Chapter 429: The Second Battle of Norwich

“Got a smoke?” In the corner of the second floor of a collapsed house, a fuel box was set up, the alcohol block inside burning with a blue flame, bringing a trace of warmth to the cold, open-air room.

Wet shoes were placed next to the fire. A German soldier, clutching his Mauser 98k rifle, was picking at the white, soft skin on his feet with his fingers. After soaking in rain-drenched shoes for a whole day, his feet were covered in dead white skin.

Beside him, a barefoot German sniper was lying on the floor, looking through his scope at the street in the distance. They had changed into relatively dry spare clothes, and the wet set, unwashed, was hanging over the bent headboard of a metal-framed bed, drying in the faint heat of the fire.

They were considered relatively lucky, having been ordered to garrison the city of Norwich, where they could at least find some shelter from the wind and rain. The grenadiers forced to defend the open countryside were the truly pitiful ones. It was said that many had contracted pneumonia and were suffering from high fevers… and some unlucky ones had lost their lives directly.

“Hey! The British are attacking! Pack up! Prepare to move positions!” the sniper suddenly whispered in a low voice.

The spotter, who had been picking at his feet, immediately dropped his smelly foot, hastily pulled on his half-dry socks, and frantically shoved his feet into his boots, which had been washed somewhat clean by the rain.

Crack! Without any further urging, the sound of the sniper’s rifle firing was proof enough that the British opposite them had approached to a very dangerous position. The sniper didn’t pause, firing a second shot immediately.

If one could have looked through his scope, they would have seen that he had already taken down two British soldiers and was aiming at a third unlucky soul. The British soldiers had clearly not located the German sniper’s position and were firing randomly in all directions, seemingly without any plan.

“Third one!” the German sniper said, smugly counting his hits before pulling the trigger and firing his third bullet. Among the British soldiers opposite, a poor wretch fell, a spray of blood erupting from his face as he collapsed to the ground with a heart-wrenching scream.

This young German sniper was incredibly confident. He was a graduate of the “Hunter Class” of the German sniper school, an elite of the academic faction of snipers. German snipers were divided into two main schools: one was the aristocratic, natural-talent hunter school, mainly composed of hereditary hunters or nobles with superb marksmanship and high status; the other was the school of snipers who graduated from the German sniper school, who executed the tactics from the sniper manual like killing machines, efficiently slaughtering the enemy.

While he was continuously firing, the soldier beside him, carrying a Mauser 98k, was already skillfully stuffing the clothes into a backpack, extinguishing the flame on the alcohol block, and packing up their scattered belongings, ready to retreat.

“Hey! I’m packed! Are you planning to retreat barefoot?” the assistant whispered. As he spoke, he leaned against the shattered window and raised his own Mauser rifle towards the distant British soldiers. “I’ll cover you, get your shoes on, quickly!”

The sniper fired the last round from his second clip, then retreated back into the half-destroyed room and, with the same swift movements, pulled his shoes on. As he was tying his laces, his assistant had already fired his first shot.

He skillfully hit a British soldier who had just spotted him, then ducked down, worked the bolt, ejected the hot casing, and reloaded. The British had clearly found his position; a cloud of white dust was kicked up by bullets hitting the wall around the window.

“I’m ready! Let’s retreat!” the sniper shouted after tying his shoes. He shouldered his pack and jumped down from the collapsed outer wall on the other side. His assistant, hunched over, retreated the same way.

Just as the British found the German sniper’s position and began to unleash a hail of fire on the now-empty small building, in a concealed German machine-gun nest not far away, an assistant gunner was helping to feed a long belt of ammunition into an MG42. With practiced movements, he loaded the weapon in a couple of seconds, then lay down on the edge of the crater and raised his own Mauser 98k rifle.

“Front, 70 meters! British infantry,” he said in a low voice. “I’ve got the first one on the left!”

“Leave the rest to me!” the machine gunner grinned, pressed the stock of the machine gun to his shoulder, and pulled the trigger. The MG42 began to roar with its unique, continuous sound. The ammunition belt was rapidly pulled into the chamber, and the spent casings rained down on the ground nearby, making a crisp clinking sound.

