Chapter 328: He’s a Legend

Hearing Rein ask this of her, Alice finally came back to her senses. She stretched out a trembling hand, wanting to pull out the bayonet from under Rein’s arm. But her hand was only halfway there when Rein stopped her. “Wait a minute! Don’t tremble so much. The bayonet didn’t stab me. Don’t you accidentally cut my arm with it!”

“Does it hurt?” Alice asked weakly, stopping her trembling and gripping the bayonet with her hand.

Her eyelashes were very long. This was the first time Rein had looked at his radio operator, Alice, from such a close distance. But at this moment, his face was covered in blood and brains, and his shoulder had been shot. In this situation, there was not the slightest romantic atmosphere. Otherwise, the effect of this formal encounter might have been better.

“Schlick!” With a soft sound, Alice pulled the bayonet out from under Rein’s arm. Rein sighed and asked Alice, who was close at hand, with a smile, “Now do you know what war is? It’s a game where someone must die. If you hesitate for even a second before you shoot, the game is over.”

“I… I understand! I understand! You’re bleeding so much now,” Alice said, her voice tinged with tears. “I got you hurt. I’m sorry…”

“Next time, don’t point a gun at my head. No one in my life has ever pointed a gun at my head and lived to tell the tale!” Rein said with a bitter smile. “You’re the first! I don’t plan to kill you, but you have to remember, be a good radio operator on my tank!”

“Okay!” Alice said with a smile, wiping her tears and nodding.

“If you two aren’t in a hurry to take off your clothes and XXXX here, I suggest we’d better leave first!” the sniper snorted coldly, breaking the atmosphere between Alice and Rein.

He then glanced at his own assistant, sighed, and pointed at Rein. “Go back and practice more! If you were half as good as this kid, we would have fought our way out on our own half an hour ago!”

“Give me a hand! It’s very difficult for me to move on my own right now,” Rein said to the sniper. “I risked my life to save you. You should at least carry me back as a thank you, right?”

“Get lost! You brought this woman to the front. Since you have this good fortune, then let the woman help you back!” the sniper snorted with a laugh. “I’ll carry your gun for you. That’s no problem.”

Rein’s right hand twitched, and the dagger was gone. He then nodded and said, “Let’s go. If we don’t go now, I’ll really die here.”

With a little effort, pulling on Alice’s hand, he sat up from the corpse. Because of the exertion, the wound was pulled a little, and the pain made Rein grunt. Compared to the movie heroes who seemed to have deadened nerve endings, the people who could take several gunshot wounds without changing their expression, Rein was far worse off. At least he knew that being shot hurt—very, very painfully.

“Does it hurt?” Alice asked, looking at Rein with concern, her brow furrowed.

“When we get back, if you get a chance, I’ll shoot you in the thigh and you’ll know,” Rein replied, grimacing. His words made the sniper who was picking up Rein’s MP-44 assault rifle burst out laughing.

With Alice’s help, after a great deal of effort, Rein finally stood up. The blood flowing from his wound stained Alice’s hand. The warm liquid made Alice feel a little nauseous, but surprisingly, she did not feel the slightest bit of resistance in her heart.

The four of them cautiously came out of the building, then crossed the street and returned to the grenadier company’s command post not far away. There, Rein received simple treatment from the medic attached to the grenadier unit.

“I’m sorry, our conditions here are limited, especially for a light wound like yours. We really don’t want to waste our emergency medical supplies,” the company commander said, scratching his head in embarrassment. “You helped us a lot, but in the end, we’re letting you walk back with your wound. I’m very sorry.”

“It’s nothing. It was my own decision. I should thank you for your help and for worrying about me,” Rein said with a wave of his hand and a smile. His face was a little pale, probably because of the blood loss, which also made the freckles on his face a lot lighter.

Including this grenadier company commander, all the grenadiers in the company headquarters were filled with admiration for this young tank commander. They had never seen a person who remained calm after being wounded. Often, soldiers who were hit would be very panicked. They didn’t know if they would die, or if they would be disabled, so they would often scream and cry hysterically, making rescue and medical care extremely difficult.

In contrast, Rein was very quiet. He only let out a cry of release when his wound was pulled. This made the other wounded soldiers calm down a lot. Of course, they didn’t know that getting injured was actually a common occurrence for Rein, and with his body, which had gained experience from being injured, he could easily judge what kind of impact this injury would have, and whether it would lead to death—it could be considered another interpretation of “a long illness makes a doctor.”

