A result that shocked everyone—including Gao Fei himself.
“Did I hit him?”
Even though Sholokhov had already started swearing excitedly, Gao Fei still felt that if he had managed to land a hit like that just by luck, then shooting was far too simple.
“You hit him! I saw it clearly. The moment his upper body poked out, he dropped back down—he fell after he was hit!”
Sholokhov lowered the binoculars, while Grasky lifted his own and took a look. Then, with a face full of regret, he cursed, slung the binoculars around his neck, pressed one hand down on the machine gun Gao Fei was still bracing, and said, “Let go.”
Gao Fei let go of the machine gun. Grasky picked it up with both hands and said, “Take cover from artillery.”
“Quick, quick, hide.”
Sholokhov patted Gao Fei twice, his expression careful and protective, and said urgently, “The enemy might retaliate. Hide for now.”
Gao Fei did not even get the chance to take another look through the binoculars.
All four of them hurriedly ducked back into their own shell holes. After that came a dull, tedious, boring, and extremely uncomfortable wait.
Everything came at a price. Gao Fei had enjoyed firing his shot, and now, faced with possible retaliation, everyone on the entire position had to huddle in their shell holes with him and stay put.
A little-known fact: shell holes actually could not protect against suicide drones, nor could they stop drones from dropping grenades or mortar shells from above. The only purpose of hiding inside a shell hole was to avoid having two people blown up at once by a shell or a drone.
After sitting idly in the shell hole for a while, Gao Fei suddenly said, “Sir, why don’t we add a cover over our heads?”
Adding a cover would not stop artillery shells, but it could effectively prevent drones from dropping bombs. Most importantly, it could stop drones from seeing everything in the trench at a glance.
Sholokhov said blandly, “Because there’s no timber. Also, we won’t be staying on this position for long. Either we push forward or we retreat, so there’s no need for us to do anything else.”
That made sense. If they spent today finding materials to put a roof over the trench and then moved to another position tomorrow, wouldn’t all that effort be wasted?
Another stretch of silence followed. Then Sholokhov finally said, “All right, keep digging the trench. Come out. It should be safe outside.”
Gao Fei left the shell hole. At last, he could stretch his limbs a little.
Sholokhov looked around the trench a few times, then said loudly, “Take turns digging. Samir, you go first. Grasky, keep watch.”
The trench was just over a meter wide. Even two people standing side by side felt cramped; if two people dug at the same time, they would only get in each other’s way. So once again, Samir was the first to start digging.
Samir had no complaints either. Huffing and puffing, he began to dig.
With a kindly expression, Sholokhov walked up to Gao Fei and handed him a cigarette. After lighting it for Gao Fei, he lit one for himself and said, “You’d only taken part in exercises before? Never real combat?”
“Yes. I’ve never fought in actual combat.”
Gao Fei said honestly, “And I’ve never used a machine gun either. This was my first time touching a PKM.”
Grasky abruptly turned his head, looking at Gao Fei in astonishment. “You’re not joking, are you?”
Sholokhov frowned and said, “That’s not quite right. With your marksmanship, I can’t believe you were just an ordinary infantryman in Huaxia. If I were your superior, it would be my dereliction of duty not to train you into a sniper.”
Damn it. He had forgotten about that.
Gao Fei flicked off some ash, sighed, and said very seriously, “To be honest, it was only after coming here that I discovered I was actually a sharpshooter. Before this, I was in a clerical post.”
Sholokhov was shocked. “Clerical?”
“Shh, keep your voice down.”
Gao Fei looked pained and helpless as he said, “Yes, I was clerical. I received basic training, but there was no way I’d become a sniper.”
“What kind of clerical post? Operations staff? Then you know map work?”
Staff officers definitely knew how to draw maps, but Gao Fei did not. Forget drawing maps—he did not even know how to read military maps. Although he was a military enthusiast, Gao Fei had not been obsessed to that extent.
“Uh, not staff.”
“Then were you intelligence?”
“No. I said it’s classified. This has to stay classified.”
Sholokhov once again felt a deep suspicion rising in him, but seeing Gao Fei’s look of having something difficult to say, after hesitating for a moment, he finally said, “Fine, then I won’t ask. Mm, how strange.”
