Bright Sword: The Flowers of War

Chapter 234 Entrustment
The chill of spring had not yet dissipated, and the biting morning wind blew across the mountain valleys outside Xinxian County, swirling up the withered leaves on the ground and making a desolate "rustling" sound.

A clear stream meanders through the rocks, its water crashing against the pebbles with a pleasant "whoosh," but this sound cannot dispel the tension and oppression that permeates the air.

Private Katsuhiko Nakata sat by the stream, clutching his well-maintained Type 38 rifle tightly in his arms.

He was wearing a khaki-colored Zhaowu-style military uniform with the collar open, looking somewhat slovenly. His leggings were covered in mud, making him look particularly disheveled.

He missed home, more than he had ever missed home as much as he did today.

He had been on the Chinese battlefield for more than half a year and had participated in several battles, but never before had he felt so desperate as this time.

The roar of heavy artillery, the rain of bullets, and the warplanes whizzing through the sky brought them endless death and suffering. In less than two days since the start of the war, their squad had already lost more than half of its members, and even their battalion commander was wounded.

The cold, metallic touch of his arm gave him a fleeting sense of security.

He didn't look at the babbling water, nor at the faintly visible Xinxian city wall in the distance. He just kept his head down and silently used a withered twig to draw symbols that no one could understand on the damp mud.

He was only nineteen years old, and had been away from the fields of his hometown for less than a year. The childishness on his face had not completely faded, but his eyes already showed a numbness that should not be present at his age.

"Katsuhiko".

A familiar voice came from behind. Katsuhiko Nakata didn't turn around; he knew who it was.

The footsteps stopped beside him, carrying a strong smell of tobacco and a slight, almost imperceptible tremor.

Private First Class Takeuchi Takama plopped down next to him, casually tossed his rifle onto the grass, then pulled a crumpled pack of "Honoré" brand cigarettes from his pocket, shook one out and put it in his mouth, but didn't light it for a long time.

"Thinking about things at home?"

Takashi Takeuchi was three years older than Katsuhiko Nakata and had enlisted in the army two years earlier, making him a senior from the same village.

In the military, this bond of shared hometown is the last remaining link that holds humanity together.

"No." Katsuhiko Nakata shook his head, his voice very low.

Takeuchi Takama chuckled twice, the laughter sounding even worse than crying.

"Don't lie to me. Whenever you miss home, you like to draw the river in front of your house on the ground."

He spat out the unlit cigarette from his mouth, clutched his head in his hands, and fell backward onto the grass in agony, his eyes fixed on the gray sky.

"Baka... Baka!" he suddenly cursed under his breath, his voice filled with deep frustration and fear, "That bastard... Kameda, that bastard!"

Katsuhiko Nakata stopped what he was doing and turned to look at him.

"Just now, that beast Kameda informed me."

Takashi Takeuchi's voice trembled as he covered his eyes tightly with the back of his hand. "He...promoted me to be a machine gunner for the Type 92 heavy machine gun...haha...promotion..."

The word drilled into Nakata Katsuhiko's ear like a red-hot iron rod, making him freeze.

Type 92 heavy machine gunner... In today's Shanxi battlefield, especially when facing that devilish force known as the "Shanxi Militia," this position is almost equivalent to an invitation from hell.

He had witnessed firsthand how, on the opposite side of the battlefield, enemy soldiers known as "snipers" would deliver bullets with the precision of hunting hares, sending bullets into the heads of heavy machine gunners.

Their overwhelming barrage of mortars always targeted the incessantly clattering Type 92 machine guns first. Often, a single shell would blow the entire machine gun crew, along with their guns, into a pile of parts.

“Takeuchi-senpai…” Nakata Katsuhiko’s voice was hoarse.

"Don't comfort me!" Takeuchi Takama sat up abruptly, his eyes bloodshot, like a wild beast driven to the brink of despair. He grabbed Nakata Katsuhiko's shoulder, his nails almost digging into the other's flesh.

"Shengyan! We're from the same hometown! You have to help me! You absolutely have to help me!"

"What...what can I do..."

"listen to me!"

Takeuchi Takashi's breathing was rapid, filled with despair. "I... I probably won't be able to go back. I know that once the battle starts, I definitely won't survive the first charge."

But...but Haruko...my Haruko is still in the city!

Haruko...Takashi Takeuchi's fiancée, a woman as gentle as cherry blossoms.

