Chapter 838: Allocation

A small station in Belarus, a busy morning. This was now an important German supply depot and a transit point for materials heading to the front. The Germans hoped the trains would bear the main transport burden, because, after all, the power source they used was coal, which the Germans had in abundance.

On the platform, goods of all kinds were piled up like mountains, meticulously sorted and arranged with the Germans’ inherent rigor. On the tracks in the distance, a train, puffing white smoke, was slowly pulling into the small station. A few German NCOs in charge of registration were already in their positions.

“Train 68 is now arriving at the station! Train 68 is now arriving at the station! All personnel on the platform, please be mindful of your safety.” From a large loudspeaker in the corner of the platform’s rain shelter, the sweet voice of the station’s only female railway soldier came through, causing some of the German soldiers to whistle and cheer loudly.

A general waiting on the platform, preparing to take this train back to Poland, frowned and looked at his adjutant. With a hint of displeasure in his voice, he complained, “These soldiers have been away from home for a year. They haven’t celebrated Christmas with their families, haven’t slept with their women, and have been facing a bunch of damn Soviets at the front for a full year.”

He looked at the soldiers who were shouting and laughing wildly in the direction of the station’s broadcast booth and said with a sigh, “What they need most now is to go home, have a good bath, shave their beards, and then enjoy a hearty dinner while holding their children. Not to be fighting for the country in a place like this.”

“In fact, they are indeed going home,” the adjutant said, looking at the soldiers whose weapons had already been collected. He replied to his superior’s words nonchalantly, “After they finish their labor here, they will take our train back to Germany for a vacation. The leave is a full month long. It’s quite enviable, isn’t it?”

To solve the problem of war-weariness among the frontline soldiers, and to strengthen the communication between the army and the people in the rear, to let everyone personally experience the strength and prosperity of the motherland, the massive German army was implementing a system of rotating its frontline units.

Units that had been fighting at the front for a full six months would, in order of merit, be ordered to return to Germany for a 15-day personal long leave and a 15-day period of assembly, reorganization, and rest. The vacancies at the front would be filled by units drawn from Army Groups B and C. This was a long-term plan that had to be adhered to, with the aim of letting the newly formed units of the German army be baptized by real war, and also to allow the more battle-hardened units to get some rest and maintain a better combat effectiveness.

Of course, although the rest and leave were a tempting candy, before they could eat this candy, these units had to go through one last test. This could be considered a use of human resources that exploited every opportunity, fully demonstrating the paranoid and meticulous calculations of the precise German planners.

With a screech of metal, train No. 68 finally came to a stop at the platform. The black locomotive’s lower part was painted with a slightly faded red paint. On both sides of the locomotive, brackets had been welded to the outside of the boiler, and a whole thick plate of bulletproof armored steel was hanging on them.

The second car was a tender full of coal. With this car, the train could run on the tracks. Further back was a temporarily converted armored car, with sandbags piled on top, and a conspicuous MG42 machine gun mounted on them. A few German SS soldiers, shouldering their rifles, leaned against the sandbags, looking somewhat lazily at the friendly troops on the platform.

“Time to work! Time to work! Get these supplies to the warehouse quickly, and you’ll be on the train back to Germany sooner!” an officer shouted to the large group of soldiers who had long been waiting on the platform. A buzz of commotion went through the crowd, and everyone’s enthusiasm instantly rose to a new height.

After all, for every soldier who had been fighting at the front for nearly a year, the word “home” held an immense attraction. Everyone was excited for the vacation they were about to get. This was the greatest reward for them after a long period of slaughter and killing.

Clatter! The SS soldiers who had just jumped off the train opened the sealed freight cars and, with a great effort, pulled the sliding doors to one side, revealing the fully packed military supplies inside. This was a dedicated munitions train. The cars were filled with neatly stacked wooden crates, with the caliber and type of ammunition marked on them in large, black printed letters.

“No smoking! No smoking! Do you want to blow yourselves up here?” an officer shouted, reminding his subordinates. Many quickly took the cigarette butts from their mouths, threw them to their feet, and stomped on them fiercely. They had survived the enemy’s artillery fire, had moved through a hail of bullets, and they did not want to be blown up on the platform on their way home. The order to prohibit smoking had been issued several times, but in the end, it was not as effective as seeing the dangerous goods with their own eyes.