The British had no idea that a German machine-gun team was lying in ambush on their flank. They were still firing at the sniper’s old position when they suddenly felt a hail of bullets coming at them. It was too late to take cover.

One British soldier was instantly cut down. The soldier next to him was hit before he could even react. The British soldiers behind them saw the bullets ricocheting off the ground but had no time to dodge before they felt their knees and stomachs being hit almost simultaneously, as if their bones had been shattered by a sledgehammer.

He screamed and fell to the ground, watching the bright red blood pour from his stomach and thigh. He saw the British soldier behind him get shot through the neck and collapse, clutching his mouth, trying to stop the arterial blood from gushing out.

The poor British soldier tried to cover his stomach but found his hands were already covered in blood. He pressed on his stomach and realized there seemed to be more than one hole. The rate of fire of the MG42 was so high that even a sweeping burst could hit each unlucky target with several bullets at once.

He didn’t know if something was wrong with him; despite such a severe injury, he didn’t feel much pain. He half-raised his head, struggling to sit up from the ground, only to find that even more blood was gushing from his waist.

“Medic! Medic! I’m hit!” he shouted, drawing strength from somewhere. He tried hard to see his surroundings but found that he was surrounded by the bodies of British soldiers.

Not far away, at the corner of a building, several British soldiers were making some kind of gesture to him, probably telling him not to move. The machine-gun bullets were kicking up a cloud of dust on the wall near them, and he couldn’t see clearly, so he tried even harder to lift his head.

“Save me! Save me! I…” he struggled and tried to shout, but the effort made even more blood spurt from the holes in his stomach. His comrades at the corner seemed very anxious; they were desperately gesturing, trying to get him to be quiet.

Crack! A crisp gunshot rang out. The British soldier felt something hit his helmet hard. Then, everything went dark, and a torrent of thoughts and something like liquid spread across his face. His head slammed onto the ground, which was covered in a warm fluid, and everything ended.

Not far away, a German soldier worked the bolt of his rifle to reload. He had just aimed at a wounded man writhing on the ground and had blown the poor bastard’s head off. He didn’t know if what he had done was right or wrong, but he felt that if he were ever lying on the ground like that, watching his own blood gush out like a fountain, he would want someone to put him out of his misery.

He felt he was very kind, kind enough to waste a bullet on an enemy who was sure to die. If it were someone else, they might have preferred to watch the British soldier struggle and bleed to death. What was that thing the Führer said? Be low-key, and if anyone gets in our way, just shoot them.

In the distance, the gunfire grew more intense. The two German snipers, who had jumped down from the second floor and climbed onto another pile of rubble, had found a new ambush position. They watched the area in front of them, shot a few British soldiers who were stealthily moving up the street, and then quietly began to hum a tune as they set up their small folding stove and lit the alcohol block again.

The machine-gun team had also moved positions at around the same time. They left behind a dozen or so British bodies, grabbed their machine gun and ammunition box, and retreated, hunched over, into a narrow alley.

The Germans had already paid their tuition in the Norwich street fighting a few days ago. Now, they were the masters who were more familiar with every blade of grass and every tree here. They moved like ghosts through the streets and alleys, opening up on the British soldiers who entered their kill zones, and then disappearing into the rubble and ruins after unleashing a wave of ammunition, without a moment’s hesitation.

The retaliatory British artillery began to violently shake the already ruined landscape of Norwich, leaving one massive crater after another in the streets and among the rubble of buildings. The German soldiers lay on the ground, enduring the British artillery attack. They squinted as the flying dirt hit their faces and calmly lit their cigarettes, blowing clouds of smoke.

Explosion after explosion, plume after plume of black smoke. The continuous sound of gunfire mixed with the howl of the fierce wind. The Second Battle for Norwich had begun. Both sides were forced to throw more troops into a city that was already a ruin, to send their limited reserves to the front line.

Whether it was the commander of the 1st Infantry Division, the commander of the I Infantry Corps, the commander of Army Group A, Rundstedt, the Chief of the Army General Staff, Brauchitsch, or even the Führer Akado himself—they all knew that Norwich was just the beginning. In the future, every British city would have to be filled with men and lives in the same way, until the rivers ran with blood, a fight to the death.