Shortly before nine o'clock in the morning, as soon as the last slice of bread was put in his mouth, the herald from the company headquarters approached Lieutenant Batistuta.

"Mr. Lieutenant, I'm sorry to disturb you for breakfast, we're going to pull out, the company commander asked you to follow the company headquarters, let's go now."

Lieutenant Batistuta hurriedly chewed a few mouthfuls of bread in his mouth and swallowed it into his stomach, and then summoned his surviving men to follow the herald to the battalion headquarters and return to the formation of the first company.

Lieutenant Batistuta and his men followed the company south along the shoreline of the fjord, then turned southeast, and soon left the fjord behind and disappeared, entering a residential area of about thirty dilapidated houses, and then the direction of the troops' advance turned east along the road.

After crossing a clearing nearly 300 meters wide, Lieutenant Batistuta and his men followed the company to the terminus of the march, a larger residential area.

In the residential area, the lieutenant saw that other companies of Unit N had already established positions there.

Machine gun crews occupy the second or third floors of dilapidated houses, where mortarmers hide in the bushes between buildings, and riflemen occupy a wider area, where they can be found in buildings, bushes and craters.

Seeing this stance, the lieutenant already understood that the second task of Unit N was to build a defensive position on the east side of the landing site, preparing for a possible attack by the Russians.

Lieutenant Batistuta's company was dispatched to the southern clearing of the residential complex, which was less than 200 meters wide from north to south and connected to the residential area to the north and the Black Sea to the south.

The platoon commanded by the lieutenant was arranged in the northernmost part of the position, where the residential area was connected to the open field.

The lieutenant surveyed the terrain and stationed a machine gun crew in a two-story building on the left flank of the position, which had been lifted off its roof and half collapsed.

On the second floor of that building, the machine-gun crew could fire sideways at moving targets in the open ground directly in front of the position.

Another machine-gun group and two rifle crews took advantage of the undulating terrain in the open to dig foxholes for frontal defense.

Lieutenant Batistuta was more resourceful, leading the platoon members to share a crater with the shooters of a Breda light machine gun.

At eleven o'clock, seeing that the defensive positions were being perfected under the hard work of his subordinates, and that he did not lag behind the other platoons, the lieutenant returned to the crater with confidence.

As he walked down the crater, the lieutenant said to the herald who was following him, Clariono: "This crater is caused by the explosion of shells of at least one hundred and fifty millimeters or more, or it may be aerial bombs of more than fifty kilograms. ”

"Lieutenant, where are those big guys hiding, why didn't I see them?" Cragno asked.

"Stupid" Batistuta laughed, then pointed behind him and said, "Look there, behind that dirt slope, what's there?" ”

Kragneo squinted his eyes and looked at them carefully for a while, then said, "It seems to be scissor telescopes, they are artillery observation posts?" ”

"Of course, the artillery observation post has already appeared behind us, will the artillerymen be far away?" The lieutenant said.

"No matter where the artillerymen are hiding? Good news for us. ”

"So, our next task is to be a good goalkeeper, and we must not let the Russians come over to protect the safety of the landing site." Batistuta said.

"I'm hoping they will come over, and I'd love to see what these big-caliber shells look like when they fall on the Russians." Cragno said.

The lieutenant lay on his back in the crater, took out a slice of bread from the backpack he was carrying, and took out a sausage, and said to Kragno: "The Russians should be here soon, and we had better hurry up and replenish our strength, otherwise we will not have the strength to beat the Russians." ”

Cragneo followed Batistuta's example, sitting in the crater, chatting with the machine gunners and eating lunch.

Soon, the logistics staff didn't know where to use it as a kitchen, and boiled some hot coffee and sent it to the position.

After a few sips of hot coffee, Lieutenant Batistuta was in good spirits, hot food is one of the most needed weapons for front-line soldiers, as Napoleon said, a soldier's combat effectiveness is determined by the stomach.

