Chapter 732: Death Throes

“Grenade!” a German officer leading the charge shouted, looking at the machine gun bunker opposite that was constantly spitting fire and had already claimed the lives of many German soldiers. “Cover! Cover the throw!”

Several German soldiers raised their weapons and pulled the triggers, aiming at the firing port not far away. The sound of gunfire rang out densely, and the damn firing port was covered in a cloud of white smoke. With this short, fierce burst of fire, the enemy’s firepower was indeed suppressed.

Several German grenadiers, who had already pulled the pins on their grenades, threw them with all their might. After tracing a beautiful arc in the sky, these “iron melons” landed on the ground not far from the machine gun bunker.

As the sound of one explosion after another came, the ground shook violently, and the rising smoke made everyone instinctively duck and cover their heads. The Soviet Red Army soldiers inside the bunker were choked by the dust that rushed into the firing port and couldn’t open their eyes. They had no idea what kind of terrible thing the enemy opposite them was preparing.

Seeing that the smoke from the grenades had obscured the view from the bunker’s firing port, the German sappers began to approach their target. A German flamethrower operator, carrying two fuel tanks on his back, aimed the nozzle in his hands at his target.

The Model 35 flamethrower on his back was a new type of individual flamethrower with a range of 30 meters and a weight of about 31 kilograms, a veritable behemoth. It was not an easy task to attack with this thing, and under normal circumstances, few German soldiers liked to use this cumbersome weapon.

However, because they were attacking the Crimean fortress complex, Manstein had gathered this less-than-flexible type of soldier from various German units. And because the Soviet defenders on the high ground they were attacking today had built a large number of bunkers, Manstein had deliberately strengthened his troops with this terrifying close-range suppressive weapon.

Anyone who has ever seen a flamethrower fire would be so terrified by this terrible weapon that the hair on their body would stand on end. At a distance of 30 meters, this weapon could be called the “defender’s bane,” and its effect on enemy morale was immeasurable. Moreover, the ferocity of this weapon’s attack made people have little affection for it. During the First World War, the British and French had once ordered that any German soldier caught using a flamethrower could be shot on the spot, with no loose ends.

“Fire, quick! The Germans are coming up! Quick! Quick!” Inside the bunker, the Soviet sergeant in command roared. But because the smoke from the grenade explosions had obscured his vision, the Soviet machine gunner who had been brought up to the firing port really didn’t know where to shoot.

In the end, the sergeant’s roar made him grit his teeth and pull the trigger. The machine gun’s bullets once again spewed out, tracer rounds flying everywhere. He kept firing, as if trying to drive away the fear in his heart with this method. Far away in Russia, he had a wife and children. He didn’t want to die here, to become a pile of uncared-for shredded meat, to rot and disappear from this world.

A strange sense of despair made him a little hysterical. He held down the trigger, swinging the body of the machine gun back and forth, hoping to drive away the Germans on the other side. In fact, a few hours ago, he had already known that the Germans had blocked their escape route. All he was doing now was just a death throe.

Surrender? Perhaps that was the only way out. But if he raised his hands, would his comrades behind him shoot him without hesitation, to get rid of this cowardly traitor? The great leader, Comrade Stalin, hated traitors the most. If his wife and children were sent to Siberia, that would be terrible…

As he fired, he thought about these things in a jumble. Behind him, some Soviet soldiers were loading ammunition for the machine gun, some were busy tending to the constantly bleeding wounded, and some had already started to sort through the rifles piled in the corner. The sergeant waved the pistol in his hand, clamoring to fight for the motherland until the last moment.

Not far in front of the bunker, the German flamethrower operator had already aimed at the approximate position of the firing port. It seemed as if the world had suddenly fallen silent. He pressed the firing valve without hesitation. The compressed gas in the steel cylinders, along with the fuel, sprayed out from the nozzle and was then ignited by the burning flame, shooting towards the bunker’s firing port more than twenty meters away.

The Soviet soldier inside the bunker, who was holding the machine gun and firing, saw the light in front of him grow brighter and brighter. The dazzling firelight penetrated the thick smoke raised by the grenades and rushed towards him. He quickly closed his eyes in fear, but it seemed it was already too late. A searing sensation came from his face, and the burning pain became his entire memory, until he lost all feeling. The bone-deep burning sensation was the only thing he could feel.

