Chapter 13 The first mission
Tijoen, who had been leaning against the window and looking out, suddenly became excited.
"Kaczynski is back!"
A middle-aged man in his forties with a hunched body pushed open the door of the barracks and walked in. He had a pair of dark blue eyes, somewhat like a wolf's eyes, but with a fox-like cunning hidden inside. He was carrying a small pig on his shoulders.
"Salute!" Seeing the man coming, Lu Mingfei and the others saluted him together. Saluting their superiors was the most important thing they learned in the recruit training camp.
The man was startled and thought that a superior was coming. He quickly dropped the pig on his shoulder and turned around to salute behind him. But when he turned around, he found nothing and realized that Lu Mingfei and the others were saluting him.
"What's going on?" Kaczynski turned and asked Hay Westhus, who had picked up the pig that had fallen to the ground.
"These are students who volunteered to serve in the army." Hay Westerhuis' eyes began to shine as he held the pig.
Hearing what Hay Westhus said, Kaczynski turned his head to look at Lu Mingfei and the others, and said in a tone of disappointment: "Sooner or later I will chop one of you volunteers into pieces to find out what went wrong and why you gave up your bright future to join the army!"
"At ease, this is not a parade ground, there's no need to be so formal." Kaczynski took off his wet coat and said casually.
"Um... can you give us some food?" Lu Mingfei looked at the pig that Hay Westxus, Tijon and Detlin were roasting on the fire and swallowed his saliva.
"Oh, it looks like you guys are starving, but do you have anything you can exchange?"
"We have money!" Hearing Kaczynski's words, Lu Mingfei and the others quickly took out a few bills from their pockets and handed them to him.
"No, no, no, I don't want money. Money is just waste paper here. Do you have any cigarettes or alcohol?" Kaczynski didn't even look at the money they handed over.
"Hey, Kaczynski, this pig is not enough for us to eat. Let them wait until the supplies arrive tomorrow." Hay said as he scraped the pig's hair.
"Shut up. I've had enough of you good-for-nothings. Ignore them, boys. Go get your good stuff."
After hearing what Kaczynski said, Lu Mingfei and the others rushed to their backpacks, searching for cigarettes or cigars to give to Kaczynski, fearing that he would go back on his word.
In the boot camp, in addition to a small amount of allowance, consumables such as cigarettes are also distributed regularly. Lu Mingfei doesn't smoke, so he usually exchanges the cigarettes he gets with others for other things, or saves them. After all, sometimes cigarettes are more useful than money.
Kaczynski shared the cigarettes he got from Lu Mingfei and others with Hay Westhus and others, and they didn't say anything else.
In this way, Lu Mingfei and his friends finally had a hot meal, and even meat. Since when, eating meat has become a luxury for Lu Mingfei.
Lu Mingfei and his friends ate until their mouths were full of fat. The whole pig was eaten until only a skeleton was left. Among them, the skinny Tijoen ate the most. No one knew how his skinny stomach could hold so much food.
Just when Lu Mingfei and his companions had eaten and drunk their fill, the door of the barracks was pushed open again, and a messenger walked in.
"Kaczynski, you are going to carry out the task of erecting barbed wire tonight."
"Where?" Kaczynski asked. "Over there in the cemetery."
"With these new recruits?" Kaczynski pointed at Lu Mingfei and the others and continued to ask.
"There will be no fighting tonight, and you can teach them something while you're at it."
"Forget it, I might as well go alone. These rookies die too quickly." Kaczynski spread his hands and said.
"It's up to you, but the mission must be completed. The truck is waiting outside." After saying that, the messenger turned and left.
"It's really hell! I was hungry all day yesterday, and today I finally had a full meal, but they assigned me such a miserable task." Detlin complained to Lu Mingfei and the others.
"Okay, boys, it's time to show your patriotism. Take your things and go." Kaczynski thought for a while and finally decided to take Lu Mingfei and the others out.
Not only Lu Mingfei's class received the task, but a class in a nearby barracks also went to the front line with them to pull the barbed wire.
The total number of people in the two classes was nearly twenty, but there was only one truck parked outside. The twenty-plus of them were squeezed into the narrow compartment, all standing tightly together, and no one could sit down.
Lu Mingfei recalled what he had seen online before: a Wuling Hongguang van was packed with nearly 40 people, and these 40 people were also jokingly called "a van full of people". No one knew how they squeezed in. There were more than 20 of them now, and it was already a bit too crowded.
After everyone got on the car, it started slowly. The road to the cemetery was full of potholes and traces of the shelling.
The car was swaying on the road, and the driver didn't even turn on the headlights for fear of attracting the attention of oncoming reconnaissance aircraft. In the end, the driver could only rely on his driving skills and familiarity with the road.
Several people were nearly thrown out of the car several times. Lu Mingfei even thought about taking this opportunity to pretend to fall off. In this way, he would only have to pay the price of an arm or a leg, and he would not have to go to the front line and could return to Prussia in the rear to recuperate.
In the end, Lu Mingfei gave up the idea. Besides being afraid of the pain, he also didn't know what he could do in Prussia. There was no home for him, nor were there any of his friends. His friends, like him, were on their way to the front.
The truck finally stopped next to a forest, and Lu Mingfei and the others had to walk the rest of the way by themselves.
"If any of you are still alive in the early morning, I will come to pick you up." The driver said to Lu Mingfei and the others who got out of the car and walked into the woods carrying the barbed wire.
"We can all survive your crappy driving skills, so what else is impossible?" Kaczynski gave the driver the middle finger. The bumpy ride just now almost made him vomit out everything he had just eaten.
Lu Mingfei looked at the truck that was getting farther and farther away from them, and for some reason a trace of fear arose in his heart. As they moved further forward, this trace of fear began to gradually grow.
"Father Kaczynski, keep an eye on your child soldiers and don't let them get lost." Hay Westhus shouted to Kaczynski who was walking in front.
(End of this chapter)
