Chapter 978: Becoming a Corpse

“Attack!” At the command, hundreds of Soviet soldiers leaped from their trenches, charging toward the German defensive positions. Straight ahead lay a few farmhouses and the ruins of suburban buildings, already shattered by artillery.

“I’m telling you! See those buildings up ahead? Be careful!” a Red Army veteran carefully instructed the young soldier beside him as they advanced slowly. They moved forward cautiously, ready to hit the dirt at the slightest sign of trouble.

With the support of heavy artillery, the Soviet attack had gained a great deal of confidence. They had shelled Tver and then organized a new offensive, sending a thousand-man infantry regiment down the road, hoping to open a breach in the German lines. After all, this unit was just infantry that had retreated from the Leningrad area; they didn’t have many tanks or armored vehicles.

Some of the main force units had trucks and other equipment, but most of it was used to tow anti-tank guns and heavy artillery. Those large-caliber guns were either blown up on the road or, due to their slow speed, were lagging at the very rear of the entire force. The few rare T-26 tanks they had were either abandoned due to a lack of spare parts or were simply not dared to be brought out against the German tanks.

To attack a position defended by German Panther and Tiger tanks with T-26s—wasn’t that just forcing a group of men to carry their own coffins to their deaths? Any commander with half a brain probably wouldn’t do something so wicked. General Govorov would naturally not give such a brainless order. He was not willing to use those precious T-26 tanks for such a foolish task.

The distance between the two sides was getting closer and closer. Perhaps the German advance had been too fast, and they had indeed not brought a large number of artillery units with them. So the Soviet infantry had not been subjected to a carpet bombing from the German artillery. Only scattered shells fell among the crowd, taking away one after another of the fresh lives.

Blood, from who knows where, splattered onto the face of a Soviet new recruit. He touched it with his hand and was then scared out of his wits by the crimson smear. His body moved forward mechanically with the soldiers around him, but his eyes couldn’t help but observe the friendly troops in the distance.

He seemed to be looking for the source of that drop of blood, but he had forgotten that the poor soul who had bled it had probably long since fallen to the ground, impossible for him to find. And so he continued to follow the unit forward, step by step, approaching the German defensive positions.

He saw, below the trenches in the distance, the tops of the iconic German M35 steel helmets moving rapidly. He also saw, behind these hastily dug trenches, the communication trenches and the anti-blast corners that extended into the distance. As time went on, he found that he could see more and more clearly, even the muzzles of the guns that the Germans had already raised.

Rat-tat! Rat-tat! Suddenly, the dense sound of German gunfire rang out. Akado’s Saw spewed bright tracer rounds, sweeping wildly towards the Soviet troops. The dirt around them was kicked up by the bullets, forcing the new recruit to bend his waist and squint his eyes.

“Get down! You want to die?” a veteran shouted, pushing the bewildered new recruit to the ground and then reminding the surrounding soldiers to get down quickly. “Get down, quick! The Germans have opened fire! The Germans have opened fire!”

The originally rather pleasant offensive immediately became a bloodbath. Everywhere were the miserable screams of being hit by bullets, and one after another of the bodies, oozing blood. Everyone did their best to keep their heads down, because bullets were flying everywhere, just above the ground.

“I’m hit! I’m hit!” a soldier in the distance screamed, trying to raise his arm to show the medics his position. But his arm was quickly hit by a bullet, and his entire wrist flew off into the distance. Then this unlucky fellow went silent. It was unknown if he was dead or had learned to be smart.

Just as they watched, from behind the buildings opposite them, a Panther tank drove out of its cover with the leisurely pace of a stroll and pointed its dark gun barrel towards the attacking Soviet troops. With a loud bang, the tank fired a high-explosive shell that landed right in the middle of the Red Army troops, sending a shower of severed limbs and torsos flying.

“Retreat! Retreat!” a Soviet commander shouted, holding his helmet and shouting his order with the loudest voice he could muster. But not far from him, another commander was urging his men to attack. “Forward! Don’t just lie there! That’s just waiting to die! We have to move, quick! Quick!”

With these shouts and the sound of guns and cannons mixed together, the battlefield was a scene of chaos. The new recruit, who had been pushed to the ground by the veteran, had just managed to pick up the rifle that had fallen beside him and, with trembling hands, had worked the bolt.

