Chapter 822: No Choice but to Give Up

With the terrain undulating, the Tiger tank’s road wheels spun frantically. The machinery roared, and the exhaust pipe, missing its silencer, made a popping sound in resonance. This tank, riddled with holes, was miraculously still running like the wind.

“The bad news is we only have three shells left! Rein! How much further until we reach our defensive positions?” Bruce asked, a hint of urgency in his voice. He was the one most aware of their remaining combat effectiveness. Looking at the nearly empty ammunition rack, no one could remain calm in the midst of their enemies.

“Baumann! Pop smoke! Andre, don’t fire unless you have to!” Rein ordered loudly, his face pressed to his panoramic periscope as he scanned the surroundings. “Alice, how much ammunition do you have left?”

Rat-tat! Rat-tat! Clink! The ammunition belt in Alice’s hand grew shorter and shorter, finally disappearing. Only after the MG42 at the front of the tank fell completely silent did Alice reply, “Just ran out! I have no more bullets.”

As she spoke, she touched the holster hanging at her waist. Inside was a pistol, a Belgian-made Browning, a cheap stamped product, with no aesthetic appeal whatsoever. But this thing was quite reliable and could provide some weak firepower at a critical moment, or be used to put a bullet in one’s own temple.

Rein stuffed the last two assault rifle magazines into his pocket, then opened a box beside him, revealing two hand grenades. This was the self-destruct device for destroying the tank in an emergency—provided you had the chance to pull the pin.

Clang! A large-caliber machine gun bullet, fired from somewhere, blew off the special new device on the Tiger tank’s turret that was used to create smoke. The bouncing mine inside, for close-range infantry killing, had already been used during the attack. Now that device was just a decoration, and unfortunately, after being blown off, it couldn’t even do that.

Now Rein and the others were all waiting, waiting for the moment when this tank could no longer move. Everyone was waiting, waiting for that long stretch of a truly hellish escape.

“Rein! I see you! I’m covering your left flank! Get over here, quick! There are a lot of Soviet tanks closing in on you! My God! There are so many of them!” Markus’s voice came through the headset. For all the crew members of tank No. 113, this sound was a melody they had never heard before.

Snap! After being ravaged for over a hundred kilometers and having challenged such extreme maneuvers, the tank’s track finally gave way and broke. Rein’s tank suddenly shook violently with this break. Everyone was forced to grab onto something nearby, waiting for the tank to come to a complete stop.

With one side’s track broken, the tank did not stop immediately. After continuing forward for a certain distance, it began to turn due to the continuous movement of the other side’s track. The majestic 88mm cannon was thrown back and forth, looking as if it had long since lost its former momentum.

Snap! Because only one side of the track was left, the tank’s gravity created a huge torsional force, which instantly destroyed the track on the other side. This tank finally threw off two sections of its track and then slid for a certain distance before coming to a stop against a large tree.

Rein was the first to scramble out of the turret. He then jumped down from the turret and crouched on the hull. He cautiously held his assault rifle and then carefully searched for a direction in the thick smoke. The series of shakes just now had also made him lose his basic sense of direction. If he were to escape in the wrong direction at this moment, he would charge headfirst into the enemy’s position and never be able to come back.

At this moment, the driver’s hatch was thrown open, and Baumann climbed out with difficulty. Behind Rein, Andre had also jumped out of the tank. Bullets struck the tank’s pitted armor, just a few centimeters from Bruce, who was also climbing out of the tank. The enemy’s fire was becoming more and more concentrated. It was clear that after probing, they had found the paralyzed Tiger tank in the smoke.

“We have to be quick! Andre, go and give Bruce a hand!” Rein said, holding his assault rifle. He went around the turret and helped Alice pull open the hatch above her head. He reached in, grabbed Alice’s collar, and pulled the slender girl out of the tank just like that.

Bullets pattered against the tank. Rein pushed Alice off the tank, and Baumann steadied her as she stumbled upon landing. Andre had already jumped down, and Bruce was also climbing down from the side of the tank.

Several of them drew the pistols they were wearing. In this weather, apart from Rein, who was often exposed and had a white camouflage smock, the others were all wearing thin, black SS uniforms. They crouched low, trying to find a way to escape from this disorienting place.

