Chapter 18 Trenches
"All the things I know were passed down in my family. I don't know why, but my bloodline is higher than that of my grandfather and father. I can even use the power of words. But our family has been away from the world of mixed-bloods for too long." Kaczynski said.
"I always think of myself as an ordinary person. Even you are the first half-blood I have ever seen who can light up golden eyes. I was just an ordinary cook before. I opened a small restaurant with my wife. Sometimes I would use the power of words to go up the mountain to hunt some prey and bring it home." His voice became low and distant, as if he had returned to that small restaurant full of the smell of fireworks.
"Until one day, I was drafted into the army. That's why I'm here." After saying that, he stood up, wiped his butt with paper, and then pulled up his pants. His movements were rough and quick, as if he wanted to get rid of some unpleasant memories.
"My current wish is to return home alive. I still have two children to raise. What you need to do now is to survive. The world of mixed-bloods is too far away from you and me. How to survive tomorrow is what we should think about."
After he finished speaking, he left, leaving Lu Mingfei alone to think.
From then on, Lu Mingfei never talked to Kaczynski about mixed-races again. Just as Kaczynski said, mixed-races were too far away from him, and how to survive tomorrow was what he should think about.
One morning, there was a knock on the barracks door and a messenger came in. Lu Mingfei and his men were going to the front line again.
The truck was waiting outside, its gray body covered in mud and scratches.
Lu Mingfei and his team, together with the new recruits who had arrived to provide support the day before yesterday, filled up the trucks once again. There was a hint of nervousness and uneasiness on everyone's face.
The truck slowly drove towards the front line, the wheels rolling over the muddy road, making a heavy creaking sound. On the way to the front line, Lu Mingfei and his team saw hundreds of brand new wooden coffins placed on both sides of the road.
"This must be prepared for us." Paul was a little worried when he saw the coffins, and there was unconcealable fear in his voice.
There had been rumors for some time that the French were going to attack them, and now seeing these coffins seemed to confirm this rumor. A sense of tension and uneasiness began to fill the air.
"Come on, when you die the most they can do is wrap you in a tent cloth. How could they possibly use a coffin for you?" Kropp mocked, trying to ease his inner fear with humor.
The others on the truck laughed when they heard Kropp's words, but their laughter was reluctant and helpless. After all, they knew very well that these coffins were prepared for them.
Lu Mingfei and his men reached the trenches on the front line through complex communication trenches. These trenches were completely different from the trenches in the anti-Japanese dramas that Lu Mingfei had seen on TV before, where a hole was dug and several sandbags were placed in it.
These trenches are two meters deep and one and a half meters wide. If you don't stand on the shelf, you can't see what's going on outside. These tunnels are not dug casually. There are drainage channels specially designed inside, and rest areas, kitchens and toilets for soldiers are dug. Although they are a bit crude, they still have everything you need.
"Oh my god! Such a big rat!" Lu Mingfei and his team came to the bunker where their class was resting and found several unusually large rats inside. Everyone was shocked. These rats had messy fur and their eyes flashed green in the dim light, which made them look particularly scary.
"No wonder we were asked to bring cats and dogs." Kemmerich muttered softly.
This time, the camp specially prepared a cat and two dogs to go with them to the front line. Lu Mingfei and his friends guessed that the dogs were used to prevent poison gas. After all, dogs' sense of smell is much more developed than that of humans, but they never understood why they brought cats, and thought they were used to relieve boredom in the trenches.
"But can this stupid cat beat the mice inside?" Lu Mingfei looked at the blue cat that had just grown up in his arms, and then looked at the mice that were almost as big as the blue cat, and his tone was a little uncertain. The blue cat twisted uneasily in his arms, and seemed to feel the threat of these mice. "It seems that we have to pay attention to our bread." Kaczynski said, he seemed to have given up the idea of letting the cat catch the mice.
After that, he pulled a piece of bread from his pocket, carefully wrapped it in the tent cloth, and put it in his backpack.
Nothing happened on the first day Lu Mingfei and his men arrived at the front line. They killed the rats in the bunker and planned to rest. After all, it was already getting dark when they arrived at the front line.
Paul said as Kropp wrapped his bread in tent cloth and put it under his head.
"You'll only get your tent cloth bitten if you do that. Watch me." After saying that, Paul hung the bread that he had wrapped tightly in the tent cloth above the shelter with a wire, and it floated in the air.
"How about it, not bad, right?" Paul looked at the bread floating in the air, feeling that he was simply amazing, and smiled proudly.
Finally, Lu Mingfei followed Kropp's method, wrapped the bread tightly with tent cloth and used it as a pillow under his head.
He closed his eyes and gradually fell into a deep sleep. He was very tired after another day of traveling. In a state of half-sleep and half-wakefulness, he seemed to feel something running around on his face, making a tiny squeaking sound.
He raised his hand towards his face and grabbed something soft in his hand. He struggled violently and suddenly woke up to find that he was holding a huge rat in his hand. The rat's eyes were glowing green, which scared him. He threw the rat in his hand towards the wall.
The others were also awakened, and one of them burst into a burst of angry curses.
"Fuck, that dead rat!" It was Paul. He turned on the flashlight and found that the bread hanging in the air was shaking wildly. A huge rat was riding on it, gnawing at the tent cloth to try to eat the bread inside.
Paul immediately took out his engineer shovel and killed the rat. The rest of the rats started to flee frantically outside the bunker after seeing Lu Mingfei and the others wake up. Lu Mingfei roughly estimated that there were nearly fifty big rats. They rushed out like a tide and disappeared into the darkness.
"Damn it!" Kropp found that the tent cloth under his head was bitten through, and a corner of the bread inside was bitten off. Lu Mingfei found that his tent cloth was also bitten through, and the bread inside was naturally not spared. The bread of the others was more or less bitten with a big hole.
They tore off the places bitten by rats bit by bit. They could not throw away the bread because it was all the food they had. They didn't know when tomorrow's rations would be distributed, so they had to rely on this to fill their stomachs until then.
If it was something he had eaten before, Lu Mingfei would throw it away if it was bitten by a rat, or even touched by a rat. Today was really different from the past, and every bit of food was precious to him.
"They won't just give up like this. Listen to my instructions." Kaczynski piled up the bread torn off by others and squatted beside them. He held a flashlight in one hand and an engineering shovel in the other.
The others followed suit. They had to teach those rats a lesson today, or they would never have peace again. They turned off their flashlights, held their shovels tightly, and waited for the rats to come back. In the darkness, there was only the sound of their rapid breathing and heartbeats.
(End of this chapter)
