit her lip, watching that arrogant back. She took a deep breath, then waved at her own men: "Follow these British! Whatever happens, don't let them shake us off!"
Arthur did not look back.
In his RTS vision, the green icon representing the [Communications Unit] had joined his formation. That was enough.
As for the woman's name, her face, her story...
In this hell, still dozens of kilometers from Dunkirk, such luxuries were only for those who lived to see another day.