Outer positions of German troops on the Hamburg front.

The British shelling began again, but the German soldiers seemed to have become accustomed to the shelling, and they all sat in the trenches and bunkers and did what they were supposed to do.

Hans Zimmer smoked a cigarette leisurely and listened to the sparse sound of cannons, as James Horner rummaged through the supply crates next to him.

"Damn, there's no coffee." James cursed, "I remember the rations that were sent to us yesterday, how come there is no even coffee?" Did you forget to put the logistics in? ”

"James," Hans Zimmer raised his voice slightly to prevent his voice from being drowned out by the sound of cannonballs, and when he opened his mouth, he realized that there was no need for this, "James, people are shelling, and we should give the British artillery the most basic respect." ”

"Oh yes? You mean, I should hold my head and shout, 'Oh my God, stop it', 'God, help us,' right? James shrugged, "Come on, just shell ......"

At this point James stopped, for he heard what seemed to be the sound of a bell in the midst of the cannon. He and Hans Zimmer looked at each other, then together they stuck their necks out of the cover and looked in the direction from which the sound came.

They saw the old man, who was usually responsible for supplying their semi-permanent bunkers, swaying through the barrage area of British artillery on a donkey.

The sound of the bell was actually the sound of the old man's donkey hanging on various cans colliding with other tin cans.

Hans Zimmer and James looked at each other again, and then the two of them rushed out of cover together, dragged the old man's donkey to the trench, and forcibly put the old man into the cover.

"Don't worry, don't worry!" The old man was dissatisfied, and pushed Hans Zimmer and James away, "This kind of sissy Cheng dù cannon's artillery fire can't help me." I was in the trenches on the Western Front more than ten years ago, and it was useless to hide in the trenches and cover my ears, and my ears were ringing badly after the shelling. Let me tell you, at that time, we had to fire more than 200,000 rounds of artillery fire before the attack, and we had to fire about 100 rounds of artillery every day in normal times. Now you listen to the fire of the British, if you can blow people up, it is purely a lottery. ”

As he spoke, the old man untied a small tin can from his belt and handed it to James.

"You forgot to bring your coffee yesterday."

James hurriedly took the coffee, then pulled out the alcohol lamp from under the small table stacked with ammunition boxes in the bunker, put it on the rack and began to make coffee.

The old man took out a cigarette, and at this time a cannonball fell nearby, and his donkey barked, and the old man poked his head out of the bunker and shouted: "Quiet! ”

The donkey quieted down. The old man said, "This donkey is young and has never seen the world," and put the cigarette in his mouth.

Hans immediately went over and lit a cigarette for him.

The old man took a puff of cigarette, and after leisurely exhaling a smoke ring, he said to the two people in the bunker: "Actually, there is nothing to be afraid of war, although there are many dead and wounded, but there are many survivors." Looking at the war as a whole, even the most unlucky troops had a casualty rate of only 50 percent, and higher ones were rare. Of the dead and wounded, half of the dead were wounded, and most of them were wounded. At that time, we saw injuries that didn't have to be amputated as a favor of Lady Luck, because the injured guy had a capital to brag about and get out of the terrible trenches. ”

Saying that, the old man opened the button on the collar of his clothes: "Look at me, I was shot in the shoulder, and there was nothing to do after the bullet was dug out, and I took an iron cross for nothing, although it was the lowest, it was enough for me to blow with my grandson for a lifetime." ”

As he spoke, the old man took another puff of cigarette, and this time the smoke ring he spit out turned out to be square, and it is said that in some places, the square smoke ring represents good luck. The old man was very happy, so he continued to say to the two men in the trenches: "You are so fortunate now, it is the Prime Minister Bismarck who leads us, and there will be meritorious deeds waiting for you in the future." My grandfather's generation followed Chancellor Bismarck to fight three wars, witnessed the establishment of the German Empire, and mixed up a small fief, but unfortunately, His Majesty Wilhelm II and the Prime Minister did not get along, drove the Prime Minister away, and deprived our family of fiefs who supported the Prime Minister. Hmph, that little cripple with no skills at all! ”

Hans Zimmer and James looked at each other, and the former asked, "Daddy, I heard that we have taken Paris?" ”

"Isn't it, the rear has been celebrating for a few days." The old man smiled on his face, "More than ten years ago, so many people died, and we couldn't cross the Marne, and several times we saw the eaves of Paris, only to be driven back. Fortunately, the Lightning-Eyed Heinz led his troops into the city without firing a single shot. The people of Paris also welcomed us to liberate them and drive out the unpopular French government. It can only be said that Lord Lin is too methodical. Now the British are going to be finished, have you seen the map? ”

Hans shook his head.

