Chapter 8: Submarine Cable And An Even Bigger Conspiracy
Fifteen minutes later, Sergeant Major Lelouch and Sergeant Klose, on Colonel Lister’s orders, led a group of soldiers from the Army Group Direct Communications Battalion Cable Laying Platoon back to the post office near the beach.
This was also the location where Lelouch had just transmigrated that afternoon—he had been fumigated by tear gas from French Army remnants, rushed out of the post office, and fainted on the nearby beach, only to be awakened later by the waves.
At first, Lelouch himself found it strange: why was the post office built in such a seaside location? Did the post office staff also hope to work in “front-line sea view offices”?
But upon arriving and reviewing the blueprints and materials provided by superiors beforehand, Lelouch quickly recalled the reason:
This post office in Nieuwpoort Town was used to connect two segments of submarine telegraph cables and served as a relay station. The town’s local communications needs were very low, so it was specially built by the seaside to save costs.
Contrary to what many laypeople in later generations imagined, laying submarine telegraph cables was actually a very low-cost long-distance communication method, even cheaper than land cables.
It didn’t require digging trenches or laying lines, nor did it need land acquisition. You just dropped the cable into the sea and had a warship tow it along for laying. Humans had built the first transatlantic submarine cable as early as 1866.
Along the Belgian and Netherlands coasts, in 1908, Siemens Company also assisted the two countries’ telegraph companies in laying a submarine cable across the Britannia Strait.
This cable started from Wilhelmshaven in Germania, passed through The Hague in the Netherlands, Blankenberge and Nieuwpoort in Belgium, and then crossed the strait heading west.
So when Lelouch and his team were transferred this time to repair the cable, they also carried the original construction diagrams from Siemens Company.
……
“Sergeant Major Schweinsteiger, can it be fixed? Haven’t located the break point yet?”
In the post office’s equipment room, several technical NCOs had already been tinkering with the equipment for a while.
Lelouch was a bit anxious and couldn’t help but urge Schweinsteiger, who had only just been rescued and awakened at dinner time.
The previous platoon leader of the Communications Platoon had died in battle, and Schweinsteiger was the deputy platoon leader and the top technical backbone. He had properly studied electrical engineering and worked at Siemens pre-war.
He had been unconscious all afternoon, and upon waking, learned that Lelouch had taken over as acting platoon leader in his absence. He struggled to accept it for a moment: how many merits had this kid earned in just a few short hours? Did he have connections upstairs?
But he was still very responsible about his work. Faced with the urging, he snapped back irritably, just like the other technical experts:
“Don’t rush! The fault is much more complex than we anticipated! The break point doesn’t seem to be nearby, not even on the beach! Let me test it again!”
Lelouch was not as professional as him in troubleshooting and could only obediently shut up and wait a bit longer.
A few minutes later, after repeated verification, Schweinsteiger finally threw up his hands and pointed to the reading on the Siemens MBR08 Wheatstone bridge in front of him:
“This is trouble. I estimate we won’t fix it tonight. According to the bridge’s measurement, the break point is over three kilometers away!”
Lelouch didn’t react at first and subconsciously asked: “What does that mean?”
Schweinsteiger snorted coldly and jerked his thumb north: “It means the break point isn’t on land, but extends at least two kilometers out to sea—how are we supposed to fix that? Swim out there?
We must request an auxiliary engineering ship to locate the break point, haul up both ends, splice them back together on the ship, and then lower them back to the seabed.”
Lelouch was also startled, not expecting their initial fault assessment to be wrong.
To a normal person, in a town during war, if the telegraph cable was cut, it was most likely the land section blown apart by bombardment—for example, that cruiser harassing the German Army on the sea surface all day today, its 150 shells exploding on the beach, often creating craters several meters deep.
Who would think the intact section lying on the seabed was the one that broke?
“Fine, since it’s the submarine section that’s broken, we really can’t fix it without us alone. We need Navy cooperation. Sigh, what bad luck.”
Lelouch sighed, waved his hand signaling everyone to wrap up for the night, and the technical NCOs began packing up the bridge and magnetometer.
Lelouch then took his confidant Klose, preparing to run back to regimental headquarters in the dark to report the situation.
But as soon as he stepped out the post office door and was hit by the cold sea wind on the street, he couldn’t help but shiver.
A flash of insight suddenly struck Lelouch’s mind, like grasping a crucial clue, and many things suddenly made sense.
“Officer, what’s wrong?” Klose saw him stop abruptly and thought he was unwell.
“Nothing, I just suddenly thought of a possibility. The previous incidents all connect now.”
Lelouch murmured softly, his thoughts growing clearer as he spoke.
“Klose, have you ever wondered why that Britannian light cruiser has been on the sea surface all day?”
Klose: “Wasn’t it temporarily coming to bombard the shore battery and provide fire support for the French and Belgian ground offensive? Every time the enemy charges, the cruiser fires a few salvos.”
Lelouch shook his head: “Shore bombardment wouldn’t choose a Lin Xian-class. This light cruiser has only 2 150mm guns but 6 medium-caliber rapid-fire secondary guns. In other words, it’s a dedicated torpedo boat hunter.
If I were the British Naval Minister and had to send a light cruiser for fire support, I’d definitely choose the Weymouth-class or Chatham-class with all 8 main guns at 150mm.”
