"Watch out for the German infantry! They were indicating targets for German tanks. It was only then that Philip finally found out what had happened, the German tanks had eyes on the outside of the car, and some German machine gun crews with machine guns roamed the bushes and grass on the edge of the battlefield, and they used red tracer bullets to indicate the target position of the German tank.

Due to the fact that at night, the environment is again mountainous with lush vegetation, the targets of the infantry machine-gun group are small, which is very suitable for covert maneuvers. They can sneak up on British tanks and find their targets in the darkness of the night. The German tank only needed to look for the traces of the red tracer bullets and then launch an artillery strike at the bullet landing point, which was both concealed and convenient.

At this point, one tank platoon could not withstand the pressure from the front and began to turn and move, and three tanks lined up and passed sideways in front of Philip's car, which had to slow down slightly.

The three Matilda shelled the German tanks exposed under the flares with their two-pounder guns and machine-gun fire at the surrounding bushes. The shelling was completely purposeless, and looked like they were fired indiscriminately, with the occasional shot or two hitting a German tank, only to explode on the surface of the armor, blackening a patch of gray paint, and even bouncing directly on the armor, and then flying away without a trace.

The German tanks were now in full view of the orange-yellow flares, and Philip could even see the black and white twill shield markings painted on their front armor plates, which, although I don't know what they meant, were supposed to be a kind of identification mark between friend and foe. The turrets of these tanks are all painted with large vehicle numbers in white and red, and they appear to be newly formed troops.

"I've never seen a model before, but the silhouette should be the Type 4 tank that appeared on the battlefield in France, and the tracks and load wheels should look right, could this be a firepower reinforced version with a long-barreled gun installed." In a very short time, Philip recognized the other party for what he was, and made a judgment that was not far from the truth.

The German tanks had their backs to the main building of the manor, and they slowly advanced down the slope in a standard wedge-shaped assault formation, looking completely nonchalantic. From time to time, they fired a few tracer rounds from the forward-firing machine gun, or suddenly made a short stop of artillery, proving that these Germans were not rookies, but battle-hardened battlefield elites.

Philip found that only a platoon of German tanks was exposed on the frontal front, and judging from the dense firepower just now, the number of German tanks should be far more than these, so where are the remaining tanks hiding?

Philip turned his periscope to look at the hillside on the right, and at that moment, a fire lit up from behind a bush not far away, and Philip saw something dragging a flaming tail fly out of the bush.

The thing flew forward in an almost straight trajectory, almost twenty meters. Then it hit headlong into the side armor of a Matilda tank. Then a blinding fireball lit up, and Philip saw that the turret hatch of the Matilda tank had been violently lifted, and the flames that were spewing out of the turret were four or five meters high, and the small exit now looked like a giant blowtorch. A figure in a tank helmet appeared at the exit waving his flaming arms, clinging to the handle of the control tower and trying to climb out of the car, where the poor man wailed and struggled before falling back into the crematorium.

"Fire at the bushes." Philip didn't know exactly what flew out of there, but it must have been German anti-tank weapons, where there was a German infantryman who killed four of his men. I can at least recover a blood debt for them.

"Where are the bushes?" The artillery commander asked suspiciously, he had just used a two-pounder gun to shoot a German tank with two guns, but found that it could not penetrate the armor of the Germans at all, and he even watched his shells be bounced off by the armor. That sight made the gunner's heart cold, it was really not an opponent he should provoke, it seemed that there was a lot of luck tonight.

"On the right, at three o'clock. Underneath that tree, damn it, those guys ran away. Philip patted the armrest of the periscope in frustration. He saw three figures in strange uniforms emerge from the trees, then walk along the low tree wall, and then disappear into the darkness of the night.

At this time, Philip had been gradually worn out by the brutal battle situation, and his high-spirited adrenaline had begun to subside, and the successive deaths of his subordinates made him feel extremely angry, which also brought deep powerlessness and despair.

The flares fired by the British tanks gradually went out, but the German tanks did not re-hide in the dark night, the mansion on the hillside was burning in flames, and the British tanks' two-pounder guns could not cause structural damage to the building, but the incendiary agent in the warhead dealt a fatal blow to the mansion.

The entire second floor of the building was lit by flames, two of which had burned through the tiled roof, flames erupted from between the beautiful brown-red roof tiles, and in the firelight you could see billowing smoke like a terrible monster standing up to the sky, and in the light of the fire, the British tanks could see the black silhouettes of German tanks and the glittering reflections of the armor plates.

