sovbooks Chapter 88 Himmler's "Scottish Relatives"
Chapter 88 Himmler's "Scottish Relatives"
Chapter 88 Himmler's "Scottish Relatives" (Large Chapter)
June 6, 1940, 02:30, France, north of the Somme River, Tactical Highway D901.
SS 999th Special Operations Battalion Command.
The rain stopped, replaced by a thick layer of morning mist that blanketed the French countryside.
Inside the Sd.Kfz.251/1 half-track command vehicle codenamed "Greif," the air was filled with the rich aroma of high-end German cigarettes, the smell of worn leather, and a hint of ink and a corresponding colossal lie.
"Name?"
Captain Arthur Sterling sat at the folding chart table, his long fingers hovering over an Erika portable typewriter that had been pulled from the car.
Jeanne de Valois.
"turn down."
Arthur didn't even look up, his fingers tapping out a series of crisp metallic sounds on the keyboard, the rhythm as fast as a submachine gun firing rapidly.
This was muscle memory he had honed in his past life as a seasoned "keyboard politician," through countless late-night online battles—
However, compared to the light-touch Cherry MX Red keyboards of later generations, this 1940 German-made "Erika" typewriter had a heavy and stiff mechanical key travel. Each keystroke required almost the force of pulling a trigger, making Arthur's fingertips numb.
"That's a French name. It's the kind of name you only use when you're about to give your last words at the guillotine, or when you're going to dance the can-can at the Moulin Rouge. In this carriage, that name means spy" and "execution."
Sitting opposite him was Lieutenant Jeanne, now wearing a very fitted, greyish-black SS female auxiliary (SS) uniform—she tugged at her collar somewhat awkwardly. Compared to her previous Wehrmacht uniform, the cut of this SS uniform was too sharp, making her feel as if she were wrapped in a sheet of iron called "discipline."
"Then—what do you suggest I call you? Sir?"
"Hanna. Hanna Muller."
Arthur typed the last letter and ripped the freshly printed, ink-scented temporary ID off the roller with a "rip".
He picked up a radish stamp that had been carefully modified with a knife—originally a logistics stamp used to stamp the "Repair Parts List" on this vehicle, but now Arthur had carved it into a stamp that was indistinguishable from the official seal of the SS Supreme Command—breathed on the ink, and then stamped it heavily onto the document.
"Snapped!"
The bright red seal, like a bloodstain, bestowed supreme power upon this piece of waste paper.
"Hannah Müller, 24 years old, born in Strasbourg, Alsace. Your father was a German veteran of World War I, and your mother is of local German descent. You received a German education from a young age and deeply resent the French government's occupation of Alsace after World War I. Therefore, your German has a charming, border-country accent."
Arthur handed her the identification, his grey-blue eyes flashing with the scrutiny of a screenwriter looking at an actor: "This is your script. Memorize it. From now on, forget about that French woman who loves smoking women's cigarettes. You are now the confidential secretary in His Excellency Heinrich Himmler's Private Office, and also the liaison officer for my special force."
Jeanne took the ID card and looked at her own black-and-white photo pasted on the photo panel, along with the menacing Nazi eagle emblem next to it. Her nose twitched instinctively.
"This is insane, Flag Captain."
Jeanne instinctively used Arthur's new rank, but her voice still betrayed an undisguised fear: "We're walking a tightrope. If we encounter a real high-ranking SS officer, or some sharp-eyed Gestapo officer notices something amiss with the typewriter's handwriting—"
"That's your misconception, Hannah."
As Arthur spoke, he skillfully opened a folder with a black leather cover.
On the cover, he wrote a line in large, gothic letters that made Jeanne, or rather Hannah, tremble with fear, using white correction fluid:
【SS—Sonderabteilung999】(SS 999th Special Operations Battalion)
[Mission Code Name: Valkyrie - Top Secret]
"Do you really think the German army is what they claim it to be, a machine so precise that not even a single screw will malfunction? No, that's Goebbels's way of fooling the masses."
Arthur blew on the correction fluid on the cover, a mocking smile playing on his lips: "The current German military is a bloated, overfed beast. It swallowed Poland in just one month..."
Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and half of France. Its stomach is about to burst.
