“The first day after transmigrating was finally over.”
When the rumbling artillery outside the dugout had completely awakened Lelouch, leaving him unable to fall back asleep, he reached into the breast pocket of his military uniform, pulled out the pocket watch tucked there, and checked the time by the dim afterglow of the small lamp on the telegraph table.
It was only half-past four in the morning.
Today was already October 26th.
The pocket watch had been found yesterday by Lieutenant Balak while leading his cavalry squad in mopping up the battlefield; he had taken it from an enemy corpse and given it to Lelouch. Its previous owner was allegedly Colonel Dejoka, commander of the 3rd Regiment, 4th Belijin Division, killed yesterday evening by a direct hit from a 77mm field gun.
From the intermittent artillery that had lasted the entire night, Lelouch could tell that the Franco-Belijin offensive was coming in unrelenting waves.
Especially in the latter half of the night, the artillery from the Belijin positions to the east had intensified again. If Colonel Liszt's deductions from last night were correct, that meant Major General Victor's Belijin 6th Division had arrived on the battlefield by then.
The pitfalls and losses that Dejizel's Belijin 4th Division had just suffered were certainly not about to be immediately repeated by Victor. Hoping that Colonel Liszt could lure Victor's artillery into the same trap and destroy it was virtually impossible. Therefore, the fighting in the latter half of the night was destined to be a hard, slogging battle without any fancy maneuvering—a pure contest of strength between both sides.
Lelouch tidied himself up briefly. Waiting for a lull in the bombardment and the end of the enemy's latest wave, he finally opened the dugout door and went up to the surface to see if there was anything he could help with, and to get some fresh air.
He had not walked more than a few dozen steps from the dugout when he saw a row of makeshift shelters, all cobbled together from planks salvaged from the ruins and leaned at an angle against a shattered wall to create stable, triangular spaces. Beneath them lay two full rows of wounded soldiers, stretching raggedly all the way to the street corner.
In the distance, several large bonfires were burning, conspicuous against the pre-dawn darkness and visible from several streets away.
Lelouch couldn't help stopping a medic hurrying past with a medical kit on his back and asked, “Won't those bonfires draw artillery fire?”
“That’s a cremation. The corpse details light the fires and run far away.” The medic didn't recognize him; he tossed off the remark and hurried away.
Lelouch stared at the pyres, which resembled ancient corpse mounds, and stood motionless for a good ten seconds, profoundly shaken. He estimated that each fire was cremating at least nearly a hundred corpses together.
Looking toward the wounded on the other side, he saw hundreds more at a glance.
In a single night, the 16th Infantry Regiment, 12th Division, had lost nearly twenty percent of its strength!
A regiment with a full complement of nearly four thousand men had probably suffered cumulative casualties exceeding one thousand.
Only strict military discipline, tenacious fighting spirit, and the fact that this was a life-or-death blocking action with no line of retreat had allowed them to fight on with such stubborn resilience. Had the setting been any different, or had it been an army with weaker morale, such casualties would have caused a collapse long ago.
Yesterday, Lelouch had only been thinking of survival. His active strategizing had been aimed at turning the tide of battle while also making himself appear more valuable, so that his superiors would make use of him and avoid sending him to the frontlines as cannon fodder infantry.
He had indeed achieved that. The colonel treated him quite favorably; even in these conditions, he had allowed Lelouch to sleep in the dugout for a full six hours.
But the bloody scenes he now witnessed—the sour stench of festering wounds and the rotting odor of corpses—assaulted his senses violently.
In anguish, he twisted off his cap and clutched it in his palm, unconsciously crushing it into a ball. He bent over, bracing his hands on his knees, wanting to take a deep breath yet unable to endure the smell around him.
It took him a long while to recover. It was only when Klose came and patted his back to help him breathe that Lelouch finally straightened up, leaning on Klose, and sighed with self-mockery:
“I don't think I'll be able to sleep again until the moment we break through.”
Klose: “Why?”
Lelouch: “Because when I close my eyes again, I won't be able to stop thinking that more comrades will die while I sleep. All because we didn't end this as quickly as possible.”
After speaking, Lelouch seemed to want to make himself feel better. He hurried over to the row of shelters, first scrubbing his hands vigorously with boiled water, then helping the medics wrap bandages.
In his previous life, as a military enthusiast, he had learned some basic first aid. The severely wounded men he bandaged mostly lay with empty, lifeless eyes, showing little reaction.
“Sir, this isn't your fault. You've already helped the colonel come up with so many ideas—and if you hadn't warned us, yesterday's flood could have caused massive casualties to our army.” Klose, unable to bear watching him blame himself, encouraged him loudly from the side.
Many of the wounded overheard Klose's words. The way they looked at Lelouch now became grateful and awestruck.
