France — May 30, 1940
The advance did not stop. Not because everything was under control, but because Berlin's clock had no setting for rest.
The Leibstandarte was cutting through France like a knife already dulled by use—but still sharp. The blow through the Ardennes had split the Allied front, and now only pursuit remained. Encircle. Squeeze. But something felt off.
"We're moving too fast," Helmut said, breaking the silence inside the cabin. "The infantry and supply units can't keep up."
Falk knew it. He didn't need maps to feel it—no logistics convoys, no marching foot soldiers had passed them in hours. Sometimes it felt like they were an arrow shot forward… with no bow behind it.
"Where is the front?" Lukas asked.
"There is no front anymore," Konrad replied from the gunsight. "Just scraps."
They moved through towns that felt like ghosts: looted shops, fallen signs, hastily painted warnings in French and English. Now and then, a lone gunshot would make them halt. A hidden machine gun, a sniper, a group of engineers blowing a bridge and vanishing.
At La Bassée, disorganized resistance delayed them for over twenty minutes. The fire was chaotic but persistent. These soldiers weren't fighting to win—they were fighting to slow. And that made them dangerous.
"What if they hit our flanks?" Ernst muttered. "There's no one guarding them. We don't even know if we have friendly lines to our right."
"That's why they send us," Falk said. "To make noise. To look bigger than we are."
But even he was beginning to feel it: the tanks were filthy, engines strained, crews exhausted. And most worrying of all—no one was behind them. No one was holding the ground they left behind.
"Albrecht says to keep the pace," Helmut reported. "Priority is to reach Saint-Omer before nightfall."
"And if we run into a regrouped French division in the middle of nowhere, what do we do? Shout louder?" Konrad muttered dryly.
No one answered.
In the distance, Dunkirk was already visible, shrouded in columns of smoke. Allied troops falling back to the sea—not in order, but still armed. The final battle seemed close.
But Falk knew they were stretching the line. That if someone cut behind them, no help would come for hours. Maybe days.
The war was advancing. So were they.
But with every extra kilometer they gained… they were walking further out on the edge.