A Fight for Survival

Logan raised his hand and fired two shots in quick succession. The large-caliber revolver wasn't effective at long range, but within 50 yards, it was a formidable sidearm.

Seeing his target stagger and fall, Logan turned his attention to the flat-topped steel helmet nearby and fired twice. While conserving ammunition was a good idea in theory, if his aim wasn't precise enough to ensure a kill, it could easily backfire. A British infantryman in front of the trench had clearly noticed the German officer with the pistol. He stood still, raised his Lee-Enfield No. IV, and at such close range, there was no way he could miss.

Rat-tat-tat-tat...

The hail of bullets from the half-track armored vehicle turned the "conspirator" into a sieve, saving Logan's grassroots life in the process.

"Leutnant! Get on board!"

Facing Steffenberg's second call, Logan finally left the trench and climbed onto the armored vehicle—this time, the significance was entirely different.

Once aboard, he shouted at the top of his lungs, "Warriors of Germany! We will fight to the last moment and never retreat!"

The magnesium flash of a camera chose the most inopportune moment to go off, capturing the rookie's transformation into a hero. Unfortunately, it also exposed the armored vehicle's position to enemy artillery.

Whoosh...

The piercing whistle of an incoming shell sent shivers down every nerve. Just moments ago, Logan had stood tall as a heroic commander, but now he found himself with nowhere to hide.

The Sd.Kfz. 250 half-track armored vehicle had only 12 millimeters of frontal armor, barely enough to stop machine gun bullets and shell fragments. Against small-caliber anti-tank guns, it might as well have been made of paper. The Luftwaffe lieutenant instinctively crouched down, and the ensuing explosion nearly deafened him. That wasn't all—the second explosion that followed felt like a sledgehammer slamming into the 6-ton vehicle.

The violent shaking sent Logan crashing into the steel wall of the compartment once more, and his right shoulder joint felt as if it had been dislocated.

His vision was filled with smoke, his ears rang, and his mind went blank. But in an instant, he thought of Steffenberg, the brave, tenacious, and fiercely loyal Luftwaffe lieutenant—even though they had only worked together for less than two days.

"Lent! Lent! Are you okay?"

A cough came from the darkness. "I'm alive! Don't worry!"

Logan breathed a sigh of relief. Gripping a nearby handhold, he struggled to his feet and peered over the edge of the armored vehicle. The battlefield was still chaotic. The German soldiers in the trenches were fighting desperately, but the flat-topped helmets of the British soldiers were now visible in front of them.

Were they finally about to break?

Logan's gaze returned to the armored vehicle he was on. The engine hood was gone, and the scorched, mangled engine was still smoking. Even the machine gun shield on the front was missing a corner. The shell had clearly hit the engine—if it had landed a few inches further back, both he and Steffenberg would have been sent straight to the afterlife.

There was no time to feel relieved. Logan stumbled forward, reaching for the machine gun handle, but something at his feet tripped him.

"Ouch!" Steffenberg groaned in pain.

"Are you okay?" Logan crouched down and, by the light of distant shell explosions, saw that the lieutenant's right cheek was covered in blood. He quickly pulled out a first aid kit.

Steffenberg grabbed the kit himself. "Leutnant, don't worry about me! See if the machine gun still works!"

With comrades like this, what more could one ask for?

Logan stood up without hesitation. The machine gun appeared intact, with a nearly one-foot-long ammo belt hanging from it. The rookie lieutenant from the 21st century suddenly remembered Sylvester Stallone's iconic pose from First Blood.

But when he pulled the charging handle halfway, it jammed...

He pulled harder, but it still didn't budge.

Disappointed, he looked up and saw an SS soldier in a helmet hurling a grenade toward the front of the trench. In the next moment, the soldier was shot down, and the explosion from the grenade was like a small stone thrown into a pond—barely causing a ripple before disappearing into the surging tide of enemies.