Klose felt his head itching, like his brain was growing: “Officer, I know your brain is sharp. Just give me the answer directly.”
Lelouch: “I suspect that cruiser’s original purpose was just to sabotage our cable! That’s why Schweinsteiger detected the break point at least two kilometers offshore earlier!
This enemy ship sailed over our cable, precisely hauled it up from the seabed, cut it, and maybe even took a large section to prevent repairs!”
With Lelouch saying this, Klose immediately understood and recalled a case from the start of the war, one taught in all communications troops training.
He suddenly realized: “Ah! I remember! Is it like that case on August 5th at the war’s start? The Britannians declared war on us on August 4th, and the next day sent a cruiser to cut our transatlantic cable!
But that doesn’t match! They acted so fast and precisely because that cable relayed through the Britannia Strait. They had the construction blueprints pre-war and could pinpoint the route coordinates. But today’s cable doesn’t go through Britannia. Only Siemens Company and the owners should have the blueprints. Where did they get the coordinates?
Did we leak it, or is there a spy? Hmm, it must be the Belgian Telegraph Company providing the blueprints to their friendly forces!”
Though Klose wasn’t skilled at intelligence analysis, this problem had only three options: the two owners （Belgium and Netherlands）, one contractor （Siemens）. One of these three must have leaked it.
Klose directly ruled out Siemens Company betraying the country and naturally suspected the Belgians, which made sense—they were already allied with Britannia.
But Lelouch saw it differently.
He stood in the cold wind thinking carefully for a while, using the chill to cool his supercomputing brain, and only after a long time said: “I don’t think so. The enemy likely thought of sharing this intel hastily, not premeditated—
First evidence: after we occupied this post office and checked the enemy office, we found the original copy blueprints that Siemens Company had left filed with the owner Belgian Telegraph Company. I confirmed earlier they still bore Siemens Company’s approval stamp.
This shows the Belgians fled very hastily when losing this town. Captain Andri’s cavalry reconnaissance company arrived too quickly; the Belgians maintaining order in the town didn’t even know our army had come first.
So, the Britannians urgently dispatching the cruiser nearby to sabotage the cable was likely damage control after the fact, not long-premeditated. In other words, they heard the town was lost and hastily organized the sabotage. This explains why the telegraph cable wasn’t cut when Captain Andri first arrived, only breaking at dawn today.
Siemens wouldn’t betray without reason, and the Belgians unexpectedly lost the blueprints—so in my view, the biggest suspect is the neutral Netherlands’ telegraph company.
Don’t think the Netherlands is neutral and not at war. Their domestic foreign trade interests and financial interests are closer to Britannia. Those communications companies are probably more pro-British than us.
Very possibly, the Netherlands national telegraph company has a traitor. So after Nieuwpoort was seized by our army, they leaked the blueprints to the Royal Navy at Britannia’s request!”
Lelouch actually couldn’t 100% rule out the Belgians having copied and taken a set beforehand to leak, but he was more inclined to use this to remind higher-ups to watch for Netherlands spies.
Because in his previous life, he had read about World War I spy history and knew the Netherlands Telegraph Company had much cooperation with the Britannia Army. Even if it wasn’t the Dutch this time, reminding the top to pay attention was a sure win.
Maybe there’d even be real gains, and reporting back could mean another promotion—Lelouch wasn’t very concerned about promotion itself, but he cared a lot about quickly escaping frontline combat under gunfire.
Only by quickly becoming a senior officer and escaping frontline operations could he be safer and better survive.
Meanwhile, Klose, after hearing the platoon leader’s full analysis, had eyes wide like seeing a ghost.
Was this still human? How did this brain grow?
From just a cable break measurement, to analyzing and deducing the enemy cruiser’s action patterns, he could infer all that himself? Real or fake?
“So you’re reporting everything to Colonel Lister? But even knowing this won’t help our current battle, right?”
Lelouch shook his head: “I’ll report what’s needed now first. Tonight, let the colonel request via radio anyway—don’t miss the main business. As for my earlier analysis, it might not be useful in a day or two, but I believe it’ll come in handy in this campaign—
And what you need to do is keep absolutely silent. Truth be told, I didn’t expect to analyze so much myself, that’s why I discussed it with you. If I’d known, I’d have let my left and right brain debate it internally.”
Klose snapped to attention: “Officer, rest assured! I’m absolutely loyal to you! Not a word of this will I say outside!”
Lelouch waved his hand: “Let’s go, back to regimental headquarters first.”
A few minutes later, Lelouch arrived at regimental headquarters and concisely reported the selected repairable details.
Hearing the sabotage was so severe that Navy ship cooperation was needed for repairs, Colonel Lister didn’t make things hard for the Communications Platoon.
He could only sigh, then immediately instructed the regimental headquarters radio operator to use the FU-08 radio to contact division headquarters and relay other psychological warfare-related deployment work via division.
After instructing, the colonel kindly urged Lelouch to rest quickly: “You go sleep first. You’ll have a lot to do tomorrow morning—rest up. I’ll arrange the night’s defensive battle.”
Lelouch was then arranged to rest in the cellar.
That night he actually couldn’t sleep at all, only dozing.
Especially in the latter half of the night, the bombardment back and forth in the town grew louder, and the charge shouts rose wave after wave.
French Army, Belgian Army, British Army, German Army—all were there, practically resweeping all the ruins in the town again.