Rein did not linger. He once again returned to the tank’s hatch, threw a hand grenade into the ammunition box containing the three remaining shells, and then threw another grenade into the open engine grille. The bomb bounced back and forth between the engine and the cooling fan, making a crisp clanging sound.

Without having time to appreciate the beautiful sound, Rein jumped off the tank, and with his head down and his body bent, he ran as fast as he could towards the other crew members. He leaned against a large tree and began to catch his breath. The two hand grenades, which had had their detonation fuzes deliberately extended to destroy the tank, only exploded after Rein and the others had run about thirty or forty meters.

The grenade in the ammunition box exploded, detonating the ammunition inside. The huge explosion destroyed the entire interior of the tank. Everything in the cabin was turned into charcoal. The grenade in the engine compartment exploded, igniting the fuel inside and erupting in a dazzling flame.

The entire tank was soon engulfed in flames. Even if the Soviets really wanted to find some useful data from this tank, they would probably have to go to a lot of trouble. Rein watched the flames of the explosion shoot into the air and frowned, as if to see off his old partner who had accompanied him for so long.

The facts proved that even the greatest warrior in the world would be no different from a stray dog when it was time to be wretched. The explosion had thinned the already not-so-thick smoke. The Soviet bullets grazed the hats of several of them as they flew past. Rein had to lean against a tree and return fire desperately, emptying the magazine of his assault rifle in an instant.

Bullets flew through the woods. One struck the trunk of the tree Rein was hiding behind. The bark was peeled off by the force of the bullet, revealing the tender wood inside, a smoking hole in it. After changing his magazine, Rein continued to retreat. He did his best to cover the four crew members who only had pistols, so that they could get out of the danger zone faster.

BOOM! A shell from a tank flew towards a Soviet T-26 in the distance, turning the tank into a pile of scrap metal. Rein and the others were getting closer and closer to the positions of Markus and the others, and so they were receiving more and more cover. Rein emptied another magazine, stuffed the last one he had on him into his assault rifle, and slid wretchedly into a shallow ditch that had been formed naturally in the woods.

If he had been a fraction of a second slower, he would probably have been hit by a bullet, because at the same time as he slid into the shallow ditch, the hat on his head was shot through with a hole and flew a long way off. Rein didn’t have time to worry about the hat that had been shot off. He ran along the shallow ditch, trying to close the distance between himself and the main force.

Alice, supported by Baumann, quickly jumped into a trench filled with corpses. They looked around in a state of shock and raised their guns at a German soldier wearing an M35 flat-brimmed paratrooper helmet. Seeing that it was one of their own, Alice lowered her pistol, panting, and Baumann also lay on the edge of the trench, gasping for breath.

Bruce and Andre also followed and jumped into this trench. Their entry startled everyone. Everyone aimed their weapons at the two newcomers, and then the two of them, looking at the muzzles around them in terror, leaned against the side of the trench without a care in the world, unwilling to say another word.

A Soviet soldier, chasing Rein, jumped into the natural shallow ditch. Before he could even figure out which direction he had jumped in from, Rein’s bullets had entered his body. Rein, on the other side of the shallow ditch, took a couple of breaths, jumped out of the shallow ditch, and charged towards the German defensive position. In a hail of bullets, he leaped into the trench and happened to sit down next to Alice.

“An NCO from the radio said you guys completed the attack and destroyed that artillery position,” the paratrooper battalion commander, Borol, said, walking over along the trench, accompanied by Donner. He worked the bolt of his rifle, chambering a round, and then said to the wretched crew members, “But now is not the time for everyone to rest. We must retreat. The Soviets are trying to surround us.”

“Alright! We’ve just run a long way, it’s not that we can’t walk with you!” Andre stood up and was the first to walk along the trench in the direction Borol had come from, crouched low. Bruce, being of a larger build, followed second. He crouched low and was extremely careful, afraid of his head being exposed from the trench.

Rein touched the top of his head, confirmed that his hat had indeed been shot off, and then got up with a bitter smile. He pulled Alice up beside him and followed behind Bruce towards the direction of the bridge. Baumann followed last, and then Borol and Donner, the two paratroopers. Behind them, some of the Germans who were holding the trench began to set up simple booby traps, and then everyone left these positions.

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