Was this his first defeat since time-traveling? Logan couldn't accept it. Twenty-four hours ago, he had led a team to take out a dozen British and French officers and was about to receive commendations from the Führer. Twelve hours ago, he had cleverly breached the Allied defenses, allowing the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler to rewrite history. Now, with hundreds of thousands of Allied troops trapped in Dunkirk and the Germans on the verge of victory in the West, was he really about to suffer such a defeat?

Should he flee, surrender, or fight to the death? For a moment, Logan hesitated.

Finally, the first British infantryman climbed into the trench, a bayonet fixed to his rifle. He staggered, trying to steady himself, but a burst of gunfire sent blood spurting from his chest, and he fell backward...

Suddenly, the sound of gunfire grew louder around him. Logan turned his head in surprise and saw several SS soldiers in helmets, armed with MP38 submachine guns, charging toward the trench while firing.

Looking further back, he saw hundreds of SS soldiers jogging forward, accompanied by several armored vehicles.

Dietrich's reinforcements had finally arrived!

Although Wormhout was still surrounded by the enemy, and these reinforcements had been hastily pulled from other positions, Logan was overjoyed. As long as they held the line and prevented the Allies from breaking into the town, the Stukas would tear the enemy to shreds at dawn.

However, the British troops who had already reached the trench weren't about to let victory slip away so easily. They charged forward, engaging the SS soldiers in brutal hand-to-hand combat with bayonets and even closer-quarters fighting. This negated the SS soldiers' advantage with their submachine guns.

Seeing the situation at a stalemate, Logan estimated that there were still over a thousand British infantrymen in the assault. Most of them would soon overrun the trench. At a one-to-one casualty rate in close combat, the Germans would need at least a thousand men to hold the line. From the looks of the SS soldiers arriving, including those still in the trench, they might not have enough. The flame of hope that had just ignited in Logan's heart dimmed once more. Turning the tide wasn't going to be easy.

He slammed the machine gun's receiver, hoping to fix it by sheer luck, but the cold metal refused to cooperate. The charging handle remained stuck as if welded in place.

"Leutnant, there's a box of grenades on the vehicle!" Steffenberg, though unable to stand, seemed to have read Logan's mind and knew exactly what was troubling him.

Logan bent down and groped around, finally finding the already pried-open wooden crate. Just then, a dark figure climbed into the compartment.

A Brit? Logan quickly reached for his revolver.

"Hey, Leutnant, it's me!" The voice wasn't particularly familiar, but Logan didn't like it... it was Marco Rost, the selfish one!

Another dark figure clambered in, clumsily falling over.

"Ouch! That hurt!"

Logan recognized the voice—the annoying war correspondent, the seemingly weak bespectacled man.

"Ugh, why are you two here... do you even know how to throw grenades?" Logan asked, holding an M24 stick grenade.

"Of course!" Rost grabbed a grenade from the crate (if only these things could be found so easily), pulled the fuse, and hurled it forward.

"It's not hard!" The bespectacled man followed suit, though compared to the earlier bombardment from the British warships, the grenade explosions sounded almost gentle.

"Throw them forward, as far as you can!" Logan estimated that there were still plenty of British infantrymen running toward the trench from thirty or forty meters away. Grenades could take them out without risking friendly fire, and every enemy killed would ease the pressure on the defenders.

"Got it!" The bespectacled man didn't hesitate. Though his technique wasn't perfect, at least he didn't drop the grenade at his feet.

The selfish one and the bespectacled man swung their arms with all their might, and together with Logan, the three of them seemed to be engaged in a bizarre competition.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The continuous explosions gradually drowned out the sounds of hand-to-hand combat. Though each grenade was like a small stone thrown into a pond, enough of them could create ripples that disturbed the entire surface. The two young men enthusiastically hurled one German stick grenade after another. If these explosive devices had been replaced with an equivalent weight in gold, they could have knocked out several truckloads of beauties by now.

Whoosh... Boom!

In the last moment before losing consciousness, Logan felt as if he were on a rollercoaster. A Buddhist phrase popped into his mind: What is there to grieve about life, and what is there to fear about death?