Chapter 814: Call Him Over

Rein’s tank crew had just driven past a Soviet infantry battalion camp. In the process, they had killed about 50 Soviet soldiers. The five Tiger tanks drove down the road, leaving a scene of devastation in their wake.

Not long after, they were only 15 kilometers from their objective. They encountered nothing else along the way. In a small village that was supposed to be garrisoned by a Soviet anti-aircraft unit, at around 2 a.m., Rein and his men met the German special forces who had captured the area and, in coordination with the paratroopers, had established a temporary circular defensive position.

“Glad to see you. The bridge you’re supposed to hold is just ahead. You see, you’ve arrived just in time,” a German paratrooper officer greeted Rein and his men. They were then shown to a building to rest. They didn’t have much energy left to fight; every man needed at least two hours of rest to regain some strength.

The distant rumbling of cannons made one’s chest feel heavy. Rein and his men leaned against the corners of the messy room, using some blankets to ward off the cold, and quickly fell asleep. To be able to fall asleep in such a noisy environment was a skill in itself, a very useful and practical skill on the battlefield.

While Rein and his men were resting in the small village, one man had not closed his eyes since the German attack began. This man was the overall commander of the Soviet southern front, Rokossovsky, a general who had always believed the Germans were up to some trick.

Now the facts proved his worries were correct, but the facts also proved that his troops were powerless against the Germans’ multi-faceted, three-dimensional attack. All his efforts seemed to be in vain, and the 150,000 frontline troops the Soviet army had painstakingly assembled might just become another tally in the Germans’ kill count.

Radio communication had been mostly restored. Many Soviet units had stopped their mutual suspicion and attacks after receiving orders. But the German general offensive had already begun. The front of the 166th Division had been broken through, and the 160th Division, which had suffered heavy losses in the infighting, had been cut off, surrounded, and annihilated in its positions.

The entire front line was in a state of total collapse. Some bridges had been destroyed by German special forces, while the rest had either been blown up by the Soviets themselves in a panic or had already fallen into German hands. The entire retreat route was filled with German traps. To extricate themselves in this situation was simply a fantasy.

The road signs had been altered, the directions almost all wrong. Most of the roads were mined with booby traps, and in some places, several burned-out trucks were simply piled up as roadblocks. If they fled along these roads, it wouldn’t take more than a few hours for the German tanks to catch up and easily wipe them out.

And the sturdiest and widest railway bridge in the rear, the last straw for the Soviet army, had been the scene of a repeated struggle between his most elite troops and the German paratroopers since yesterday afternoon. Although the enemy had suffered heavy losses, the bridge was still under German control. His troops hadn’t even been able to touch the steel of the bridgehead.

This was the second time Rokossovsky had faced German paratroopers. The last time, he had made a rather disgraceful retreat, leaving the German paratroopers with the eternal fame of having scared off the Soviet Guards Army. This time he did not retreat, and he had fought a real, no-holds-barred battle with Germany’s most elite airborne troops.

The facts proved that his previous decision to abandon the German paratroopers and flee without regard for his own face had been a wise one. If he had not been so decisive last time, he might have really been tripped up by these seemingly fragile German paratrooper defense lines. Now he was attacking with all his might, and the result was that he had met the most stubborn resistance he could have imagined.

Who could have imagined that there was a force in this world that could fight to the death with enemy tanks using flesh and blood? Who could have imagined that those scruffy airborne troops, whose equipment was no better than light infantry, could fight one battle after another that would make armored commanders all over the world bite the dust?

“Damn it, Marshal Tukhachevsky advocated for the creation of paratroopers back in 1932. Which idiot arrested and executed a man like that?” Rokossovsky muttered, looking at the black circle on the map that represented the German paratrooper defensive node.

After venting his emotions, he also knew that he could do nothing about the person who had finished off Tukhachevsky, nor did he really want to summon the spirit of that man who had been dead for so many years. So Rokossovsky could only rub his dry eyes with his hand in frustration and call for his adjutant. “What are the chances of retaking that railway bridge tonight?”

“Comrade General! I have been watching the progress of our two infantry divisions and two armored divisions. The Germans still control the bridge. If there is any breakthrough, I will notify you immediately,” the adjutant reported softly to the commander who had not slept for a long time.

