Chapter 175: Attack and Attack Again

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“Rein!” Andre shouted. “I can’t see that FT-17 tank! Where is it? Bruce, armor-piercing, load!”

“One o’clock! Turn the turret! Quick!” The shout pulled Rein back to reality, and he hurriedly gave the order. “Baumann, slow reverse! Create distance! Quick!”

Clark was reloading the front hull machine gun. “I’m out of ammo! There are too many of their infantry! My God, someone help me! My heavens, who’s firing? Someone is covering us from behind!”

Marcus’s cheerful voice came through Rein’s headset. “Number 3, you son of a bitch! My tank is right behind you. Get out of my line of sight, you idiot!”

“Go to hell! I’m reversing, get out of my way,” Rein replied with a laugh.

With a boom, the Polish tank opposite finally turned its turret and fired a shot. The shell hit the fence a little to the left of the Panther tank, splintering the wooden pickets. Some of the kicked-up sand and dirt struck the Panther’s armor, sounding like rain on a car roof from the inside.

“Damn it! The Poles are firing back! Fire, Andre! Fire!” Rein commanded loudly.

“I can’t find the target, commander! I can’t find that tank at one o’clock!” Andre complained loudly in the headset. “Where is it?”

“Clang.” Rein pushed open his commander’s hatch and stuck his head out. A moment later, Rein’s voice came through Andre’s headset. “You idiot! A little more to the left!”

Andre smiled, so wide that tears almost came to his eyes. This time, he had finally found a commander who suited him, a commander who could lead him through fire and thorns. He laughed as he adjusted the tank’s turret and finally found his target in the gunsight.

He waited patiently, waiting for the tank’s hull to shake slightly and come to a stop. He squeezed the trigger of the coaxial machine gun, and a line of tracer rounds flew toward the target, sparking off the turret of the FT-17. He quickly gripped the main gun’s firing mechanism and gently pressed the firing switch. The entire hull of tank 113 trembled, and an armor-piercing shell shot straight toward the Polish tank.

It was like a giant’s fist landing squarely on the face of a dwarf. The immense force of the armor-piercing round twisted the FT-17’s turret. Rein, completely ignoring the sparks from a bullet that struck the commander’s hatch next to his shoulder, laughed as he watched the enemy tank’s turret fly off to the side, a brilliant flame erupting from the hull that remained.

And only at this moment did Rein realize that there were nearly a hundred bewildered Polish soldiers still standing in front of his tank. Rein was stunned for a moment, then shouted loudly, “Nobody move! You’re prisoners! Move and we’ll shoot!”

By this time, tank 112 had already driven up, its dark cannon muzzle pointing at the Polish soldiers. The scene suddenly fell silent. Everyone stared at Rein, this still-young German tank commander.

“Clatter.” A Polish soldier threw his weapon to the ground and raised his hands. Soon, one after another, the Polish soldiers dropped their weapons in front of them. Soon, all of them had surrendered their arms and were squatting on both sides of the road with their hands on their heads, like a flock of lambs waiting to be slaughtered.

Rein ducked back into the tank, picked up the submachine gun hanging on the side, and then poked the upper half of his body out of the commander’s hatch again. “I’m going to round up the prisoners now! Andre, you watch the tank! Marcus, we have the situation under control! We’ll wait here for friendly forces to catch up! Where’s Captain Carter?”

“The Captain is behind us. A lost truck brought 20 grenadiers. I think we’ve performed a meritorious service this time,” Marcus’s excited voice came through the headset. “That was a beautiful shot you made just now!”

Rein didn’t listen any further. He instinctively jumped off the tank with his submachine gun. Andre also poked his head out and watched Rein walk toward the group of Polish prisoners squatting by the wall, holding his submachine gun at the ready.

On the road, more than 30 bodies of Polish soldiers lay scattered about. There were also many dead in the corners and near the tank wreckage. It looked like a force of at least two companies. In a corner, Rein found a 75mm howitzer and two ammunition boxes. He smiled, slung the submachine gun around his neck, and worked the bolt.

The MP-38 submachine gun issued to the armored troops was an improved model that used a 71-round drum magazine, but there was no spare ammunition in the tank. This weapon was for the crew to defend themselves after escaping from their vehicle, so there was no need for extra ammo. If your tank gets hit and you still have time to grab a gun and find some spare drums, why not just brew a cup of coffee before you leave?

