Chapter 311: Is This War?
"Colonel!" Adrian, the orderly, crouched beside Charles, anxiously watching the enemy's approach as he shouted, "You should retreat to the command shelter!"
With manpower stretched thin, Charles's guard company had already been deployed to the front lines, leaving only Adrian close enough to ensure his safety.
"No, Adrian," Charles replied firmly. "Give me a rifle."
Though the idea of retreating to the shelter was appealing, Charles resisted the urge. In a situation like this, with everything on the line, everyone had to contribute; this was no time to think of personal safety.
Adrian hesitated, wanting to dissuade him, but seeing the determination in Charles's eyes, he held back. He sprinted off and quickly returned with a Mauser rifle, one of the Ottoman Empire's standard firearms.
In that moment, Charles felt Adrian seemed to anticipate his every thought. Unlike the French Lebel rifle, Charles actually preferred the Mauser; it was more balanced, unlike the Lebel, which grew less stable with each shot—a nightmare for anyone hoping to shoot with precision.
Knowing that Charles had practiced with a rifle, Adrian refrained from saying much, only pointing out the rifle's unique bolt feature. "This is the bolt release," he said. "You'll need to pull it back each time before chambering a new round."
"Understood," Charles nodded, accepting the rifle. Adrian handed him a cartridge belt filled with Mauser rounds, and Charles clumsily strapped it around his waist, surprised by its weight.
At that moment, Tijani approached from the other end of the trench. He had just inspected several machine-gun positions and ordered a few men to reinforce the barbed wire barriers. Among their spoils of war, they had found plenty of wire, enough to last the 105th Regiment for days.
Seeing Charles with a rifle in hand, Tijani exclaimed in surprise, "Colonel—"
Charles raised the rifle, giving it a small shake. "It gives me a sense of security!"
That was, at least partially, true. The revolver was practically useless—it took six bullets to down an enemy, with one needed for a fatal headshot.
He thought to himself that he'd need to rethink the design of handguns. Before, he had felt no urgency, but now he realized everything in war could determine life or death.
"Very well," Tijani nodded, deciding not to argue. "Just be careful."
"Of course." Charles forced a smile. "Be careful" seemed almost ironic on the battlefield.
Ten minutes later, the enemy launched another assault.
This time, they had no artillery barrage, an unspoken admission that they were low on ammunition.
It was perhaps due to the 105th Regiment's road blockade. The Ottoman Empire was resource-poor, and their artillery had been sent to defend the Dardanelles. With the road cut off, their cannons were left on one side of the peninsula while the ammunition remained on the other.
Crouching low, the Ottoman soldiers advanced, holding their rifles close. Charles could see a dark, ominous mass creeping toward them.
Mimicking the others, Charles braced his rifle on the trench wall, his sights fixed on the advancing line of soldiers.
An unsettling realization crept over him. In his hands, he held the power to end another man's life with a mere pull of the trigger.
Then, he noticed something they carried. Squinting through the scope, he saw wooden planks, carried between pairs of soldiers. These were obviously meant to cross the barbed wire.
Oddly, this discovery calmed him. They still hadn't figured out that the real threat was the grenades—or if they had, they'd found no way around it.
As the enemy drew closer, Charles's hands began to sweat, even though the weather was cold and his breath came faster. The scene of him shooting the Ottoman soldier that morning flashed through his mind.
At the time, he had acted instinctively, driven only by survival, unaware of the lasting impact. But now, the details came back with vivid clarity, like scenes from a film.
He could see the enemy's hate-filled, grim expression, his body staggering with each bullet's impact, his eyes filled with agony and defiance. The image of the final bullet striking his forehead—bloody, motionless, frozen in time.
The urge to drop his rifle and run surged within Charles, to flee as far as possible and live out the rest of his life in peace, away from the horrors of war.
But he held his ground. Charles understood that this was a world war. From the moment he invented the tank, he had set himself on this extraordinary path of conflict.
Once again, at 300 meters, Tijani's voice rang out, "Open fire!"
It was as if a switch had been flipped. Bullets flew like popcorn, tearing through the advancing lines.
But to Charles, the noise and chaos faded. A strange calm descended over him, his mind focused solely on his rifle sights and the enemy in his scope.
Bang! A bullet shot out, and a target fell.
The first to fall was an Ottoman officer. He had taken care to blacken his red epaulets and even discarded his saber, but his boots betrayed his rank. Perhaps he had kept them to help him cross the muddy terrain—but in doing so, he had sealed his fate.
Bang! Another shot rang out.
This time, Charles aimed at a machine gunner, who, with several comrades, was carefully advancing with a Maxim gun. They planned to set it up around 300 meters from the French line to suppress the defenders.
Charles's bullet broke their momentum, sending the Maxim gun tumbling to the ground. The machine gunners scrambled to lift it, only to be mowed down by a flurry of bullets.
Bang! The next bullet hit a messenger, sprinting from the rear with orders.
The man was clearly a veteran, leaping from one shell crater to the next, darting into cover like a wary fox. But Charles anticipated his next move, aiming at the next crater the man would leap toward.
The bullet hit home just as the man took his leap, splattering a streak of blood as he fell into the pit.
Suddenly, a hail of bullets whizzed overhead, and Charles quickly ducked down, realizing his mistake. He had stayed in one spot too long, making himself an easy mark for enemy snipers.
Is this war? Charles wondered. It wasn't as daunting as he had expected.
When he pulled the trigger, he found there was no time or space for fear.
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