“Get to work! Move these things to the trucks waiting over there. Once the trucks are full, stack them in the designated warehouses! Be careful! Handle with care! You’ve all dealt with these supplies before, you know how dangerous this stuff is!” an officer ordered, waving his hand as he commanded his troops to start working.

Everyone began to move. Some stood on the platform, waiting for the soldiers on the freight cars to hand them the ammunition. Others stood further away, passing the dangerous military supplies from one to another. The originally noisy platform gradually became orderly. Due to the large number of troops, the goods on the train were disappearing at a visible rate.

The human conveyor belt stretched all the way to the side of the road outside the small station. There, one after another, large trucks were parked. These trucks had different license plates. Some were German military vehicles, some were captured Soviet trucks, still bearing the plates used by the Soviet army.

What was even more amusing was that there were even some cars from the German civilian sector, with license plates from Frankfurt, Munich, and Berlin. These cars had been requisitioned by the military to make up for the lack of mechanization at the front. Then there were French cars with French license plates, old cars from Belgium, the Netherlands, and even Poland. In any case, it seemed the Germans didn’t mind bringing any machine that could be used for transport to the front.

“These are the trucks of the 2nd Army’s logistics department. Our trucks are all military-grade, durable and sturdy. Overloading them a little is no problem at all,” an officer from the 2nd Army’s logistics department, who had come here from the front for replenishment, said, indicating that his trucks could still take on more supplies. But the dispatch NCO who was in charge of registration and inventory would not agree. He argued his case forcefully. After all, the other units were also waiting for their share of these munitions.

“Then what about the remaining space? You can’t just let my trucks go back with only half a load, can you?” The officer spread his hands, a look on his face that said, “I’m not leaving until you give me the supplies.” It was clear that this officer was an old hand at being a nuisance here. After all, the job of competing for supplies was not much easier than fighting.

“The remaining space can be filled with grain and fuel! Load more food, less fuel. The strategic reserve of fuel is also limited,” the dispatcher said, with a look on his face that said, “I’m already being very generous, don’t push your luck.” He pointed to a warehouse on the other side. “Hurry up and move out. The people from the 13th SS Panzer Division’s logistics department of your A Army Group are still waiting!”

“Sigh… when you’re fighting, you wish you had fewer soldiers. When you’re getting supplies, you wish you had more. It’s really a headache,” the officer lamented. He signaled his men to move the truck and to quickly get a good spot at the next warehouse. In any case, the front line needed all kinds of supplies. Whatever they could load up and bring back was a hot commodity.

He had just left when another line of cars drove in. The officer who jumped down from the lead car was in an SS uniform. It looked like it hadn’t been washed in a few days and was a bit scruffy. But this officer was not scruffy at all. On the contrary, with his tall build, he had a certain handsome and dashing air.

This officer jumped down from his truck, ran to the dispatch NCO, and immediately put on a fawning expression. He took out some cigarettes and began to stuff them into the NCO’s hands, while at the same time trying to get on his good side. “We just fought a sniper battle. Our ammunition consumption was too high. We need replenishment urgently! Urgently!”

“Two packs?” The dispatch NCO had a disdainful look on his face. He tapped his notebook with a fountain pen a couple of times, then turned his head and said to a colleague who was passing by, “Have the cigarette section make a note. The 13th SS Panzer Division, 10 cartons of cigarettes received. Take him over to sign for it!”

After speaking, he gestured for the fawning SS officer to move aside and then shouted a reminder, “110 boxes of ammunition! Load 10 extra boxes, don’t mess it up! Look carefully! If you miscount, everyone gets fined 300 marks!”

As he shouted, he skillfully tossed the two packs of cigarettes in his hand to the statistician who was in charge of watching each truck, and then waved the notebook in his hand at the departing SS officer. “Thanks, buddy! Next time there’s anything good, I’ll save it for your 13th Division.”

The time was already approaching noon. There were not many trucks left at the small station. The rest were from the infantry’s logistics department. Compared to the “favored sons” like the armored units and the bullet soldiers, the transport vehicles of these units were not so good-looking. Some units had horse-drawn carts, and some even had donkey carts or mules. The more shabby units even only had handcarts.

The transport capacity also dropped a great deal with the change in tools. The mountain of supplies at the small station was still a mountain. Only a small amount had been transported to the front line. The muddy and potholed small roads still made the German army helpless.

After a period of noise, another train slowly approached the platform.

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