Chapter 802: Poppy

The flames and black smoke from tank 115 obscured Rein’s view; he couldn’t see a thing in the direction of the suspected threat. He guessed it wasn’t an anti-tank mine that had taken out 115. Always assuming the worst, he wasn’t about to let his men take any unnecessary risks.

The smoke generators on the rear of the tanks were already working, pouring out a thick screen. Rein, clutching the assault rifle that never left his side when he was outside the tank, jumped down and began to run towards the other side of the destroyed number 115.

He ran low and cautiously, rifle in hand, quickly approaching the still-burning and exploding tank. Away from the steel plates that surrounded him inside his vehicle, his senses sharpened once again. He felt the danger, inching through the smoke towards the best observation point.

A Soviet soldier scrambled up from a pile of bodies and saw Rein, rifle in hand. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second before Rein pulled the trigger. He felt no mercy. In that moment, he was far more dangerous than any bloodthirsty beast.

The bullet tore through the Soviet soldier who had been lucky enough to survive the first pass of the tanks—or unlucky enough to run into Rein. He fell backward, an expression of shock and unwillingness still on his face. As he gurgled blood, Rein was already running past, not even giving him a second glance.

After finishing off the straggler, Rein ran to a small, slightly raised mound of earth, rolled into the snow, and looked up at the flank of the burning tank. The Stalin tank there clearly hadn’t noticed the German soldier who had circled around. It was struggling to use the cover of the smoke to start its engine and reposition.

“So it wasn’t a deliberate ambush,” Rein thought, a feeling of bitter irony washing over him. The entire five-man crew of tank 115, lost for nothing due to a freak accident. What a waste.

Having assessed the situation, Rein didn’t linger. He got up and ran back to his tank as fast as he could. The Soviet soldiers in front had already been dealt with by the other German tanks and grenadiers, so he met no resistance on his way back.

But the smoke caused him some trouble. The chaos of the battlefield and the order to consolidate that he had given before leaving had caused the German tanks to shift their positions. The deliberately deployed smoke was everywhere, and for a moment, he almost couldn’t find his own tank. But like a hound with a keen sense of smell, Rein had an almost intuitive sensitivity to his surroundings. He adjusted his direction twice and ran back to the tank with the number 13 painted on it, then skillfully climbed aboard and jumped into his turret.

Amidst Andre’s complaints, Rein put on his headset, only to be met with a chaotic barrage of questions. Someone was asking where the company commander had run off to. Someone else was asking what had happened to tank 115. Many had seen it go up in smoke and explode, and they were all cursing loudly. The entire channel was like a boiling pot of water.

“Alright! Everyone shut up! I’m back!” Rein’s voice cut through the noise over the throat mic. “We have a damn Stalin tank on our flank! It probably retreated after being scared by the air raid and fell into a deep pit because of the poor visibility. That’s why it suddenly appeared on our flank, and tank 115 was destroyed by it. It wasn’t an ambush, and it wasn’t a mine! Now, listen up for my orders!”

“Grenadiers and 2nd Platoon, continue to advance! We will cover your flanks! Alright! Tank 111 and 114, I will lead the charge to take out that bastard. If I don’t hit it, you will charge out in sequence and fire on it to disrupt its firing rhythm!” After laying out his plan, Rein briefly recalled the enemy tank’s position and then patted Andre on the shoulder.

He paused, then gave the order to his gunner to traverse the turret. “Bring the turret to the front. At this range, only our frontal armor can withstand their attack.”

Then Rein called out his driver’s name. “Baumann! Use a shallow angle to go around the burning 115. Use the burning wreck and the thick smoke to approach the target. Point the front of the hull towards our current two o’clock position, hold steady, and then charge out of the smoke. Understood?”

“Alright, Commander! I think I can do it,” Baumann said with a grin. The Tiger, a killer of countless men, charged forward. In the slightly undulating forest, it rapidly closed in on its former comrade, now a burning wreck.

Then Rein’s Tiger burst through the dissipating thick smoke, its front pointed directly at the Soviet Stalin tank that was slowly climbing out of the pit. The moment it broke through the smoke, Andre, in his tank’s gun sight, also saw the Soviet tank that had destroyed their comrade.

