War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 30 Shelling
In the room of the veterinarian Cyril, five German soldiers looked at each other, and then one of the youngest soldiers stood up helplessly, pointed a submachine gun at Cyril and said something.

Although Cyril couldn't understand, but he was very experienced in hitting the snake and stalking the pole, and with a smiling face, he put on a show of thanks, and at the same time turned around and walked up the stairs without stopping.

The German soldier behind him cursed reluctantly, followed Cyril helplessly with his gun in hand, and climbed up the creaking wooden stairs to the second floor.

He hasn't been back for more than half a year, and the house has changed a lot. Not only the furniture and floor are covered with dust, but also his and his daughter's personal belongings have been turned into a mess.

Cyril smiled flatteringly at the German soldier behind him. After groping around, he first picked up the group photo of him and his daughter and put it upside down on the table by the window, and then patiently picked up the various pieces scattered on the ground. Fold the clothes carefully and put them back in their original location in memory.

As for the impatient murmur of the German soldier behind him, Cyril had already turned a deaf ear to it, and couldn't understand it anyway, and even if he understood it, he didn't intend to talk nonsense with a dying man.

After simply folding the clothes scattered all over the floor, Cyril opened a drawer, and while putting a pile of clothes in, he took out a sharp knife for castrating cattle and sheep from the innermost side of the drawer.

Calmly tucking it into his cuffs, Cyril got into his own bedroom, and after pushing away the wooden cabinet beside the bed, he lifted a piece of wooden floor that was only the size of a palm in front of the soldier behind him.

Turning his head, he made a silent gesture to the young soldier, and the veterinarian Cyril immediately motioned him to look down into the opened wooden floor.

The German soldier whose curiosity had been aroused for a long time subconsciously poked his head over, trying to see what treasure was hidden in the cracks in the floor.

However, the moment his neck crossed the former's shoulder, Cyril, who had already held the sharp knife in his hand, stabbed upwards fiercely, and then pulled it horizontally with all his strength.The trachea and arteries of the overly curious young soldier were severed.

Taking advantage of the situation, he threw the knife in his hand onto the bed, and the veterinarian Cyril held the submachine gun in the opponent's hand with one hand, and at the same time put his shoulder against the opponent's still twitching corpse, and turned it over on the bed.

Gradually, the corpse under him finally stopped struggling. Cyril wiped the blood from his hands on the bed sheet, then walked to the window, carefully observing the familiar small village outside.

He didn't know when the Germans had quietly occupied this place, let alone where the rest of the village had gone, and why there were only a few slow-moving old people left.

But he knew that before dark, he had to destroy the German tanks and artillery hidden here, otherwise the No. 19 position might not last long before it would be bulldozed!

After calculating the distance from the artillery position, Cyril fixedly looked at the artillery ammunition storage point less than a hundred meters away from him, and the surrounding half-track armored vehicles full of artillery shells.

He knew that as long as those shells could be detonated, the signalman Beshev and the artillery observer Kaze who were still waiting for him two kilometers away would definitely be able to hear them, and they would definitely guess that something was wrong here!
But how to pass the distance of [-] meters is a problem. The veterinarian Cyril walked around anxiously. He knew that there was not much time left for him. If it took too long, the four soldiers downstairs would definitely come up to check.

"That's a heavy machine gun!" Cyril's eyes lit up, and after thinking for a moment, he pulled out a grenade, ignited it, and threw it out along the window.Before the grenade exploded, he ran down the stairs and pulled the trigger at the four Germans who looked at him in astonishment!
The rumbling explosion of the grenade sounded almost at the same time as the gunshots. The veterinarian Cyril, who was nearly half a century old, did not dare to delay. After throwing away the submachine gun in his hand, he moved the two corpses blocking the way as fast as he could, and then dragged the veterinarian with all his strength. The simple wheeled gun mount of the heavy machine gun made him turn around, and then aimed at the artillery position faintly visible outside the window and pulled the trigger!

The bullets fired by the ZB15 heavy machine gun with a caliber of 60 mm spread greatly, but it easily tore open the thin wooden door.It then passed through army horses grazing leisurely behind a house, and ended up hitting the hood of an armored halftrack.

Cyril didn't care about the shouts outside the room at all, and pulled the trigger again after re-aiming. This time, the bullets with huge kinetic energy finally got their wish and passed through the cargo bed of the half-track truck, viciously On the shell casings of those 150mm howitzers!

Finally, the focus of sight that veterinarian Cyril had been paying attention to exploded into a dazzling fireball.Finally, the heavy machine gun in his hand had exhausted its brief 40-round belt.

Cyril, who only felt that his eyes were darkened, looked down at the wound on his chest that was gushing with dark red blood and the group photo with only a photo frame left. His eyes went dark, and he lay on the heavy machine gun and lost consciousness.

At the same time, the communication soldier Beshev and the artillery observer who were waiting in the forest outside the village immediately noticed the deafening and unsatisfactory explosion.

"It seems to have come from the direction of Cyril's village," Beshev the messenger said in a low voice.

"Listening to the explosion, it seems to be a martyrdom explosion." The experienced Kaze responded in a low voice.

After the two finished speaking, they looked at each other, and they all saw the solemn expression from the other's seriousness.

"Will it not"

Kaze got up before Beshev finished speaking, "We must go and see, something must have happened to Uncle Cyril."

"And there must be Germans there, otherwise." Beshev said here, but stopped abruptly, "Kaze, you follow me, let's keep the distance between the two of us, there must be Germans there! "

Kaze nodded, picked up the radio station that was put aside, and waited for a while with the submachine gun in his hand, before quietly following the traces of Beshev.

The two made a deliberate circle, and when they approached the village, Kaze climbed directly to the highest point of the forest by climbing the thick trunk of a pine tree.

The view here is much better than below. With the help of a telescope, not only can he see the small village that is only a few hundred meters away that is emitting thick smoke, but even the Don River is looming at the end of his sight.

But this good view did not make Kaze, who was hiding in the canopy, very happy. The artillery placed as a whole in the place where the thick smoke was transpiring, the running German soldiers and even the scattered tanks and armored vehicles made his There was already a stream of cold sweat on his forehead!
However, before Kaze put down the binoculars, Beshev, the communications soldier waiting under the tree, suddenly pulled the trigger and fired wildly at the bushes in the distance!

The sound of fire under his feet made the artillery observer Kaze subconsciously take off the Bobosha submachine gun on his shoulder, but the touch of the cold metal shell of the radio station on his back to the palm of his hand made him calm down again.

Looking at Beshev who had already led the enemy to the distance under the tree, Kaze struggled for a long time, gritted his teeth and turned on the radio station on his back, and then put the microphone to his mouth, "Don, Don, I'm the Hound."

"I am the Don River, please speak."

Kaze took a last look at the small village that was still burning, and replied hoarsely, "Square 18, longitude 22, latitude 19, please fire immediately."

(End of this chapter)