Imperial Elite

Chapter 5 Gossip
After waking up at the division headquarters, Joe had already made up his mind to run away, but that didn't stop him from having breakfast at the headquarters and even taking a few sandwiches before strolling away.

If you want to report back to your unit at the front, there are no cars like the ones you rode in last night. Not all officers in the division have cars to drive; many are still riding horses.

Corporal Joe, even one who had just been awarded a medal, naturally didn't receive this treatment and had to walk back. Even though walking back was quite a distance, it seemed that walking was the only option given the current situation.

Of course, before leaving the division headquarters, Qiao first took off the medal on his chest and put it in his pocket, as it was too conspicuous to wear it on his chest.

Although we are currently in a relatively safe rear area, there are rumors that the Teutons will send infiltration teams to cause sabotage in the rear, so it's best to be careful.

Fortunately, after walking a distance, Joe encountered a wagon transporting artillery shells to the front lines, although the artillery position the wagon was heading to was still some distance from Joe's campsite the previous night.

But at times like these, every little bit of walking is better than nothing; even a horse-drawn carriage is still a vehicle.

After getting into the carriage, Joe shared some sandwiches he had taken from the division headquarters with the kind supply soldier who had given him a ride. Having saved himself a long walk, Joe finally returned to his post from the previous night before noon.

Then Joe discovered that the troops' offensive was obviously not as fierce as yesterday's, and at this hour, half of the company was still at the garrison.

Although their 32nd Infantry Division only had three engineer companies, it was unusual that half of the men in each company were still at the garrison at this hour.

Recalling yesterday's battlefield, which resembled a slaughterhouse, a guess surfaced in Joe's mind.

With such heavy losses, are they going to have to be sent away for rest and recuperation?

With this question in mind, Qiao went to the company headquarters, partly to report to the deputy company commander, and partly to inquire whether the higher-ups were planning to withdraw for rest and reorganization.

As for why Qiao, who had just returned from the division headquarters, was unaware of the higher-ups' movements, it wasn't because Qiao was just a corporal and nobody paid attention to him, but because Qiao, who had already decided to find a way to escape, was too busy eating breakfast at the division headquarters.

Last night the engineers ate dried biscuits, but this morning the division headquarters had fresh eggs and bacon. Given this disparity, Joe felt it was necessary to balance the food differences between the officers above and the lower-ranking staff.

After sharing some of the sandwich he'd taken from the division headquarters with the deputy company commander as a thank you for the chocolate the night before, Joe received some inside information and new orders from the beaming deputy company commander as he ate his sandwich.

Although yesterday's attack suffered heavy losses, the bigwigs above are not giving up, so they have to continue the attack today. The first two waves of people have already gone up, and after Joe goes back to prepare, they will be the next wave.

However, due to the heavy losses suffered by the troops, the withdrawal and reorganization may only be a matter of the next day or two.

Upon hearing what the deputy company commander said, Qiao immediately lost his smile.

Although he had made up his mind to shoot himself in the leg and send himself to a field hospital, if he could be withdrawn to recuperate, he could find a safer way to make himself unfit for service in the rear.

After stuffing the last piece of sandwich into his mouth, the deputy platoon leader remembered to ask Joe what the higher-ups wanted him to do at the division headquarters.

Joe shrugged and said, "It's nothing, just a medal they gave me. It's not a big deal. I'm going to reorganize the team."

Upon hearing that it was an award of medals, the deputy company commander was somewhat surprised. He had not submitted a report, so how did Qiao get awarded a medal?

However, considering that Joe ran too far and charged too hard yesterday, it's possible that other friendly units received Joe's help.

The deputy platoon leader didn't delve into the matter. He simply brushed the breadcrumbs off his fingers and told Joe that after assisting the infantry in the attack today, the engineers would be able to retreat to the rear to repair the road. So he should be careful today and not die.

Upon hearing what the deputy company commander said, Qiao immediately perked up, saluted the deputy company commander, and expressed that he would definitely survive. Then he went back to reorganize the troops.

While it was called a team reorganization, as a squad leader, Joe didn't really have much to reorganize.

