Chương 4: Chapter 4 Dawn
Lin woke up, his weary eyes blinking open. The dawn light was gentle, the scent of earth masking the lingering smell of gunpowder. The sounds of gunfire and shouting seemed to belong to another world; it was eerily quiet, not even the chirping of birds could be heard.
The soil in front of him was still damp and muddy, with traces of frost. Lin understood that he was still in the trench; the nightmare had become an unchangeable reality. After hesitating for a moment, he struggled to prop himself up with his stiff and numb hands. Despite being wrapped in a fairly thick blanket, it couldn't withstand the cold of the night. Yet, compared to those who froze to death in the heartland of the Soviet Union, Lin considered himself quite fortunate. Although there had been a light snowfall in the past few days, the temperature had only dropped to around minus fifteen degrees Celsius, and he could still endure it with his winter gear and military blanket.
Being able to fall asleep in such harsh conditions was something Lin would never have dared to imagine before.
Sitting up against the trench wall, Lin surveyed his surroundings. Many soldiers were still curled up in their blankets inside the trench. Not far away, a few soldiers with large earmuff helmets sat around a small charcoal fire, cooking something in a metal mess tin, a faint aroma wafting from it. As his consciousness fully awakened, the emptiness and hunger in his stomach became unbearable.
Licking his lips, Lin pulled out half a biscuit from his pocket, which he had saved from last night's dinner. Bullets, food, and water—Lin had unknowingly become like a squirrel, instinctively hoarding everything to survive in this harsh environment.
With a mixture of anticipation and reluctance, he stuffed the biscuit into his mouth. It was dry and hard. As he searched for his canteen, he saw "Butcher" approaching with his submachine gun. Although there was some habitual tension in his heart, Lin knew that this guy only became exceptionally irritable during or before combat; otherwise, he just had a stern face.
When "Butcher" reached him, he stopped and looked down at Lin, saying something in a gruff tone. Lin couldn't understand a word and could only raise his head, looking blankly at the man. Seeing that Lin neither stood up nor replied, "Butcher" didn't get angry. He just patted Lin's shoulder and then walked away with a serious expression.
Lin guessed that "Butcher" was probably praising his performance last night, but Lin couldn't feel happy about it. The defense was held, but it was paid for with the blood and lives of German soldiers. Just to repel the group assault of Soviet heavy tanks, Lin had seen no fewer than fifty German infantrymen bravely sacrifice themselves. Before this, he had always thought that soldiers from European countries would surrender when casualties exceeded a certain proportion and wouldn't be ashamed of it. The fierce battle happening before his eyes finally showed him the courageous side of German soldiers.
The battlefield filled with fire and blood had repeated countless times in his dreams. Lin tried hard to clear his mind and continued to search for his canteen. However, the cold, hard metal object seemed to have gone missing. At that moment, a hand wearing knitted gloves handed him a military canteen, already worn from use. Lin turned his head and saw a thin young man sitting beside him, probably in his early twenties, with a tuft of dirty blond hair visible under his helmet. He always had a half-smoked cigarette in his mouth, only carefully tucking it behind his ear when he slept.
Lin took the canteen without knowing how to thank him, so he simply remained silent. As he drank, the blond-haired young man spoke softly, even chuckled a few times. This time Lin roughly understood a single word that stood out: "Danish," indicating he was a Danish volunteer.
So, he was a volunteer from Denmark?
On his first day on the battlefield, Lin had identified from the badges of those around him that this unit was the 11th "Nordland" Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division of the Waffen-SS, an elite combat unit composed of Germanic people from Nordic countries, including Norwegian, Danish, and a few Swedish and Finnish soldiers. Among the various armored divisions of the SS, the "Nordland" Division was formed relatively late, but after its establishment, it had long been fighting on the most difficult frontlines, experiencing a series of extremely brutal battles and gaining considerable fame.
Whether Danish or Norwegian, there was no difference in this trench, nor would it change his situation. With these thoughts in mind, Lin reluctantly smiled and handed the canteen back to the blond-haired man.
The blond-haired man didn't say anything more, wrapped himself tighter in his blanket, and closed his eyes to rest.
Weapons are a soldier's lifeline, but sometimes a canteen is more important than a weapon. Thinking about this, Lin searched around again and finally found his canteen half-buried in the dirt under him. He shook it and found there was still some water inside, so he reattached it to his belt. As he reached back, he felt something hard in the pocket of his jacket and decided to pull it out. It was a slightly larger than palm-sized thick notebook with a cover, probably a diary. The handwriting inside was still strong, and Lin recognized most of the individual letters—judging from some "superfluous" dots on some letters, Lin guessed they were either German or Danish.
