Chapter 70: Staying

Before a major battle, I never feared my superiors and commanders cursing with dark faces, nor would I care if they gave me a kick or two; we were soldiers, after all, and who didn’t have a bit of grit and temper? Commanders were human beings too.

However, the moment they started speaking to me with a smile, and even showed a hint of guilt in their eyes, that meant things were completely screwed.

That basically signaled a near-fatal or even a suicide mission was about to land squarely on my head...

——Excerpts from Hu Biao’s diary collection, "Talking Nonsense"——

To Hu Biao’s surprise, before he even had the chance to go back to the second-line position to find Commander Xiang, Commander Xiang took the initiative to come up to the central-line position himself.

Having not seen him for more than a dozen hours, Commander Xiang looked quite disheveled.

His face was covered in exhaustion and the grime of gunpowder, and his military uniform bore several dried patches of blood.

It seemed that Commander Xiang had also joined the combat on other positions today; it was just unclear whether he had fought on the left flank or the right flank.

And what were the battle results? How many Japs had been wiped out?

Walking onto the position and returning a military salute to Hu Biao and the others, Commander Xiang didn't speak right away, instead looking at Hu Biao with a complex expression.

This left Hu Biao somewhat at a loss, making him wonder if his gang of hotheads had performed poorly somewhere and stirred up some new trouble.

Actually, what caused Commander Xiang to react this way wasn't that Hu Biao and his men had performed poorly—quite the contrary, they had performed far too well.

Last night, he had deployed three under-strength companies to defend the left, center, and right paths of Dunwu Temple respectively.

After such a deployment, Commander Xiang had kept a mobile reserve force of about a hundred men under his direct command.

He had prepared for today's battle so that if any position failed to hold, he could lead this mobile force to reinforce them in time.

Naturally, the central-line position guarded by Hu Biao and his men was the primary focus of his attention.

And what was the outcome? As the main direction of the Japanese offensive, the central-line position had endured carpet-bombing that made even Commander Xiang's scalp tingle from hundreds of meters away, and even frantic attacks involving poison gas. Yet, the position had remained as firm as a monolith.

From beginning to end, they had never requested reinforcements from the regimental headquarters.

In contrast, the left and right flank positions, facing Japanese attacks that were significantly weaker, had repeatedly sent urgent requests for reinforcements to headquarters.

Had he not personally led the mobile reserve force to reinforce them, those two positions would likely have fallen long ago.

The exceptional performance of Hu Biao and the brothers of the Third Company naturally overjoyed Commander Xiang; however, it also brought about an unexpected dilemma that left him somewhat at a loss for how to begin.

This was the main reason why, as he walked up to the position now, he didn't know how to speak to Hu Biao and the others.

After pondering for quite a while, Commander Xiang finally made a move. He first took a stack of papers from the leather bag held by his orderly and handed them over.

Hu Biao took them and flipped through them under the slightly brighter moonlight of tonight.

Vaguely discerning the contents, he saw they were letters of appointment for his promotion to Major Battalion Commander, as well as AT, Uncle Bo, and others being promoted to Lieutenant Company Commanders and Second Lieutenant Platoon Commanders.

It was a thick stack of appointments; theoretically, every single member of the original Third Company had been promoted by at least one rank.

Yet within this thick stack, many brothers had long since died in battle; even for the surviving brothers, facing the constant threat of death, such so-called promotions seemed to hold not the slightest bit of meaning.

So what use were these things? Were they supposed to be burned as offerings to them now?

Casually handing these letters of appointment to his companions like Hammer standing nearby, they took a look but showed a complete lack of interest, devoid of any excitement whatsoever.

Fortunately, in the moments that followed, Commander Xiang revealed some good news:

"In today's battle, our 804th Regiment suffered heavy losses and is currently incapable of holding the Dunwu Temple position. I just received orders from higher command that before 9:00 tonight, Commander Li and his 803rd Regiment from the brother unit will come up to relieve us.

"The reward money of 6,000 silver dollars has also arrived at the division headquarters, and we can collect it once we head down."

Hearing the news that they could finally be relieved and withdraw from the Dunwu Temple position, Hu Biao and the others collectively breathed a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, this joy hadn't even lasted two seconds before another piece of bad news arrived.

Because Commander Xiang's face suddenly broke into a cordial smile once more, except his eyes were somewhat drifting, not daring to look them in the eye at all.

