Chapter 276: The Field Hospital

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Rein’s upper body was exposed outside the tank’s turret. He leaned against the hatch cover, looking at the field hospital to the side. Not f

Rein’s upper body was exposed outside the tank’s turret. He leaned against the hatch cover, looking at the field hospital to the side. Not far from his tank, the artillerymen of the 1st SS Panzer Division were desperately loading a 150mm howitzer.

Several soldiers lifted a shell from an ammunition box and stuffed it into the cannon’s chamber. Then, a gunner on the side quickly closed the breechblock and shouted a warning. The surrounding soldiers all covered their ears.

“Boom!” Another shell flew across the river near Sedan and toward the French army’s defensive positions in the distance. And a few steps away from this cannon, several officers were using a scissor periscope to observe the results of the shelling. They stood up, made a couple of marks on a map, and then pointed into the distance, discussing something.

A few hours ago, the vanguard of the German Army Group A had broken into Sedan. The French defenders had resisted to the death, but were ultimately driven to the opposite bank by the Germans. At the last moment, the French soldiers had blown up the bridge, and the advance of the entire German force was halted.

But subsequently, German combat engineers had begun to build a bridge over the river, and the arriving artillery had started to provide covering fire. The French forces on the other side resisted stubbornly, but the effect was not significant.

And the troops of the 3rd SS Panzer Division had already moved into their attack positions. They would soon cover the army in an armed crossing of this great river, to cut into the French positions and destroy everything in their path.

Rein had Baumann park the tank next to a collapsed building and then jumped off the vehicle. He saw, on a rooftop, several German grenadiers clumsily unfurling a huge German flag. It looked as if German planes would begin a massive bombing raid in a short while.

A truck drove past him, towing a tall 88mm anti-aircraft gun. The truck stopped not far to Rein’s left, and five or six artillerymen jumped out and began to set up the anti-aircraft gun in a flurry of activity on an open piece of ground. Several grenadiers came over and helped to lift the 88mm anti-aircraft shells down from the truck.

Rein walked to the field hospital on the other side of the street. Inside, on stretchers and camp beds, lay all sorts of wounded German soldiers. He walked over with an expressionless face, looking at the white cloth tent that was set up in the corner of a damaged house, looking at the wounded inside who had lost their arms or had broken their legs.

Rein walked to a bedside and looked at the young man on it, covered in blood, moaning in pain. His arm had been hit by a machine gun, and his entire shoulder, along with his left arm, was mangled. After a rough bandaging, he was now lying on the bed, barely breathing. His dull eyes stared at Rein, as if he had many things to say. Rein did not speak, but just looked down at him. A short while later, a medic covered his greyish-white face with a white cloth.

“Boom!” Another cannon roared. Not far away, a wounded soldier began to weep. “My God! I want to go home! I want to go home.” He had been shot through the calf and was sitting on the ground. Because his injury was not too serious, he had not even been given a bed. And on the bed he was leaning against, a soldier with a head injury was lying motionless.

“Heil Führer! Sir! Is there anything I can help you with?” a medic asked, seeing Rein. He walked over, gave a German salute, wiped his hands on the filthy apron on his chest, and asked with a frown.

“I heard there was a fierce battle here this morning. I came to see the situation,” Rein said to the medic in front of him, having been startled by a scream not far away, where a wounded soldier was being held down on an operating table by two people, his forearm being sawed off bit by bit. He glanced at the gruesome scene over there.

“In the morning, the French set up two intersecting machine gun nests here. Before the tanks arrived, they had killed at least twenty of our soldiers,” the medic said, pointing to the houses on both sides. The mottled bullet marks there were proof of the intensity of the morning’s battle.

“Later, they blew up the bridge, and two officers and a dozen or so grenadiers who were responsible for capturing it were wounded,” the medic briefly explained the casualties, then pointed to everything in front of him. “This was from this afternoon. The 2nd Regiment organized a forced river crossing. All the wounded are here. A few more are missing. The French have several machine gun nests on the other side. They’re very well concealed.”

“Are there any anti-tank guns?” Rein asked.

“That I’m not too sure about. You can talk to the officers in that building. They’re from the 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Regiment,” the medic said, pointing to a relatively intact building in the distance. “The 2nd Battalion’s headquarters is set up there. Of course, if you want to look around, I advise you not to go to the riverbank. There’s a firefight going on there.”

“Thank you. Is there anything I can do to help?” Rein asked politely, looking around.

