Gnawing on some bread and washing it down with cold water, Lynn lay in the chilly snow for quite a while, feeling his eyelids growing heavier and longing deeply for the marching bed back home. Though narrow and rudimentary, it would creak loudly whenever he shifted, but it echoed the sentiment: "There's no place like home." Compared to the harshness of the battlefield, the trivial annoyances of everyday life seemed insignificant...
Not knowing how to say "time" in German, Lynn nudged the Butcher with his elbow and pointed to his right wrist. Expressionless, the Butcher rolled up his sleeve and showed Lynn his wristwatch.
On the Butcher's wrist was a very metallic-looking watch. With a silver case, a white face, and golden hands, the dial featured Roman numerals at 3, 6, 9, and 12, with the hour hand past ii and the minute hand nearing vi.
"It's already half past two!" Lynn muttered to himself. They had been lying in wait here since quarter to two, preparing to spring the second "surprise" on the Soviet armored column advancing along the road. Yet, 45 minutes had passed, and not a trace of Soviet tanks, not even infantry, had been seen. Was the Soviet force taking a different route?
Considering asking Lieutenant Hu Zha for the map, Lynn hesitated at the language barrier. Instead, he brushed some snow on his face, feeling the icy sensation jolt his brain awake. Looking around, he noticed many others growing impatient like himself. If the Soviets didn't show up in another fifteen minutes, they could all retreat directly.
Just as Lynn was thinking this, he heard the Butcher whispering something. In the blink of an eye, the familiar rumble faintly reached his ears. The two trees previously fallen across the road were indeed large enough. Though Soviet tanks were formidable, clearing obstacles like this was a task even heavy machinery struggled with. Directly blasting them would damage the road, hindering wheeled vehicles' movement. It was likely the infantry's effort that finally moved the trees.
The rumble grew closer. Lynn looked up, seeing a German soldier bravely climbing to a high point, acting like a lookout on a ship's mast, except brave land-based sailors couldn't transmit information through sound. Sitting atop a tree branch extending northward, the soldier with earmuffs on his helmet made gestures to his comrades below. "Three" one moment, "five" the next, waving arms, clenching fists—these actions baffled Lynn, but fortunately, he didn't need to worry about them. Lieutenant Hu Zha was fully focused!
Moving his numb fingers slightly, Lynn picked up his Mauser rifle, now fully loaded with bullets, and aimed at an object about two hundred meters away. At this distance, he was confident in his single-shot accuracy.
"Nord...!"
A deliberately hushed voice came from nearby, and Lynn instinctively turned to the Butcher, whose lips were tight, eyes fixed on the road beyond the trees. Considering that apart from the ten or so responsible for detonating and sniping Soviet tanks, the other hundred or so soldiers were all lying in wait within a radius of less than seventy meters, and the forest was so quiet that there was no need for every officer to relay orders, three or four people could suffice.
"Nord...!"
The second command seemed to remind the soldiers to stay calm. Lynn let his index finger, responsible for pulling the trigger, move a few more times. When the rumble from outside seemed close enough, he returned it to the cold trigger. Living in Germany during the war's final year was indeed dire, but not the worst. Lynn had read about the severe cold in the Soviet Union, where even firearm firing pins would snap in sub-zero temperatures. If he were in the shoes of a German soldier lacking warm clothing and surrounded by Soviet forces, it would be a tragedy within a tragedy.
The white-painted Soviet tanks finally appeared through the gaps in the trees ahead. Although their wheels and tracks were spinning rapidly, their speed was not fast, probably not even thirty yards per minute. This was an "easy speed" on regular roads, and the distance between the leading and trailing Soviet tanks was noticeably wider than before. Despite these precautions, Lynn still felt that the Soviet armored column commander didn't regard the German infantry he faced seriously. If infantry scouts had been sent ahead along the forest, this second ambush would have been difficult to execute.
Drawing from the experience of the previous engagement, Lynn didn't need to remind Lieutenant Hu Zha again. The soldiers he arranged decisively pulled the rope only after the first Soviet tank had passed the explosion point. With the delayed detonation of three to four seconds of the grenades, the second Soviet tank had also passed by the time of the explosion. Two large fir trees collapsed towards the roadside in the explosion, just separating the third Soviet tank from its companions, both in front and behind.
This was almost the best scenario Lynn could imagine!
Faced with the same "road trap," though the Soviet tank crews had learned their lesson, they had no better option. From the third tank onwards, all the vehicles stopped immediately and turned their turrets towards the side of the road, firing rapidly. Yet, their reaction was still slower than the German anti-tank infantrymen who had been waiting for this moment. Three rockets streaked out of the forest in quick succession, blowing up the third and fourth Soviet tanks. Flames soared, transforming into thick black smoke in the air, rising higher than the tallest tree.
The mechanical and icy voice of the MG-34/42 roared through the forest, bullets mercilessly spraying towards the Soviet infantry aboard the tanks. Many were hit before they could even jump off the tanks, while the agile ones immediately hid on the other side of the tanks. Despite no German soldier risking exposure to cross the road during the ambush, some of the German troops who had withdrawn along the opposite forest still spontaneously cooperated with their allies' actions. As the battle began, they suddenly opened fire from behind the Soviet soldiers, retreating when the Soviets organized counter-fire and machine gun suppression.
With just one shot, Lynn realized that rifles or submachine guns were still of little use in such battles. He abandoned his futile attempts and tried to observe the battlefield calmly as a bystander. Hu Zha, with his left hand slightly propping up his upper body and his right hand resting beside him, faced the direction of the road, closely monitoring the progress of the battle, especially the first two tanks in the Soviet armored column. Despite all the precautions, the Soviet tank commanders clearly didn't take the German infantry they faced seriously. If infantry scouts had been sent ahead along the forest, this second ambush would have been difficult to execute.
Drawing his gaze away, Lynn intentionally looked at the Butcher lying beside him. Though equipped with a fully automatic weapon with a range of up to 200 meters, its effective range was within a hundred meters, and with many trees in between, it was unlikely that even a burst of bullets could hit the road. The possibility of killing Soviet infantry was almost zero. Despite having the option, the Butcher didn't turn to Lynn to ask for the longer-range "**Sha". With a cold expression, he kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead. Lynn felt that whether Soviet infantry infiltrated the forest or superior officers ordered a charge, this guy would definitely react correctly at the first moment.
A bit further away, some trees near the road suddenly fell in the opposite direction with a clattering sound, as several Soviet tanks plowed through the natural obstacles like white polar bears, using brute force. Firing in the dense forest was akin to igniting a powder keg. They unleashed a fierce barrage with their vehicle-mounted machine guns, with most bullets hitting the tree trunks with a popping sound. Nevertheless, the machine gun muzzles on the tanks continued to emit flashes of gunfire.
While Lynn observed the ground battlefield with an extraordinary calmness, he overlooked the sky. Especially with the intense gunfire masking the buzzing of engines, he completely missed two gray-green painted warplanes flying low from the north. Adorning their wings were prominent black and white iron cross insignias. Despite their agile fighter-like appearance, each of them carried a large, round, dark bomb underneath. Without any warm-up actions or showmanship, they flew along the road for a distance, directly bombing the Soviet tank column, then pulling up, banking, making a 180-degree turn, flying back along the road, executing shallow dives, strafing, pulling up seamlessly, and then without looking back, they flew back north.