“Are you the officer who warned about the flood yesterday? Thank you so much.”
“You must be exhausted. Please take care of yourself. If only we had a few more wise tacticians like you, we'd definitely hold out until victory!”
“Sir, we can hold out until the Belijin collapse first, can't we? If we fight another whole day like this, the whole regiment will be wiped out.”
A group of wounded soldiers surrounded him, asking all manner of questions—some grateful, some agitated, some terrified.
Several critically wounded men who had previously been completely listless now sat bolt upright from their deathbeds, insisting on asking a thing or two.
Unable to bear letting them worry further, Lelouch quickly made a solemn promise: “Rest assured, everyone! We will definitely outlast the Belijin! The present situation is like a ko fight in the ancient Eastern game of ‘Go.’ Both we and the Belijin army are caught in each other's ko. What determines the victor is which side has longer ‘breath’ in other areas!
No matter how many enemies there are, as long as they run out of breath first, we can link up with our allies at Blankenberge! And I promise you, the regimental commander has already thought of ways to break the enemy, but these strategies can only be put to use after dawn. Everyone must hold on! I guarantee that today, the colonel will make the enemy's morale collapse completely!”
Lelouch delivered this impromptu rallying speech with great passion. He didn't expect anything else; he only hoped to sustain the will to live in those severely wounded men.
During this rally, his own mentality was quietly changing as well.
The faster today's battle could force the enemy to surrender, the fewer people would die on both sides.
The war had only been going on for three months. The hatred between both sides wasn't that deep yet. As long as the other side changed its diplomatic attitude and stopped aligning with Britannia, and reformed a cabinet friendly to our side, things could still be settled.
These third-party small nations had been drawn into this to begin with; there was no need to fight to the death.
Those wounded soldiers knew nothing of the high command's plans. They had assumed they could only rely on force to deal with an enemy ten times their number, and after fighting through the entire night, they had grown somewhat despairing.
Lelouch's words inspired their will to survive, giving them greater motivation to hold on and live.
“It's rather shameful. My first-aid skills can only save a handful of people at most.” On the way from the wounded camp to regimental headquarters, Lelouch couldn't help sighing.
But Klose firmly refuted him: “No! Sir, the comfort you gave everyone is something the medics couldn't provide. I saw it with my own eyes—many severely wounded men's eyes lit up after hearing your words!”
Lelouch nodded thoughtfully. Propaganda work among one's own troops was also very important. Demarnia had performed far too poorly in this regard before, relying only on crude orders to force people to act without ever explaining why.
…
With a heart set on ending the battle as soon as possible, Lelouch hurried to regimental headquarters.
Colonel Liszt appeared to have spent the night dozing in a chair at headquarters. When he saw Lelouch, his face was etched with exhaustion and stress, but his voice carried excitement as he shared the good news:
“I've coordinated with Army Group Command. The photographs and mimeographed leaflets are all ready. More than a dozen reconnaissance planes have also been diverted to Ghent airfield—only seventy kilometers from here, they can arrive in half an hour.”
The colonel glanced at his watch as he spoke.
“That’s wonderful. I truly believe the Belijin offensive will soon weaken,” Lelouch said sincerely.
Colonel: “In a moment, I'll have Balak handle the transfer of the refugees. Your side will be responsible for continuously sending broadcast telegrams to persuade the enemy's senior officers to surrender. Don't drop the ball on this—cooperate as closely as possible with the reconnaissance planes dropping leaflets.”
Lelouch: “Yes, sir!”
All parties quickly made their final preparations.
A few minutes later, temporary truce flags were first raised atop several ruins on the eastern edge of Nieuwpoort. Then the Demarnian reconnaissance company deployed every loudspeaker they could find, taking advantage of a lull in the enemy attack to shout toward the opposite lines with all their might.
All of this was quickly spotted by the opposing Belijin 6th Division and reported to its division commander, Major General Victor.
Major General Victor had only arrived on the battlefield after midnight last night. By now, he had been leading his troops in an offensive for over four hours, all of it held back by Liszt.
Upon hearing his subordinate's report, he hurriedly raised his binoculars to observe the west carefully.
“Are the Demarnians surrendering? No! That's not a white flag, it's a truce flag! On what basis do they demand a temporary ceasefire from us? They must be at their last gasp and trying to buy time!
How can we let them get away with that! Quickly organize the next wave of attack! The more the enemy wants something, the more we must do the exact opposite!”
Though Major General Victor was no master of strategy, he knew one simple truth by heart: never let the enemy have their way. Therefore, his instinct was to do the exact opposite, just to spite them.
His subordinates dared not question the order and immediately went to prepare the new attack.
But soon, the enemy's loudspeaker calls drifted over, followed by the appearance on the front line of a group of ragged Belijin civilians.