“Fire! Shoot! That’s the only way to suppress the German firepower! Otherwise, we’ll all be killed here!” the veteran beside him shouted, while working the bolt and reminding the newcomers around them, encouraging them to continue to fight.

“I know! I know! I’m loading! I’m just a newspaper boy… I shouldn’t be here!” the Soviet new recruit cried, cowering and dodging the debris and dirt that were being kicked up by the bullets. “I should be home! I should be out of here…”

“If you stand up now, it’s no different from suicide! To return fire is the only way to stay alive!” the veteran shouted, aiming at the position opposite him. After firing a shot, he deftly worked the bolt and reloaded his weapon. He had been through the flames of war and was naturally much stronger than the farmers and craftsmen around him.

Crack! A bullet struck the corpse in front of the new recruit, and a spray of blood instantly shot up. The new recruit, perhaps because he was too hysterical, finally took his first step in his battlefield life. He had finally loaded his ammunition and had fired a shot at who knows where.

“Aim before you shoot! We don’t have much ammunition!” the veteran shouted, continuing to fire while lying prone, muttering under his breath. His demands were too many, and the things he wanted people to do were too professional, so most of the people around him were still in a state of panic, not knowing how to face what was happening before them.

That terrifying German tank looked like an invincible mammoth, swaggering and firing fiercely at the Soviet troops. Several machine guns from high up were firing frantically, turning the concealed Soviet soldiers on the ground into corpses one by one.

These poor infantry had no way to push their anti-tank guns forward, so they really lacked any effective firepower against the German tanks. Faced with the German tanks, they could only grit their teeth and hold on, hoping that the other side would eventually be driven back by their brave and fearless spirit.

A dense hail of bullets struck around these Soviet troops, turning the soldier who was lying prone not far in front of this Soviet new recruit into a sieve. A young Red Army recruit, right next to the one who had just been killed, finally could not bear the immense panic in his heart. He struggled and screamed, scrambling up from the ground, turning to try and leave this damn place.

But in the process of getting up and turning, he was shot through the body by German bullets. At least three or four bullets had hit this poor man. And so he pitched forward, his face landing right in front of the Soviet new recruit. A pale, contorted face at such a close distance, with hot blood flowing from his nostrils and mouth, his eyes not yet completely closed—this scene was truly nauseating to the extreme.

The German fire was still dense. The Soviet forces in the distance had already begun to retreat. The new recruit, having finally torn his eyes away from the corpse’s face, found that the sound of the friendly forces’ return fire had become very sparse.

What gave him a slight sense of relief was that the veteran beside him was still loading his Mosin-Nagant rifle. This was the only living person he had seen since he had come to his senses. And so he shouted to the veteran, “Hey! Our men are retreating. How do we get out of here?”

“We crawl back, bit by bit! What else do you think we can do?” the veteran replied, turning his head to this one new recruit who had held on. He knew that after this baptism of fire, this soldier would become his true comrade, much more reliable than those new recruits.

Before the two of them could even begin to move their bodies backward, a dense German artillery barrage swept over the entire Soviet retreat route. A dense mass of ammunition landed on a wide area, and in just a few breaths, it had turned that place into a sea of fire.

“It’s the German Friedrich rocket launchers! They didn’t have no artillery, they were waiting for a chance to inflict the greatest possible damage on us…” the battle-hardened veteran said with a hint of sorrow, looking back at the land that was now a cloud of black smoke.

Crack! A bullet from who knows where had just pierced this Soviet veteran’s steel helmet. Blood flowed from the veteran’s forehead and covered his eyes, and then his neck went limp. The slightly old rifle in his hand also slipped to one side.

The new recruit was shaken by the veteran’s death. The real death that had just happened before his eyes, and the slightly unreal disaster in the distance, both shook his soul. He felt he should not be fighting against such a powerful enemy. He felt that everything before him had already spun out of control. This was the battlefield, a very real holy land of slaughter. Here, the life of every person was not in their own hands, but was being toyed with by a thing called fate. If it let you live, you would continue to live in pain. If it let you die, you would die a tragic death in the next second.

Swallowing hard, this new recruit laboriously moved his body, slowly crawling backward, bit by bit. He did not dare to raise his head to look at the veteran’s body again, because he was afraid that a bullet would also turn him into one of the countless corpses on the ground.

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