Katsuhiko Nakata had seen her picture; she smiled so sweetly in it. As a nurse in the medical corps, she had also come to this damned prefecture with the troops.

“Katsuhiko…”

Takeuchi Takama's voice softened, filled with pleading, "If... I mean if... I die... you must go to the medical team and find her. Tell her that I'm the one who wronged her, tell her to forget me, find a good man... go back to her hometown, and live a good life..."

He pulled a small cloth bag, warm from his body heat, from his pocket and tremblingly stuffed it into Nakata Katsuhiko's hand.

"Inside here... is my allowance, and... and the letter I wrote to her... Please, Katsuhiko! Please, for the sake of us growing up in the same village!"

Katsuhiko Nakata stared blankly at the small cloth bag, feeling as if it weighed a ton. He looked at the man before him, who was now weeping and completely unlike his senior, and felt as if his throat was stuffed with cotton, unable to utter a single word.

He wanted to refuse. He didn't want to think about Takeuchi-senpai lying on the machine gun covered in blood, and he didn't want to face the despair in the eyes of that woman named Haruko.

However, looking into Takeuchi Takama's bloodshot and pleading eyes, he couldn't bring himself to refuse.

After a long while, amidst the monotonous sound of the brook flowing, Katsuhiko Nakata nodded with difficulty.

“I… I promise you, Takeuchi-senpai.”

Upon hearing these words, Takeuchi Takama felt as if all his strength had been drained away. He let go of her hand and slumped to the ground, burying his face in his knees like a child, letting out suppressed, intermittent sobs.

In the distance, a sharp assembly whistle suddenly rang out, like a death knell, shattering the momentary silence in the mountain valley.

The sharp, piercing assembly whistle was like a cold awl, stabbing into the deathly silence of the mountain valley, and also into the ears of Takeuchi Takama and Nakata Katsuhiko.

The two of them shuddered and sprang up from the ground almost reflexively.

Takeuchi Takama's face, contorted with tears, turned deathly pale in an instant. He hastily wiped away his tears and snot, grabbed the Type 38 rifle from the ground, and scrambled toward the direction from which the whistle had sounded.

Katsuhiko Nakata followed closely behind, shoving the cloth bag, still warm from Takama Takeuchi's body, tightly into his chest pocket. The cold gun and the heavy promise weighed on him, making it hard to breathe. When they stumbled to the rendezvous point, Squad Leader Kameda was already standing there with a deathly pale face.

His eyes were sunken and bloodshot as he scanned each soldier who came to assemble.

The original team of over fifty people has dwindled to just over twenty, each with a face etched with exhaustion and fear.

Once everyone had arrived, Kameda didn't waste any words. His hoarse voice, like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together, rang out in the cold wind: "Listen up, all of you... Just half an hour ago, the first line of defense ahead was breached by the Chinese army."

We are on the front line now!
Those Chinese could appear before us at any moment! Be alert! His Majesty the Emperor's warriors have no cowards!

He gave his usual instructions, but his words contained no inspiring power, only naked despair and commands.

The soldiers listened numbly, no one daring to utter a sound; the air was thick with the smell of death.

"Now! Everyone! Get to your positions immediately! Quickly! Quickly!"

After giving his instructions, Kameda herded the remaining twenty-odd soldiers toward the makeshift trench ahead, using his rifle butt and shouts like he was driving livestock.

It was less a battleground and more a hastily dug muddy ditch, filled with the stench of urine, sweat, and the stench of mud.

"Takeuchi...you!"

Kameda's gaze, like that of a venomous snake, fixed on the distraught Takeuchi Ryoma. "You're the new machine gunner. Go to that high point and set up the Type 92 machine gun for me."

"If the Chinese army's artillery shells destroy it, you should commit seppuku and apologize to the Emperor!"

He pointed to a prominent mound on the flank of the position, which was the best spot in terms of visibility and also the easiest place to become a live target.

Takashi Takeuchi shuddered violently, the last trace of color draining from his face. He wanted to say something, but under Kameda's murderous gaze, all the words stuck in his throat, turning into a silent tremor.

Before Katsuhiko Nakata was pushed into the trench by another corporal, Takama Takeuchi suddenly stopped, turned around sharply, and stared intently at Katsuhiko Nakata.