After distributing the remaining sandwiches to his buddies, he checked to make sure they had all the necessary tools for the job, such as explosives, pliers, entrenching tools, rifles, ammunition, and detonators, while watching them eat as if they hadn't eaten in ages.

Once everything was ready, Joe led his team and the other infantrymen into the trenches, preparing to charge into the no man's land and fight for the honor of Bonitania.

As for charging into no man's land, Joe had already done it once yesterday and now had experience. It was simply a matter of keeping his body low to the ground, finding cover, and staying away from the crowd to find hiding places. As long as he wasn't too conspicuous, he could find a shell crater to get through.

Before the charge began this time, Joe wasn't as nervous as he had been before. Instead of having his mind filled with the cycle of 'run, hide, attack, run' that his good brother had taught him, he set aside a thread to tell his rascals, "Don't run around, stick close to me, but make sure to keep your distance."

Before those brats could figure out how to "stay put, stick close to me, but keep your distance," three green flares shot up in the distance.

Immediately, the voices of infantry officers rang out from the trenches: "The vanguard has captured the Teutonic trenches, now it's our turn to support them! For the honor of the King! Brothers, charge!"

Amid the shouts of the officers and the whistles that rose and fell, Joe, carrying explosives and pliers, climbed out of the trench along the ladder, just like the others. Then, he clumsily charged like a penguin through the muddy ground, which had been blasted into a swamp-like mess by the shelling, toward the Teutonic trench.

This time, without the obstruction of barbed wire and machine guns, the distance that took several hours to break through yesterday was covered in no time before Joe and the other soldiers jumped into a trench.

The smooth arrival at the next trench brought a sigh of relief to everyone, except Joe.

Joe's original plan was to find an empty shell crater to hide in after entering the no-man's-land, and then lead the lads back after dark. At worst, he could shoot himself to pretend he was injured.

However, the smooth entry into the occupied trenches has made it impossible for Joe to follow his original plan, and now he can only take it one step at a time.

While the officers roared orders to direct the infantry to set up defenses, Joe led his engineer squad into a frantic work in the crowded trenches.

Although the trench looked like just a ditch two or three meters deep, much like an unfinished drainage ditch with some planks and sandbags, it was not actually like that.

As a rudimentary military facility, a standard trench not only includes communication trenches connecting the front and rear, but also concealed machine gun positions, observation posts for monitoring enemy movements, and in some trenches even temporary medical stations, communication stations, and command posts for communicating with rear troops and artillery. Essentially, it's a simplified, unfinished basement version of those magnificent castles and fortresses of the past.

After jumping into the trenches, the infantry only needed to take their positions and be ready to resist the Teutonic attacks, but the engineers had much more to do.

Not only did they inspect the extent of the damage to the trenches, but they also began repairing them, using whatever they could find to fix those that had collapsed due to shelling and grenades thrown during the attack.

The defensive fortifications also needed to be reconfigured, and the positions of observation posts, machine gun emplacements, and other firing points adjusted so that these were aligned with the Teutonic forces.

If the engineers had infantry help with the tasks mentioned earlier...

Then destroy the communication trenches left by the Teutons to prevent them from launching a counterattack through these trenches, which were originally intended to facilitate the rear troops' access to the front-line trenches.

More specialized tasks, such as rearranging barbed wire in front of trenches, could only be carried out by the engineers on their own.

Even after completing these tasks, the engineers could not rest, because the infantry needed to conserve their strength to deal with the Teutonic counterattacks. So the task of clearing the corpses and damaged facilities in the trenches to make enough space in the trenches for combat was still waiting for the engineers.

Finally, after all this was over, in order to prevent the trenches from becoming a ditch filled with mud and excrement, although in most cases the trenches were pretty much like that.

The engineers still had to dig drainage ditches, build shelters and rest areas in the trenches, and sometimes they might also have to build some toilets.

The reason it is said to be possible is not because the expeditionary force, like the troops from Bharat, was unaccustomed to using toilets, a product of civilization.

