War Hero

When Logan arrived at the temporary headquarters of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler with Steffenberg and the four paratroopers still fit for combat, only two vehicles remained: a four-wheeled armored car with a circular antenna and an ordinary half-track armored vehicle. From a distance, Logan recognized the officer standing on the wheeled armored car as Marco Rost, one of Dietrich's staff officers. Rost had previously served in the Wehrmacht but was reportedly transferred to the SS after some incident.

Seeing the running paratroopers, Rost shouted anxiously, "Hurry, Leutnant! We've been waiting for you! Move it!"

Logan wanted to leap onto the vehicle gracefully but quickly realized he didn't have the agility for it. Instead, he climbed aboard steadily. Since the vehicle could only seat three people, Steffenberg and the four paratroopers had to board the half-track behind them.

Before the vehicle started moving, Logan noticed the bespectacled man also climbing onto the half-track. He was about to marvel at the paparazzi spirit of this era, but the earth-shattering explosions left no room for distraction.

"Quick, head north!" Rost urgently instructed the driver.

The grassy field where the Fieseler Fi 156 Storch had taken off and landed was to the north of the town. With the east and west now battlefields, the north and south had become the only refuges.

The piercing whistle of incoming shells assaulted their eardrums, soon transforming into earth-shaking impacts. The first shells landed outside the town, but their power far exceeded any weapon previously seen on the battlefield. The entire town trembled as if it might collapse at any moment.

Urged on by the explosions, the driver channeled the legendary spirit of Formula 1, speeding recklessly along the narrow, winding gravel road. The vehicle even performed a somewhat clumsy "drift" around a corner. However, no matter how fast they went, they couldn't outrun the enemy's artillery. Just as they were about to leave the town, a massive fireball erupted nearby...

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The shells, fired from the direction of the sea, never came singly. Amid the deafening explosions, Logan once again experienced the "deafening" magic trick of war. The powerful shockwaves swept through every street with ease.

"Hey! Stop the car!" Logan suddenly shouted. In the flash of light, he had seen several figures staggering toward the town's outskirts. Even in this life-or-death situation, two of them had clumsily fallen.

"We can't stop! We have to get out of here!" Rost retorted firmly. Whether or not Logan was the commander's guest, survival was the priority now.

Logan wasn't one to back down either. He grabbed the driver's hand on the steering wheel. "Stop the car!"

Screech...

The vehicle swerved, nearly crashing into a wall, and the half-track behind almost rear-ended them—its road speed was no less impressive than the wheeled armored car's.

Logan jumped out. "You go ahead! I'll catch up!"

This was directed at Steffenberg and the paratroopers.

As the saying goes, "Impulse is the devil." Logan had always been such a devil. If fighting for friends in bars or chasing thieves for strangers could be attributed to loyalty or justice, then throwing punches on the soccer field or storming off after an argument could only be blamed on his inherent impulsiveness. Although Logan believed he had matured and become more stable with age, his primal instincts hadn't disappeared—they had merely been temporarily hidden.

When a child sees their toy fall into a ditch, they'll risk falling to retrieve it. From the moment Logan jumped out of the vehicle, what his subordinates thought, how his companions viewed him, and what fate had in store for him were all pushed to the back of his mind. All he remembered were those innocent, melancholic eyes, that fair and elegant face, and that slender, fragile figure...

"Kylie! Kylie Legris!"

The slender figure struggling to help her companions turned at the sound of her name.

"Are you okay?" Logan grabbed her cold, small hand, but "Little Sophie Marceau" looked terrified, unable to speak.

"Come with me!" he shouted in French.

The elderly couple were the weak links in this group. Even with danger closing in, they could only hobble along. Logan was at a loss, but then several burly figures appeared: two men supporting the old man on either side, another carrying the old woman, and one more hoisting the little boy onto his shoulders like a toy.

"Hey, Lent, you... you all..."

Logan looked at his paratroopers in astonishment. Lent Steffenberg, Mark Ella, Girard Hesse, Nick Gomez, and Lensin Fritz—all of them stood by his side.

"We don't leave any comrades behind!" Steffenberg said earnestly, completely unfazed by the fact that Logan's reckless act was for the sake of an ordinary-looking French girl.

Logan was overwhelmed with emotion.

The bombs continued to fall, shaking the ground beneath their feet. There was no time for the paratroopers to marvel at their camaraderie. By now, the two SS armored vehicles had selfishly driven off. However, with the help of his comrades, the group of elderly, women, and children moved much faster. Just before the town was reduced to rubble, they finally reached the relative safety of the grassy field.

Huff...

Logan let out a long sigh. "Lent, thank you! Actually..."

"Hey, no need to explain!" Steffenberg glanced at the French civilians indifferently. "You have your reasons for everything you do. That's not our concern! We believe in you, respect you, and are willing to follow you!"

Hearing this, Logan felt a pang of regret. It was one thing for him to act recklessly, but he couldn't drag his loyal comrades into the fire with him in the future.

"The British are serious this time!" Steffenberg frowned as he looked into the distance. "It might be one, maybe two battleships. At least 12-inch guns. This shows how much they value Wormhout as a stronghold. Leutnant, you've driven a nail into the heart of the Allies, making them writhe in agony every second. They're desperate to pull it out!"

"I only provided the idea. It was Dietrich and his SS who carried it out," Logan said objectively.

Watching the town gradually turn to ruins and the artillery fire extending eastward, Steffenberg sighed. "If only our navy were this powerful!"

Before Logan could respond, a flash of white light caught his attention. He instinctively dove to the side.

"Great, perfect! Let's take another one!"

This seemingly war-irrelevant remark immediately clued Logan in. He turned his head angrily and saw the bespectacled man fiddling with an old-fashioned camera equipped with a magnesium flash.

"You..." Logan held back the rest of his words. On one hand, he didn't want to curse a comrade; on the other, there was no need to provoke someone who seemed to have powerful connections.

"Elite German paratroopers bravely rescue five civilians from the evil British artillery fire. What admirable courage! Oh, these are French civilians? Fantastic! Dr. Goebbels will love these photos!" The bespectacled man snapped another picture, the magnesium flash momentarily blinding everyone.

"What's the meaning of this?" Logan asked sharply.

The man replied calmly, "Heh! Defeating France is only a matter of time. Throughout history, the best way for occupiers to soften resistance and hostility among the locals is through psychological warfare. These photos are perfect for that—completely authentic, no exaggeration!"

"I don't like this kind of propaganda. You'd better delete those photos!" Logan said, then realized "delete" was a term for digital cameras. He corrected himself, "How about this? Sell me the negatives."

"Sell?" The man chuckled slyly. "Don't worry, Leutnant. I'll develop as many copies as you want, free of charge! Of course, if possible, I'd also like to conduct an exclusive interview with you about the elite paratroopers' raid on the British headquarters."

If not for the desire to avoid causing trouble for General Student, Logan might have snatched the camera and smashed it to pieces. This rare moment of restraint, however, genuinely changed the fate of both him and the entire paratrooper unit. The seemingly sleazy bespectacled man had close ties to Joseph Goebbels, the infamous mastermind of the Reich's propaganda machine.