Fifteen minutes later, Sergeant Major Lelouch and Sergeant Klose, acting on Colonel List’s orders, brought a group of officers and men from the line-laying platoon of the army group’s directly subordinate signals battalion back to the post and telegraph office near the beach.
This was also where Lelouch had been that afternoon, when he had first transmigrated—back then, after being choked by tear gas from the remnants of the French army, he had rushed out of the post and telegraph office, collapsed unconscious on the adjacent beach, and later been awakened by the waves.
At first, Lelouch himself had found it strange: why would a post and telegraph office be built so close to the sea? Did the staff there also hope to work in a “front-row sea-view office”?
But once he arrived and looked again at the blueprints and materials provided by his superiors before they came, Lelouch quickly recalled the reason:
The post and telegraph office in the town of Nieuwpoort was used to connect two sections of submarine telegraph cable. It was a relay station. And since the town’s local communications needs were very low, it had specifically been built by the sea to save costs.
Contrary to what many laymen of later generations imagined, laying submarine telegraph cables was in fact a very low-cost method of long-distance communication, even cheaper than land cables.
There was no need to dig trenches or erect lines, nor to requisition land. One only had to drop the cable to the seabed and have warships tow and lay it along the route. As early as 1866, mankind had completed the first transatlantic submarine cable.
Along the coasts of Belgium and the Netherlands, in 1908, Siemens had also assisted the telegraph companies of both countries in laying a submarine cable across the Britannia Channel.
That cable began at Wilhelmshaven in Germania, passed through The Hague in the Netherlands, Blankenberge and Nieuwpoort in Belgium, and finally crossed the channel westward.
That was why, when Lelouch and the others were transferred over this time to make emergency repairs to the cable, they had also brought along Siemens’s original construction drawings from back then.
……
“Sergeant Major Schweinsteiger, can it be repaired? Have you still not located the break?”
Inside the equipment room of the post and telegraph office, several technical NCOs had already been gathered around the equipment, tinkering for quite some time.
Lelouch was somewhat anxious and could not help urging Schweinsteiger, who had only just been revived at dinner.
The communications platoon’s previous platoon leader had been killed in action. Schweinsteiger was the deputy platoon leader and also its foremost technical backbone; he had properly studied electrical engineering at a technical school and had worked at Siemens before the war.
He had been unconscious all afternoon, and when he woke up, he learned that Lelouch had bypassed him and was acting as platoon leader. For a while, he found it rather hard to accept: just how many merits had this kid earned in a few short hours? Did he have someone backing him up above?
Still, he was very responsible when it came to work. Faced with the urging, he retorted irritably, just like any other technical expert would:
“Don’t rush me! The fault is much more complicated than we expected! The break doesn’t seem to be nearby, or even on the beach! Let me test it again!”
When it came to inspection and repair, Lelouch was not as professional as the other man, so he could only obediently shut his mouth and wait a while longer.
Several more minutes passed. After repeated checks, Schweinsteiger finally spread both hands and pointed at the reading on the Siemens MBR08 double-arm bridge instrument in front of him:
“This is trouble. I doubt we’ll be able to fix it tonight. According to the bridge instrument’s measurement results, the break is over three kilometers away!”
Lelouch did not immediately understand and asked reflexively, “What does that mean?”
Schweinsteiger snorted coldly and jerked his thumb toward the north. “It means the break isn’t on land. It extends at least two kilometers out to sea—how are we supposed to repair that? Swim out there underwater?
“We have to request an auxiliary engineering vessel. After locating the break, we’ll need to salvage both ends, reconnect them on the ship, and then lower them back to the seabed.”
Lelouch was startled as well. He had not expected that their initial estimate of the fault would actually be wrong.
To an ordinary person, in a small town at war, if a telegraph cable was severed, then most likely the land section had been blown apart by shelling—for instance, by that cruiser that had been harassing the German army from the sea all day. Its 150-millimeter shells, when they struck the beach, often blasted out craters several meters deep.
Who could have imagined that the section lying perfectly well on the seabed would be the one to break?
