But as soon as the platoon leader left, the captain standing at the window noticed something was wrong. The group of people in the distance did not stand still, but moved forward slowly. At the same time, they also formed a battle formation.
At this moment, the captain once again remembered what Sokov told him. His people must not leave the hotel before dawn; and nearby reinforcements would not rush over to reinforce. From this point of view, the person who appeared in front of the hotel was definitely not one of our own, but a German in disguise.
The captain quickly turned and shouted toward the door: "Lieutenant, come back, they are Germans."
Unexpectedly, the lieutenant could not wait to run down at this moment, ordered the soldiers to open the door of the hotel, and then led a few people towards the German troops outside. When the captain saw this, in desperation, he grabbed the rifle from the soldier beside him, raised his gun and fired at the crowd in the distance.
Gunshots were fired, and someone in the crowd was shot and fell.
This shot stunned everyone on both sides of the enemy.
The platoon leader who led the team out turned his head and glanced at the hotel, thinking to himself: Whose gun accidentally went off?
But this was the last thought in his mind, and then he heard gunshots like exploding beans, followed by a sharp pain in his abdomen and chest. Before he could figure out what was going on, the huge impact of the bullet had knocked him and several other soldiers to the ground.
The soldiers in the building were stunned by what happened suddenly, but they soon understood that these so-called "guard battalion soldiers" who came out of the ruins were actually Germans in disguise. They hurriedly braved the enemy's intensive firepower. , forcibly closed the door of the hotel and blocked the door with tables, chairs and benches. In order to complete such work, three soldiers were unfortunately shot and died.
The German officers and soldiers who tried to rush into the hotel were repulsed by intensive firepower in the building. They retreated into the ruins across the street and exchanged fire with the Soviet commanders and fighters in the hotel.
The fighting in the hotel alarmed Seryosha who was staying nearby. When the gunfire just started, he tried to support his comrades in the hotel with long-range firepower, but the battle there ended too quickly, and his soldiers didn't even have time to mount the mortars. At this moment, when he heard intensive gunfire coming from the direction of the hotel, he immediately realized that the German army was launching a massive attack, and quickly ordered the mortar gun to fire in that direction.
Several mortar shells fell into the rubble, and the blast of air turned the masonry into deadly weapons. The rocks flying everywhere made some Germans hiding near the explosion point scream.
Seeing that the situation was not good, the German commander immediately ordered the soldiers to charge. According to his idea, once they rushed into the hotel, the Soviet mortars would definitely not dare to fire for fear of accidentally injuring their own people.
After receiving the order to attack, the soldiers jumped out of their hiding places and rushed towards the hotel under mortar fire. , even though some people were constantly being blown up by artillery shells, or were hit by flying shrapnel and fell to the ground, or were knocked down by bullets sticking out of the hotel, they still rushed forward without hesitation.
The Soviet captain who directed the battle in the hotel knew what they were going to do. Their only goal was to kill Zhukov who was staying in the basement at the moment. This was obviously a well-planned assassination plan, and no expense was spared. First, at the cost of the lives of more than a dozen paratroopers, the defenders in the building thought that the attackers had been eliminated, and then another surprise attack came unexpectedly. The firefight in the ruins not long ago was probably just for show.
At this moment, German soldiers rushed outside the hotel. After a failed attempt to break down the door, they changed tactics and smashed the ground-floor windows and threw grenades inside. After the violent explosion, before the smoke cleared, the German soldiers jumped in from the window and shot wherever there was movement, killing those Soviet soldiers who were only wounded.
"Comrade Captain," a soldier ran from downstairs to report to the captain: "The enemy has rushed into the building and is fighting with our soldiers room by room."
Knowing that the enemy had rushed into the hotel, the captain was suddenly frightened into a cold sweat. He knew very well that Zhukov was hiding in the basement. If the Germans found out where he was, even if they didn't have to rush in, they would just throw a few balls inside. Grenades can kill Zhukov. Thinking of this, the captain quickly shouted to the soldiers in the room who were still shooting outside: "Leave two people and continue shooting at the enemy. The rest follow me!"
The captain made a mistake while he was busy. He forgot that since the enemy had already rushed into the first floor, how could it not be convenient for the soldiers on the second floor to go downstairs for reinforcements? At this moment, there were already two German soldiers, holding submachine guns, aiming at the stairs. When they saw a rush of footsteps coming down the stairs, they immediately opened fire on the dark stairs.
The Soviet soldiers who went downstairs did not expect that there were enemies at the entrance of the stairs. Immediately, several soldiers were shot and rolled down the stairs. Seeing that the situation was not good, the captain quickly returned to the second floor with the remaining soldiers.
A second lieutenant leaned into the captain's ear and asked: "Comrade Captain, what should we do next?"
The captain was worried about Zhukov's safety, so he said to the second lieutenant: "Second lieutenant, I will give you three people to resolutely guard the stairs. The enemy must not be allowed to go upstairs. I will take the remaining people to rescue Comrade General."
"Yes, Comrade Captain." The second lieutenant replied loudly: "Please rest assured, as long as one of us is alive, we will never let the enemy rush up." After the captain left with a large number of people, the second lieutenant ordered several of his men , "Prepare the grenade. Don't throw it after you pull the string. Wait for me to count three, and then throw it together."
The second lieutenant listened carefully to the movement downstairs and heard the footsteps of someone going upstairs. He quickly ordered his men: "Pull the string. One, two, three, throw it!" After shouting, he took the lead with the grenade that was smoking. After throwing it down, the soldiers next to him also followed suit and threw the grenade down.
Amidst a series of explosions, the German soldiers who were rushing up the stairs were killed or injured, and the rest rolled down screaming. Hearing the noise below, the second lieutenant felt that his method was quite effective, so he said to the soldiers: "Listen to the noise below, if the enemy comes up again, we will throw them away like before."
The captain led his people down the stairs on the other side. Here, they were lucky and did not encounter the enemy. However, the enemy was also coming towards the entrance of the basement. The captain quickly ordered the soldiers to seize advantageous terrain and prepare to block the oncoming enemy.
The captain had just finished arranging the defense, when the voice of Adjutant Zhukov suddenly came from behind: "Comrade Captain, what is going on? Didn't you say that with you here, the entire hotel is impregnable? Why did the enemy rush in?"
"Comrade Adjutant," the captain instinctively glanced behind the adjutant, but found no one. He asked nervously, "Where is Comrade General?"
"I have asked people to move him to a safe place." The adjutant said to the captain in a disdainful tone: "If the safety of Comrade General is really left in your hands, I am afraid that something will happen to him by now. I just watched it Look, the number of enemies is not large, there are at most a dozen people who rushed into the building, and there are more than a hundred of you, can't you still destroy them?"
