Chapter 53 Tragic

Creak...

Accompanied by the piercing sound of brakes, the truck abruptly stopped. Driven by inertia, Lin couldn't reach out in time to support himself, and his upper body slammed hard against the hard truck compartment wall. As a result, his injured left foot throbbed with pain again, his left elbow and shoulder tingling numbly. But at this moment, he was more concerned about the fate of this assault team than his own personal injuries. The truck was now dangerously close to the Soviet tank assembly area. While stopping might allow more of their own soldiers to evacuate, it also turned them into sitting ducks for enemy gunfire. Any Soviet tank could easily destroy the truck and its occupants with a single shot, and a burst of machine gun fire could mow down lives like a scythe through grass. Such a reckless move shouldn't be the rational decision of a battlefield commander!

After the truck stopped, several soldiers quickly climbed into the compartment. They all moved towards the interior of the truck, except Lin, who moved in the opposite direction along the edge of the truck compartment. He lifted his submachine gun again, scanning the surroundings with a cold gaze, ready to open fire at the sight of approaching Soviet soldiers. However, what he saw was a scene he would never forget: two "night warriors" without ammo boxes spontaneously stayed behind with a few "grunts" to cover the retreat. One of the "night warriors" ran out of ammo halfway through, roaring for his comrades to leave first, stubbornly tilting his head and neck upward, holding his assault rifle in a nearly exhausted posture and firing continuously. Two grunts pulled him forward, one on each side, but when a burst of bullets came, they fell instantly, leaving only the "night warrior" still stubbornly firing...

Unable to take everyone with them, the two trucks accelerated again and finally broke out of the village. They sped along the road, leaving behind a village engulfed in flames and thick smoke. The sporadic gunfire and occasional explosions still echoed clearly in their ears. Sitting near the rear of the truck, Lin's mind went blank. Besides "heroic," he couldn't find better words to describe the scene just now.

Looking back, there were still twelve or thirteen people in the truck compartment, including four "night warriors," two of whom were carrying ammo boxes. If the situation in the other truck was similar, and counting those in the driver's cab, the casualty rate for the outnumbered German troops in this battle was only around forty percent. Under the current tide of war, what these fifty German infantrymen accomplished far exceeded their capabilities. Except for the fifteen "night warriors," the rest were ordinary soldiers with no special combat experience, most likely randomly selected by officers from the trenches like Lin. With such a casualty rate, what more could people complain about?

Feeling lost for a while, Lin finally remembered the cigarettes in his pocket, took one out, and lit it. Although the soldiers next to him didn't cast any glances his way, Lin still consciously shared this rare half-pack of cigarettes with his comrades who had faced life and death together.

The cigarette pack didn't end up back in Lin's hands, which made him feel somewhat relieved. Quietly closing his eyes, if the battle had skipped the aftermath like in the movies, Lin would rather open his eyes again to find himself back in the cold, muddy trench. But reality was reality. Before he could finish half of the cigarette, the bursting illumination flares and the instant illumination of the surroundings reminded these German soldiers that they were far from out of danger!

Artillery shells from the direction of the village soon whistled down. Although the first few posed no threat, it at least indicated that the Soviet forces had begun a strong counterattack. After the battle in the village ended, Lin couldn't determine exactly how many Soviet tanks and self-propelled guns were left there. He knew they had destroyed one tank, but judging by the similar sounds of explosions before and after, the German assault force probably destroyed more than twenty tanks and a few self-propelled guns. Even if they were all severely damaged or directly destroyed, the Soviets still had plenty of armored vehicles to deploy.

While the illumination flares provided guidance for Soviet artillery, they also illuminated the otherwise pitch-black road, allowing the two trucks driving with lights off to accelerate. The powerful airflow from the front shook the canvas covering the truck compartment vigorously, and the dark road flew back under the wheels at a rapid pace. With his limited experience riding in vehicles, Lin estimated that the truck's speed had reached seventy miles per hour, or even higher. This was contrary to the image of military transport vehicles during World War II, which were always perceived to move at a steady or even slow pace. However, considering that the trucks were not carrying heavy loads at the moment, and Dodge and Chevrolet trucks were originally civilian vehicles, their speed was not surprising.

Without direct gunfire obstruction, Soviet artillerymen quickly found their range, and shells occasionally fell on the roadside ahead or whistled down into the nearby fields. Occasionally, one or two fragments struck the canvas with a "chirp," making the soldiers in the compartment uneasy, and the subsequent huge explosions shook their eardrums. Soon, probably because a shell landed on the road ahead, the truck suddenly veered, and under the strong inertia, the tilting body almost flipped over, almost causing the soldiers in the compartment to tumble into a heap. After barely surviving this, the violent shaking and subsequent successive turns made them feel like they were being tossed into a meat grinder. After such a turmoil, the two trucks finally made a sharp turn. Seeing the edge of the woods appearing behind the truck and the burning village disappearing from view, Lin knew that the trucks had crossed the pine forest they had traversed earlier and entered the wilderness that would take nearly an hour to cross on foot.

Once past the forest, Soviet direct-fire artillery around the village would have difficulty taking effect, a simple principle known to all. However, could the overconfident Soviets, who were attacked by dozens of German soldiers before going to sleep, just give up like this? The retaliatory gunfire ceased, and the arcing shells began to fall past the forest. However, without real-time adjustment for aiming and without a battlefield data link that didn't belong to this era, such shooting seemed like a futile effort from the start. But the illumination flares consistently found their mark, always keeping the two trucks speeding on the road within the illuminated area.

Sitting in the rear compartment of the truck, Lin was able to witness the spectacular sight of shells falling one after another into the fields. Bright yellow flames revealed a sinister color amidst the black smoky gaps, and splashes of mud and water reminded him of the mischief of throwing stones into rice fields during childhood. Such artillery fire looked fierce, but as long as the shells didn't fall within ten meters, they wouldn't pose a fatal threat to the truck—however, the battlefield could never be measured in terms of "should" and "should not." Lost in thought as he looked out of the truck, the compartment suddenly became noisy. Lin quickly turned his head and saw two "night warriors" wearing brown-gray m42s and dark pea camouflage combat uniforms had already laid a convulsing "grunt" face down. This guy was injured in the

Although they had not known each other before and had exchanged few words along the way, the two "night warriors" were still very earnestly treating this ordinary Waffen-SS soldier. The one on the left was shouting and gesturing for the person sitting at the rear of the truck to hold onto the tarp tightly, while the one on the right took out a flashlight from his pocket. In the instant the flashlight turned on, Lin saw that the back of this Waffen-SS soldier was already a blur, with a torn wound precisely at the spine. This meant that even if he could survive, he would likely spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

The "night warrior" on the left quickly took out a small leather pouch from his body. After unzipping it, Lin vaguely saw some miniature syringes and small metal devices inside. When he himself entered the scene, he only had a packet of hemostatic cotton, a roll of bandages, and a few tablets of unknown purpose on him, which were extremely rudimentary compared to this. However, after using up the hemostatic cotton to treat "Yellow Hair," the remaining bandages and tablets on him were simply insufficient to deal with such injuries. But was it fortunate for this Waffen-SS soldier to be traveling with the "night warriors"?