Chapter 4 Morning
Today is Tiān Kōng's 29th birthday, "Beast" star I'm the biggest, everyone presents all the recommendation votes, Tiān Kōng smiled and accepted, ah wu......
The sky brightened, and Lin En opened her tired eyes. The morning light was so gentle, the fragrance of the earth covered up the lingering smell of gunpowder. The sound of gunfire and screams seemed to belong to another world, it was so quiet around her that she couldn't even hear the birds chirping.
The mud in front of him was still wet and muddy with ice crystals, and Lin En understood that he was still in the trenches. The nightmare had become an unchangeable reality. After hesitating for a moment, he tried to force his stiff and numb hands to lift himself up. Although he was wrapped in a thick blanket, it couldn't withstand the cold of the night, but compared to those who froze to death in the Soviet hinterland, Lin En was already quite lucky - although it had snowed lightly for two days, the lowest temperature was around minus fifteen degrees, and with his winter clothes and military blanket, he could barely hold on.
Being able to fall asleep in such a harsh environment is something that I wouldn't have dared to think about before.
Propping himself up against the trench wall, Lin En looked around and saw that many soldiers were still curled up in their blankets, sleeping in the trench. Not far away, several soldiers with big ears and steel helmets sat around a small pile of charcoal fire, under which a metal lunchbox was hung from a wooden tripod, emitting a faint aroma. As his consciousness cleared, the emptiness and hunger in his stomach became more unbearable.
Licking his lips, Lin En pulled out half a biscuit from his pocket, which was deliberately kept from last night's dinner - bullets, food and water, he unknowingly became a squirrel, instinctively hoarding everything to survive in the harsh environment.
With a mix of anticipation and reluctance, he stuffed the biscuits into his mouth, chewing for a few bites, dry and hard. Just as he was searching for the water bottle, "Butcher" walked over with his assault rifle slung over his shoulder. Although there was some habitual tension in his heart, Lin En knew that this guy only became exceptionally frenzied during battles or when they were approaching one; normally, he just had a stern face.
As he walked up, the "Butcher" stopped in his tracks, looking down at Lin En and saying something in a low, rumbling voice. Lin En couldn't understand a single word, so he simply looked up, his eyes gazing blankly at the other man. Fortunately, on this battlefield, there were all sorts of people, including those who had temporarily lost their hearing, gone mad, or developed battle-induced mutism. Seeing that Lin En neither stood up nor responded, the "Butcher" didn't get angry, but instead patted him on the shoulder and then walked away with a serious expression.
It seems that "Butcher" was probably praising his own performance last night, but Lin En couldn't be happy at all. The defensive line held up, but it was the German soldiers who paid with their blood and lives. Just to repel the Soviet heavy tank group's charge, Lin En saw no less than fifty German infantrymen die heroically, and before that, he had always thought that European soldiers would choose to surrender when casualties exceeded a certain proportion, and would not be ashamed of it. The brutal battle in front of him finally made him see the bloodthirsty side of the German officers and men.
The battlefield filled with fire and blood had repeated countless times in his dreams, Lin En tried to clear his mind, continuing to grope for his canteen, but the cold and hard metal object seemed to have been lost. At this moment, a hand wearing a woolen glove handed over a military canteen that had been worn out by paint. Lin En turned his head, huddled beside him was a lean young man, looking only in his early twenties, with a steel helmet showing a few strands of yellow hair stained with dirt, always holding a half-smoked cigarette, and only when he slept did he carefully clip it behind his ear.
Linn took the water bottle, not knowing how to thank him, so he simply didn't make a sound. When drinking water, Huang Mao spoke in a low voice and even laughed dryly a few times. This time Linn roughly understood a single word placed at the front: "Dan Ni Chi", referring to Danes (people from Denmark).
So you're saying I'm a volunteer soldier from Denmark?
On the first day of finding himself on the battlefield, Lin En recognized from the badges around him that this unit was the 11th "Nordland" Volunteer Armored Grenadier Division of the German Waffen-SS, an elite combat unit composed of Germanic people from various Northern European countries, including Norwegian, Danish, and a small number of Swedish and Finnish soldiers. Among the armored divisions of the SS, the "Nordland" division was formed relatively late, but after its formation, it fought for a long time on the most arduous front line, experiencing a series of extremely brutal battles, and its reputation was also quite loud.
It doesn't matter whether they're Danish or Norwegian, there's no difference in this trench and it won't change their situation. Lynn thought to herself, tightened the water bottle and handed it back to Huang Mao, forcing a smile.
Huang Mao didn't say anything else and wrapped himself tightly in his blanket, closing his eyes to rest.
Weapons are a soldier's first life, but sometimes the role of a canteen is more important than that of weapons. Thinking about this, Lynn searched around again and finally found the half-buried canteen under her buttocks, shook it, and surprisingly still had half a canteen of water, so she tied it back to her waistband. As she withdrew her hand, she touched a hard object in the pocket of her upper garment and took it out along with it. It was a thick notebook slightly larger than the palm of one's hand, with a cover, estimated to be a diary. The handwriting inside looked quite vigorous, and Lynn recognized most of the individual letters - judging from the "extra" small dots on some of the letters, Lynn guessed that these were either German or Danish.
