The convoy swept away from the position, kicking up a cloud of dust and quickly disappearing from everyone's sight.

"It's dangerous...... You sat there for so long, talking to this captain, I thought it was exposed. This was the voice of Heinz, who had been chosen by Guderian to be the leader of the commando team.

"The captain is a clever man, trying to trick me into words, but I didn't expect that I had studied at Cambridge University back then, and I was very familiar with it, and there would be no flaws at all." Pretending to be Lieutenant Colonel Robin was Captain Ranke of the Afrika Army Staff, who had been working in the Logistics Department. Speaking of which he is still a bit of an interesting character, his father is German, his mother is British, the two families have always been family friends, before the First World War when Britain and Germany were still on good terms - at that time, not only British and German civil marriages were more common, even the British royal family was strictly speaking German nobles, and the mother of Kaiser Wilhelm II was the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria of England.

Born in Germany two years before the outbreak of World War I, Ranke was not affected by the war because his parents were civilians and his family was well-off. After the defeat of Germany, the storm of revolution swept up, and the situation was chaotic, especially in the process of Mark's hyperinflation, his father died of exhaustion due to the failure of industry and the disintegration of the family, and the unsustainable Ranke family had to follow his mother back to England and receive a secondary education there, and he entered Cambridge University with his brilliant mind.

Originally, Ranke did not have a particularly clear understanding of the country and the nation, because although his nationality has always been German with his father, his mother is British, and he has lived in Britain for many years, so he also has a good impression of Britain. But as he grew older, the pervasive ridicule and invisible discrimination of the British during his college years made him unhappy, and he had not personally experienced the nonsense of the flowery life in his Cambridge study career just now, it was all the word-of-mouth and unbridled show-off of a bunch of aristocratic classmates, he could not afford the cost of spending all the time, let alone being accepted by the mainstream circle, and people mentioned him as only a "German cub".

He thought that he could find a good job with his Cambridge graduate diploma, but he did not expect that because of his German origin, all government agencies and public organizations politely rejected him, and even applied for school teachers. He majored in statistics, and in the end he had to take on business bookkeeping work in a non-mainstream company, mingling with a bunch of students who graduated from business schools, and being ridiculed by them from time to time.

Failing in his studies, his career was not going well, and his mother died of illness, one blow after another made him even more depressed and taciturn. He did not choose to resist, and decided to endure it alone and silently, thinking that this was the end of his life and that was the end of Germany.

But the situation in Germany has changed dramatically, the Führer has come to power!

The Führer solved unemployment, the Führer solved Germany's economic problems, and the bread, work, and order promised by the Führer to the masses in the election campaign were all realized, and this very different approach, with all the refreshing political propaganda, made the young man fall in love with it. Compared with the aristocratic politicians in Britain who were fighting each other, tearing each other down, shouting empty slogans but helpless on practical issues, he felt that the Führer was a hundred times smarter than them.

By chance, one day he saw a newspaper with a fragment of the Führer's public speech: "...... You may say: Mr. Hitler, I need a job, a piece of bread. Yes! You're right, life is so important. But I'm going to tell you. There is one thing in this world that is more important than life, and that is freedom! That's dignity! He felt that this sentence really spoke to his heart, he couldn't suppress himself, his fiery German emotions germinated, he exchanged all his savings and the little inheritance left by his mother for a ticket and a pestering to return home, he was determined to go back, he wanted to go back - back to his homeland!

On his first day back in Germany, he reported to the recruiting agency, and although he was over the age of enlistment, he still hoped to have the opportunity to serve, and confessed to the other party that his mother was British and that he was only half German. The commander of the conscription office looked at him with strange eyes and said to him, "What does it have to do with this? Your father is a German, and you have the blood of the German nation in your veins, and as long as you identify with the interests of the German nation and are willing to fight to the death to defend his honor, you are our comrade. You know, the Führer is still Austrian! ”

Because he had a university diploma and could speak English, he was chartered into the army, and after considering his age and specialty, he was assigned to serve in the army's logistics organization, and became an enviable professional and technical sergeant. He worked like a madman in the army, and he burst out with all his professional abilities and patriotic fervor, and he soon had the reputation of a "living database" - a division's supplies, whether guns or ammunition, gasoline or flour, he kept them all in his head without looking at the account books, and could tell his commander at any time how much was left and how long it was available. Not only did he pass the Gestapo's loyalty test, but he was also unusually promoted to second lieutenant.

In 1938 he went with the troops to Austria, just at the time of the German-Austrian merger, and he saw with his own eyes all the people spontaneously taking to the streets to welcome the troops, and the German national sentiment was everywhere, which was even more exciting than when the Saar was reclaimed in 1935. Because everyone believed that since even an Austrian-born former army corporal could become the head of Germany, the slogan that all the German nations in the world were one was true, and that the Germans would never treat the Austrians badly. When the troops entered the city, everyone enthusiastically sang the "German Song":

Germany, Germany, you above all else,

above all things in the world;

Whenever it is to protect and defend,

Brothers stand together forever.

……

At this moment, he felt that his life had value, his struggle had a direction, and his soul had finally found a home.

He also does not feel that he has been discriminated against in the military, whether it is promotion or recognition, he has the same opportunities as other officers. Even because he had lived in England for many years and had obtained a bachelor's degree from Cambridge University, before the start of the French campaign, the General Staff had specially asked him to give lessons to young cadets (a rare honor for a lieutenant), to analyze the social situation and class structure of England for them, and to listen to him tell them about the situation of the dirty, decaying, hedonistic and declining empire with his own experience, and in contrast, he believed that the fate of the German nation was like nirvana, and the period of ascent had just begun.

Guderian was not yet so capable of bringing the Brandenburg special forces to use, but he thought of Ranke, of this captain officer of English origin, who could report to him all the supplies, equipment, and personnel on his first day without looking at the books. When asked for his opinion, Rank, who had never been on the battlefield, accepted the task without hesitation and duly took on the role of Lieutenant Colonel Robin, while the commando captain Heinz played the role of the driver of the armored car. The convoy was a fake, from officers to soldiers, all of them were pretended to be Germans, but everything else in the convoy was real except for the people - yes, these were all products captured during the previous two days of fighting, and all the belongings from the British, from clothes to hats, from guns to vehicles, from purses to official documents, and even from pocket watches.

An order from Major General Horlocks also helped the commandos to blend in, because in line with the principle that family ugliness should not be publicized, he did not convey the heavy damage of the 10th Panzer Division and the capture of a large number of personnel, otherwise the scope of Clark's interrogation would be more, you must know that except for Rank, the rest of the commandos are basically too good at English, and they are not familiar with the British situation, and they will be exposed as soon as they open their mouths.

"Sir, what are we going to do in England now? Really go to the British Brigade Department? ”

"Nope." Heinz told the telegraph operator, "Immediately send a telegram to Chief Guderian to inform them that they have infiltrated the line of defense, and ask him to attack immediately, and we will succeed as long as we find the British artillery position and destroy it." ”

Guderian, who had been nervously waiting for news from the commando, finally waited for the news: "Sir, Ranke reports that the operation has been successful, let's attack immediately, and they will cooperate with us ......" In addition, he also told the general situation of the British defense.

"Excellent! They did a great job! Record their merits, whether it is promotion or decoration, and their names should be given priority. Guderian was overjoyed, "The whole army of armored forces attacked, and the British were crushed in the fastest time." ”