Rein put his two empty magazines back into his pocket—he had to praise the meticulousness and seriousness of the German soldiers. The sniper who had cleaned up the battlefield had even picked up the magazines for Rein. He then stood up, looked at his slung left arm, then turned his head to Alice and said, “Put the assault rifle on your back. We should go back. We’ve been out for so long. If we don’t go back now, Andre and the others will be worried.”

The two of them said goodbye to the company commander and then walked back along the street. Just like when they had come, the two of them, one after the other, carefully stuck to the wall. It was just that this time, their figures were a little different. Rein’s left hand was in a sling, and the slender Alice was carrying an assault rifle on her back.

Watching the two of them walk away, the grenadier company commander lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and then blew out a puff of smoke. “This young man is a really ruthless character. He brings a woman to the front line and doesn’t even blink an eye when he talks about killing.”

“You didn’t see his fight on the stairs. I was stunned just watching,” the sniper said, standing beside the grenadier company commander, his eyes filled with reverence. “Before I met him, I thought I was a born executioner. Today I know what a real executioner is.”

“You’re making me lose face,” the grenadier company commander said with a laugh, patting the sniper’s shoulder. “You’re the pride of our company. A record of 35 kills. Every time I go to the battalion for a meeting, my voice is louder than the other company commanders.”

“I can’t compare. If we had known of each other’s existence, he would have had at least a ninety percent chance of killing me,” the sniper said, shaking his head. “It’s a good thing we’re on the same side.”

“I heard from the commander of the 1st Grenadier Company next door that the tank 113 that guy drives is invincible. Fighting French tanks is as simple as slaughtering rabbits… The few grenadier units that have fought with him all call him the ‘God of Killing Rein’. In the entire 3rd SS Panzer Division, this guy is a legend. I never thought that without his tank, he would still be so fierce,” the grenadier company commander said, after taking a deep drag from his cigarette and throwing the butt on the ground. He waved his hand. “Let’s go back. We need to study how to continue the attack.”

“I say… you were only out for a little while… how did you two manage to cause such a big commotion?” Andre asked, looking at Rein, whose shoulder was wrapped in gauze, and at Alice, who was covered in dust, her short hair a mess, a little incredulous.

“Hah!” Bruce, who was just returning with two barrels of oil, happened to see Rein and the others. He stared at Rein with wide eyes, then looked at Alice. “I say, Alice, you didn’t really shoot the commander, did you? If the higher-ups find out about this, you’ll be hanged!”

“Shut up!” Rein, Alice, and Andre said in unison. Rein even commanded loudly, “Get out of the way! Help Baumann fill the tank with fuel!”

“If there’s any action, come and find me at the battalion’s field hospital. I’m going to have the bullet in my shoulder taken out,” Rein said to Andre. “Check all the parts of the tank. If there’s a problem, go find the old man and have him fix it.”

“No problem!” Andre nodded in agreement.

“I’ll go with you…” Alice followed behind Rein, a little shy.

Rein glanced at Alice, then said nothing and turned to walk in the direction of the battalion. And Alice placed the assault rifle on the tank’s engine cover, then took the P-38 pistol that Andre had thrown to her from the tank, and, with a red face, ran a few steps and followed behind Rein.

“What are you following me for?” Rein asked as he walked forward.

“You were injured because of me. I came to see if there’s anything I can do to help,” Alice replied from behind Rein.

Rein did not speak again and just walked straight ahead. A short while later, the two of them arrived at the battalion’s field hospital. The conditions here were more than twice as good as the grenadiers’ frontline field hospital. At the very least, the number of wounded in the tank units was something the grenadier units could not envy.

Because after a tank unit was generally destroyed, there were very few wounded—most of the time it was just a list of five killed in action. So in the armored troops’ field hospital, the chances of dealing with seriously wounded patients were generally not high. Most of the people who came here were for some bumps and bruises.

Today, Rein could be said to have opened for business for his own battalion’s field hospital. His arrival also made a group of armored soldiers who had come here to flirt with a few female nurses tactfully leave the hospital.

Rein chose a clean bed and sat down. Alice quickly went over to call a doctor and a nurse for him. After asking about the situation, the doctor here gave Rein a shot of morphine and began the difficult surgery to remove the bullet.

When they took off Rein’s tunic, everyone was stunned by the scene before them. Because on the body of this young man, who was not yet twenty years old, were a dense mass of scars. Some were from bullet wounds, some were scars left by repeated whippings. If they had not seen it with their own eyes, they could hardly imagine how a young man who could still be called a child could have so many scars on his body.

“I crawled back from hell,” Rein said with a smile, looking at the stunned crowd. “The things on top are the medals I got there.”

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