After the sound of the Vickers machine gun’s sweeping fire died away, the first to react was Captain Hauser, who had led the charge from the front only to be pinned down so hard he could do nothing but lie flat on the ground.
He practically sprang up from the earth, drew the pistol at his waist, and roared at the soldiers behind him who had likewise been suppressed until they could not even lift their heads.
“Everyone up! The enemy machine gun’s gone silent! Charge with me!”
At his order, the officers of 1st Platoon and 2nd Platoon immediately blew their whistles again, and the soldiers lying on the ground scrambled to their feet one after another, gripping rifles with fixed bayonets as they gritted their teeth and rushed forward.
Ahead of them, the survivors of 1st Company and 2nd Company who had lived through the machine-gun fire hesitated at first when they saw the reserves launching another seemingly suicidal charge, then slowly raised their heads.
Once they confirmed that the deadly chatter of the machine gun truly had disappeared, a wild joy at having survived disaster and a long-suppressed fury swept through everyone in an instant.
“For the Empire! Charge!”
No one knew which highly enlightened officer was the first to howl those words, but immediately afterward, every soldier in 1st Company and 2nd Company who could still move crawled up from the ground. Together with the soldiers of 3rd Company who had already charged up beside them, they rushed madly toward the village.
Just a few minutes earlier, they had been harvested like wheat by that machine gun on this open ground, able only to watch helplessly as the comrades beside them were riddled into sieves. A mass of rage had long been smoldering in their chests.
Now, that rage had finally found an outlet.
Without the machine-gun position’s continuous suppression, and with the attack Morin had led from the left flank disrupting the enemy’s deployment and drawing away the attention of part of the Kingdom Army soldiers,
the rifle fire from the positions at the edge of the village was utterly unable to stop the gray tide formed by hundreds of Saxon soldiers.
After suffering such a bitter loss once, all the officers and noncommissioned officers of 1st Battalion, Captain Hauser included, had learned their lesson.
As they ran, they roared for the soldiers to spread out and not bunch together again.
The loose skirmish line formed once more. The soldiers no longer sought neat formation; instead, they used the rifles and bayonets in their hands to reap the enemy’s lives at the fastest speed possible.
……
After noticing that the large number of friendly troops on the frontal battlefield had resumed their attack, Morin refocused on the farmhouse before him.
Although the friendly forces would most likely be able to charge up, the battle would not necessarily end just like that. There were probably still remnants of the enemy in the village that needed to be cleared out.
With that thought, he patted a signalman beside him, then pointed in the direction of the river channel and ordered,
“Return along the river channel the way we came. Notify Sergeant Klaus and the other squads. Have them advance by alternating cover and come here to link up with the main force.”
The signalman immediately accepted the order and left.
“Keep your body down and your head low. Bullets don’t have eyes!”
“Yes, sir!”
Watching the signalman jump down into the river channel and hurry away with his back bent, Morin turned to look at the squad beside him.
After the sound of the machine gun had vanished, these soldiers had already become somewhat unable to restrain themselves, eager to try their hand. Morin raised his hand and stopped them from charging straight into the farmhouse.
“Don’t be in such a hurry to throw your lives away.”
His voice was not loud, but it instantly cooled the heads of those few hot-blooded soldiers.
“Grenadiers, over here!”
The two soldiers who had just silenced the machine gun with grenades immediately stepped forward.
“Listen carefully. Once I pull the door open a little, throw your grenades in through the gap.”
This was an order they had never heard before, and the two grenadiers found it somewhat strange.
But because of the trust that had just been established, the soldiers did not hesitate in the slightest. They took spherical grenades from the portable clips at their waists and held them in their hands, ready to throw at any moment.
Morin took a deep breath. After confirming that everyone else was prepared, he hunched his neck and carefully pulled the wooden door of the farmhouse open by a crack.
Almost at the same time, the two grenadiers pulled the fuses and rolled their grenades through the gap in the door, one after the other.
Morin immediately shut the door, then swiftly retreated.
“Boom! Boom!”
Muffled explosions came from inside the farmhouse, accompanied by the sound of wooden planks splintering and something collapsing to the floor.
“Big guy, kick the door!”
A tall, burly soldier standing opposite Morin received his signal and, without the slightest hesitation, sent a flying kick into the already tottering wooden door, smashing it completely open.
“Fire!”
At Morin’s command, the soldiers behind him immediately fired a volley into the pitch-black doorway.
Crisp gunshots echoed in front of the farmhouse. Bullets struck the walls and the wooden farm tools around them, sending up clouds of dust and smoke.
Everyone quickly shrank back behind the wall, worked their bolts, and scorching cartridge cases leapt out, clinking and clattering as they fell to the ground.
When they poked their heads out again and prepared to fire, they discovered that there was already no movement on the first floor of the farmhouse.
On the ground and at the foot of the stairs leading to the second floor lay three soldiers in the black uniforms of the Kingdom Army.
Morin carried his rifle and led the others slowly inside. Then he leaned closer to look at the three Kingdom Army soldiers. Their bodies were covered in bullet holes and fragmentation wounds; it was obvious they would not survive.
“Give them a quick end.”
Morin let out an almost imperceptible sigh and gave the order. Three soldiers stepped forward and ended their suffering with bullets.
“Careful. Up to the second floor!”
Hearing the new order, the soldiers following beside Morin also aimed their muzzles toward the second floor, then stepped onto the creaking staircase and cautiously felt their way upward.
Only after the point man stuck his head out from the stairwell and took a look did they discover that the scene on the second floor was even more miserable.
In that narrow space, the power of the grenadiers’ grenades had been brought to the fullest.
Especially the one thrown in through the machine-gun firing window—judging from the blast mark on the floor, it had landed right beside the gunner’s feet.
So the machine gunner, the assistant gunner, and the two riflemen responsible for security had all collapsed in pools of blood, long since without breath.
By contrast, the Vickers machine gun seemed not to have been affected much, perhaps because the two gunners had absorbed most of the grenade’s damage.
Morin lowered his head and came to the side of the window, giving the Vickers a simple inspection.
The gun body was covered in dust and wood chips, but the water-cooling assembly and receiver did not appear to have suffered fatal damage.
This made him let out a breath of relief. If there were no other problems, then this Vickers machine gun could be counted as 3rd Platoon’s first trophy of war.
Although compatible ammunition might not necessarily be sufficient, in this era, one could never have too many killing machines like the Vickers, known as the “finest derivative of the Maxim.”
“Get this machine gun and the ammunition boxes down to the first floor. Keep your heads low and move past the side of the window. Don’t let the friendly troops outside mistake us for enemies and shoot us.”
Morin left three soldiers behind with that instruction, then led the others downstairs.
Outside the farmhouse’s main door, the three squads deployed in a scattered formation along the river channel had already been called back by the signalman and had joined up with the soldiers left behind to hold the position.
A good few dozen men were crowded around the farmhouse, each of them plainly beaming with joy. The soldiers from the squad led by Sergeant Klaus were even boasting to their other comrades about their battle results just now.
Morin looked at this chaotic scene, his temples throbbing.
If the enemy suddenly came back at them, or if an artillery shell fell here, the other side’s kill count would probably shoot straight into the sky.