Chapter 831: Street Fighting in Smolensk

Could he become a hero of the Soviet Union? Zhukov wasn’t sure. Just as the Soviet soldiers defending Smolensk didn’t know if they would see tomorrow’s sun.

The teacher who had just been conscripted was now clutching his rifle, leaning against a broken, collapsed low wall. Beside him was a puddle of vomit, frozen into a paste, a disgusting sight. The teacher’s lapels were stained with the same filth, as were his sleeves. It seemed he was the one who had thrown it all up.

Just now, he had personally witnessed a Soviet soldier’s head get hit by shrapnel. The entire steel helmet had been split open, and his head was a pulpy mess, its internal structure basically unrecognizable. This fallen Soviet soldier had been talking to him just a moment before, but in less than a second, a living person had become a shattered corpse at his feet.

He hadn’t even had time to cry out, hadn’t even had time to say goodbye. A vibrant life had ended so humbly. No one even bothered with the corpse; it was just left in a corner, to become a frozen piece of meat hardened by the cold wind.

But for a teacher who had been teaching children just a dozen days ago, to see a person’s head shattered by shrapnel right in front of him, the splattering blood and brain matter spraying onto his face, still carrying a hint of warmth—this feeling repeated itself in his mind, making his stomach churn.

A dozen days ago he was a literature teacher. A dozen days later he had become a soldier fighting bravely for his country. Looking at the Mosin-Nagant rifle in his hands, at the mottled bloodstains on it, he felt the food he had just eaten begin to stir again. He swallowed, then forced his eyes away from his own vomit and the bloodstains.

Why is a soldier, from conscription to rigorous training, and finally to the battlefield, still just a new recruit? Because one must go through the test of life and death, must get used to the killing and the cruelty, to truly transform into a veteran who dares to kill and is no longer afraid. This process cannot be faked, or at least it cannot be bypassed with too many shortcuts.

For example, Japan, in order to make its soldiers accustomed to killing, had once used Chinese soldiers and civilians as targets to practice their bayonet techniques. This method could be said to replace a part of the effect of actual combat, but it could not completely replace it.

Because on a real battlefield, the constant firing of cannons and machine guns creates a more chaotic environment, and the enemies killed by the soldiers are more justifiable, so it is not easy to produce a serious psychological burden. Therefore, although the Japanese method could make up for the lack of actual combat, it would turn people into monsters who had lost their moral sense, an inhumane method despised by all humanity.

Let’s not talk about the shameless actions of the Japanese for now; after all, to say too much would be an endless task. This people’s teacher of Smolensk had already been squatting in the trenches for two days, but he still had not seen a single ferocious-looking German SS soldier, who were said to eat ethnic Russian civilians raw.

Let alone a terrifying existence like the SS, he hadn’t even seen a proper German Wehrmacht soldier. A few times, he had seen the round tops of a few steel helmets in the trenches far, far away, and he had found that the Soviet soldiers could not hit such a small target at this distance.

And every time they opened fire, they would draw a large-scale artillery bombardment and enemy machine gun bullets. A German weapon called the MG42 was simply a perverted existence. It could be equipped with an optical sight and could fire from an extremely long distance, with a terrifying rate of fire.

This weapon could easily hit Soviet soldiers, forcing them back to their starting positions in droves. He had once seen several of his comrades cut down by German machine guns, but because the distance was too great, he hadn’t had the pleasure of a close-up view of blood spraying all over his face like today.

He wiped his mouth, cautiously poked his head out from behind the low wall, and looked at the not-so-real German positions opposite him. Because he had been teaching in this city all along, he didn’t even know why the originally friendly German army would attack, nor did he know why the Germans, who had lost the last war, had become so powerful. He could only cautiously observe the situation opposite him with his eyes, observing an enemy he had not even seen clearly once.

In the school, he was a teacher. In the classroom, he was the boss whose word was law. The students feared him and respected him. What he said in the entire classroom was like a holy decree. But now the situation had changed. On this battlefield, the bullet was the real boss. All those who had tried to stop the bullets from continuing their flight had already become cold corpses.