“Do not open fire! These are all Belijin civilians whose homes were flooded yesterday!”
“Our army sheltered them in cellars overnight and is now handing them over to your forces to avoid accidental harm during combat!”
“Please do not slaughter your own compatriots!”
Moreover, it wasn't only the Demarnian officers shouting; the several hundred civilians were equally terrified of being hit by mistake, wailing and crying out toward the Belijin lines to the east not to shoot.
Judging by their numbers, there were at least three to four hundred people—already more than half of the total civilians Colonel Liszt had rescued the day before while attending to other matters.
When the officers and men of the Belijin 6th Division preparing to attack saw women and children among the crowd, there was an immediate outcry.
“Are they really our civilians?”
“How could Demarnian beasts rescue our civilians?”
“Who blew up the dam in the first place? Why didn't the Demarnians receive advance warning? And why weren't our civilians ordered to evacuate ahead of time?”
Countless doubts surged through the minds of the Belijin 6th Division soldiers. Most of them had not participated in the specific act of blowing the dam and flooding the area either; they had been kept in the dark by the high command just the same.
By the time Major General Victor realized what was happening and tried to stop the rumors from spreading, it was already too late.
Last night, the Demarnians had indeed sent several telegrams to higher command requesting instructions, but all of them concerned dispatching planes to drop leaflets. As for the two tactics of returning civilians and wireless surrender appeals, Liszt could execute those on his own without needing coordination from above, so he naturally hadn't bothered to request permission for them.
Therefore, even if the Britannians had intercepted Demarnian military telegrams and, after decrypting them, urgently passed them to the Belijin army and into Major General Victor's hands, he could only think to guard against the leaflets. He was completely unprepared for the other two tactics.
Today, he had deployed nearly all the division's military police and discipline personnel to “prevent soldiers from picking up leaflets later—anyone who picks up paper from the ground will be considered in violation of military discipline.” The forces guarding against other contingencies had naturally been reduced to the bare minimum.
And as a result, the enemy had simply attacked from another angle!
More than three hundred Belijin civilians—young and old—walked along the coastal highway toward the Belijin positions.
First Lieutenant Balak, deputy commander of the cavalry company attached to the 12th Division, 6th Army Group, personally rode at the head of a small squad of soldiers, escorting these Belijin people through the no-man's-land between the two armies.
At the town entrance to the rear, the reconnaissance company's military cameras were filming everything in real time from multiple positions and angles.
If the Belijin army truly dared to suddenly go back on their word after receiving the refugees and open fire on Lieutenant Balak and the other escorts, this nation's international reputation would be completely ruined and stink to high heaven.
Even if the Belijin didn't open fire, these photographs would in the future serve as important corroborating evidence of how this battle unfolded.
The Belijin indeed dared not act rashly. They silently received the more than three hundred of their own civilians.
As the civilians entered the lines, more unrest began to spread within the Belijin army.
Some soldiers happened to have relatives stranded in the flooded zone. They immediately disregarded military discipline to come look for them, and a few actually found their own kin among the crowd. For a time, the scene was extremely chaotic.
The returned civilians had received no professional training in what they could and could not say, so they all spoke the truth, further stoking panic within the Belijin ranks.
After delivering the people, Lieutenant Balak immediately galloped back to the town.
The half-hour temporary ceasefire for the handover also soon ended. In theory, both sides could resume firing and fighting.
But the chaos on the Belijin side had not yet subsided. Victor was unable to reorganize his attack for the longest time and could only slowly try to bring his men under control.
Misfortunes never come singly. Right at that moment, the Demarnian wireless stations began broadcasting at full power, sending uncoded surrender appeals in French toward the Belijin lines.
Every regiment's headquarters radio in the Belijin army could receive these transmissions; whether to listen or not was their own business. Several regiments wanted to quickly shut off their radios to refuse reception, but their eyes had already been “polluted” by those brief, forceful plaintext messages.
Once an idea worms its way into a person's mind, it is too difficult to deliberately forget it.
Soon, a buzzing sound also came from the sky as more than a dozen reconnaissance planes arrived over Nieuwpoort.
They had flown along the coastal highway from Ostend to Nieuwpoort. Taking advantage of the first rays of dawn, dozens of crates of leaflets and photographs were scattered from low altitude, drifting everywhere.
Although military police tried to maintain control, it was inevitable that some would slip through the cracks. Some soldiers secretly picked up the photographs, and the moment they looked at them, they couldn't look away.
Some of these photos even contained clear aerial shots of soldiers in Belijin uniforms fiddling with something at what appeared to be a sea dike or canal embankment. Another photograph showed that same location blown open, with torrents of floodwaters surging through.
Although the photos were all black and white, the vast majority of soldiers were shaken.
Many had a very simple thought: if the photos didn't prove anything, why would the enemy bother dropping them?