Instantly, Hu Biao's heart skipped a beat, knowing something majorly bad was coming.

Sure enough, Commander Xiang spoke: "Along with the relief notification came a personal request from Commander Li.

"When he and the brothers of the 803rd Regiment marched out of Sichuan, they had already prepared themselves to die for the country, so they are absolutely unafraid of death in the upcoming battles.

"However, after watching today's fierce battle from afar in the rear, he realized the Japanese have far too many tricks up their sleeves and their firepower is simply too ferocious. Putting himself in our shoes, he fears they might not be able to hold the position.

"Once the Dunwu Temple position is lost, he and the thousand-odd brothers of the 803rd Regiment would become sinners against the four hundred million compatriots of our nation.

"Even in death, they would have no face to be buried in their ancestral graves.

"Therefore, Commander Li has entrusted me, in a personal capacity, to implore you: Major Hu and you elites who are familiar with the Japanese tricks, could you continue to stay on the position and give them a hand?

"At that time, you'll only need to hide in the bomb-proof shelters, responsible just for running your mouths to guide and command, without having to lead the desperate fights like you did today.

"Of course! Commander Li also knows this request is rather imposing upon others, so whether you are willing to stay is entirely up to you to decide."

Faced with this request, Hu Biao fell silent, genuinely unsure of how to make a choice.

Mainly, after a day of bitter fighting, he truly understood these Sichuanese brothers.

They were immensely brave, but their tactics and weapons lagged far behind their opponents. Judging by the intensity and madness of today's Japanese offensive, a single regiment might genuinely fail to hold Dunwu Temple for a single day.

Therefore, he would naturally be quite willing to stay on the position simply to impart some experience to the brothers of the 803rd Regiment, guide their combat, and reduce their casualties.

Yet he was even clearer on one point: things were never that simple.

When the fighting actually broke out and the battle entered its most intense and dangerous phase, it would be absolutely impossible for them to refrain from fighting and merely hide inside the bomb-proof shelters to command.

Besides! Even if they could harden their hearts to endure it, staying on the position meant that if luck was bad, Japanese artillery, aerial bombing, or poison gas shells could still wipe them out.

Furthermore, although their luck hadn't been too terrible today, at least they hadn't encountered 203mm naval artillery bombardment.

What if tomorrow the Japanese got desperate and called in naval gunfire as well?

Torn by conflict, Hu Biao still couldn't make up his mind. He turned around and asked the brothers of the Third Company who had gathered around after hearing the commotion:

"Brothers, how do you choose? Are you willing to stay?"

The next second, Black Star gritted his teeth and was about to speak, but was immediately interrupted by AT’s violent coughing fit, which sounded just like a tractor.

It seemed that after taking those two oral penicillin pills, they had done nothing to heal the damage caused to his lungs and respiratory tract by the poison gas.

A perfectly fine modern white-collar worker was actually starting to take on the demeanor of a legendary consumptive...

*******

Twenty minutes later, after some deliberation, Hu Biao and his men made a decision: a portion of them would stay.

To be more specific, these time-travelers—including AT, the wounded man who coughed at the drop of a hat, plus six lightly wounded brothers from the Third Company—totaling 13 people, were willing to stay.

In addition, Zhu Cong, Hu Biao's orderly, was actually willing to stay as well.

Truth be told, this kid's luck was genuinely good.

Although nominally he was Hu Biao's orderly, he received not a shred of special treatment and spent the entire day fighting for his life with a rifle on the front line.

Yet apart from mustard gas burns on his face and hands, not even a patch of skin was scratched anywhere else. By comparison, he was the least injured man in the Third Company.

However, there were still nine heavily wounded brothers who had to withdraw with Commander Xiang and the others during the relief.

Given the current lack of medicine and medical supplies in the field hospital, Hu Biao did not believe they could survive. Therefore, he had to have Zhu Cong take some injectable penicillin down with him.

He had to supervise the hospital doctors to ensure it was used on his own brothers.

Otherwise, he truly couldn't guarantee that by early tomorrow morning, those penicillin doses wouldn't end up on the black market in Shanghai.

What Hu Biao didn't know, however, was that this very decision of his would lead to Zhu Cong—who considered himself Hu Biao's loyal fan—bringing about a whole new series of unpredictable situations with that big mouth of his...