"Why don't you look at the map? In the future, if you get a medal, you may have to be promoted to squad leader and platoon leader, so you have to get used to reading the map now. Listen, now we have surrounded the landed British troops from three sides......"

"Didn't we surround the British on three sides from the beginning?" James, who was stirring the tin can for making coffee, looked back at the old man and asked puzzledly, "You see, except for the North Sea, the British have our army on both sides and the Dutch army on the other......"

"Shut up and listen to me!" After the old man said a fierce sentence, he continued to look at Hans Zimmer and said, "Now that the British have Pan-Humanist France in the south that has joined our allies, their boss, Miss Charlie, is Mr. Lin's concubine, and will definitely go north." The British are us to the east and the sea to the west and north, and they have been sandwiched between us and the coast......"

"They've been sandwiched between us and the coast since they landed." James continued to interrupt.

The old man glared at him again, and then the old man's donkey barked again, and the old man couldn't help poking out his head and yelling a few times to silence the donkey.

"It's, it's so bothersome." The old man shook his head, "Where did we just say?" ”

"Speaking of the British, it's almost finished." Hans Zimmer was a little worried about returning to the unnutritious bar just now, so he skipped this paragraph directly.

"Oh yes, that's right. The British were already running out of supplies, and you listen to this sparse shelling, which is the best example of this. If we don't dig a bunker, forget it, but we are all in the fortifications, well protected, how can such an artillery bombardment kill people? Moreover, the shelling clearly did not find the right target, and the British shelling observers must have been starving. Back then we were on the Western Front, and the British shelling observers always looked for our toilets to bombard. And not only during the regular shelling, but sometimes they saw people entering from a distance, and they opened fire. Later, we built the toilet as deep as the trenches, and connected them to the trenches, so that we could go without showing our heads, but guess what? Damn, it rained heavily, and for a month, the whole trench stinks! ”

After speaking, the old man laughed first, as if he was telling a joke, which made the two who wanted to laugh also pat their knees and laugh unscrupulously.

The old man laughed and added: "At that time, the battalion commander called and asked, 'How is the situation in your trenches?', and the company commander said, 'No problem, we are swimming in water to practice endurance', hahahahaha!" ”

James and Hans Zimmer looked at each other and laughed even more wildly.

The three of them laughed for a long time, and laughed until someone in the bunker next to them shouted, "Did you take the wrong medicine?" ”

"No, we forgot to take our medicine! Do you have one? ”

"How much are you going to eat?"

"We eat as much as you have!"

As soon as Hans Zimmer finished speaking, a shell landed right on the bunker next to him. Originally, this kind of semi-permanent bunker only had a wooden roof to keep out the rain and the sun, and it would be a kneel to eat a shell directly, so Hans Zimmer just watched the roof of the bunker next door being lifted up by the explosion, and the corpse of the German soldier who had just joked with them in the bunker rolled over, flew into the air, and then fell down heavily.

There were other bits and pieces falling along with it, and the bunker was like a pig whose belly had been pumped up until it was burst, and the "internal organs" were scattered all over the ground.

There was silence in Hans Zimmer's bunker, and everyone held their breath.

He heard someone screaming in the bunker next door, so he hurried to get the first aid kit, but as soon as he took out the small cloth bag with the red cross, the screaming stopped.

"Don't go." The old man grabbed Hans Zimmer's belt, who was still running out, and said, "Dead." ”

"But ......"

"I can hear you! That howl just now means that his lungs are perforated, and the blood will soon block his throat and eyes, and unless we can evacuate him immediately, we will not be able to save him. You guys who have only received first-aid training that is too simple to be simpler, can only take morphine and sprinkle sulfonamide in case of trouble, and will not help him at all, and will only waste medicine supplies. Leave that to those who can be saved. ”

Hans Zimmer sat down, threw the bag in his hand to the side, and then looked at the old man sullenly and asked, "The battlefield is not terrible, only a few people died?" ”

"yes, how many such bunkers do you think there are in the shelled area right now?" The old man pointed to the roof above his head, which could only serve as a psychological comfort, "It's not strange that one or two bunkers have been hit. Even with a 1 in 1,000 chance, as long as the total number of bunkers exceeds 1,000, there will always be one that will be hit. To put it bluntly, the battlefield is like this, people with good luck can be heroes, people with average luck can survive, and those who die are basically too bad luck except for those who are deliberately left in the place of death. ”

Hans Zimmer shook his head, obviously unable to accept the old man's claims.

And James has been fiddling with his coffee.

"Well, that's awesome." James looked back at the other two, "Did you ask the question?" Although the rationed military coffee was really unpalatable, the taste was really impeccable. ”