After lunch, Lieutenant Batistuta lay on his back in the crater, closed his eyes, buckled his steel helmet to his face, and was about to hurry up and get some sleep, when he suddenly heard Kragno's shout: "Lieutenant, lieutenant, look, what do they want to do?" ”

The lieutenant took off his helmet and opened his eyes to see Kragno, who was screaming, and saw that Kragno's broad chin was raised high, his bronzed face was facing the sky, and his right index finger pointed to the sky.

The lieutenant looked into the sky in the direction that Kragno was pointing, and saw a helicopter circling in the sky, flying lower and lower.

"The Iron Cross, the wingless plane, it's the Germans, what do they want to do?" The lieutenant muttered to himself in confusion.

The Iron Cross-painted helicopter flew lower and lower, and soon descended to less than fifty meters above the ground, and Lieutenant Batistuta clearly saw a figure flash through the hatch on the left side of the helicopter, and the figure stretched out his arm, threw a shining silver object out of the cabin, and then shook his arm in the direction of the object and retracted into the cabin.

Kragno was soon ordered to jump out of the crater and into the crater less than a minute later.

"It's a canned box, but it's opened." Cragno said.

Lieutenant Batistuta opened the canned box and saw a neatly folded piece of white paper lying inside.

Opening the note, Lieutenant Batistuta saw a cross-shaped coordinate axis drawn in the upper right corner of the white paper, marking the four directions of east, west, north and south.

On the left side of the white paper, two wavy curves are drawn in the direction of the west, and behind the curves is a three-color national flag, indicating the position of the Italian army.

On the right side of the note, in the direction of the east, a Soviet sickle + axe flag is drawn, and a tank is drawn underneath the flag, and a number is written next to the tank, 20+!

A small figure is drawn underneath the tank, and next to the figure is an abstract symbol, ∞.

Seeing the extremely realistic style of painting on the white paper, Lieutenant Batistuta couldn't help but mutter.

"What a smart guy, he must have gotten perfect marks in his art class in elementary school."

It is clear that the drawing on this blank piece of paper shows that the Russians are massing forces to the east of the position, with at least 20 tanks or more, and a large number of infantry.

The German pilot, who must not have been able to write Italian, used this schoolboy-like simplicity to deliver information to his Italian comrades.

The lieutenant folded the white paper and handed it to Cranio, then ordered: "Send the note to the company commander at once, remember to tell him that we need anti-tank guns." ”

After about three minutes, Kragno jumped back into the crater, wiped the sweat from his head and said to the lieutenant: "The company commander said that the anti-tank guns are on their way here, let's be patient, and if it's too late, we can use anti-tank grenades to deal with it first." ”

Before the lieutenant could reply, a gust of wind suddenly sounded in his ears.

"Lie down," the lieutenant shouted, knocking Cragno to the ground.

"Rumble ······" A series of violent explosions rang out, the earth trembled, and the smoke of gunpowder rushed into the sky.

Dirt splattered into the sky, then fell again, hitting Lieutenant Batistuta.

Two men crouched in the crater, mouths wide open, praying in horror that no shells would fall on them.

"Mortars, and howitzers, but fortunately there are no planes." The lieutenant silently listened to the explosions outside the crater and judged which weapons the heavy fire of the enemy troops on the opposite side consisted of.

"Boom ······" An unprecedented explosion reached the lieutenant's ears, followed by a large amount of dirt, followed by the pungent smell of gunpowder.

The lieutenant snorted, slapped the dirt on his body and said, "That guy just now should be a Russian 152mm howitzer." ”

The shelling lasted about five minutes before it stopped, and the lieutenant slapped off the dirt and crawled to the east of the crater, cautiously looking out, and a thought popped into his mind.

The company commander is right, according to the current progress, our anti-tank guns will definitely not be able to catch up with this battle, let's use anti-tank grenades to deal with it for a while.