“Oh, no need! It’s all very dirty work here. It will dirty your uniform,” the medic said with a smile and a wave of his hand. He turned his head back, glanced at a wounded man lying at his feet, and instructed a grenadier following behind him, “Wounded man number 31! He needs a priest, not a doctor. Next!”

This soldier’s intestines had been completely torn apart. With every breath, bright red blood flowed from his nose. He could not speak, because as soon as he opened his mouth, he would spit out blood. So he only looked at Rein with pleading eyes, hoping that he could help him.

“I can’t help you, because I am not a doctor, nor am I a priest,” Rein said, looking down at the soldier and then bending over to him. “I am just a soldier who kills for the Führer… I can promise you that I can help you kill a few more enemies before I die.”

The corners of the soldier’s mouth moved, and then he closed his eyes and stopped breathing. And in another corner of the field hospital, a soldier was shouting, “Tell my father! I still love him! Tell the Führer, I did my best! Tell the Führer! I did my best! He hit me! He hit me! I did my best!”

This soldier was delirious from morphine. The over-excitement made his whole body tremble. He grabbed the arm of the medic who was operating on him, his strength fading as he spoke, and finally, he collapsed on the operating table, all signs of life gone.

Under Rein’s gaze, the medic walked to another wounded man, held down the soldier who had been shot in the abdomen, and reached his fingers into the bullet hole. Blood immediately gushed out, like a small fountain. Rein watched quietly, without even moving an eyebrow.

Amidst the soldier’s tragic screams, a bullet was dug out. The medic threw the bullet on the ground, pointed to the still-screaming soldier, and said to the grenadier behind him, “Arrange for two people to help him hold the wound. I’ll be back in a moment to deal with him! If his wound continues to bleed, come and find me!”

The grenadier nodded, called over two infantrymen who had come to help from the doorway, and told them to do as the medic had said. Then he, without another word, followed behind the medic, continuing to check the wounded, one by one.

“Ah!” Another wounded soldier let out a heart-wrenching scream. His arm had been hit by a piece of shrapnel. The medic took a look, then reached out and pulled the shrapnel out. The wounded man’s arm immediately began to bleed profusely, splashing on the medic’s face.

The medic didn’t even look at the wounded man. As he wiped his hands, he said, “Plug the hole with your own finger! When the two men in charge of bandaging get over here, you can go. A wound on the arm isn’t fatal. Leave it for now.”

“How can you treat the wounded so brutally?” a grenadier who had come to help asked, looking at the medic with a frown. He certainly didn’t want to be carried here to suffer this kind of treatment after being injured.

“Mr. Grenadier, I haven’t slept in two days and have treated more than seventy wounded! If I follow the procedures for every one of them, I can only save a dozen a day!” the medic’s eyes were bloodshot. He no longer paid any attention to the stunned soldier who had questioned him and walked toward another stretcher in the distance.

Rein did not turn his head. He said to Andre, who had walked up behind him, “This is war. No matter the reason, there will always be people who have to die for these bullshit reasons. I’m not afraid of death, so I came here to kill, to kill those who want to kill me. You know that now, don’t you? This is war! All you can do is to fight like hell to stay alive.”

The soldier on the stretcher was gasping in pain, groaning loudly, but he still stuck his own finger into his bleeding arm. He stammered to the medic who had walked away, “Th… thank you.”

Andre walked around a wounded man who was groaning on the ground and came to Rein’s side. He said softly, “A message from the battalion. In an hour, the air force will bomb the opposite bank. At that time, the combat engineers will build a pontoon bridge. We have been ordered to cover the infantry in establishing a bridgehead on the other side.”

“We’re leading the way?” Rein asked.

“Because our tanks have the side skirts, their defensive capability is stronger. So Captain Carter has ordered us to lead the way,” Andre replied.

“No problem. I’ll go back in a bit and work out a plan with Carter,” Rein nodded, then turned and walked out with Andre. And behind them, screams of pain continued to come from the entire hospital, but there was no particular expression on the faces of the two men who had come out.

“Get some food!” Rein commanded as soon as he reached the side of his tank. “And then wait for the company’s order to move out. Check the ammunition. Send the used drum magazines to logistics.”

Soon, a fairly sumptuous field meal was prepared. Under the watchful eyes of the drooling grenadiers who were eating potatoes and cabbage, Rein’s crew unscrewed their heated cans and ate with great enjoyment. As they ate, every one of them was praying, praying that they would be able to survive the coming battle.