Iron Cross Fire

In the turbid night, smoke gathered under the moon, accumulating more and more, eventually covering the entire city. The originally bright moonlight has disappeared, and the electric lights in the city have been extinguished. All that can be seen is darkness, like a colorless hell.

Gradually, there was a faint firelight on the street, mixed with the darkness, forming a gray gap.

As the fire came closer, the terrible gloom was dispelled, and the roads on both sides were replaced by dull yellow.

But the house was still hidden in the darkness, and the only things that could be seen clearly were the people walking slowly under the light source.

Wearing fish-gray military uniforms, they lined up in four columns. Every few people held a torch, and the firelight reflected the gloom on their faces.

Behind them, fish-gray and dim colors kept appearing from the darkness, seemingly endless.

Different from them, there was a dark-white priest and a few people in dark blue military uniforms, sitting on a simple carriage, driving in the opposite direction.

A few days ago, Commander Kuster of the Austro-Hungarian 27th Division died on the Polish battlefield, but his body was transported back to Lemberg (today's Lviv) intact. It is said that this priest was invited to collect the body for him.

The carriage bumped along the way and finally stopped at a school in the city.

The priest stepped out of the carriage and waited for a while before he saw a figure in the darkness.

The man walked towards the priest with a smile on his face and opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted impatiently by the priest.

"Khalil Wade-Kuster?"

"General Kuster? He's right here. Just wait."

"Hurry up, I'm in a hurry."

The man ran back in response, and in an instant, he came out with several people carrying a stretcher.

"He is General Custer." The man pointed to the blurry black figure on the stretcher and at the same time took out a white cloth to cover the stretcher.

The priest nodded and waved for the people behind him to carry him away.

After handing over the body, the man asked worriedly:

"Sir, have you arranged everything?"

The priest hesitated for a while, then answered firmly:

"That's for sure. I have arranged everything. This great general will be buried in his hometown - Salzburg."

"That's great, good luck to you."

The man breathed a sigh of relief and left without looking back. Only then did the priest realize that his clothes were disheveled, as if he had just woken up.

The priest smiled, asked for a stretcher, and left in a carriage.

The carriage ran all the way, and after an unknown amount of time, even the sky gradually became clearer, but it was still dark.

At this time, someone said to the priest:

"Mr. Father, I know you are in a hurry, but please consider us. We should be in the Czech Republic, and we are very tired now."

The priest thought for a moment and agreed with some reluctance.

After receiving this answer, they felt as if they were liberated. They dropped the guns in their hands and fell asleep soon after lying on the ground.

Hearing the snoring coming from the ground, the priest carefully stood up and came to the side of the stretcher. He lifted the white cloth and saw only the black outline of a person.

The priest lit the lamp and saw the whole body.

But obviously, the priest didn't care what he looked like. He only saw the medal on his chest, the golden belt and the saber.

The priest gently pulled out the sword and found that the blade was also made of gold, which made his breathing become more rapid.

The priest stretched out his hand again, picked up a silver medal, held it tightly in his hand, and planned to put it in his pocket.

Suddenly there was a gunshot, and bright red blood spattered from the priest's chest, and the lights next to him reflected his fallen figure.

The medal in his hand fell off, was stained scarlet by his blood, and then disappeared in front of his pale face.

Outside the carriage, the gunshot just now was just the beginning of the disaster, followed by more than a dozen gunshots, killing the sleeping man.

The horses were alerted by the gunshots and drove the carriages uncontrollably, running over and killing several more people.

But before they could run far, the car sank into a pit, and one of the wooden wheels was destroyed. However, the horse still ran, causing the car to fly up at an angle, throwing the two corpses inside down the slope.

But in the dark night, I only saw the white figure that didn't fly very far, and the gray one didn't know where it was left.

Then several people came and took away the priest's body. They also tried to find the gray body, but to no avail.

When the sky became completely clear, the dead general suddenly opened his eyes, gasped for air, and slowly started hugging the tree next to him.

Looking at everything around him, he was very confused.

He was originally a young Austrian officer in the 21st century who was killed by a bomb on a day off.

He looked at the 20th century buildings and had some doubts, so he leaned against the tree, fumbled with his clothes a few times, took out a cigarette and a match, lit it without hesitation, and started smoking.

While smoking, he did not forget to take out the file and read it carefully.

Putting the file back, he knew that he was in 1914 and became a 49-year-old Austrian major general.

After lamenting that he was getting old, he remembered that he wanted to go back, but the surroundings were full of weeds and there were no landmark buildings.

When he was confused, he was surprised to find that a scarlet medal in his left hand turned into a map, and his location was also marked on the map.

But he was not frightened. Using this map, he found the road, and there was also the remains of a carriage on the road. He felt that this thing was conspicuous enough, so he stopped here.

At this time, there was the roar of a car in the distance, and he looked intently. Seeing that the person driving the car was an officer with an anxious look on his face, the officer also saw him and was overjoyed and sped up.

When the car stopped nearby, the officer ran to him like a flash, regardless of the dirt all over his body, hugged him and shouted:

"It's really you! General, you are still alive?!"

He was a little embarrassed, and after breaking free, he said:

"Please stop, Colonel Gerstoli, how come you are here?"

Gerstoli paused and said with a little sadness:

"After our division suffered a heavy blow west of the Gnilalipa River, my infantry regiment was attacked by the Russians and was completely wiped out.

After that, I had nothing to do. When I learned that your funeral escort had an accident, I rushed here with a pistol.

I thought I would return empty-handed again, but I didn't expect that you were still alive!"

"Well." Kuster nodded, and then asked him:

"Then what? ? What should we do now? "

"We can only go to Gorodok now. Galich and Lemberg have fallen one after another, and Rava has also been attacked fiercely. Once Rava falls, Gorodok will face the threat of being outflanked. I'm afraid we will have to withdraw to the south bank of the San River soon."

"The battle is so bad, we might as well hide behind the Carpathians."

"Alas, who would have thought that we would fight like this? Hundreds of thousands of standing troops are almost wiped out, and their replacements will be some shoddy stuff. The days ahead will be difficult. Let's not talk about it, get in the car, if we are lucky, we may get the command of a unit."

After the two got in the car, Gerstoli started the engine and drove towards Gorodok with a roar.

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