Inside the book was a black and white family photo, which looked like it had been taken recently judging from its smooth and clean surface. The style of the photo was very traditional, with the parents sitting in the middle and the four children standing behind them in order of height. The tallest one should be "myself" in the mirror, wearing a crisp PLA uniform, looking energetic and spirited. The three smaller ones were two girls and one boy, the boy was 16 or 17 years old, also wearing a uniform, but with a childish look on his face; the older girl was around 10 years old, with beautiful curly hair, obviously a pretty girl; the younger girl was only 5 or 6 years old, looking shy and a bit scared.
Judging by the normal age of marriage and childbirth, their parents should not be old, but the couple in the photo looked like they had experienced wind and frost. The man seemed to be over 60 years old, and the woman also had white hair on her temples. The four children looked relatively healthy, but the expressions of the couple were heavy and lost. This made Lin En think of the big background of the times, the fate of the empire was like the setting sun, sinking slowly in the west, and people with knowledge should indeed worry about the fate of their own nation, as well as their own fate.
When he heard some noise coming from the western trenches, Lin En hastily put away the scattered thoughts along with the book that he couldn't understand for the time being. Soon, he saw the thin young man from last night and another young man in military uniform carrying a long wooden box along the trench towards this side, and the soldiers along the way spontaneously put extra weapons into it. These were mostly left behind by wounded and fallen comrades, and some came from Soviet soldiers who had been attacked. Of course, many people still kept "Popasha". Everything seemed to be based on voluntary principles, and no one interfered or pointed fingers.
As for the Mauser rifle in his hand, Lin En said it was not good, but at least it could be used smoothly. After a while, the box was finally lifted to the front, and Lin En took a look inside. The MP38/40 submachine guns were damaged and needed repair, and the rest were either "Mauser" or "Mosin Nagant". Huang Mao probably wanted to find something useful for himself, so he went forward and flipped through it, quickly finding a Mauser military pistol, also known as a revolver, in the corner of the box. Seeing this thing, Lin En's eyes lit up instantly: This was the favorite of warlords and bandits during the Republic of China era, and the original German-made goods were even more sought after. However, Huang Mao casually put it aside, and the other soldiers standing beside him were also unmoved by this small killer.
Lin En suddenly had an epiphany, took a step forward, and grabbed the 70-80% new shotgun from the box. The heavy feeling in his hand made him feel like he had found treasure!
The thin young man in front, who was carrying a box, looked at Lin En with some surprise and slowed down his pace - Lin En thought he was intentionally letting him find the shotgun holster, so he quickly smiled and reached out to search. The wooden box, which was originally used to hold rifles, wasn't very large, and after rummaging through it for a bit, one could count its contents. However, the distinctive shotgun holster didn't appear. At this time, the surrounding soldiers all looked over curiously, as if they had seen a celestial being. Lin En couldn't be bothered with them, and continued to search with his head down until he saw the thin young man shaking his head at him, then he reluctantly withdrew his hand.
A slender young man and his companion carried boxes forward, their thin bodies not suitable for such physical labor. However, on the battlefield, sometimes there is no room for sentiment. Returning to his position, Lin En sat down with a thud, looking at the revolver in his hand, his heart warming up again. After fiddling with it for a while, the gun mechanism, magazine, and hammer were all smooth and easy to use, and on both sides of the grip were engraved red "9" characters, indicating that it was originally produced as 7.63mm caliber, but later modified by the factory to 9mm caliber to be compatible with ammunition used by other pistols like the Luger P08. From this, it can be inferred that it is an old model produced before the 1920s and does not have fully automatic firing capability.
In the process, Huang Mao silently watched Lin En fiddle with his new "toy", his curious gaze identical to that of the thin young man earlier. Unlike in the East, especially China, where it was extremely popular, this Mauser military pistol was met with cold reception in Europe. The army had many reasons for disliking it: expensive, large size, difficult to control recoil when firing quickly, etc., so not even the German army equipped it in bulk. However, towards the end of the war, the desperate situation of resource depletion forced the German military to dig out old stocks from warehouses. It is said that not only were front-line defense troops forced to accept some weapons they previously looked down on as supplements, but even the Party Guards, who were usually treated favorably, had to do so, resulting in a strange scene where new and old weapons coexisted.
The operation of the revolver was not complicated, and after warming up with the gun, Lin En basically knew how to use it. He even learned from movies how to hold it horizontally and fiddle with it a bit. It had a safety but no lock button, and the magazine had a capacity of 6 rounds. This thing was really old. Better than nothing, Lin En stuck the gun in his waistband, thinking about finding an opportunity to get some matching bullets, but he didn't notice the sympathetic look in Huang Mao's eyes. If they were always fighting in close quarters, it would be fine, but during long-distance marches, soldiers always wanted to reduce their load to the lowest limit. However, casually discarding firearms was something that many officers could not tolerate. Too heavy? Ask "Butcher" about his boots first.