“Forget it. Since the undersea section is broken, there truly is no way we can repair it on our own. We’ll need the navy’s cooperation. Sigh, what rotten luck.”
Lelouch sighed and waved for everyone to stop work for the night. The technical NCOs then began putting away the bridge instrument and magnetic induction instrument.
Lelouch, meanwhile, took his trusted subordinate Klose and prepared to hurry back to regimental headquarters through the dark to report the situation.
However, he had only just stepped out of the post and telegraph office when a cold, damp sea wind blew down the street, making him shiver involuntarily.
A flash of inspiration suddenly sparked in Lelouch’s mind, as if he had caught hold of some faint clue. Many matters also abruptly became clear.
“Sir, what’s wrong?” Seeing him suddenly stop, Klose thought he was unwell.
“Nothing. I just suddenly thought of a possibility. Several things from before can all be connected now.”
Lelouch murmured in a low voice. As he spoke, his train of thought grew clearer and clearer.
“Klose, have you ever wondered why that Britannian light cruiser has been sitting out there on the sea all day?”
Klose said, “Wasn’t it rushed over temporarily to bombard the coast and provide fire support for the Franco-Belgian ground assault? Every time the enemy charged, the cruiser would fire a few salvos.”
Lelouch shook his head. “If it were shore bombardment, they wouldn’t choose an Arethusa-class. That kind of light cruiser has only two 150-millimeter guns, but it has six medium-caliber quick-firing secondary guns. In other words, it’s a ship specialized for hunting torpedo craft.
“If I were the Britannian naval minister and had to send a light cruiser to provide fire support, I would definitely choose a Weymouth-class or Chatham-class, both of which have all eight main guns at 150 millimeters.”
Klose felt his scalp itch as he listened, as if he were about to grow a brain. “Sir, I know your mind works well. Just give me the answer.”
Lelouch said, “I suspect that cruiser’s original purpose was simply to come and sabotage our cable! That’s why, when Schweinsteiger checked the break just now, he said it had snapped at least two kilometers offshore!
“It was that enemy ship that sailed above our cable, then accurately salvaged it from the seabed and cut it. They might even have taken away a large section to prevent us from repairing it!”
Once Lelouch said this, Klose immediately understood. He also remembered a case from the very beginning of the war, one that all communications troops were taught during training.
With sudden realization, he said, “Ah! I remember now! Isn’t this the same as that case on August 5, right at the start of the war? The Britannian dogs declared war on us on August 4, then sent out a cruiser the very next day and cut our transatlantic cable!
“But that’s not right! The reason they moved so quickly and so accurately that time was because that cable originally relayed through the Britannia Channel. They had obtained the construction drawings before the war and could precisely locate the route coordinates. But today’s cable doesn’t pass through Britannia. Only Siemens and the owners should have the drawings. Where did they get the coordinates?
“Did we leak them, or was there a spy? Mm, it must have been someone from the Belgian Telegraph Company who provided the drawings to their allies!”
Although Klose was not good at intelligence analysis, there were only three possible options in this matter: the two owners, Belgium and the Netherlands, and the contractor, Siemens. One of those three parties must have leaked the secret.
Klose directly ruled out the possibility of Siemens betraying the country, and naturally suspected the Belgians. This was also quite reasonable; they were already allied with Britannia.
But Lelouch did not see it that way.
He stood in the cold wind and thought carefully for a while, using the chill to help dissipate the heat from his supercomputer of a brain. Only after a long time did he say, “I don’t think so. The enemy should have only thought of sharing this information in haste, rather than having come prepared—
“The first piece of evidence is that after we occupied this post and telegraph office and searched the enemy’s office, we found the original duplicate set of drawings that Siemens had left on file for the owner, the Belgian Telegraph Company. When I looked through them just now, I confirmed that they still bore Siemens’s drawing review stamp.
“That means the Belgians fled in great haste when they lost this town. Captain Andri’s cavalry reconnaissance company arrived too quickly back then; the Belgians maintaining public order in town did not even know our army had arrived first.