"Every day, thousands of orders flew between command posts at all levels, and countless hastily assembled units moved along the roads. The field military police at the front had never even seen what the Supreme Command's special pass looked like. They couldn't even distinguish between the SS Special Mobile Forces (SS-VT) and the Totenkopf Division."
Arthur slammed the heavy folder onto the table with a thud: "In the chaos, they only recognize three things: rank, attitude, and fear."
"As long as my rank is higher than his and my attitude is more assertive, he'll automatically assume the document is legitimate. He'll convince himself: 'Oh, this must be a secret mission for some big shot; I'd better not say anything, or I'll be sent to the front lines to dig trenches.'"
Major Ryder, who was sitting in the car next to him—now wearing the uniform of an SS 1st Assault Battalion Commander and struggling to get used to his somewhat uncomfortable boots—couldn't help but turn around and interject: "999? Does the Germans have that number in their organizational charts? As far as I know, the Wehrmacht's infantry regiments only go up to the 500s, and the SS's sergeants have only single digits."
Arthur also wondered if using a non-existent, ridiculously large number at this point in time would be too easy to expose the deception.
But he figured it out.
"On the contrary, Ryder."
Arthur closed the folder, patting the non-existent unit number on it with satisfaction: "If I filled in '2nd Skull Regiment' or '1st Mobile Infantry Battalion,' that military policeman only needed to make a phone call to division headquarters to verify, and we'd be surrounded within two minutes."
"But 999————"
Arthur lit a cigarette, a playful smile playing on his lips: "In the bureaucratic logic of the Germans, the later the serial number, the later the organization was established, or the higher the level of secrecy. When a military policeman sees a serial number that's completely beyond his comprehension and ridiculously large, his first reaction isn't 'it's fake,' but rather..."
Arthur exhaled a smoke ring and slowly said:
"This must be some kind of new experimental unit that I'm not qualified to know about."
Arthur paused, his gaze deepening. "Believe me, maybe in two years, '999' will truly become synonymous with 'cannon fodder' and 'punitive battalions' in the German army. But right now? It's a scare code we hold exclusively."
"After all, for an ordinary checkpoint sentry, when you see a unit whose unit number you don't recognize, but they are driving the latest Panzer IV tanks, wearing SS camouflage uniforms, with officers at the colonel level, and everyone has a menacing look on their faces."
Ryder paused for a moment, then suddenly realized: "I would think—this is a secret unit made up of outlaws who specialize in dirty work. Like, cleaning up, massacring, or carrying out some shady missions."
Bingo.
Arthur snapped his fingers: "That's the kind of indescribable terror we want. A unit that sounds like scum, but is ridiculously well-equipped—that will confuse all the officers at the checkpoints. And confusion breeds hesitation. Hesitation is our passport."
Arthur turned around and looked through the observation window of the rear cabin at the long steel dragon winding through the fog behind him.
Twenty-four Panzer IV tanks, eighty trucks, six assault guns, and nearly four thousand fully armed SS soldiers.
"The file issue is resolved. Now, our biggest problem is those four thousand files that only say 'God Save the...'"
The mouths of "King" and "Fish and Chips".
03:45, temporary rest stop. West of Amiens, an abandoned French military post.
Although it was still dark, the outpost was bustling with activity, like a large-scale theatrical rehearsal.
Four thousand soldiers, now fully dressed, are undergoing final camouflage procedures.
This isn't about applying face paint—we don't have that stuff yet—Arthur is applying psychological paint to them.
McTavish—now wearing the peaked cap of an SS company commander, the skull insignia on the cap making his already menacing face look even more ferocious—was standing on the hood of an Opel truck, addressing hundreds of Scottish soldiers below who were wolfing down German canned food.
"Listen up, you bastard! Kid, swallow the beef in your mouth before you listen!"
McTavish brandished a tree branch broken off from the roadside, using it as a pointer, pointing at his men who were studying how to open German mess kits: "From this moment on, you are not shipbuilders from Glasgow, nor shepherds from the Scottish Highlands. You are the SS! The sharpest tooth in the mouth of that mad dog, the Führer!"
-
"I know you bunch of idiots can't learn German. Asking you illiterate people to memorize a single word is harder than asking you to block a gun barrel. It's okay, those real SS lunatics don't talk much anyway."
McTavish held up three thick fingers: "You only need to remember three words. These three words will save your lives."
First: Halt! (Stop!)
