The machine gun squad leader asked in confusion, “What’s happened?”
The sergeant replied, “The artillery fire just now took out all our barbed wire in front of the position. It won’t be fixed until dawn. If the enemy decides to attack while the fog is thick, they could just go right over the obstacles.”
Andreas pondered, “Attack in this thick fog?”
“What? You think the fog sprites are going to kill the Ante people?” Just as Sergeant Kosolek finished speaking, they heard a distant cry of “Aku Tong” from within the fog, followed by a crackling sound.
Then someone shouted, “They’ve shot Hank!”
And then the explosiveness drowned out the curses.
Sergeant Kosolek opened fire, shouting as he did so, “The fog sprites won’t throw bombs! The Ante are coming!”
The design of this machine-gun position completely abandoned aiming; the gunner only had to fire in short bursts and randomly swing the handle.
Andreas lay next to the sergeant, holding the ammo belt.
An MG34 machine gun didn’t require a loader to fire, although this would slightly increase the chance of malfunction.
When the main gunner was killed, the loader had to start firing by himself.
Andreas’s heart beat so hard it seemed as if it would burst from his throat any moment; he was incredibly anxious, yet all he could do was hold the ammo belt steady.
He couldn’t see the enemy or even the faces of his comrades—there was just the fiery tongue of the machine gun constantly spitting flames.
Sergeant Kosolek yelled, “Change the ammo!”
Andreas’s body moved on its own, long-term training turned him into an automatic machine, working seamlessly with the main gunner, Kosolek, to quickly change the ammo.
The firing continued, and Andreas felt as if the entire world was engulfed by the fog, leaving only the small island of land under him.
Suddenly, a grenade was thrown into the room where the machine gun was stationed.
Andreas was stunned, staring blankly at the grenade, watching its fuse emit smoke.
Sergeant Kosolek pushed him aside, “Roll!”
Andreas’s body reacted, rolling away from the grenade.
Sergeant Kosolek followed.
The explosion was much quieter than Andreas expected, but the chunks of rock landing on him proved the grenade’s effectiveness.
Everything from the Ante, no matter what it was, was powerful.
Sergeant Kosolek immediately returned to the machine gun. As he grabbed the handle, an Ante soldier charged through the firing port, wielding a weapon with a barrel as thick as a hose.
Sergeant Kosolek fired. The Ante soldier was hit instantly, his chest torn apart.
But with eyes blazing with fury, staring at the machine gun, there was a moment Andreas thought he would keep fighting.
In the end, the Ante soldier didn’t continue the fight. He fell backward, using his huge body to block the opening from which the machine gun was firing.
Andreas intended to move forward and push him away, but Sergeant Kosolek shouted, “Retreat fast! If there’s one infantryman, there will be a second, and it also means our support troops are done for!”
The sergeant picked up a submachine gun, grabbed Andreas, and started running like a madman.
“The machine gun!” a rookie yelled.
“Forget the machine gun!”
The next moment another grenade was thrown through the gap next to the Ante soldier’s body and exploded instantly.
This time, the enemy had clearly pinched the grenade for a moment before throwing it, and it exploded as it came in.
Fog swallowed Andreas’s vision. Suddenly, he remembered that there weren’t just the two of them at this machine gun position when the enemy came.
“Where’s the platoon leader?” asked Andreas.
“How would I know!” The sergeant yelled back, “Can you walk on your own? If you can, don’t make me drag you, keep up!”
With that, the sergeant let go of Andreas’s arm, held his submachine gun with both hands, and opened fire into the fog.
The curses of Ante people came from the mist.
Sergeant Kosolek immediately rolled to the side, hiding behind a low wall to reload. Something hit where the sergeant had just stood, cracking loudly.
“No gunfire!” Andreas shouted.
“Shhh!” the sergeant said, pulling him to the ground. Bullets swept past immediately.
In a whisper barely audible, Kosolek said, “Haven’t you realized? The enemy fires at anything that makes sound. Their weapons don’t make noise or light when firing, so any gun sound is theirs.”
Andreas responded, “We should have picked up the enemy’s weapons just now.”
“You’d be dead if you did. Shut up and follow me. We’ll head towards the machine gun sounds; we might find the rest of our squad.”
The sergeant had long ago familiarized Andreas with the relocation routes and shown him all three alternative machine-gun positions. Even now, with the fog thick, the two of them could find their way.
Suddenly, there was a loud bang nearby, followed by the sound of something collapsing.
Andreas shrank his neck in fright.
Sergeant Kosolek said, “The enemy is using explosives to demolish the courtyard wall, so they can avoid our firepower blockade on the main road. Let’s move quickly, before they outflank the other machine-gun squads!”
After speaking, the sergeant took the lead into the mist, with Andreas hastily following. However, he tripped over something. As he turned back, he saw the platoon leader lying on the ground with his left shoulder smashed—not as if it had been shot, but more like it had been crushed to pieces by some blunt weapon.
