Central Ukraine — July 1941
The terrain looked easy.
Half-cut wheat fields. Dirt roads that vanished between distant trees. Clear skies, no signs of storms. Falk observed the landscape from the Panzer IV's hatch, with the false calm of a bright day.
—"Too open," he murmured.
—"And too quiet," Konrad added.
Their group moved in light formation. A pair of half-tracks with infantry, two ammunition trucks, and another Panzer bringing up the rear. The objective: take a hilltop on the outskirts of a small village, reportedly already evacuated.
—"I don't trust it," Ernst said. "Every time they say 'already evacuated,' we end up in a crossfire."
Falk didn't respond. But in his hand, the cigarette burned out unsmoked.
The first shot came from a barn.
Not a shell—but a burst from a heavy machine gun. The second truck in the column went up in flames. The screams came before the radio.
—"Contact! Left flank!" Helmut shouted.
—"Turn ten degrees! Find cover!" Falk ordered.
Lukas threw the tracks hard into a turn. The Panzer rolled toward a depression, angling for fire without losing mobility. Konrad already had the cannon on target.
—"I see two nests! Brick building and trench next to the tractor."
—"HE round! Fire!"
The shot slammed into the building. Part of it collapsed, but enemy fire kept coming. The infantry jumped from the vehicles, scrambling for cover behind hedgerows and wheels.
—"Close-quarters fire, trench to trench!" reported a subofficer over the radio. "They're dug in deep!"
—"This isn't a retreat," Falk said tensely. "This is a full ambush."
An anti-tank shell landed just meters away, kicking up dirt and rusted debris.
—"They've got a 45mm gun!" Ernst shouted. "And it's not alone!"
Falk clenched his fist.
—"Let's wipe them out!"
The Panzer advanced a few meters. Another shot. This time the side armor held, but the impact rattled the whole vehicle.
—"Konrad!" Falk ordered. "Do you have a visual on that gun?"
—"Negative! It's moving through the underbrush—it's mobile!"
—"Lukas, pivot! They're hunting us in open ground!"
The next few minutes were a blind hunt. Falk ordered short flanking moves. Ernst reloaded non-stop. Konrad scanned every tree line for a flash, a shape, a steel barrel.
Finally, a muzzle flash betrayed the Soviet position.
—"Got it!"
—"Fire!"
The German shot went straight to the source. A second later—explosion. Fragments of a Soviet gun flew into the air.
—"Confirmed hit!"
When the silence returned, it wasn't complete.
Distant cries. Radios crackling. And a field that, at dawn, seemed empty… was now littered with death.
Falk slowly climbed down from the hatch. He walked to the edge of the nearest crater. Inside—a red helmet. A burned arm. And eyes that saw nothing.
—"They're not retreating," he murmured.
Konrad stepped beside him, saying nothing. He understood.
The field was open.But the war…wasn't anymore.