It was a look that defied description. It contained the pleading of a dying person, the fear of being pushed onto the altar, a man's final entrustment to his lover, and a faint, almost invisible, fervent hope that the other would keep their promise.

He didn't speak, but his eyes were wailing, weeping, placing all of a man's last dignity and concerns on the shoulders of his nineteen-year-old fellow villager.

Katsuhiko Nakata felt as if his heart was being gripped by an icy hand. He could clearly feel the outline and warmth of the cloth bag in his chest pocket.

He looked at Takeuchi's desperate face, at his lips trembling with fear, and a sense of powerlessness almost crushed him.

Amid Kameda's impatient urging and curses, Nakata Katsuhiko met Takeuchi Takama's gaze and slowly, heavily nodded.

This nod, though silent, carried immense weight.

Seeing Katsuhiko Nakata nod, the last glimmer of light seemed to extinguish in Takama Takeuchi's bloodshot eyes.

He seemed to have all his energy drained away. He turned around, like a walking corpse, clutching the heavy tripod, and, pushed by his assistant gunner, walked step by step toward the high point that belonged to him, which was almost destined to be his grave.

Katsuhiko Nakata was assigned to a corner of the trench. He leaned against the cold, slippery mud wall and propped his Type 38 rifle against the breastwork, but his gaze involuntarily drifted to the figure above and to his side who was busy setting up a machine gun.

…………

"Hurry up! All of you, get on my heels! Do you want to spend the night in this mud?"

Old Cao's roar was hoarse and rough. He was half-hunched over, trudging with difficulty on the muddy hillside. With each step he took, the yellowish-brown mud made a "plop" sound, reaching above his ankles, and carrying a suction force that seemed to want to devour him alive.

The M1919 Browning heavy machine gun he carried on his shoulder, along with its ammunition box, weighed several dozen kilograms. The cold steel pressed down on his shoulder blades, causing them pain, as if he were carrying a small mountain.

His original well-tailored Type 36 German military uniform, a symbol of his elite status, was now completely unrecognizable. Soaked in mud and rainwater, it had turned into a heavy, hard brown shell, clinging tightly to his body, wet and cold.

His leather boots were filled with mud and water, and every time he lifted them, it was as if he was wrestling with the earth.

As the First Regiment, the absolute main force of the Shanxi militia, they were the sharpest dagger in the hands of the regimental commander.

From the moment the battle began two days ago, they have been at the forefront of the attack. The casualties are enormous. Of the 193 men in Lao Cao's company, only a little over 120 are still breathing.

But no one complained, because the regimental staff had already made it clear: only by completely defeating, or even swallowing up, the Japanese 24th Division would they have a chance to catch their breath.

This is a battle fought with lives at stake; everyone knows that.

Just as they stumbled down a hillside, preparing to regroup using the terrain...

"Chirp!"

A sharp, ominous sound suddenly rang out!
Immediately afterward, a young soldier next to Lao Cao was thrown backward as if shoved hard by an invisible giant hand. A vivid flower of blood burst open from his chest, staining his muddy military uniform crimson.

The soldier's eyes widened in disbelief and astonishment. He opened his mouth but couldn't make a sound. His body went limp and lifeless as he fell backward with a "plop" into the muddy water, splashing up a cloud of murky water.

"Enemy attack... Take cover!"

Someone shouted at the top of their lungs.

There was no need for orders; the instincts honed over years of life-or-death experiences allowed everyone to react instantly.

The soldiers fell to the ground in unison, like wheat being cut down, not caring that mud and water splattered all over their heads and faces. Some rolled on the ground, searching for anything that could be called cover... a rock, a dent, or even the still-warm body of a comrade.

"Bang! Boom!"

"Da da da!"

The militia soldiers immediately began suppressing the gunfire in the direction it came from, their semi-automatic rifles and submachine guns spitting out angry tongues of fire.

Old Cao immediately knelt on one knee, forcefully unloading the heavy M1V1919 from his shoulder. The gun slammed into the mud, splashing up a large cloud of mud. His eyes were bloodshot, like an enraged beast, staring intently at the direction from which the gunshot came from the hillside.

"Damn it! Get him up!"

He roared at the assistant gunner and ammunition handler beside him, "He's behind that big rock! Find that son of a bitch! I'm going to smash him to pieces, rock and all!"

Adrenaline surged wildly through my veins, dispelling all fatigue and coldness, leaving only the most primal and intense killing intent.

(End of this chapter)