All of a sudden, Andreas felt like he couldn’t breathe; he was gasping for air but felt as if he were drowning, his chest growing increasingly heavy.
He suddenly remembered the legend of the mist wraiths, creatures that would come with the fog and choke people by the neck—
Just at that moment, someone patted his shoulder.
Andreas screamed but was quickly muffled by a hand: “Do you have a death wish?”
It was a sergeant, who dragged him into a frantic run while silent bullets struck the wall behind Andreas.
After pulling Andreas back, the sergeant slapped him across the face and rebuked him with a voice full of anger: “Wake up, idiot! Fools who don’t think lose their lives!”
Andreas subconsciously responded: “That’s how my dad used to hit me.”
“To hell with that, keep up, I won’t come back for you again.”
The sergeant leaped like a cat, disappearing into the thick fog.
Stumbling after him, the stinging pain on his cheek sobered Andreas up considerably.
The two of them ran like mad, with the flash of the second machine gun team’s fire ahead.
Andreas felt that firelight was like the beacon seen by a ship trapped in fog.
The ship was heading towards the beacon when suddenly an explosion occurred beside them. The blast wave caught up with Andreas from behind, slamming him to the ground.
Andreas’s head was buzzing, but the sound of Ante speaking behind him snapped him back to reality.
He got up and continued his mad dash toward the “beacon.”
Driven by muscle memory, he rushed into the bunker, only to see the sergeant had beaten him there by a step.
He collapsed next to the sergeant, leaning against the wall, gasping for air.
The sergeant patted his shoulder: “Good, good, you didn’t let the little mist wraith catch you.”
“I saw the platoon leader.” Andreas said, “The platoon leader is dead, his shoulder smashed as if by a hammer, his collarbone shattered.”
Sergeant Kosolek: “Then he’s lucky, died instantly, not too painful.”
“Lucky?” Andreas said, “He’s dead!”
“Yes, lucky. The unfortunate ones have their spines broken, completely immobilized, just lying there, watching life slip away until someone discovers them after the battle is over.
“During that time, the sense of pain hasn’t faded, agony torments you, yet you can’t even twitch a facial muscle.”
Andreas closed his mouth.
At that moment, he heard the sound of the Ante language nearby.
The sergeant shouted: “Grenade!”
Before his words even finished, a grenade landed at their feet.
The sergeant grabbed the grenade, tossing it back out of the bunker, then said to Andreas: “This place isn’t safe anymore, the Ante People have flanked us! Move!”
He turned and yelled to the machine gun team: “Move! To the next position!”
The machine gun team immediately began to dismantle the machine gun from the tripod.
The sergeant hesitated for a moment, then pulled Andreas to start moving earlier, and the two charged into the fog.
“Damn it, what’s with this thick fog?” he cursed as he ran.
————
“Damn it, what’s with this thick fog?” Major General Vitte cursed.
Because of the fog, the Prussian Army was thrown into chaos by the surprise attack within it; the staff officers were frantic, shouting into the phone: “Hello! Louder!”
“Which area has been breached?”
“What the hell is a mist wraith? Shoot at it! The Imperial Academy of Sciences can have the body!”
Watching the busy staff officers, Major General Vitte suddenly said: “Just at this moment, my experienced chief of staff is not here, because he and my best staff officer were blown to the skies by friendly fire!”
Colonel Busse, also on the phone, twitched his cheek.
He stood up: “I’ll go find out what happened and stabilize the troops in the chaos.”
“That’s for the best.” Major General Vitte said.
The colonel saluted, turned to pick up his hat from the table, and left while putting it on.
At that moment, the acting chief of staff approached Major General Vitte: “I’ve compiled the current situation; the enemy took advantage of the fog to launch a surprise attack on us.”
“I know that! Just listen to the gunfire outside!” Major General Vitte scolded, “Tell me something useful!”
“The enemy is using subsonic weapons, making them very advantaged in the fog. Moreover, soldiers from Steiermark reported being attacked by mist wraiths. It seems to be a creature from their local folklore.”
Major General Vitte: “Then shoot it down and give the body to the Imperial Academy of Sciences. The Empire will reward the discoverer.”
The acting chief of staff continued: “Additionally, we’ve lost telephone contact with the outer defensive positions to the southeast and northeast of Yeisk. Presumably, those positions have been overrun.”
Major General Vitte paced back and forth in the room, then suddenly said: “Deploy the armored units from the city, they all have radios and armor for protection, they can keep their composure. Once outside the city, in the open plains, they can form a defensive formation. The armored grenadiers with complete units should follow the tanks out. Do not leave the half-track vehicles on the road out.”
Major General Vitte paused, then added: “I will go with the armored units; prepare the tank platoon assigned to division headquarter.”
The acting chief of staff: “Colonel Busse is still…”
Major General Vitte: “Let him gather the scattered troops; first get the units that are not yet in chaos out of this quagmire!”