McTavish made a fierce gesture to stop him, his expression as if he were looking at a bastard who owed him five pounds and was trying to renege on the debt, his eyes filled with murderous intent.
Second: Raus! (Get out!)
This time, he made an extremely violent move, hitting someone with the butt of his gun.
"Finally: HeilHitler!"
McTavish raised his right arm in a very perfunctory manner, a gesture that was less of a salute and more like swatting away a fly, but that was exactly the kind of temperament a seasoned veteran would have.
"If a German asks you for directions, or asks which organization you work for, or asks why you look like a British person—"
McTavish grinned maliciously and patted the MP40 submachine gun hanging on his chest: "Don't answer. Don't open your mouth. Just pull the bolt. Look at him like you're looking at a dead man."
"Remember, the commander said: SS officers who speak are human, SS officers who don't speak are ghosts. Ghosts are the scariest. If anyone dares to utter a single English word, I'll personally cut out their tongue and feed it to the dogs!"
A low murmur of laughter came from below, but everyone was earnestly imitating the pronunciation of the three words.
Meanwhile, on the other side, the tank crews were engaged in a more direct form of "artistic creation."
Sergeant Briggs, carrying a bucket of white paint he'd somehow found, was leading a few people in painting on the side of the turret of their brand-new Panzer IV tank.
They ruthlessly painted over the yellow "oak leaf" insignia that originally belonged to the German 1st Panzer Division, and then painted a huge, extremely flamboyant white skull on it.
That wasn't all. Briggs felt it wasn't enough, so he drew a blood-dripping dagger below the skull.
"Isn't this a bit too much, Sergeant?"
Lieutenant Gray looked at the skull and crossbones emblem, which was bigger than a washbasin, and felt somewhat embarrassed. As a formally educated officer, he felt it was a complete waste of this sophisticated machine.
"Regular troops would not allow this kind of paint scheme; it violates camouflage regulations."
"Of course not, sir."
Briggs, a German cigar dangling from his mouth, used a brush to add thick eyebrows to the skull, making it look even more like a roaring demon. "But Commander Arthur said we're playing the role of a special operations battalion. These units are a bunch of lunatics. The more flamboyant they are, the less likely anyone will mess with them. Look at the SS Totenkopf Division, they've painted skulls everywhere, haven't they?"
As he spoke, Briggs used a ruler to trace the name on the mudguard of the tank and neatly wrote down the puzzling unit code: SS-999.
"And, sir, don't you think it's even more exciting this way?" Briggs took two steps back, admiring his masterpiece. "Charging into battle in this thing makes me feel like a pirate captain."
Lieutenant Gray looked at the huge skull, then at the soldiers around him wearing camouflage smocks and silver military police badges around their necks, eating canned food with bayonets.
An almost absurd illusion welled up in my mind.
Is this the British army?
No. That disciplined, gentlemanly British army, who even timed their tea, was already wiped out in Dunkirk.
Under Arthur Sterling's reimagining, a monster was born.
It has the skin of a German, the bones of an Englishman, and the savagery of a Scottish and the evil soul of a Nazi.
06：45。D901公路与N25国道的交叉路口。德军A集团军群后勤补给线，第14野战宪兵检查站。
Before the morning mist had dissipated, a deep rumble echoed from the end of the D901 highway.
That wasn't the sound of one or two trucks, but the frequency of the earth trembling—the sound of heavy tracks rolling over the road.
The German military police at the checkpoint immediately became alert.
This is a large checkpoint, guarding a crucial choke point to Abbeville, south of the Somme.
A barricade painted red and white lay across the middle of the road, and two MG34 machine guns were mounted behind sandbags, their dark muzzles pointing in the direction the road stretched out.
A dozen or so German field police officers wearing metal badges (Gorget, commonly known as "dog tags") and gray-green uniforms are checking passing vehicles.
These military police, known as "chain dogs," were the nightmare of all German soldiers. They were ruthless and rigid, wielding the power of life and death, with the authority to arrest anyone without proper documentation and even execute deserters on the spot.
Something's not right.
The military police sergeant in charge of the checkpoint, Heinz Weber, frowned.
He heard the distinctive roar of the Maybach's 12-cylinder engine. It was the sound of the Panzer IV.