The Germans no longer cared about exposing themselves in front of the enemy at this time, because they had already weighed the weight of the enemy, which was completely unable to threaten their opponents, so why bother to sneak around and hide their whereabouts, and directly defeat the opponent head-on, this is the respect for the enemy.

The Germans no longer needed any lighting, and the 75mm armor-piercing shells had created enough light on the battlefield to indicate the enemy's tracks, and with paratroopers and infantry as guides, the enemy had nowhere to escape.

The two tank platoons, which had been prepared to flank the flanks, returned to the battlefield, destroying the last British tank platoon that was hesitating on the edge of the battlefield from the flank. The platoon of tanks that crossed in front of Philip's car was subjected to concentrated fire, and the three Matilda were fired at by more than a dozen German tanks, killing the entire platoon at the same time, and no one survived.

When Philip came to his senses, he found himself the only British tank still intact on the battlefield, surrounded by the Germans from three sides. Looking at the steel beasts that were slowly approaching, the British Major suddenly felt a bitter fear in his heart, and his tense spirit finally collapsed at this moment.

"U-turn, retreat, retreat at full speed!" Philip yelled at the driver.

"We can't get away, sir!" The cannon commander shouted loudly, and then he pressed the trigger and fired an armor-piercing round, which still had no effect.

"No, I don't want to die." The loader, who had been silent, did not continue to reload, and he crouched on the turret floor with his head in his hands, crying as the seventeen-year-old recruit had just finished his human day last month.

"Listen to my orders, turn around, and retreat!" Philip lost his mind at this point, and he stood up and opened the hatch of the commander's conning tower, and the fresh air of the summer night poured into the turret, which was filled with gunsmoke. The young loader suddenly took two steps to climb out of this exit, only to be kicked by the major against the turret wall, and the recruit whimpered and huddled in the corner of the turret with his shoulders folded, looking at the hideous commander in fear.

"Believe me, I am the heir of the Philip family, I must be a big man, how could I die in such a place." Philip pronounced his proclamation loudly, sounding like he was convincing his subordinates, but in fact it was more like convincing himself.

At this moment, the Matilda turned the front of the car, revealing its vulnerable tail in front of a company of German tanks, and the British tanks were at full speed and rushed towards the road at the foot of the mountain. Strangely, not a single German tank fired at it, and the Germans followed the Matilda in a neat formation, as if to see the tank off.

"They didn't even fire? Do I really have a destiny? Philip could scarcely believe what was happening before him, and the British major, who thought he had met a miracle and was able to continue to live, was overjoyed, and he slapped the gunner on the shoulder and then put his arm around the loader's head.

The driver stepped on the accelerator and stared at the road in front of him, without the illumination of the headlights, he could only dimly discern the scene ahead. The tank ran over a decorative bush, and a flat lawn appeared in front of him, and it was evident that the owner had put a lot of effort into grooming it, and all the grass grew the same height, like a concrete floor.

Without hesitation, the driver crashed through the guardrail on the side of the lawn, and the track spun rapidly and pressed against the grass. The driver suddenly felt an inexplicable palpitation, he felt that the tracks did not seem to be crushed to the ground, and then the whole front of the car began to lean forward rapidly, and the driver was horrified to find that the lawn seemed to be rising, and pounced on him, and then the whole front of the car slid down, and two seconds later, a cold stream of water with a fishy smell poured madly through the opening of the driver's window.

It was not a lawn at all, but an artificial lake carefully dug by the owner of the manor, and because it had been left untended for a long time, the whole lake was covered with a layer of duckweed, which looked like a flat meadow in the dim darkness of the night, and if you were not a local person who was not familiar with the situation, you would be fooled if you were not careful.

The Matilda tank rushed into the artificial lake at full speed, sliding directly into the deepest mid-lake. The raging water poured into the cockpit through the various openings of the tank, and the tank sank diagonally to the bottom of the dark lake, and the crew was completely disoriented in a cloud of darkness and drowning fear, they could not find the nearest exit, and several people were tugging at each other in the narrow turret, struggling and kicking.

"That's Mount Akham, and there's a beautiful villa on the hill, and its owner built it like a palace." Philip tore hard at the arm that clung to his collar, which should have belonged to the loader, and the boy was now clutching at his company commander, and the rancid lake water poured from Major Philip's mouth and nose, and strangely enough, he found that there was a quiet in his mind now. "Russell Manor? By the way, this place is called Russell Manor. "The lake was already full of lungs, and the tank company commander struggled to convulse a few times, then collapsed and stopped his last struggle.

A string of bubbles slowly rose from the hatch of the tank conning tower, causing ripples on the surface of the lake in the night. (To be continued......)