Theoretically, tank crew members were not recommended to dismount and fight, but at this moment, Rein felt that the submachine gun in his hand was more useful. He aimed the dark muzzle at the prisoners and shouted, “Does anyone understand German? Stand up.”

About twenty Polish soldiers stood up one after another, looking at Rein with trembling bodies. Rein smiled. “Who is the commander here? I have a question to ask.”

“I am their commander,” a Pole stood up. He was wearing an officer’s uniform, his face etched with indescribable frustration. “I am a battalion commander. These are all my troops.”

“My intelligence said there shouldn’t be so many Poles here. Can you tell me why, Major?” Rein asked with a smile.

“According to international law regarding prisoners of war, I have the right…” The Polish officer had only just begun to speak when Rein opened fire—not at the officer, but at the Polish prisoners around him. Five or six Polish soldiers fell to the ground, and the remaining soldiers screamed and fled from that zone of death.

“Think carefully before you speak. I don’t have the patience to waste on your nonsense,” Rein said, staring fiercely at the Polish officer. On the tank behind him, Andre, who had poked his head out, felt that his commander at this moment was like a venomous snake, staring at its prey.

“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! I’ll talk! I’ll talk!” the Polish officer quickly gave in. “I was ordered to assemble troops here to prepare for a probing attack into German territory. There is a highway behind this small town. To the north is another small town with a railway. Our division headquarters is in that direction… They have 10 cannons and a lot of infantry.”

“It seems we’re late,” Rein said, turning to look at Carter and Marcus, who had come over with their submachine guns. He smiled and pointed to the more than 130 prisoners squatting on the ground. “When those grenadiers get here, help me make fun of them for being too slow. Then hand these prisoners over to them. Tell them our vehicles are too small to hold them.”

This was typical childish revenge. Carter smiled, then went over to question the captured Polish battalion commander further. He then handed the prisoners over to the lost grenadiers to guard. The few of them found a broken table by the collapsed church and spread out their issued combat map.

“To the north of this small town, there is indeed a large town with a railway, but we have no information about the garrison there. In fact, the Polish army’s garrison positions marked on the map are more than twenty kilometers behind us,” Carter said, looking at the map and then at his compass for a moment.

“If that is a Polish division headquarters over there, we won’t be able to do anything with the men we have,” Rein said, pointing at the map. “But the mission given to us from above is to capture that small town with the railway and, using it as a center, control the surrounding small villages.”

“We should be thinking about how to protect this bridge! If the enemy counter-attacks, we don’t have enough men to take out that many Polish soldiers. If they launch a determined charge, we’ll be in trouble,” Marcus said.

“They won’t know we’ve taken this place, at least not for an hour,” Rein said with a smile. “The ones who ran away just now were all infantry. The few trucks are still here. By the time they get the news back, we’ll already be prepared.”

“Then I’ll deploy the tasks,” Carter said, looking at the map and pointing to the south of the small town. “Marcus, you are responsible for the defense of our right flank. Don’t open fire easily.”

Marcus nodded. “Understood.”

“Rein, your tank and my tank will be deployed in a crossfire position behind the parapet at the head of the bridge. Try to annihilate the attacking Polish forces on the other side of the bridge,” Carter said, glancing at Rein. He noticed that Rein’s eyes were not on him, but on the distant sky.

He followed Rein’s gaze and saw a dense swarm of planes flying toward German territory. A dozen seconds later, they could faintly hear the buzzing of engines, like a swarm of bees.

Carter swallowed hard, looked at the soldiers around him who were also finding the sight spectacular, and stammered, “Sh-should we… do we need to… set up anti-aircraft camouflage?”

Marcus laughed. “Those are returning Stukas or Do-217 bombers. It’s our air force. It seems they made their move early. No wonder we haven’t seen any Polish planes. They’ve probably all been shot down.”

“It seems air superiority is already ours,” Rein said with a nod. “According to the pattern, they will come out again after they return to base. At that time, we will have to be careful. We’ll have to put the national flag on top of our tank turrets, to prevent those pilots from accidentally hitting us.”

He looked at the Stuka bombers flying overhead, then back at his company commander, Carter. “Sir, it seems their bombing mission was very successful. A small town on the ground filled with Polish soldiers would definitely be a very conspicuous attack target. I think the Poles in that small town must be in a state of chaos right now. If we attack now, we can win!”

“Right!” Marcus nodded in agreement.

“You’re right! The SS should have this kind of courage. For the Führer,” Carter also nodded. “Leave two tanks behind. The rest of you, follow me and attack!”