My breath caught in my throat as my vision darkened.
At the same time, I felt as if my whole body was being crushed under a huge rock.
I tried moving my hands and feet, but they didn't move.
When I opened my mouth, dirt seeped into it. The dirt covered my entire body, making it impossible to even open my eyes.
I thought I was going to die so I struggled, but the more I struggled, the more pressure was put on my body.
In less than a minute, I felt a burning pain in my lungs.
ah,
This is wrong.
As I instinctively sensed death, all the strength left my body and I lost all thought.
It's the end.
The moment I was about to give up and close my eyes, someone's rough hand reached through the dirt, grabbed the back of my neck, and pulled me backwards.
"Phhaak!!!"
When I opened my eyes, a giant man with a fierce appearance, like something out of a historical drama, was looking down at me.
It's not like he's a bandit... but it doesn't seem like he's a grim reaper either...
But you're wearing a military uniform?
"Hey, bro. Are you awake? I almost died."
He was neither a bandit leader nor a grim reaper.
It was an ally.
Behind the giant, friendly soldiers were pulling out buried soldiers from what had been a shelter.
"Oh, thank you······."
I almost died.
I don't know if it's just luck or if it's not my time to die, but I survived. For now.
But it was too early to be at ease.
"Emergency! Emergency!"
"The Tommys are coming!"
As soon as the bombardment ended, the British attack began.
***
"Everyone, prepare for battle!"
As soon as the bombardment ended, the British troops launched an attack across no-man's-land.
As the enemy traversed the no-man's-land filled with shell craters, rotting corpses, rats, filthy water, barbed wire, and stakes, our troops hurriedly prepared for battle.
"Aren't you running fast, you little shits!"
"Do you want to die?!"
Before the soldiers could even recover from the aftereffects of the shelling, they were forced to run around while being shouted at and sworn at by officers and non-commissioned officers.
Of course me too.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"
It was so frustrating to suddenly become possessed by Hitler, and now I have to fight.
Not just a simple fistfight, but a fight where bullets fly and death can occur.
If only I hadn't been so greedy about chicken, this wouldn't have happened.
Damn it. I regret it so much.
The actual battlefield was filled with a sense of tension that was incomparable to the mock battles we often experienced in the military.
"Machine guns ready!"
"Don't shoot until I give you the order!"
The British troops had already passed more than halfway through the no-man's-land, leaving about 600 meters to the friendly trenches.
My heart was pounding like crazy and I was sweating profusely as I watched the enemies swarming in like a dense swarm of ants.
I've seen a lot of movies about trench warfare in World War I: All Quiet on the Western Front, Passchendaele, Paths of Glory, The Engagement, War Horse, 1917, and so on.
But the difference between seeing it on screen and seeing it with my own eyes on the actual battlefield was indescribable.
At least on screen, you don't have to die, but here you have to risk your life.
"Commence firing!"
"Shoot!"
When the order to fire was given, everyone reflexively pulled the trigger.
As gunshots rang out in succession, the sight of the enemy's vanguard collapsing came into view.
As the MG08 heavy machine gun, which I'd only seen in pictures online, unleashed a torrent of fire, the British troops fell like dominoes. The enemy barely screamed.
Maybe it would be more accurate to say that I couldn't scream.
I, too, pulled the trigger of my rifle as hard as everyone else.
However, the Gewehr 1898 rifle I was using now was quite cumbersome because I had to move the bolt one by one to eject the cartridge case.
Actually, all rifles of this period were like that.
"I'm dying, really."
I was shooting without thinking and before I knew it, I had used up all the bullets I had loaded.
As I pulled a new clip out of my pocket, a bullet whizzed past my ear.
"Huh!"
I was so surprised that my legs gave out.
It sent shivers down my spine to think that I was between life and death by just a few centimeters.
"Hey, you! Have you been shot?"
A sergeant shouted at me as I slumped to the floor. I barely shook my head.
"Oh, no!"
"Then get up and fight! The enemies are here now—"
As a blinding bullet flew and pierced his temple, the sergeant fell backwards like a machine at the end of its life.
Blood had already pooled on the curved floor, forming a small puddle.
Damn it. I barely survived, and now I'm about to die again in just a few minutes.
"Ahhh! Aaaah!"
"medic!"
"Oh, Franz!"
"Help me!"
The screams of wounded soldiers, shot and wounded, and the desperate cries of those desperately seeking medics rang in my ears, leaving me completely out of my mind.
But there was an even more terrifying sound.
"What is that?"
"no way?"
"Fuck! It's a tank!"
"The tank has appeared!"