Inside the notebook was a black and white family photo, probably taken not long ago judging by the photo's smooth texture. The style of the photo was very traditional, with the parents seated in the middle and four children standing behind them in height order. The tallest one should be "himself" in the mirror, wearing a smart Waffen-SS uniform, looking vibrant. The three younger ones were a boy and two girls—the boy was sixteen or seventeen, also wearing a uniform, with a youthful face; the older girl was about ten years old, with beautiful curly hair, obviously a budding beauty, and the younger girl was only five or six, shy and somewhat fearful.
Judging by the normal age for marriage and childbirth, their parents should not be old, but the couple in the photo looked weathered, the man resembling a sixty-year-old elder with gray hair, and the woman also showing signs of aging. The four children seemed relatively healthy, but the expressions of the couple appeared heavy and lost. This inevitably reminded Lin of the background of the era; the fate of the empire was sinking like the setting sun, and those who were aware of it should indeed be concerned about the fate of their nation and, at the same time, their own fate
Hearing some commotion in the trench to the west, Lin quickly gathered his scattered thoughts along with the notebook, the contents of which he couldn't understand for the time being. Soon, he saw the thin young man from last night and another young man in uniform carrying a long wooden box along the trench, with soldiers along the way spontaneously putting in spare weapons. These were mostly abandoned by wounded and deceased comrades or taken from attacking Soviet soldiers. Of course, many still kept their "K98s." Everything seemed to be based on voluntary principles, with no one imposing interference or giving orders.
As for his own Mauser rifle, Lin couldn't say it was good, but at least it could be used smoothly. In a moment, the box was finally brought in front of him. Upon looking inside, Lin saw that although there were several MP38/40 submachine guns, they all seemed to be damaged and in need of repair, with the rest being non-Mauser or Mosin-Nagant rifles. Yellow Hair probably wanted to find himself a usable piece, so he rummaged around and quickly found a Mauser military pistol, also known as a Luger. Seeing this, Lin's eyes lit up: this was a favorite among warlords and bandits during the Republic of China era, and the original German-made product was even more sought after. However, Yellow Hair disdainfully tossed it aside, and the other soldiers standing nearby showed no interest in this little weapon either.
With a start, Lin took a step forward, grabbed the Luger that was about seventy to eighty percent new from the box, and its weighty feel immediately made him feel as if he had found treasure!
The thin young man who had been carrying the box ahead looked at Lin unexpectedly and slowed down his pace—Lin thought he was intentionally letting him find the holster for the Luger, so he quickly smiled and reached out to search. Although the wooden box, originally intended to hold rifles, was not very large, a few pulls could reveal its contents clearly. However, the unmistakable holster for the Luger did not appear. At this moment, the surrounding soldiers all looked over curiously, as if they were seeing something extraordinary. Ignoring them, Lin continued to search until he saw the thin young man shaking his head at him, then he reluctantly withdrew his hand.
The thin young man and his companion continued to carry the box forward. Their slender bodies were not really suited for this kind of physical activity, but sometimes there was no room for sentimentality on the battlefield. Sitting back down at his position, Lin looked at the Luger in his hand, and his heart warmed slightly. After trying it out for a while, he found that the action, magazine, and hammer were all flexible and smooth. Moreover, the grip had red "9" marks on both sides, indicating that it was originally manufactured with a 7.63mm caliber and later converted to a 9mm caliber by the factory in order to use standard ammunition like the Luger 08. From this, it could be inferred that it belonged to an older model produced before the 1920s and did not have full-automatic firing capability.
Throughout this process, Yellow Hair had been silently watching Lin play with his new "toy," with the same curious look as the thin young man from before. Unlike in the East, especially in China, this Mauser military pistol was coldly received in Europe. There were many reasons why the military didn't like it—expensive price, large size, difficult to control muzzle climb during rapid fire, and so on—so even the German ** teams did not equip it in bulk. However, in the later stages of the war, the desperate situation of dwindling resources forced the German army to dig out some old inventory from the warehouses. It was said that not only frontline national defense army units, but even the well-treated SS had to accept some weapons they had previously looked down upon as supplements, resulting in the strange situation of old and new weapons coexisting.
The operation of the Luger was actually not complicated. After warming the gun, Lin basically knew how to use it. He even imitated the bandits in the movies by casually handling it a few times. It had a safety but no locking mechanism, and the magazine had a capacity of six rounds—this guy was indeed old. With nothing better to do, Lin casually holstered the gun at his waist, thinking about finding some matching ammunition when he had the chance, but he didn't notice the sympathy in Yellow Hair's eyes. It was fine if they were just fighting entrenched battles, but during long marches at a distance, soldiers always wanted to minimize their load as much as possible. However, casually discarding firearms was something many officers couldn't tolerate. Too heavy? Ask "The Butcher" about his boots first.
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