The Love in War - Ruvente AU

Chapter 13: A Fighting Stand

Ruv sat in the building with 5 other men, they awaited the Germans who were supposedly on their way. "They should be coming soon." One of the men said. Ruv looked at them, "Patience comrade, they'll be around soon." Suddenly rumbling started, the men around grabbed their weapons preparing to fire. 5 German tanks, 3 of which were Tigers, 75 German troops all loaded into half tracks, and a medical truck. The convoy got close really close, nobody fired Ruv watched them go in front of them. Suddenly from one of the buildings a shot can be heard, a Tiger in the convoy halts and catches aflame. The soviet soldiers attacked from several buildings, German soldiers scramble from the half tracks, several of them were already dead. The soviet soldiers ran to ground level and started to fire from the buildings, another shot comes from the building, causing a half track to blow up. The two T-34's were smashed into a building firing out at the Germans, the Germans that found some cover started returning fire, the German tanks which were trying to figure out what was happening through their limited window range started to turn their barrels to focus, another T-34 fires a shell, it penetrates a Panzer IV setting its engine aflame, however the German crew react quickly putting the fire out within a minute. Ruv was firing all he could at German Troops, they began to fire back and he took cover, one of the men in his squad wasn't so lucky. As soon as German troops fired at them he got gunned down. Ruv scooted over and grabbed his dog tags, shoving them into his pocket. He peeked over chucking a grenade at the covering Germans, several of them scattered away from the grenade a few got gunned down while running. The other Panzer IV fired up into the building, but got detonated after one of the T-34's blasted through its ammunition rack, Ruv yelled, "Keep them in cover!!" The two T-34's took out two of the tanks leaving one Tiger tank which instead of surrendering detonated itself. The rest of the German troops either died or surrendered to them, but this wasn't the last of them.

They had been waiting hours for the next enemies, suddenly loud rumbling starts. Several German troops rushed out at them about 200, a total of 8 tanks rolled in, 4 were Panzer IV's, 2 of them were Tiger's, the last 2 were Stug III's. The Germans were prepared, Ruv watched as they rushed firing as much as possible, he looked out to one of the buildings as an allied Machine Gun starts to fire after having just been set up, several more soviet troops were on the streets fighting the Germans, their snipers were not anywhere to be seen. Several Germans fired Panzer Faust's at the T-34's which were covering behind the flaming metal bodies of the last convoy. Ruv quickly ran out on to the street, "Come on men! We can do this!!" He took cover behind some debris firing at the Germans who were covering down the street, the German tanks fired upon soviet soldiers, one of them bursted into flames. "Watch out for those tanks!!" Another tank bursts into flames, a Tiger and a Panzer were now burning down the street, the German forces were crippled with half of their soldiers dead or wounded, soviet troops had lost 8 soldiers. The enemy tanks focused fire on the buildings, another fired upon a T-34 penetrating the armor and damaging it, the crew had scrambled to repair it. The German tanks took out another 3 soviet soldiers, however they began to retreat. They had lost a lot of troops that were supporting them, they couldn't hold out and fell back.

Soviet troops cheered in victory, but a rumble filled the sky. The Germans scrambled a bomber squadron to destroy the church and everything around, all of the soviets ran for cover, T-34's scrambled to avoid any bombs. Everyone on the ground watched helplessly as the squadron creeped steadily closer opening their bomb bay doors, suddenly an aircraft approached them, a bomber goes down, then a fighter, and then another bomber. The German squadron turned around and attempted to escape, the German fighters tried to fight back against the allied pilot who was supported by two others, they all went down one by one, the planes had mixed numbers bailing out. The ones lucky enough to escape were heavily damaged. The aircrafts responsible buzzed the church and troops cheered. "What a pilot that man is..." Ruv uttered. The aircrafts slowly receded from sight.

Several hours later Ruv visited the church, and approached where Sarv was. She looked up, "Ruv???" He looked down and smiled, "Hello Sarv, my love..." she smiled up at him, "I'm gonna be ok.... I'm gonna sleep now...." Ruv agreed, "Yes Sarv.... sleep.... I'll be by your side..." Ruv sat against the pews setting his rifle with the safety on, onto his lap. He sighed, "Sweet dreams, Sarv." And fell asleep.