The strange engine noise and the sound of rolling iron wheels were heard, and then the shrill screams of soldiers announcing the appearance of tanks erupted from all over the trenches.
As I mustered all my strength to raise my body, I saw a giant monster crossing the no-man's-land.
tank.
The flower of ground warfare and the grim reaper of infantry.
A tank of the same type as the Mk IV I remember was rolling towards us, carrying a bunch of infantry.
I heard that when tanks first appeared on the battlefield, the German army was very nervous because they didn't know how to destroy them.
However, in 1918, two years after the introduction of the tank, the story was different.
The German army, initially bewildered by the tank, realized that the tank had surprisingly weak defenses and quickly developed weapons to deal with it.
"Here we go, take aim!"
As the tanks appeared, the allies drew out their secret weapons.
It was the Tankgewehr, which at first glance looked like a scaled-up version of a regular rifle, almost too large to be considered outrageous.
As the name suggests, it was made solely to deal with tanks, so it's incredibly large.
It was a heavy machine with a relatively large size, but its performance was certain.
"firing!"
The Tankgewehr fired with a roar that was incomparable to that of a regular rifle, hitting the front of the Mk IV.
"Hit!"
"That's right!"
The tank, hit repeatedly by the large 13.2mm bullets of the Tank Gewehr, soon stopped.
Either the pilot was injured or the engine malfunctioned and the plane would no longer roll.
But the British army didn't have just one tank.
As soon as we destroyed the first tank, two more tanks appeared from behind.
To make matters worse,
"Hey, what are you doing!"
When the tank gunner did not fire until the second tank had overtaken the previously destroyed tank, the panicked officer shouted,
"The tank is coming! Why aren't you shooting?"
"The gun is broken! The cartridge case is stuck and won't come out!"
I'm going crazy, really.
With the secret weapon I trusted so absurdly retired, I was left with only one means left.
"Okay, everyone, take one."
"Oh, me too······?"
"Yes. This is the only way to catch that monster."
As the tanks approached, cluster grenades were distributed.
I was suddenly given the crucial task of dealing with tanks after being assigned one of the cluster grenades.
Fuck.
"Everyone stand by! Here we go!"
"Remember, you must catch it at once."
Okay, I understand, so stop talking. My heart is about to explode right now.
The two soldiers who had been unlucky like me had faces as pale as if they were about to faint at any moment.
I doubt whether that is the face of a living person or a dead corpse.
Before I knew it, a tank was approaching the trenches. I'd heard the sound of caterpillar tracks countless times in the military, but I never knew it could be this terrifying.
"Now, throw it!"
At the officer's command, the three of us threw our cluster grenades almost simultaneously.
The grenade, which I threw with all my might, landed right on top of the tank, which was incredibly devastating.
And then it explodes.
"Gotcha!"
The tank, hit directly in the upper part by a cluster grenade, burst into flames and burst into flames.
As the tank crews, their bodies on fire, screamed and came out of the tanks, the friendly soldiers waiting all fired bullets at them.
but,
"What, that guy is still alive?!"
Of the two other grenades thrown, one exploded just outside the silver tank, while the other, for some reason, did not explode.
Thanks to this, the British still had one tank left.
He fired a machine gun, swarming the two soldiers who had thrown the grenade.
And they tried to trample the trenches with steel wheels.
If we continued like this, it was over. The moment we allowed that monster to break through, it would tear through the trench with the machine gun mounted on its right side, and we'd be helplessly trapped.
At the moment of life or death, an unexploded cluster grenade came into view.
The tank also stopped moving, as if something was wrong with its engine.
If I wanted to catch him, now was my chance. I hurried towards the cluster grenade.
"Hey, what are you doing?"
"It's dangerous!"
Since it was all the same whether I died or not, I decided to take a chance. I picked up a grenade that had fallen to the ground and approached the tank.
The reason the grenade didn't explode was simple.
Because I just threw it without even pulling out the pin in the first place. That's why it didn't explode.
After pulling out the grenade pin, he threw it onto the tank.
Then he quickly fell face down on the floor, covering his head.
There was a loud roar, and the sound of small pieces of debris and parts falling could be heard.
When I looked up, I could see a tank burning brightly.
Just as I was about to scream, a scream was heard from the right.
I turned my head and saw a British soldier running towards me, brandishing a bayonetted rifle.
Seeing the blade of the greatsword reflecting the light and flashing, I hastily raised my rifle and pulled the trigger.
But the bullet didn't go out.
A piece of metal the size of a thumb was embedded in the gun barrel.
"This fucking thing···."
Meanwhile, the enemy soldier who approached me shouted and swung his gun.