The air in the bunker tasted of wet concrete and desperation. Sergeant Viktor Volkov didn’t need to look at the maps to know the line was breaking; he could hear it in the rhythmic, chest-thumping thud of the 88mm Flak guns closing in.
"Here they come," whispered Misha, the youngest of the group, his hands trembling on the cooling jacket of the Maxim machine gun. Call to Arms – Gates of Hell: Ostfront Free Dow...
The first wave emerged from the tree line like silhouettes in a nightmare. Viktor raised his whistle to his lips, but before he could blow, the world dissolved into fire. A shell struck the parapet, showering them in frozen earth. Through the ringing in his ears, Viktor felt a strange, cold clarity. He grabbed a satchel charge, looked at the bridge—their only way out and the enemy's only way in—and realized the "Call to Arms" wasn't a command from a general. It was the frantic beating of his own heart. The air in the bunker tasted of wet concrete and desperation
He lunged over the top, the mud pulling at his boots like the hands of the dead. He didn't look back. In the distance, the steel giants roared, but for one flickering moment, the fate of the front rested on a single man running through the snow. The first wave emerged from the tree line