"Armored forces? How could armored forces be coming from the north at this time?" Weber muttered. "Crest's main armored group has already crossed the river; the infantry divisions should be following behind."
Just then, the fog was torn open.
A massive convoy appeared like a ghost.
Leading the way was an SdKfz251 half-track vehicle, which had no divisional insignia on its body, only a huge, somewhat crooked white skull.
Following closely behind were an endless line of Panzer IV tanks and trucks.
All the cars had their headlights on, and two blinding beams of light crisscrossed in the fog, as if announcing their arrival to the world.
"Stop the car! Turn off the engine!"
Sergeant Weber was puzzled, but that didn't stop him from doing his duty. He raised the traffic sign in his hand, strode to the middle of the road, and stopped the lead half-track vehicle.
Ryder sat in the driver's seat, watching the approaching military police through the bulletproof glass.
The military policeman was tall, and the metal badge on his chest gleamed under the car headlights. His hand was already on the holster at his waist.
Ryder's palms were drenched in cold sweat as he gripped the steering wheel, his foot trembling slightly on the clutch. This was no longer a minor incident; at this moment, even the slightest slip could lead to the deaths of four thousand people.
"Don't panic."
Arthur sat in the passenger seat, not looking up, slowly putting on his exquisitely crafted white sheepskin gloves.
"Remember, you're Ryder, the First-Class Assault Captain. You just slaughtered hundreds of people over there, and all you want now is a place to grab a hot coffee. You're fed up with these roadblocks."
Outside the car window, Sergeant Weber had already reached the door. He didn't salute immediately, but instead used the distinctive, suspicious, and scrutinizing gaze of a military policeman to look the strange half-track vehicle up and down.
There was no divisional insignia. A strange skull and crossbones symbol. And the driver in the car, who looked rather pale.
"Papiere (documents)".
Weber knocked on the car window, his tone curt and devoid of any politeness.
Ryder took a deep breath and rolled down the car window. As rehearsed, he didn't speak, but with a stern face and an extremely impatient gesture, he handed over the black folder.
Weber took the folder and opened it to take a look.
His brows furrowed even more immediately.
"Special Operations Battalion 999?"
Weber read out the unfamiliar designation, then looked up, his gaze passing over Ryder to the officer sitting in the passenger seat.
It was an SS captain (colonel). He wore a peaked cap, the brim pulled low, and held an exquisitely crafted riding crop in his hand. But he still didn't glance at Weber; instead, he was facing the rearview mirror, narcissistically adjusting the Iron Cross on his collar.
"Sir," Weber's voice rose several octaves, tinged with accusation, "I haven't received any notification about this unit's passage. And the stamp on this marching order—"
He pointed to the forged document: "The stamp on this is a bit blurry. According to Army Group A Command Order No. 104, all independent units passing through this area must undergo identity verification. All personnel, please disembark for inspection!"
The moment those words were spoken, the air in the carriage seemed to freeze.
In the rear cabin, Captain Henry's hand had already reached for the submachine gun trigger hidden under his raincoat. Jeanne's face was deathly pale, and she bit her lip tightly.
Ryder's pupils contracted sharply.
get off?
Once they disembark, those four thousand soldiers, fluent in Scottish slang, will instantly give themselves away. At that point, even God couldn't save them.
"Kill him, then charge over there," Ryder roared in his mind, his toes already on the accelerator.
At this critical moment—
"Bang!"
The passenger door was suddenly pushed open.
Before Sergeant Weber could react, he saw a black figure jump out of the vehicle and approach him with a chilling gust of wind.
Immediately afterwards, a dark shadow swept in with the sound of wind.
"Snapped!"
A crisp crack of a whip sounded particularly jarring in the quiet morning.
Arthur's riding whip struck Sergeant Webber squarely across the face.
The whip strike was extremely vicious, leaving a bright red welt on the stern face of the military policeman. Weber staggered from the blow, dropping the folder in his hand into the muddy water, completely stunned.
"You—" Weber covered his face, so shocked that he even forgot to draw his gun.
He served as a military policeman known as the "chain dog" for three years, and he was always the one hitting others. He had never seen anyone dare to slap a military policeman in public.
"You're blind as a bat!"
Arthur stood in the mud, one hand on his hip, the riding crop in his hand pointing at Webber's nose.
