On his second trip, Wales followed the orders of Brigadier General John Forloster and crossed the Rhine by boat. As he disembarked, he saw Captain Winters and Nickerson and all of his brothers in Company E. The brothers who had arrived earlier were talking to them constantly, but it was clear that their emotions were not high, and they did not look like they were full of joy after the reunion.

"Harry!" Captain Winters saw Wales appear on the docks, walked forward quickly, and then stretched out his hand, and the two of them clasped tightly, "I thought I wouldn't see you anymore!" ”

Wales smiled slightly, "I used to think so, but now we don't see each other?" ”

"No news from Lacey yet?" Winters looked at Wales and asked slowly.

Wales shook his head, then said with some gloom: "It's my fault, that plan is too risky, if only I could stop him from being so crazy, but ......"

"It's not your problem, he's doing it right! Harry, if it weren't for this, the brothers in the row wouldn't have returned so safely! Winters patted his arm, then smiled and said, "Alright, let's go meet the other brothers!" The whole Operation Market Garden has failed, and we will get a break, this is what General Taylor himself said! He is so proud of you! ”

Wales got out of the dock and met with the other brothers, shaking hands and hugging Lieutenant Compton, Lieutenant Picker, and Lieutenant Hellig, and they were all very excited to see each other again.

While the brothers of Company E were renewing their old relationship, suddenly, there was a buzzing sound in the sky, and Winters suddenly shouted: "The Germans' plane, hide immediately!" He gestured to his brothers in Company E, and then he lay down on the bank of the river. One of the planes of the Germans circled the sky and flew back.

"It's terrible!" Winters looked at where the plane had disappeared and suddenly screamed.

It is clear that the plane was a reconnaissance aircraft of the Germans. It was supposed to be used to search for snipers, but it stumbled upon the crossing with Vidore, and the British and Poles were exposed, and they had the last group of nearly a thousand men who did not cross the Rhine. It is believed that soon the fighters and bombers of the Germans will fly here.

"Damn, the Germans found us!" Admiral Urquhart suddenly shouted loudly, looking so angry that they were almost on the verge of crossing the river completely safely, "We don't have anti-aircraft weapons, and our planes won't come here." Oh, God! He couldn't help but look with some despair at the other side of the river, where there were a thousand heroic British paratroopers and Brigadier General John Forloster.

"God bless them!" Admiral Sushabowsky drew a cross on his chest, then fixed his gaze firmly on the opposite bank. There is not much time left for Brigadier John Forloster now.

The appearance of the German plane completely made the British nervous. Brigadier John Forlouster knew he was running out of time, but the boats at the North Shore Ferry had not yet arrived, even though they had already reached their fastest speed.

The steamer was moving so fast that it hit the pier while docking, making a loud noise. Suddenly the whole line of British paratroopers was in disarray, and everyone wanted to be the first to get on board.

"Hurry, hurry!" Brigadier General John Forlouster greeted them loudly. He seemed to be able to faintly hear the sound of the German planes, and their time was running out.

"Damn it, get on board!" Lieutenant Colonel David raised his pistol and shouted loudly at the gangplank leading from the dock to the steamer, he looked frantic and restless, and by now more than three hundred of the British, despite the speed with which they had boarded, had not boarded the ship. He also heard the roar of planes coming from far and near.

"General, hurry up and get on board!" Lieutenant Colonel David shouted at Brigadier General John Forloster.

Brigadier General John Forlouster looked at him and said firmly: "No, Lieutenant Colonel, you get on the boat first, and I'll be the last one!" Before he could finish his sentence, four German fighters appeared in the air, their fuselages shining brightly in the sun, making strange "woo-woo" calls, and then swooping down towards the dock.

"Lie down!" Lieutenant David rushed forward in a few steps, threw Brigadier John Forlouster to the ground, the bullet flew over their heads, hit the dock, splashed bursts of rubble, and then the bullet was like a long snake, and quickly raged on the ship, instantly shattering the hull of the ship, and the howl of the soldiers came from the cabin. There was a British soldier who fell into the water and he was shot.

"Get out of the boat!" Brigadier General John Forlouster shouted loudly.

Lieutenant Colonel David picked him up and ran as fast as he could towards the steamer, and behind them, three planes began to fire at the rest of the steamer and dinghy. The bullets made a "chirping" sound, accompanied by the desperate eyes and screams of the British soldiers.

The steamer had already begun to leave the shore, and Lieutenant Colonel David pushed Brigadier General John Forlouster hard and shouted, "Catch the general, lads!" Then he fell to the ground because of the exertion.

The British soldiers on board reached out and took Brigadier John Forloster's hand, and then pulled him up with all their might. When Brigadier John Forlouster got up, he saw Lieutenant Colonel David, who was no longer able to climb onto the steamer, and he got up from the ground and seemed to want to wave to himself, but a German plane flew behind him.