He had never killed anyone, and he didn’t even dare to look at the comrade who had died beside him. In his entire life, he had never even imagined that one day he would go to the front line. He had only just learned how to use his rifle yesterday.

He pulled his head back, moved his body a little away from the already cold corpse, and once again leaned against the low wall, letting the cold wind blow across his cheeks. He wrapped his military greatcoat tighter around himself. This was the only clothing he had to ward off the cold. Although there was still vomit on it, it was better than freezing to death.

Suddenly, he remembered his hobby from his school days. Leaning against the wall, he began to chant a rhythmic poem in rhyming words. This was his way of releasing the emotions in his heart, and also a pastime he was very fond of:

“In the trenches amidst the flying snow,

Lies the reliance of life;

On the wide and beautiful avenue,

Are set up the cold cannons.

There are no cries of children,

No prayers of angels;

There are only corpses,

And the whistle of bombs.”

Just as he was getting into it, another round of German shelling began. This time, it was not just a heart-rending bombardment, but was also accompanied by a dense sound of gunfire. Several Soviet soldiers, carrying their weapons, ran past the low wall. They held their helmets and dodged the scattered rubble on the ground with their fragmented steps.

“The Germans are attacking! The Germans are attacking!” a Soviet soldier shouted as he ran. This sentence made everyone hesitate for a moment. They couldn’t believe that after a long preparation, the German offensive had begun so without warning.

The Germans are attacking? Leaning against the corner of the wall, the seemingly forgotten Soviet teacher raised his head, wanting to poke it out to see those German soldiers who were described as ferocious. But before he could raise his head to satisfy his curiosity, a bullet struck the soldier who was standing next to him.

The huge inertia sent this soldier falling backward onto the ground. Blood seeped from his chest, staining the nearby ground red. He wailed, he screamed, constantly struggling on the ground, trying to move his already heavy body.

The Soviet teacher wanted to reach out and help, to drag this wounded man back behind the low wall where he was hiding. But he hesitated and struggled for a while, and in the end, he did not have the courage to risk being hit to drag his comrade back to a safe place. After all, in a hail of bullets, even to extend a hand required great courage.

Soon, he no longer had to struggle, because the wounded man, who was so close to him, stopped moving. He closed his mouth from excessive blood loss and no longer let out a hysterical cry. This made the tormented teacher feel much more comfortable, and he began to study his own rifle.

He had just learned to shoot and had not yet fired a single shot. He heard the screams of the Soviets on the positions in front, and also heard the sound of the enemy’s machine gun, which was like a saw. He didn’t know if it was because of an excessive adrenaline rush or for some other reason, but he picked up his rifle, worked the bolt, and slowly chambered a round.

As he chambered his rifle, he muttered the poem he had written himself, and then, bit by bit, he poked his head out from the corner to observe the bloody scene on the entire battlefield:

“Curling up my body,

To dodge the scorching fire;

Gripping the gun in my hand,

To defend the pride of honor.”

He saw several Soviet soldiers being driven out of their trenches by a German tank. They ran back frantically, only to be cut down by the machine gun that was spitting fire from the tank’s hull. He saw some German soldiers in white smocks jumping into the Soviet trenches, capturing one after another of the Soviet positions.

“You damn bastards! Get out of our city! Get out of our territory! Didn’t your teachers teach you? Invaders will come to no good end!” the teacher muttered as he aimed his rifle at a soldier whose uniform he had never seen before.

His finger pulled the trigger, and a huge impact sent his rifle flying high. Because he had never used the weapon in his hand, this was the first time he had truly felt what it was like for that huge recoil to hit his shoulder.

The pain in his shoulder made him remember the environment he was in, and the feeling of fear finally returned to his body. He felt his legs trembling, and the rifle, because he hadn’t held it steady just now, had fired a bullet that had not hit any target at all.

He had no choice but to pick up his Mosin-Nagant rifle, work the bolt again, and then chamber another round. A Soviet soldier ran past the low wall beside him, seemingly the only one from this position who had been lucky enough to escape back here. This Soviet soldier, after escaping past the low wall, had slid into a crater not far away, then, holding his helmet, had climbed up the edge and had fled towards another street.

Advance chapters at Nightjar Reads · nightjarreads.com