Chapter 75: The Wounded Won’t Be Able To Endure It
“Fire… fire…”
All the officers on the position were roaring at the top of their voices.
Whether M1917 heavy machine guns, BAR light machine guns, or Garand rifles, they were all firing desperately, with countless bullets pouring toward the Japanese army.
The unprepared Japanese army instantly fell in a large area.
But this attack was from the newly rotated Sixth Division, one of the twin pillars of the Japanese army, with extremely strong combat power and fighting will.
Although they suffered a sudden blow, the soldiers’ reaction was extremely quick, launching a counterattack within a few short seconds.
A young machine gunner hugged a BAR light machine gun and kept pulling the trigger nonstop, with gun smoke mixed with the smell of blood rolling over the trench, and the BAR barrel burning red.
The machine gunner’s Adam’s apple kept rolling as he swallowed the saliva with a rusty taste; due to the continuous firing, his knuckles were numb from the recoil.
The trajectory of twenty tracer rounds wove a fire net that was harvesting several khaki figures crawling in front of the position.
When he was about to change magazines, a Type 91 grenade fired from a grenade launcher exploded on his left flank, with splashing mud mixed with shattered bones smashing onto the parapet.
“Damn it!”
His thumb slammed heavily on the magazine catch, and the metallic clash was drowned out by the roar of the Type 92 heavy machine gun.
But the bloodstained magazine remained motionless, with blood seeping from his nail seams pulling dark red threads on the release button.
In anger and haste, the muscles on his right cheek twitched, and then he clamped the scorching hot bottom edge of the magazine with the web of his hand, his smoke-blackened thumbnail scraping a mark on the metal surface.
He finally pulled out the old magazine with difficulty, and the moment he slid the new magazine into the slot, the distinctive shrill whistle of the Type 38 rifle grazed past his ear.
The young machine gunner staggered, his back leaning against a pile of broken bricks behind him; he suddenly felt his right shoulder terrifyingly light, and at the same time, a sharp pain came from his palm.
He raised his hand and found that the BAR’s handguard had split into two halves, with a piece of wood splinter stuck in his palm.
He lowered his head again and saw through the gas mask two blood flowers blooming on his chest; the helmet placed on the parapet had been knocked over and was clanging in the trench.
He fell heavily into the trench, and the last thing reflected on his retina was the orange tail trail dragged by the distant heavy machine gun firing tracer rounds, just like the fireflies on midsummer nights back home…
Old Cao, who was firing, noticed that the light machine gun on his left suddenly went silent; he turned his head and saw that his young fellow townsman had already fallen in a pool of blood.
“Little Xia… Little Xia…”
“Fuck your little devil’s eighteen generations of ancestors!”
Old Cao only felt a rush of hot blood to his head, and his thumbs pressed the trigger desperately.
The moment the trigger was squeezed, the water-cooled machine gun let out a roar like tearing silk.
The ammunition belt convulsed wildly into the chamber, with brass bullet heads chasing and biting the Japanese soldiers’ ankles, cutting three Japanese soldiers leaping out of the trench in half into pieces.
Splashing blood plasma splashed onto the khaki scorched earth, mixing with the black blood flowing from the previous waves of corpses, accumulating into a sticky quagmire in the shell craters.
The muzzle flame illuminated Old Cao’s black gas mask, like a demon from hell; the steaming hot coolant vapor made the gas mask extremely stuffy, but he was completely oblivious.
When the last two bullets nailed the crawling Japanese soldier to the ground and the empty chamber sound rang out, the entire barrel had burned to a dark red.
He flung open the scorching hot ejector, tore open a new ammunition belt with his scalded palm, and amid the crisp clash of the belt buckle against the hot feed port, his throat rolled as a muffled roar came through the mask: “Come on! Bastards!”
At his feet, several twisted ammunition belt boxes were shaking; the distant mortar booms tore through the thick smoke, but his bloodshot eyes never left the sights.
The boiling water-cooled sleeve was still emitting a boiling whistle, and steam mixed with the smell of blood penetrated through the gas mask filter, landing on his cracked lips, looking particularly ferocious.
Storm-like bullet rain raged endlessly on the battlefield, sweeping down those unprepared Japanese soldiers.
Gun smoke mixed with the bitter almond smell of mustard gas rolled between the trenches, and the Japanese soldiers wearing pig-nose masks fell in patches like wheat stalks swept by a sickle.
The lens of a Japanese soldier hit in the head suddenly shattered; he clutched his rotting eyes and knelt on the ground, squeezing out tuneless roars from his throat. Blood foam sprayed through the gas mask’s exhaust valve, condensing into tiny coral beads in the yellow-green toxic fog.
Opposite him, the Chinese soldiers’ gun barrels burned red behind the bunkers, and those twisted rubber pig noses looked particularly ridiculous in the sights.
Bullet casings fell onto the stone slabs at his feet, making clinking sounds.
In just a few short minutes, hundreds of men from the Second Battalion of the 45th Infantry Regiment, the first wave of attack, had fallen on the gas-filled ground.
Battalion Commander Takeshita Yoshiharu, commanding from the rear, could hardly believe his eyes at this scene.
In his impression, Chinese soldiers couldn’t even guarantee one gun per person, so how could they have high-end goods like gas masks, and their firepower was so fierce.
Watching the Japanese soldiers continuously falling, his face hidden by the gas mask looked extremely ugly, his breathing rough like bellows.
“Baka… what’s going on here? How could the Chinese have gas masks?”
“Major, what do we do now? Should we order the Second Battalion to withdraw?” The regimental staff officer beside him was clearly frightened by the scene, his voice trembling.
“We can’t withdraw. Don’t forget, the division commander is still watching us from behind! Tell the First and Third Battalions to follow up.” Takeshita Yoshiharu steeled himself and issued the order to continue the attack.
“Hai!” The staff officer nodded heavily and immediately issued the order to continue the attack.
In the church, after a brief chaos, everyone including the wounded had put on gas masks.
Looking at the poison gas permeating everywhere around, Su Yaoyang’s eyes turned red, feeling a nameless fire rushing straight to his head.
He never imagined that the Japanese would dare to blatantly release poison gas in a capital city, defying all international norms.
Previously, when checking historical records, he had indeed seen accounts of the Japanese army releasing poison gas everywhere, but records were records after all; he hadn’t connected that history to reality, but now seeing the living poison gas enveloping him, he finally understood the despair and helplessness of the anti-Japanese soldiers facing the Japanese chemical weapons.
And for such war crimes, those demons escaped prosecution after the war by handing over their research data to the Americans.
For a moment, he felt his forehead throbbing; without measuring, he knew his blood pressure had definitely exceeded the critical value.
At this moment, a graceful figure ran over from not far away; although blocked by the gas mask, from her figure and chest size, it could only be Song Mei.
Song Mei grabbed his arm and said urgently: “Su Yaoyang… although everyone has put on gas masks, the severely wounded can’t wear them for long periods; if too long, they won’t be able to take it.
Moreover, the wounded’s wounds can’t be exposed to poison gas for long; once the gas infects through the wounds, the consequences will be unimaginable.”