“So, when the Britannians urgently sent a cruiser nearby to destroy the cable, it should have been remedial action after the fact, not a long-planned conspiracy beforehand. In other words, they heard the town had fallen and only then hastily organized the sabotage. That explains why, when Captain Andri first arrived, the telegraph cable had not yet been severed, and only broke at daybreak today.
“Siemens would not betray the country for no reason. The Belgians were caught off guard and lost the drawings—so in my view, the greatest suspicion should fall on the telegraph company of the neutral Netherlands.
“Don’t be fooled by the Netherlands’ current neutrality and nonparticipation in the war. Their domestic foreign trade interest groups and financial interest groups are all closer to Britannia. Those communications companies should also be more pro-Britannian than pro-us.
“It is very possible that there is a mole in the Netherlands National Telegraph Company. So after Nieuwpoort was seized by our army, they leaked the drawings to the Royal Navy at Britannia’s request!”
In truth, Lelouch could not completely rule out the possibility that the Belgians themselves had made an extra copy in advance and taken it out to leak. However, he was more inclined to use this as a chance to remind the higher-ups to pay attention to Dutch spies.
Because in his previous life, he had read histories of First World War espionage and knew that the Dutch telegraph companies had a great deal of cooperation with the Britannian military. Even if the Dutch were not necessarily the ones behind this incident, taking this opportunity to remind those above to be cautious would still be a guaranteed profit.
Perhaps something really would come of it, and after returning he might even be promoted again—Lelouch did not particularly care about promotion itself, but he cared very much about escaping the front line as soon as possible, away from the hail of bullets and shells.
Only by becoming a senior officer as quickly as possible and leaving front-line combat behind could he make himself safer and live better.
As for Klose, after listening to the platoon leader’s full analysis, his eyes had already widened as if he were staring at a ghost.
Was this still human? How exactly was that brain built?
Just from measuring a cable break, then analyzing and deducing the enemy cruiser’s pattern of action, he could mentally extrapolate so many things on his own? Was this for real?
“Then are you planning to report all of this to Colonel List? But even if we know these things, they won’t help us in the battle right in front of us, will they?”
Lelouch shook his head. “I’ll pick out what needs to be said for now and say that first. In any case, tonight we’ll have the colonel use wireless to request instructions. We mustn’t delay the proper business. As for those analyses I just made, perhaps they won’t be useful within the next day or two, but I believe they will come in handy sooner or later in this campaign—
“And what you need to do is keep your mouth absolutely shut. To tell you the truth, even I didn’t expect that I would be able to analyze so much, which is why I talked it through with you. If I’d known earlier, I would rather have kept it inside my own head and let my left and right brain war-game it against each other.”
Klose snapped to attention. “Don’t worry, sir! I am absolutely loyal to you! I won’t breathe a single word of this to anyone!”
Lelouch waved a hand. “Let’s go. Come back to regimental headquarters with me first.”
A few minutes later, Lelouch arrived at regimental headquarters, then gave a concise report on the inspection situation, selecting only the parts that could be said.
When Colonel List heard that the damage was so severe and that a naval vessel would have to be dispatched to assist with repairs, he did not make things difficult for the communications platoon.
He could only sigh, then immediately order the regimental radio operator to use the FU-08 wireless set to contact division headquarters and ask them to relay the other arrangements related to psychological warfare.
After giving his orders, the colonel kindly urged Lelouch to go rest at once. “You should go sleep first. There will still be many things tomorrow morning that require your attention. Hurry and recover your strength. I’ll arrange for others to handle the nighttime defensive battle.”
Lelouch was then assigned to rest in the cellar.
In truth, he was completely unable to sleep that night. At most, he could only doze with his eyes half-closed.
Especially in the latter half of the night, the sound of artillery fire coming and going through the town grew louder and louder, and the cries of charges and killing rose wave after wave.
There were French, Belgian, Britannian, and German voices alike. It was almost as if the ruins of the town were being swept clean all over again.