Although the soldiers of this platoon under him had been with him for less than forty-eight hours, when Morin heard the casualty report, his heart still bled.
But he knew this was no time for grief. After ordering each squad to treat the wounded, he rushed to the edge of the high ground and raised his binoculars again.
In the slightly blurred field of view, at least a battalion of Kingdom troops was advancing toward the heights in dense formation.
He glanced back at their own position. The 1st and 2nd Companies had already suffered heavy losses the day before, and after the bombardment just now, their situation had only worsened.
Countless men had been killed on the spot by the airburst fragments from the mana-crystal cannons, and most of the soldiers who survived were wounded as well.
The stretcher teams organized by the battalion medical NCO were nowhere near enough, and the morale of the entire battalion had sunk to rock bottom.
Major Thomas and the three company commanders were shouting at the top of their lungs to rally the men. Under the officers’ urging, the soldiers climbed one after another to the edge of the high ground and raised their rifles.
But Morin knew very well that, given the current state of the 1st Battalion, trying to stop a battalion-sized enemy charge head-on was almost an impossible task.
Their only hope was to inflict sufficiently heavy casualties on the enemy and drive back their attack in the first wave. Otherwise, there was no way this high ground would hold today.
His gaze swept back and forth along the enemy’s route of advance, and a bold, mad idea rapidly took shape in his mind.
“Klaus! Corporal Jonah!” Morin roared.
“Here!”
“You two, and the heavy machine-gun team—take everyone left from 1st Squad and 4th Squad and come with me!”
He pointed toward the relatively broken slope on the left side of the high ground.
“We’ll go around from the flank and hit them hard!”
Platoon Sergeant Klaus and Corporal Jonah did not hesitate in the slightest, immediately calling the assigned soldiers to follow.
The Vickers machine-gun team currently had five soldiers assigned to it. Three of them lifted the already assembled gun together and followed.
Another carried two ammunition boxes, one in each hand, while the last picked up the heavy cooling-water tank.
When they had captured this machine gun, Morin’s soldiers had also searched the second floor of that farmhouse and found fewer than five hundred rounds of ammunition.
That amount of ammunition was not much for a heavy machine gun meant to provide sustained suppressive fire. Morin had originally wanted to use it sparingly; after all, ammunition for the Vickers was not easy to find.
Although it used the same cartridge as the rifles equipped by the Kingdom Army—.303, commonly known as the “British .77” caliber—
Morin and the others had not managed to collect much of it in such a short time. But right now, Morin could no longer worry about that.
“Bowman, Fischer, Miller! Take the rest and stay here! Assist Captain Hauser and the others in holding the front! Before we open fire, do your best to hold the enemy back!”
“Understood, platoon leader!”
After issuing orders to the other three corporals, Morin wasted no more time. Taking the two squads and the heavy machine-gun team with him, he quickly slipped down the left-side slope of the high ground.
Their movement had to be fast, and concealed enough.
Fortunately, the gently rolling slope and the crater-riddled terrain provided them with natural cover.
Their field-gray uniforms also offered passable concealment on this autumn battlefield filled with gunsmoke—at least better than those Gauls in red trousers.
Morin ran at the very front. His mind was turning at high speed, the system map in his field of vision constantly adjusting, plotting out the safest and quickest route for him.
This action was filled with danger. Once discovered by the enemy, their small detachment would be spotted and surrounded, and the outcome was easy to imagine.
Fortunately, the Kingdom Army’s full attention had been drawn to the defenses at the front of the high ground. No one noticed this small force quietly circling around to their flank.
After roughly a minute, Morin led the others to the predetermined position.
It was a huge depression blasted out by artillery shells, forming a perfect natural machine-gun emplacement.
From here, they could clearly see the long, unguarded flank of the Kingdom Army’s attacking force, struggling upward along the gentle slope.
As the saying went, “when the high shoots at the low, it’s shooting **,” not to mention sending infantry to attack uphill on foot as a feint.
Under normal circumstances, any commander considering such an attack order would think it over again and again.
But right now, the Kingdom Army was anxious to seize back these heights, so their commander had not thought that much about it at all. He had simply ordered the Kingdom Army’s “black beasts of burden” to charge up first and worry about the rest later.
“Quick! Set up the machine gun!” Morin lowered his voice and ordered the machine-gun team.
The soldiers deftly set up the heavy Vickers machine gun, while the loader, somewhat clumsily, fed in the canvas ammunition belt.
“Everyone else! Establish all-round defense around the machine gun! Prepare for combat!”
The soldiers quickly spread out and lay prone, working their bolts. Dark muzzles pointed toward the advancing Kingdom troops, on guard against any possible threat.
Morin lay beside the machine gun and raised his binoculars.
The Kingdom Army’s first wave of attack had already begun.
Just like the Saxon soldiers Morin had seen attacking before, the Kingdom soldiers were arranged in three relatively dense ranks, shouting as they charged toward the top of the high ground.
Behind those three lines of soldiers was another company in close column.
At this moment, the frontmost Kingdom soldiers were less than two hundred meters from the forward position defended by the 1st Battalion.
Sporadic gunfire rang out from the high ground. It was the soldiers of the 1st Battalion using their rifles for precision fire, trying to slow the enemy’s advance.
“Platoon leader, can we open fire?”
The machine gunner licked his cracked lips, a trace of excitement in his voice.
Although it was his first time firing, he seemed already able to imagine how much damage an attack from this direction would inflict on the enemy.
“Wait a little longer.”
Morin’s voice remained steady, and he placed a hand on the machine gunner’s shoulder.
“Let them charge up a bit more. Hit them when they can’t easily retreat!”
Time seemed to become incomparably long in that moment.
Every second felt like a century.
Morin could hear his own heavy breathing, and that of the soldiers beside him.
One hundred fifty meters.
One hundred twenty meters.
One hundred meters!
Now!
“Fire!”
Morin slapped the gunner hard on the shoulder.
“Da-da-da-da-da—!”
The Vickers heavy machine gun let out a roar, spitting out a long tongue of flame.
Scorching bullets swept viciously into the unguarded flank of the Kingdom Army like the scythe of the Grim Reaper.
The Kingdom soldiers charging upward with all their strength could never have dreamed that such a deadly firing point would suddenly appear on their flank.
And now, they happened to be stuck in an awkward position, neither up nor down. Immediately afterward, the .303 bullets tore through their dense ranks with ease.
Many soldiers had no time to react before they were struck by bullets and fell to the ground.
Because the attack came from the flank, in the machine gunner’s eyes, the enemy’s attacking line had instead become a column.
He did not need to adjust his angle much to bring an entire file of enemies into his field of fire.
The roar of the machine gun and the screams of the Kingdom soldiers instantly resounded across the battlefield.
“Fire, fire! Prioritize their officers!”
After the machine gun opened fire, Morin also shouted attack orders to the riflemen around him.
More than twenty rifles fired at the same time. The precise bullets fired by the Gew.98s continuously picked off Kingdom Army officers who were trying to find cover or organize a counterattack.
In order to make officers stand out and allow soldiers to locate them easily during battle, the Kingdom Army’s officer uniforms were clearly different from those of ordinary soldiers.
They even added silver-thread decorations to their black uniforms to display their status—and this made them the best targets for Morin and the other soldiers.
At that moment, the Kingdom Army’s entire attacking formation collapsed completely.