Chapter 582: The International Legion Arrives
The harbor of Santander was a cauldron of salt air, clanging cranes, and shouted orders that carried in half a dozen languages.
Men bustled over the broad docks, hoisting crates from steamships that belched coal smoke into the pale afternoon sky.
Uniforms of every cut and color moved among them; German feldgrau mingling with the deep forest green of Hungarian dragoons, the sand-hued tunics of Italian Celere tank crews brushing past the trim naval blue of Greek staff officers.
At the heart of this tumult stood two men who could have been mistaken for brothers at a careless glance.
Both were broad-shouldered, with stern hawkish profiles. However, one was adorned with understated silver piping; the mark of German staff. And the other a mere captain.
But the elder was unmistakably Rommel, the legendary Wüstenfuchs of another world perhaps, but in this timeline merely a brilliant, still-young general cut from cold steel and mountain frost.
His eyes missed nothing, every piece of dockside confusion mapping itself into neat supply lines and advancing battalions in his mind.
Beside him stood Erich von Zehntner, Bruno’s grandson.
Where Rommel was flint and calculation, Erich was raw iron still warming at the forge; determined to prove himself, yet acutely aware of the older man’s measuring gaze.
They stood together on a slight rise overlooking the piers, the salty wind tugging at Rommel’s peaked cap.
"Can you believe it?" Erich muttered, half to himself. "A Greek destroyer escort bringing Russian artillery shells to Spanish monarchists. A Hungarian signals company trying to figure out if our code ciphers use Cyrillic or Latin. This is either the most brilliant multinational show of solidarity in history; or the worst practical joke my grandfather ever arranged."
Rommel’s lips twitched in the faintest approximation of amusement. "Perhaps both. The Reich’s intelligence ministry said your grandfather wanted ’proof of loyalty’ from every allied court. He’s getting it. Truly, we are witnessing here and now how deep the man’s understanding logistics truly go."