Position 19, shrouded in heavy rain, fell into a rare quiet, damp and dim bunker. Wei Ran was surrounded by several Soviet soldiers of different ages, racking his brains to combine the knowledge he had learned about Soviet history and the past.
He patiently answered various questions raised by the surrounding soldiers.
He even didn't mind using the excuse of "imagination" to help them "imagine" the beautiful world after the war. After all, there is a high chance that these soldiers will be bulldozed by the Germans along with Position 19 in a few days. Even if
If you are lucky enough to survive, if you want to survive until the Soviet army invades Berlin, the probability is not much different from winning the lottery.
"It would be great if it was just like what you said."
Cyril, the veterinarian, clicked his pipe that was about to burn out. "If you can really survive until the end of the war, it doesn't matter even if everything at that time is not as good as Victor wildly guessed."
A soldier sitting next to Cyril leaned back against the log that served as the wall, "Yes, if I really can survive until the end of the war, I will definitely be a postman like Victor and go to every city.
."
"You'd get lost in the trenches, and you're going to be a postman?"
An acquaintance of the soldier joked happily, "Maybe by the time you deliver the letter, the mailbox at the door of the recipient's house will be covered with black mushrooms."
A roar of laughter erupted from the low, damp bunker. Standing in the shadow outside the bunker door, Aleut raised his head, letting the dense raindrops hit his face, and murmured to himself in a voice that only he could hear.
, "It would be great if it was like what you said, it would be great if I could survive until the end of the war."
The taciturn Vanya patted the former's shoulder gently, silently holding the extinguished flashlight, quickly walked through the bunker door and walked towards the anti-tank gun position not far away.
Wiping the rain off his face, the Aleutian company commander did not disturb the soldiers in the bunker who were listening and telling stories. He turned around and walked towards the mortar position on the other side of the trench in silence.
The torrential rain raged all night long, and the water in the trenches once again flooded to the ankles. The recruits who were temporarily organized by Vanya vigorously waved the engineer shovels and pickaxes in their hands to attack the five crucial counterattacks on the position.
Tanks and two 120mm heavy mortars stepped up to build the waterproof wall.
In the bunker, Wei Ran, who had been telling "future stories" for most of the night, finally closed his eyes and fell asleep to the sound of heavy rain as a sleep aid.
"Da da da!"
The sound of heavy machine gun fire that was enough to wake everyone up suddenly sounded, and the foot-long muzzle flash was particularly conspicuous in the rain that did not weaken at all. But then, the sound of machine gun fire like an alarm bell was suddenly accompanied by a scream.
Stopped, followed by an almost continuous burst of submachine gun fire!
Wei Ran, who suddenly woke up, rolled subconsciously, and then fell into the water with a crash that was enough to submerge his whole body.
Struggling to get up and wipe the sewage on his face, Wei Ran, who was soaked, looked around with the oil lamp hanging above his head. At some point, enough rainwater had accumulated in the bunker to submerge his knees, and even the bunker was used as a bed.
On top of the ammunition box, in addition to the awakened soldiers, there were also a few soaked black rats.
Outside the bunker, the harsh sounds of gunfire, shouts of death, and the explosion of grenades were so noisy that the heart almost lost its rhythm.
After groping for the flashlight he had put next to him before going to bed, Wei Ran first touched the two anti-tank gun magazines still in his pocket, and then picked up the Mosin-Nagant rifle placed on the ammunition box.
.
As the soldiers around them got out of the bunker, the sounds of firefights in the rain became clearer, but the sky above them was still so dark that it was hard to see.
Fortunately, they didn't have to wait long at all. With a dull sound of artillery, a flare was fired into the night sky, and then the entire battlefield was completely illuminated.
Wei Ran, who struggled to climb up the trench, lay down behind the sandbag used as a bunker and carefully poked his head out, but what he saw next made him feel cold from the back of his head to his tailbone.
I don't know when, at least hundreds of heavily armed Germans, under the cover of night and heavy rain, had cut a dozen holes in the barbed wire fence large enough for tanks to drive through. The straight-line distance between this barbed wire fence and the trench line was even 100 meters.
Less than a meter!
Almost at the moment when the flares took effect, several machine gun fire points in Position 19 opened fire in unison. The fire snakes mixed with tracer bullets instantly suppressed the German soldiers who were almost face-to-face in the water-filled crater.
But then, the German artillery began to unleash its power, and dense artillery shells hit the vicinity of Position 19. Even one of the machine gun fire points was hit, and even the gun and the men were blown to pieces in the rain.
But even so, the other firepower points and the soldiers lying on the muddy trenches did not stop shooting, and they tried their best to eliminate all the German soldiers who were sneak attacking near the barbed wire fence.
And as Position 19 was the first to stop firing, the artillery fired from the opposite side also stopped roaring tacitly.
"Where are our artillery observers?!" the Aleutian company commander shouted and asked, leaning against the trench.
"I'm here!" The observer who followed Signal Corpsman Beshev to Position 19 last night immediately ran to Captain Aleutian's side.
"What's your name?" Aleut asked loudly.
"Kazer!" the artillery observer yelled in response.
"When will our artillery counterattack?"
"Not enough distance!"
Kaze shouted in response, "The artillery positions on the west bank have been blown up by German planes, and the artillery positions on the east bank are too far away to reach them!"
Aleut angrily punched the wall of the trench where muddy water was flowing, "Vanya! Organize a group of people to mend the barbed wire immediately! Plant a few more landmines by the way!"
"You guys come with me!"
Vanya pointed the beam of the flashlight at a few people at random. When the beam accidentally hit the face of the person next to Wei Ran, it was extinguished very quickly, and then lit up again after a distance and jumped to the next person.
on the face.
Wei Ran, who was about to get up, was stunned. The people Vanya accidentally selected just now include the soldier who chased him before going to bed and asked how big the Red Square was and the soldier who wanted to be a postman after the war.
!
He even remembered that the soldier with a stubble on his face had a son who was only five years old. He also remembered that the soldier who wanted to be a postman seemed to be a road idiot, so road-crazy that he would get lost in the trenches! But he didn't do it at all.
I didn't remember the other person's name.
But the selected soldiers did not complain. They each received landmines and barbed wire, immediately climbed over the trenches, crawled forward and disappeared into the manic rain.
Soon after, two loud explosions of grenades and faint screams were heard from the direction of the barbed wire fence.