One lie required more lies to cover it up. At this point, Gao Fei guessed that even if he said he had never served as a soldier at all, Sholokhov probably would not do anything to him. But he was already too embarrassed to admit that everything he had said before had been a lie.
Just then, Sholokhov’s walkie-talkie crackled. The voice was heavily interfered with, but still more or less clear.
Gao Fei was standing right beside Sholokhov now. Observing from such a close distance, he could clearly see that Sholokhov was using a Motorola walkie-talkie. But after taking a careful look, he realized that the walkie-talkie matched the characteristics he had seen in videos.
What characteristics? It was a fake Motorola with a domestic walkie-talkie brand relabeled.
Gao Fei did not understand walkie-talkies or radios, but he had watched experts explain it in detail online. They said the Russian army had used Motorolas before, only to discover that the enemy could know all their information. After that, most soldiers on the battlefield began using domestic UV dual-band walkie-talkies.
The U-band and V-band frequencies were suitable for short-range communication, basically from a few hundred meters to two kilometers. In urban areas, the communication range could not even reach two kilometers.
Moreover, domestic walkie-talkies were all civilian models. On top of that, the ones the Russians bought were cheap goods costing only around a hundred or so yuan, and they had no electromagnetic shielding at all. So as long as there was a high-power transmitter nearby, the walkie-talkie would inevitably crackle and hiss like mad.
It all matched. Everything matched. It seemed Sholokhov was using exactly that kind of walkie-talkie.
After the message on the walkie-talkie ended, Sholokhov’s expression grew somewhat grave. After replying, he said quietly in English, “The higher-ups are requiring each group to send two people to company headquarters to stand by. I suspect they’re going to form an assault team.”
Gao Fei did not understand Russian, so he had been studying the walkie-talkie. But after hearing Sholokhov explain the contents of the notification, he was quite shocked and said in astonishment, “Such important military secrets, and you just announce them in plain language over an open frequency using civilian walkie-talkies?”
It was something even Gao Fei, a military enthusiast, knew was unbelievable, yet Sholokhov did not seem to care at all. “The enemy knows what we’re going to do, just like we know what the enemy is going to do. They attack, we hit back. It’s only a matter of sooner or later. What’s there to keep secret?”
Gao Fei truly did not know whether to say the Russians fought too crudely or had simply become numb from fighting. They really did not take this kind of thing seriously.
Gao Fei was left speechless, while poor Samir continued swinging his shovel.
Grasky sighed. He turned around and said to Sholokhov, “You stay. I’ll take him.”
This “him” could only mean Samir.
Sholokhov looked at Samir, thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No, I’ll take him.”
Samir was digging with great effort, his shovel flying up and down. After half an hour of high-intensity digging, his speed had obviously slowed, but no matter how hard he worked, he still could not escape the fate of being chosen.
There were two veterans and two recruits on this position. When forming an assault team, they could not possibly send both newcomers, and of course they could not send both old hands either. That meant it could only be one veteran leading one recruit.
Given that Sholokhov and Grasky had clearly shown favoritism toward Gao Fei, this mission that was almost equivalent to going off to die naturally fell to Samir.
Samir stopped. He turned around and looked at Sholokhov helplessly, wanting to say something, but in the end, he only sighed and said to Gao Fei, “The things in my pack are yours.”
There was no helping it. If something could not be changed, one could only accept fate.
If Samir dared show even the slightest dissatisfaction, Sholokhov could shoot him dead on the spot without any problem.
Gao Fei could not help saying, “I’ll go. I’ll join this assault team.”
“Don’t go.”
“What are you going for?”
“It’d be too much of a waste if you died.”
“Exactly.”
Sholokhov and Grasky took turns rejecting Gao Fei’s proposal.
Sholokhov waved his hand, then took the cigarettes from his pocket and handed them to Gao Fei. After thinking for a moment, he took out his lighter as well, grabbed Gao Fei’s hand, slapped the cigarettes and lighter into it, and said, “Mm, that’s that.”
Grasky said quietly, “I’ll go.”
“You went last time. This time it’s my turn.”
Sholokhov did not say anything more. He simply said to Samir, “Pack your things. You’re coming with me.”