BOOM! Andre didn’t waste any time aiming. The shell flew cleanly towards the Soviet tank. But although the distance was short, Andre, in his excitement, hadn’t aimed in detail. The shell blew off the mudguard on the side of the Stalin tank, grazed the hull, and flew off, leaving a scorched mark on the frontal armor.

Clank! Unexpectedly, the Soviet tank did not return fire. Instead, the turret hatch was thrown open from the inside, and a Soviet soldier jumped out, his hands raised high. He was followed by a second, then a third. In the end, all four crew members of the Stalin tank had jumped out, their hands raised in terror, staring at the German Tiger tank opposite them, which looked like a beast from hell.

“We surrender! We surrender!” the Soviet tankers, who had been scared out of their wits by the shell that had just grazed their armor, shouted in Russian at Rein’s tank, their hands high. It was no wonder they were panicking. Following behind Rein’s tank was a second German Tiger, and then a third!

Rein opened his tank’s hatch and looked with cold eyes at these enemies who had given up their resistance. He listened coldly as they repeated the word “surrender” over and over again, feeling from the bottom of his heart that these men were not worthy of being called warriors. The other two German tanks also did not make any further moves, just waited for Rein’s next order.

The Soviet Stalin tank had only just entered combat a short time ago. It could be said that for the German army, it was still a very unfamiliar new piece of equipment. Now, during an attack, they had actually captured a complete Stalin tank. This was absolutely a very fortunate thing for the German armored forces. As long as they could transport this tank back to the rear and study it carefully, they could find the best way to deal with this type of tank, which could save the lives of countless German soldiers.

So the commander of tank No. 114 was already cheering. When he saw that complete, not even penetrated, Stalin tank, it was as if he were seeing the scene of himself being awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross. “Hey! Rein! That’s a complete new model of Soviet tank! Complete!”

“How did you do it? My God! This time you’ll definitely be called to army group headquarters. General Guderian will probably personally send you to Berlin,” the commander of tank No. 111 said, seeming to have forgotten about the destruction of tank 115 just a moment ago.

The battlefield is just that ruthless. People don’t have much time to mourn their dead friends. Because if someone were to grieve heart-wrenchingly for a fallen friend, then they would have a mental breakdown from the frequent, excessive sorrow in a single day. People die every day. This is the cruel reality of war. As for Rein’s company, it was an anomaly with very few casualties.

“…I don’t understand what they’re saying,” Rein suddenly said, and he said it over the throat microphone. The sound was converted into an electrical current, and then back into sound, transmitted to the other members inside the tank, and at the same time to the remaining nine tanks around them.

Markus, with his headphones around his neck, looked towards the woods. His eyes were first filled with shock, then turned to laughter. He knew that the bloodthirsty and cold-blooded Rein was still the same Rein. At the very least, although the war could take away all precious things, it could not take away a person’s hysterical desire for revenge.

“I don’t understand what they’re saying.” Rein’s icy voice reached the ears of everyone on the battlefield. They had all been soldiers who had been crawling and fighting in the war for almost two years now. They naturally knew what this sentence meant.

“Rein! These are prisoners…” the commander of tank No. 114 began to say in the headset. But he had only said half of his sentence when Rein ripped the headset from his ear.

“Rein!” the commander of tank No. 111 opened his turret hatch and shouted at Rein, as if wanting to stop him from attacking the prisoners.

Rat-tat! Rat-tat! Before Rein could even pull his assault rifle out of the tank, the hull machine gun of Tiger No. 13 suddenly opened fire. The dense bullets turned the four Soviet tankers who were standing in a line into sieves. Because the distance was too close, one of the Soviet soldiers’ arms was even blown a long way off.

“My hand cramped, sorry,” a soft female voice came through everyone’s headset. At first listen, it had a kind of feeling that made one want to protect her. But there weren’t many female soldiers in the 502nd Battalion. The one on Tiger No. 13 was no small flower that needed protection. She was a poppy, a poisonous poppy.

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