At that moment, an officer walked in. He hesitated for a moment before Rokossovsky before speaking. He clearly had some rather important intelligence but didn’t know if he should say it at this time.

“What is it? Speak! In the last 24 hours, I’ve received more bad news than in the previous 24 years. There’s nothing to be taboo anymore,” Rokossovsky said with a self-deprecating remark, then signaled for him to explain quickly.

“Just now, Comrade General, an infantry battalion commander called on a civilian phone to report that some German armored units have appeared on the road near the village of Kovats… that’s the village codenamed Y17 on the map. They attacked his camp,” the officer finally said, blurting out the news he had just received.

“Germans? Here… here?” On the map, after searching for a few seconds, Rokossovsky finally found that previously unknown small village. But its geographical location was deep in the Soviet rear, very close to the railway bridge he was trying to capture.

“They are reinforcing there… they are strengthening their defenses there. Our tanks at dawn… there’s no hope, no hope at all,” Rokossovsky murmured in frustration. His plan to attack and retake that bridge seemed to have failed. The current situation already showed that the Germans had firmly established their foothold there.

He felt a little dizzy and stumbled, steadying himself on the table beside him. In fact, the effort to save the 150,000 frontline Soviet troops was just a matter of plugging a leak after the sheep had already escaped. As for how much success they could achieve, even Rokossovsky himself held little hope. But once the matter was confirmed, once all hope had been extinguished with the passage of time, it still felt like a blow.

“The armored attack at dawn is doomed to be ineffective. The only way to retake the railway bridge is to try at night! We only have these two hours! We must be quick!” Gritting his teeth, Rokossovsky gave the order to continue the attack. He had to fight for a last glimmer of hope for the frontline troops, so these things had to be done.

He then canceled another attack plan that had been prepared long ago. “The tank attack launched at dawn is canceled. The German armored units will definitely get there before dawn and build up their fortifications… To tear through a German paratrooper defense line that has been reinforced with tanks, if we had that kind of ability, we wouldn’t have been unable to take that bridge until now.”

He walked back to the map, his eyes fixed on the bridge. He finally made a great decision. “Go and inform the commander of the artillery to come to my office for a meeting! We will discuss the feasibility of using large-caliber artillery to completely destroy that bridge.”

“Yes! Comrade General!” The adjutant saluted and, with the officer who had come to deliver the news, turned and left the office, leaving Rokossovsky alone with his hands behind his back, continuing to stare intently at the bridge.

Since he could not save the 150,000-strong army at the front, the only thing he could do was to destroy this railway bridge at the first opportunity, to interfere with the speed of the German armored forces’ eastward advance and to buy time for the Soviet army to set up defenses on the outskirts of Stalingrad. This was Rokossovsky’s plan, or rather, the worst-case scenario he now had to consider.

After all, to make it so that the German army could not use this railway bridge was undoubtedly the best course of action the Soviet Union could choose in a desperate situation. As the commander of the entire front, he, Rokossovsky, had to prepare his countermeasures in advance. He was not worried about the defense of Stalingrad, because in the last ten days or so, the Soviet Union had been constantly strengthening the outer defense line of Stalingrad. He was confident he could hold this city and leave the German army with an unforgettable urban siege battle.

Thinking of this, Rokossovsky remembered what that man with the scar on his face had said to him a day ago: “The Germans have some very dangerous units. These units are very skilled. If you discover their offensive intentions, you must let me go and stop them at the first opportunity. Otherwise, you will lose everything.”

The coldness and arrogance in that man’s voice as he spoke were really hard to bear. But at that time, Rokossovsky had not yet figured out what the Germans’ true intentions were, so he had not paid any more attention to the man’s words. Thinking back now, what that scar-faced man had said was indeed correct.

“Someone, go and call that captain of the independent tank detachment named Wolf! I need to talk to him,” Rokossovsky said, thinking of this. He decided to put aside his own face and let that seemingly very reliable man fight for a chance of survival for his besieged troops. No matter whether he could succeed in the end, he had to at least try, right?

Advance chapters at Nightjar Reads · nightjarreads.com