What came out of his mouth was the purest, most arrogant, and nauseatingly nasal Prussian Junker German: "Are you questioning my documents, Corporal?!"
"Or do you think that even His Excellency Himmler, the Reichsführer of the SS, has a blurry signature?!"
Arthur stepped forward, staring intently at the military policeman who was half a head taller than him. At that moment, Arthur's aura was two meters and eighty centimeters stronger than that of the fully armed military policeman. His gaze was as if he were looking at a cockroach blocking his way.
"Do you know what's in this car?"
Arthur suddenly lowered his voice, leaned close to Webber's ear, and said in a sinister tone that seemed to come from the depths of hell, "Those are highly infectious biochemical experimental samples captured from Dunkirk! You want them to get off the vehicle? Fine!"
""
Arthur whirled around and roared at the back of the convoy, his voice echoing through the sky: "Everyone out of the vehicles! Let this dutiful military policeman examine your sores and plague!"
Upon hearing the order, the sound of bolts being pulled back immediately came from the half-tracks and trucks behind. Hundreds of Scottish soldiers with ferocious expressions stood up, their submachine guns not raised, but their fierce killing intent was already overflowing.
"No, no, no! Sir! No!"
Sergeant Weber's face turned green the moment he heard the words "biological experiment" and "plague" and saw the group of ghost-like soldiers behind him.
Within the German army, rumors swirled about the SS conducting some nefarious and inhumane secret experiments. Little did we expect to actually run into these scoundrels today.
If a sample carrying the plague is allowed to disembark here, then this checkpoint is doomed.
Ignoring the pain on his face, he hurriedly waved his hands, even taking two steps back in fright: "Misunderstanding! This is completely a misunderstanding, Captain!"
"What? You're not investigating anymore?"
Arthur sneered, lightly tapping Sergeant Weber's pale face with his riding crop, the gesture utterly contemptuous: "I'm in a hurry, Corporal. If your stupidity causes the sample to become invalid halfway—or even if only one rat escapes—"
Arthur paused, then straightened Webber's askew collar. "Trust me," he said, "there will be a grave with your name on it in the coldest trench in the future. I'll fill it in myself."
"This is a task personally assigned by His Excellency Himmler. Understand?"
The final phrase, "His Excellency Himmler," was like the last straw that broke the camel's back.
Sergeant Weber abruptly pressed his heels together, not even bothering to pick up the folder from the ground, and gave a standard salute, his voice filled with fear: "I'm so sorry, Flag Captain! I didn't know it was—please approve! Approve immediately!"
He turned and yelled at his men behind the roadblock, his voice even louder than when he had stopped the vehicles: "Move the roadblock! Quickly! Let Battalion 999 through! Nobody is allowed near those trucks! Put on your gas masks!"
Hearing the shouts, the machine gunners and sentries were so frightened that they hurriedly moved the barricades aside and then moved far away from the convoy.
Arthur bent down and, with his white-gloved hands, gracefully picked up the folder that had fallen into the muddy water, gently patting off the dust.
"That's more like it."
Arthur tossed the folder back to Ryder in the car like trash, then gave Webber one last look, as if he were looking at a dead man: "Remember this fear, Corporal."
After saying that, he turned around, got into the car, and slammed the door shut.
"Drive, Ryder. Don't keep our 'plague' waiting."
07: 00.
The convoy roared through the checkpoint.
As the command vehicle bearing the skull and crossbones insignia drove by, the German military police on the roadside all stood at attention and saluted, their eyes filled with awe and—a fear that they wanted to avoid at all costs.
On the trucks behind, the burly Scottish SS men strictly followed McTavish's orders.
Their faces were expressionless, their eyes blankly fixed on the military police, the trigger handles of their MP40s cocked in the ready-to-fire position. Occasionally, one or two soldiers couldn't help but want to laugh, but they could only desperately turn their faces away, which, to the military police, looked more like—
A painful spasm caused by some kind of virus infection.
To the German military police, they were a group of "cold-blooded killing machines." In reality, they were just too scared to blink.
The atmosphere in the truck finally softened after the convoy had driven five kilometers and the checkpoint was completely out of sight.
"My God—"
Major Ryder released the steering wheel and realized his palms were soaked with sweat, completely drenching the wheel. He gasped for breath, turned around, and looked at Arthur, who remained calm as he lit a cigarette.