The hot fuel poured into the firing port and then, with its powerful spreading ability, spewed out from the back door of the bunker. In an instant, it filled all the space inside the bunker, igniting the clothes of everyone inside and scorching all their skin.

A Soviet soldier, his entire body engulfed in flames, stumbled out of the back door of the bunker. He contorted his body, enduring immense pain, and struggled at the doorway to flee into the distance. But after taking only two steps, he collapsed to the ground from the pain and exhaustion. Because his muscles had been scorched and contracted by the fire, his entire body was curled up, and his screams were clearly audible even to the German soldiers in the distance.

The second Soviet soldier to crawl out of the bunker only managed to get his upper body out of the door. While he was alive, he seemed to want to get away from this hell on earth, but in the end, he did not succeed. Soon, this corpse turned into a pile of charcoal, a black, vaguely human-shaped lump.

Faced with a machine gun bunker that had turned into a hell on earth, the German grenadiers had no need to maintain their reserve and caution. They leaped up from the ground, grabbed their weapons, and charged towards the once-insurmountable target. As they charged, they shouted the slogan of victory in German: “Sieg Heil!”

In a trench on the mountaintop, a Soviet soldier poked his head out. He saw not far away that the bunker, with its tricky angle and easy-to-defend, difficult-to-attack position, had been captured by the Germans. He had watched with his own eyes as the burning Soviet soldiers struggled and died on the ground. Clutching his rifle, this Soviet soldier swallowed, and along with his comrades beside him, worked the bolt of his rifle to chamber a round.

“We were ordered to reinforce the bunker on the mountainside! What’s the situation now?” an officer asked, running up along the trench with his gun. Behind him, a dozen soldiers followed, and two men were carrying a light machine gun. Several soldiers carried machine gun ammunition boxes, their eyes filled with fear and confusion.

The Soviet officer in charge of this trench pointed to the bunker on the mountainside, its back door still spewing flames, and asked with a bitter smile, “Are you sure you were ordered to support that bunker?”

“I think so!” Looking at the back door of the bunker, which was still on fire not far away, the Soviet officer who had come to reinforce turned pale. The soldiers behind him also craned their necks to look at the tragic scene on the lost position, so scared they were speechless.

Without the cover of the bunker, the Soviet soldiers in the surrounding trenches began to collapse. Some scrambled out of the trenches and were shot in the back by the Germans after running only a few steps up the mountain, their faces smashing into the ground. Others returned fire from within the trenches, but after firing only a couple of shots, they were hit in the head by a bullet, a large spray of blood erupting, a tragic sight.

Without anyone having to say anything, everyone knew that the position on the mountainside had changed hands, because they had already seen German grenadiers cautiously leaping into the trenches and beginning to drive out the disoriented Soviet Red Army soldiers horizontally. These Soviet soldiers were driven out of their own positions and were shot down one by one by the Germans like targets as they ran back.

BOOM! Before the Soviet soldiers on the mountaintop had had enough of the tragedy before them, misfortune befell them. A volley of German mortar shells fell, landing densely near them. Shrapnel flew everywhere, followed by screams and wails. The poor soldiers had lost their lives before they could even figure out what was going on.

The Soviet Red Army on the mountaintop began to fire at the German soldiers on the mountainside with their own weapons. But their position was clearly not as heaven-defying as that machine gun bunker. Soon, a volley of German heavy artillery shells pounded the Soviet Red Army positions on the mountaintop. Using the black smoke from the exploding shells, the German soldiers charged up the mountain. Hand-to-hand combat broke out in some places, but in more places, the continuous sound of gunfire could still be heard.

On the front of a huge gun turret on the mountaintop, two Soviet 210mm cannons were firing fiercely at the depths of the German positions. Due to a lack of observation means, these two cannons were not a very great threat to the Germans. Although they had once caused considerable trouble for the attacking German troops, after the Germans broke into the Soviet positions, these two cannons lost their proper function.

And so, these two cannons, using their limited time, frantically poured out their stored ammunition. The Soviet defenders on the mountaintop could not hold out for much longer. They had to inflict as many casualties on the Germans as possible—so-called death throes, nothing more.

Not long after, a swastika flag was raised at the top of this high ground. The cheers of the victorious German army filled the sky. Manstein stood by the embrasure of his temporary command post and, looking at the swastika flag fluttering in the wind, the corners of his mouth turned up in a smile. “Victory ultimately belongs to me, Voroshilov. Now it’s your turn. Let me see what a Soviet marshal is capable of!”

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