Chapter 7: Fight
"Are you planning to stay down there forever?" Trigger shouted at Qin Chuan after firing another shot.
Qin Chuan was startled but quickly realized his responsibility as a spotter. Hastily, he mimicked Trigger's movements, crouching low and running a few steps before dropping to the sand and pulling out his binoculars. It was far from a pleasant experience—the scorching sand felt like it was roasting the flesh on his chest.
Watching Qin Chuan's clumsy attempts, Trigger couldn't help but sigh inwardly: this might be the most awkward spotter he'd ever seen.
"Eleven o'clock direction!" Qin Chuan reported. "A 7mm anti-tank gun!"
"Hmm," Trigger quickly located the target and, with two swift shots, took out the gunner and loader.
After changing positions, Qin Chuan reported again, "Ten o'clock direction, a mortar!"
Once more, Trigger followed Qin Chuan's guidance and eliminated the mortar crew.
Trigger began to see Qin Chuan in a new light. As he had mentioned before, officers were not always the best targets for snipers. There were too many officers, and both sides had contingency plans: if one officer was killed, a lower-ranking officer would immediately take over. Thus, killing an officer often didn't have a significant impact.
Of course, this didn't mean officers weren't important. High-ranking officers had irreplaceable command value and their deaths could cause significant psychological damage.
In short, the most crucial targets were those that could influence the battle in the shortest amount of time.
For example, the anti-tank gun Qin Chuan had identified posed a direct threat to their tanks.
Similarly, the mortar was used to target the infantry following behind the tanks. Eliminating the mortar crew would undoubtedly aid their unit's advance.
Trigger thought to himself, "Maybe this guy just got lucky."
But soon, Trigger realized he was wrong...
"Three o'clock direction!" Suddenly, Qin Chuan shouted urgently, "A sniper, he's aiming this way!"
Trigger tensed up, realizing that he was now the enemy's target. He quickly raised his rifle and looked in the three o'clock direction but saw nothing.
"Where is he?" Trigger asked.
"In the sand!" Qin Chuan replied, "He's buried himself in the sand!"
Trigger squinted and finally spotted the faint outline of a gun barrel emerging from the sand. He was about to pull the trigger, but it was too late—a flash of light erupted from the other side, and a bullet whizzed towards them. Trigger felt a sharp pain in his shoulder, and blood splattered across his face.
"I'm hit!" Trigger yelled as he ducked back behind cover. "Fall back!"
At this point, the spotter—Qin Chuan—should have taken over Trigger's role. But Trigger knew the enemy sniper was highly skilled, and he didn't want Qin Chuan to sacrifice himself in vain. Despite his earlier clumsiness, Qin Chuan had managed to spot the well-hidden sniper, which even surprised Trigger.
But Qin Chuan didn't follow Trigger's orders.
It wasn't that Qin Chuan was being reckless. Instead, he realized that retreating would be pointless. The enemy sniper's position on their flank, combined with the high ground, meant that even if they retreated, they would still be exposed to the sniper's line of fire.
So Qin Chuan had only one option: to pick up his rifle and kill the enemy before the sniper killed him and Trigger.
"Are you crazy?" Trigger shouted again when he saw Qin Chuan disobeying orders. "Fall back! There's no way you'll succeed!"
Trigger couldn't believe that Qin Chuan was actually raising his rifle... Qin Chuan's rifle didn't even have a scope, and the target was six hundred meters away—hitting it seemed impossible.
But Qin Chuan still didn't listen.
In fact, at that moment, Qin Chuan wasn't hearing anything at all. Even the gunfire and explosions seemed distant. All he could see was his target... the enemy sniper.
Qin Chuan quickly made a judgment: the enemy sniper wouldn't change positions.
While it was a basic sniper rule to shoot and move, the battlefield always demanded flexibility.
In this case, the enemy sniper had a prime opportunity. He could, within the next few seconds, take out both a sniper and a spotter.
If he rigidly followed the rule and relocated, he would lose that opportunity.
So Qin Chuan didn't hesitate to raise his rifle and aim at the sniper's previous position. Sure enough, the sniper was still there, his dark gun barrel aimed directly at Qin Chuan.
Qin Chuan knew he only had one chance. The British Enfield rifle had a much faster rate of fire than the K98K—in fact, it was the fastest bolt-action rifle of World War II.
So, if Qin Chuan fired one shot and then cycled the bolt to chamber another round, the enemy could easily fire two or three shots in the same time. Against a professional sniper with a scoped rifle, Qin Chuan had almost no chance of surviving.
"Bang!" Qin Chuan pulled the trigger. He had no choice—if he had waited even half a second longer, he might not have had the chance to fire at all.
A slight tremor traveled from the stock to his shoulder, like a sudden push, and then the bullet shot out of the barrel... and Qin Chuan saw a splash of red erupt in the golden sand on the other side.
Qin Chuan believed he had hit his target, or at least incapacitated him. Otherwise, several bullets would have already found their way into Qin Chuan's skull.
Qin Chuan stood still for a moment, stunned. On one hand, he was relieved to have survived this life-or-death encounter. On the other hand, he was shocked at how easy it had been to take a life.
All it took was aiming and pulling the trigger, just like shooting at a target on a sunny afternoon at the range... "Bang!" and someone was dead.
A life that had been vibrant just moments before—a person someone's parents had raised for decades, a soldier who might have had many dreams and aspirations—was ended just like that, all for the cost of a single bullet.
Qin Chuan shuddered as he realized that his head might now be in the crosshairs of another British soldier's rifle, and that it would take just one bullet to end his own life.
With that thought, Qin Chuan ducked behind the sand dune, and saw the look of disbelief on Trigger's face.
"You hit him?" Trigger asked, incredulous.
"I think so," Qin Chuan replied. "Otherwise, we'd both be dead by now."
"At that distance? With an ordinary rifle, without a scope?" Trigger still couldn't believe it.
Then, despite his injury, Trigger risked peeking over the dune, holding up his binoculars with his uninjured left hand to look at the spot where the sniper had been.
When he ducked back down, Trigger gave Qin Chuan an impressed look and said, "Yes, he's dead. You're a lucky guy!"
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
-- Power
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