"Sir, you just—you really whipped him?"
Ryder thought the world was crazy. A British earl, dressed in an SS uniform, slapped a German gendarme across the face on a French highway, and the gendarme saluted him?
If this were written into a novel, readers would definitely call the author a madman.
"That was a necessary performance, Ryder."
Arthur took a deep drag on his cigarette, gazing at the French fields rushing past the window, his eyes deep and thoughtful: "In the Third Reich, reasoning is useless. The more you reason, the more they think you're hiding something, and the more they see you as a pushover."
"Violence and arrogance are the only common currencies here."
"The more afraid they are, the more it proves you've done the right thing."
Jeanne sat in the back seat, looking at her gray-black uniform in the rearview mirror, and suddenly felt a strong wave of nausea. The tension quickly subsided, and then, without warning, the nauseating feeling of playing a Nazi surged into her heart.
"This skin is disgusting," she whispered. "We've become the people we hate the most."
97
"No, Jeanne."
Arthur turned and looked at her through the swirling smoke. His grey-blue eyes held no moral burden, only absolute pragmatism: "This suit is the best bulletproof vest. Because in this crazy country, no one dares to check the Führer's Special Operations Battalion's posts unless they want to die."
"We are now the most arrogant bastards in France. As long as we keep this bastard attitude, we can drive all the way to Paris—or the coast."
Suddenly, the road sign ahead flashed by in the morning mist.
【Abbeville — 68km】
Arthur's gaze froze on that number for a moment.
Sixty-eight kilometers.
In peacetime, this would be a matter of an hour's drive. But on this morning, those 68 kilometers meant they would have to travel at least two hours through the heart of the German Army Group A.
Abbeville. It was a key point where German armored forces cut off the retreat of the British and French forces, and also a hive where Guderian's 19th Panzer Corps had concentrated its forces to establish a bridgehead on the Somme.
"Sir, are we really going to Abbeville?"
Ryder glanced at the road sign, his throat dry: "According to the intelligence Henry just overheard, there's a battle going on there."
The 51st Highland Division is launching a counterattack over there; the sky there is practically filled with Stukas.
"That's precisely why we're going."
Arthur flicked away the ash from his cigarette, reached into the pocket of his shirt and pulled out a crumpled telegram, which he casually tossed into Ryder's arms.
"Look at this. This is an urgent coded telegram sent late last night by that fat man in London," before we had completely looted those three trains.
Ryder picked up the telegram with a puzzled look.
[To Colonel Stirling: The Imperial Eye is watching you. The 51st Highland Division is fighting alone on the Somme. General Victor Fortune desperately needs reinforcements. If you can move, head south and join them. Don't let the sound of Scottish bagpipes fade away in France. —WC]
"Don't let the bagpipes fall silent—" Ryder murmured repeatedly, "Prime Minister Churchill wants us to go—"
"Save the 51st Division?"
"Whether you go to rescue them or to die with them, it's an order from London."
Arthur picked up the map from his lap again, his finger tracing the blue line representing the Somme River, finally pointing heavily to Abbeville's location: "And Ryder, use your brain, even without this telegram. The 51st Hill Division is the last organized field force we have left in northern France. They're desperately trying to drive the Germans down the river on the south bank."
"What does this mean?"
Arthur looked up, his grey-blue eyes filled with madness: "This means that Abbeyville is currently the most chaotic, fiercest-fighting, and most focused place in all of France."
"The greatest opportunities for opportunism lie in the most chaotic places. If we were crossing a quiet stretch of the river, a single gunshot would bring German troops from dozens of kilometers around us. But in Abbeyville—"
Arthur sneered, "There's artillery fire everywhere. A few more tanks firing won't make a difference."
He picked up the intercom, his tone devoid of any fear: "Attention all vehicles. We still have a long way to go."
"We are about to re-enter Guderian's defensive zone. That is the most crucial hornet's nest on the entire front line."
"Everyone, straighten your backs. Polish those skulls."
"We're not just passing through here, we're going to the front lines to borrow a fire from the 19th Armored Corps."
"Target: Abbeville. Maintain formation and keep moving forward."
At Arthur's command, the steel dragon clad in a skull mask accelerated once more.
The tracks kicked up dust from the road as it swaggered toward the heart of that hellish, war-torn place.
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