Instead, it was those Teutonic bastards who somehow heard that the people of Buntania liked to go to the toilet in the morning, so ever since the war began, these bastards have been tirelessly bombing toilets, with the artillery firing a couple of shots at the toilets on the front lines whenever they had a spare moment.

This practice not only made going to the toilet a high-risk activity—after all, no one wants to become part of the flying debris when they are most relaxed—but also significantly reduced the workload of the engineers.

However, it's always better to wield an entrenching tool to repair the earth than to wield a bayonet to repair the Teutons.

After jumping into the trenches with the main force, Joe led his squad to first help the infantry rearrange the machine gun positions, then turn around the "black pigs" left behind by the Teutons, which were the Teutonic heavy water-cooled machine guns, and then blow up the communication trenches leading to the depths of the Teutonic defense line.

Just as Joe was about to muster the courage to lead his team to set up barbed wire outside the trenches, a familiar screech sounded in the sky above the trenches.

Amidst the screams of "Bombard! Take cover!" echoing through the trenches.

Joe skillfully crouched in the trench, holding his rifle, covering his ears with his hands, burying his head, and opening his mouth. Amid the rumbling explosions and the clanging of dirt and stones thrown into the air by the explosions onto his helmet, he prayed to every powerful person he could think of, from the clanging of the gong to the yellow weasel, from Guan Yu to Monkey King, that no shell would happen to land in his trench.

When the seemingly endless shelling finally stopped after the last shell landed, Joe, with a slight ringing in his ears and a touch of dizziness, spat out the dust that had drifted into his mouth and stood up from the trench.

After experiencing his first bombardment, Joe felt a strange sense of unreality. The bombardment seemed to have erased something from his brain, leaving it blank, or as if a switch had been flipped, causing all sorts of strange things to flash through his mind.

From what he ordered for his last late-night snack that he missed, to the contents of the "Field Regulations" that he could almost recite backwards during training, everything flashed through Joe's mind like a slideshow in the wrong order.

Finally, as Joe, as if dug out of the ground, came to his senses as the sand and gravel rolled off his body, he looked at the collapsed walls in the chaotic trenches and the sandbag bunkers that had once existed outside the trenches but were now being thrown away by the blast wave.

Joe realized he had to do something now; if he continued to daydream, he might never have the chance to do so again in his life.

Even though it was the first time he had faced this situation, the training he had received over the past year, along with the tips from his friend, made Joe know what he should do now.

After giving those brats, who were still as bewildered as he had been, a good scolding and dragging them up from the ground.

Joe then led these rascals to quickly repair key areas in the trenches, such as machine gun positions.

Then, Joe was horrified to see that the heavy "black pigs" that had just been shelled were either thrown away by the blast wave or smashed to pieces by shrapnel, and were clearly unusable.

Although half of the machine gun emplacement was destroyed, Joe still had his men adjust the machine guns to make these behemoths, which required two people to operate, look somewhat decent. They could at least use them to bait out some Teutonic bullets and grenades during the upcoming Teutonic attack.

Besides creating decoy targets, Joe, carrying an entrenching tool, searched for machine gun teams to reinforce their defenses.

Although the strength of a shooting point temporarily reinforced by sandbags or similar items is limited at this point, every little bit helps.

Fortunately, the Lewis machine guns used by the Bunitan Expeditionary Force were different from the bulky black pigs of the Teutons; one person could pick them up and run with them.

So these slightly reinforced firing positions are usable enough; if all else fails, the machine gunner can move to another location.

Just as Joe was about to swing his entrenching tool and send sparks flying, accompanied by the shouts of "Enemy attack!" and the whistles that echoed through the trenches, Joe saw a group of shadowy figures appear in the distance.

The next second, Joe heard a "whoosh" sound, and then he felt a frantic flying object fly past his ear.

Realizing he had almost been shot, Joe quickly ducked back into the trench.

The next second, a barrage of gunfire erupted from the trenches.

After retreating back into the trench, Joe took his rifle off his shoulder, peeked out from the trench, and immediately pulled his head back in.

Outside the trenches, groups of Teutons in grey uniforms were charging toward the trenches, rifles in hand.

(End of this chapter)