World War: Battleship Arms Dealers

The soldier looked up, his eyes slightly red. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but in the end, he said nothing and turned to leave.

Colonel Yamada continued chewing the rice ball.

He remembered the recruit named Tanaka Ichiro from three days ago. That kid followed him into the first building, killed the first enemy, and then followed him like a puppet until now. He wondered if the boy was still alive.

He then thought of the twelve thousand people who died at Bendal Hill.

Now, Kuala Lumpur is going to add another 20,000.

He finished his rice ball, patted the rice grains off his hands, and stood up.

"gather."

Three hundred and twenty-one people stood up and silently formed three rows. No one complained, no one dawdled; they just stood there, waiting for the next order.

Yamada walked up to them and looked at their faces—tired, dirty, empty, numb.

"The British can't hold on any longer," he said. "One more day of fighting, and Kuala Lumpur will be ours."

No one cheered. No one was excited.

"Check ammunition. Resume the attack in ten minutes."

The soldiers spread out, each checking their equipment. Some loaded bullets into their rifles, some tested the sharpness of their bayonets, and some tucked the last grenade into their waistbands.

A soldier suddenly spoke up: "Colonel, may I ask you a question?"

Colonel Yamada looked at him.

"ask."

"If we win, can we go home?"

Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at Yamada Ichisuke.

Yamada Ichisuke remained silent for a long time.

Then he said, "I don't know."

The soldier paused for a moment, then laughed. It was a laugh more painful than a grimace.

"It's better not to know. If I knew, I wouldn't know how to live."

When Brigadier General Gurney crawled out of the rubble, he found that only a dozen or so people remained with him.

His command post had been breached two hours earlier. He retreated with his guards through the back door, across three streets, and was eventually pinned down in this area of ​​bombed-out houses.

Gunfire erupted all around. Shouts from the Japanese rose and fell, growing ever closer.

A young lieutenant crawled to his side, his face covered in blood, his left arm severed and haphazardly bandaged. He gasped, "General, we're surrounded. Enemies are all around us."

Brigadier General Gurney nodded.

He leaned against the broken wall, took out his sidearm from his pocket, and checked the bullets—there were still six left.

"General," the lieutenant said again, his voice trembling, "we...we surrender."

Brigadier General Gurney looked at him.

The boy was not yet twenty-five years old. His golden hair was stained dark red with blood, and his blue eyes were filled with terror. His hands were trembling, his lips were trembling, and his whole body was trembling.

Brigadier General Gurney remained silent for three seconds.

Then he said, "Okay."

The officer was stunned.

"General, you..."

"Go tell them we surrender," Brigadier General Gurney said, throwing his sidearm on the ground. "Make them stop firing."

The lieutenant crawled out, shouting something in English. The gunfire gradually subsided.

A few minutes later, a group of Japanese soldiers surrounded them. They held guns, their bayonets gleaming in the sunlight, their faces showing exhaustion and madness.

Brigadier General Gurney stood up, straightened his uniform, put on his hat, and slowly walked out of the ruins.

He saw the Japanese soldiers—each one looked like they had just crawled out of hell. Some were covered in blood, some had bandages wrapped around their heads, and some had bloodshot eyes. The officer at the front had a thick bandage wrapped around his left shoulder, and his face was as thin as a skeleton, but his eyes—those eyes were like a wolf's—stared at him, unblinking.

"Are you the commander?" the officer asked in broken English.

Brigadier General Gurney nodded.

"I request a meeting with your army's supreme commander."

The officer looked at him and suddenly smiled. That smile sent a chill down Brigadier General Gurney's spine.

"We will meet. But not now."

He turned to the side and said something to the soldiers behind him. Several soldiers rushed up, pinned Brigadier General Gurney to the ground, and tied his hands behind his back with rope.

Brigadier General Gurney struggled to lift his head: "You...you can't do this! I'm an officer! According to the Geneva Convention..."

The officer squatted down and looked at him.

"General," he said, pointing to the surrounding ruins, the scattered corpses, the still-smoking buildings, "look at this. Do you think there's any convention left?"

Brigadier General Gurney opened his mouth, but couldn't utter a word.

The officer stood up, turned, and left.

Behind them, Japanese soldiers began searching the ruins, dragging out the surviving British soldiers one by one. Some resisted and were stabbed to death on the spot. Others knelt and begged for mercy, only to be kicked to the ground, tied up, and thrown aside.

Brigadier General Gurney knelt on the ground, watching all of this.

He saw the young lieutenant being dragged out and tied up beside him. The boy was covered in blood, but he was still smiling—a smile as if he had finally been freed.

"General," he said, "we survived."

Brigadier General Gurney remained silent.

He lowered his head and closed his eyes.

In the distance, a Rising Sun Flag is being raised in the largest square in downtown Kuala Lumpur.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, the gunfire finally stopped.

Colonel Yamada stood at the edge of the central square in Kuala Lumpur, watching the Rising Sun Flag being raised. Beneath the flagpole lay piles of corpses—British soldiers, Japanese soldiers, and a few civilians—just piled together like a heap of discarded garbage.

The adjutant ran over, holding a crumpled piece of paper in his hand.

"Colonel, the preliminary statistics are in."

"read."

"The 1st Division suffered 7,423 casualties. The 2nd Division suffered 6,851 casualties. The 3rd Division suffered 5,107 casualties. The 4th Division suffered 3,829 casualties."

Yamada Ichisuke remained silent.

The adjutant continued reading: "Not counting the wounded. Approximately 12,000 British soldiers were captured, including 407 officers, one brigadier general, and three colonels..."

That's enough.

The adjutant stopped.

Yamada Ichizo watched the soldiers cleaning up the battlefield. They dragged corpses, one after another, lined up in rows. Some were British soldiers, some were their own, all mixed together, indistinguishable from one another.

A soldier crouched beside a corpse, his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking. It was his comrade-in-arms; they had been smoking together yesterday, and today he was a cold, lifeless body.

Another soldier sat on the steps, drinking water from his canteen. After taking two sips, he suddenly threw the canteen on the ground, squatted down, and vomited. After vomiting, he picked up the canteen again and continued drinking.

No one speaks.

The whole city was silent.

Footsteps came from behind. Kazuo Yamamoto walked up to him, also looking at the Rising Sun Flag in the square.

"Have you received the casualty statistics?"

"received."

Kazuo Yamamoto remained silent for a few seconds.

"Twenty-two thousand people," he said. "Two thousand more than expected."