"Lie down!" He shouted at Lieutenant Colonel David, but Lieutenant Colonel David didn't hear him, and he waved his hand vigorously at Brigadier John Forlister, and the bullets flew from behind him all the way to debris, and then completely covered him, and the bullets whizzed towards the ship.

Several British soldiers quickly pounced on Brigadier General John Forloster, crushing him to the deck, and the bullets hit the soldiers in the backs with a "poof" sound. These soldiers pressed their own surnames for covering Brigadier General John Forloster.

Brigadier General John Fogster, who was crushed by the soldiers, felt the vibration and convulsions of the soldiers when he was shot, and his heart felt a sense of sadness, his eyes were fixed on the dock, watching Lieutenant Colonel David shake and twitch his body like a dance in the strafing of the plane, and then spun in a circle, from the pier into the Rhine, and instantly drowned in the blue waves.

"God!" He couldn't help but moan. Such a scene made him unforgettable, even in the most difficult days of guarding the bridge, there was no such feeling.

Another German bomber flew over, it was Tusca, and it screamed and launched one dive after another towards the steamer and rubber boat, dropping bombs. "Boom!" With an explosion, a rubber boat was blown apart in the middle of the river, and the British soldiers on the boat wailed and were lifted by the air waves, falling from the air into the river, mutilated limbs and debris of minced meat, blood and even splashed on the adjacent rubber boat, causing people to constantly retch.

The British troops on the boats and in the dinghy began to return fire, firing at the German fighters with machine guns and rifles. But this did not work at all for the German aircraft. The only two anti-aircraft machine guns on the north shore were destroyed by bombs dropped by German planes in less than two minutes.

"God, this is nothing short of a massacre!" Admiral Urquhart, lying on the bank of the river, holding a telescope and looking at the British troops in the middle of the river, felt a shiver in his heart.

I really don't know how many of these 1,000 British troops will come back alive under the ravages of the Germans. They survived a hundred battles with great difficulty, and they were originally the seeds of the future British Airborne Forces, but now they have become live targets for the Germans' wanton slaughter.

"General, what are we going to do?" A major climbed up to General Urquhart's side, and he said, almost in a pleading tone, "General, let's go and meet them with three battalions, we can at least distract the Germans." ”

"No, no, you can't help them!" Admiral Urquhart, of course, would not allow such an emotionally impulsive action, which would be tantamount to adding dessert to a meal for the Germans. Not only will it not help them, but it will be sacrificed in vain.

"Hurry up!" A British captain yelled at the crew in the wheelhouse, "Damn it, go all out, the Germans are going to kill us all!" ”

"It's already the fastest speed!" The driver said nervously, "If it's faster, the machine will blow up, and we'll be on the other side in five minutes, Captain, we're fast!" ”

Five minutes is a short time, but five minutes is a long time.

The German planes, having made a circle in the air, began to dive again. The windshield of the cockpit was splashed by bullets and then penetrated the hull, and the pilot, who was carried by the bullet's usual surname, hit his head on the back baffle and fell to the ground, and the captain was knocked over by the bullet and fell headlong on the rudder of the wheelhouse.

Suddenly, the steamer began to circle in the middle of the river, and then there was a loud shout from the British. The pilot of the Stuka bomber apparently saw this, and it was a very good moment, and as soon as he swung the longitudinal rod, the plane turned its head and suddenly dived down from the sky, and the heart-rending scream of the plane made the British troops on board feel despair.

A bomb slipped down the magazine, swayed through the air, and then hit the ship headlong, penetrating the upper deck and falling into the bilge of the ship with a clicking sound.

After a short silence, there was a sudden "boom", a huge explosion sound, the bomb exploded from the bilge, and the huge power immediately tore the entire steamer apart, throwing fragments of the broken hull into the air, and the huge air wave lifted some British soldiers on the ship into the sky, and the whole steamer became a piece of dust, including all the soldiers in the ship.

"Oh my God!" The officers and men of Company E lying on the bank of the river couldn't help but be dumbfounded, and Gurnelli couldn't help but let out a burst of exclamations, to be honest, even when he raided the German oil depot and ammunition depot, even when he was facing the German bombardment in the south of the bridge, he was not so surprised and shocked.

"God! Good thing we came! Wales touched his chest secretly, then turned his head to look at Captain Winters with wide eyes.

"The British are finished!" Nickerson muttered.

"It's a damn massacre, and they have no power to resist." Winters sighed, "I don't know what to say about this retreat, this is not the victorious retreat that the British say, this is Les Miserables!" He pursed his lips and looked straight at the heart of the river.

(To be continued)