The endless historical battlefield that began with World War I

The moment I climbed out of the trench, the world changed.

The trenches behind them were noisy, smelly, and filled with people talking; even in the dead of night, there was a faint, living clamor. But on the other side of the barbed wire was another world.

The no-man's-land is silent.

Joseph lay on the mud, with O'Connor to his right, wire cutters tucked into her waistband—the no man's land was full of barbed wire, and it was dark so that you couldn't see anything. When you encountered something, someone had to cut a gap in it. Joseph was in charge of leading the way, and O'Connor helped clear the obstacles.

McDonald brought up the rear, carrying no rifle but two grenades—his mission wasn't reconnaissance, but to create enough chaos if the two ahead were discovered so the other two could run back.

This was a place where he could die at any moment, but McDonald didn't utter a sound when he accepted the mission.

Joseph activated his perception mode in his mind, and he felt as if an antenna was unfolding in his brain.

190 meters to the right: Two people, seated, on guard duty, relaxed, with the sluggishness of long hours on duty.

Sixty meters to their left: a person, squatting, with his back to them, looking north.

230 meters to the right front: blank space.

Joseph paused for three seconds on that blank space.

That blank space was in the blind spot of the right-hand sentry post. The sentry was facing away from the north, his attention to the left, and the ground 230 meters away was right behind him, tearing a gap in the coverage area of ​​the two sentry posts.

That's enough. This is the way tonight.

He gestured the route to O'Connor. O'Connor glanced in that direction, nodded, and started to feel her way forward.

Point two fingers forward, then set off.

The mud was icy, and with each touch, a little warmth was drawn from his palm. There was water in the craters, and if you couldn't get around it, you had to push it over. Water seeped into his collar and trickled down his back. Joseph gritted his teeth and swallowed the cold, continuing on.

O'Connor paused ahead, and Joseph scanned the area with his senses—it was barbed wire, blocking their path. They couldn't see anything in the darkness, but O'Connor's hand had already reached it. He gripped the wire with wire cutters, carefully applying pressure to minimize the sound of metal snapping.

He cleared a gap big enough for one person to pass through, then crawled through, Joseph followed, and McDonald was the last.

Sixty meters. Perception followed the path ahead—without moving.

Fifty meters. Still no movement.

Thirty meters later, Joseph signaled for the two to stop.

O'Connor stopped. In the darkness, he could make out two blurry figures ahead, but not clearly enough—based on their past experience, they usually had to climb closer to confirm the details.

But he didn't say anything, he just lowered his body and waited, his eyes open in the darkness and his ears perked up to listen for any sounds.

Joseph switched to visualization in his mind.

The world changed in an instant.

In the darkness, two silhouettes lit up. The sentry in front: two men, guns resting on their knees—one with his head down, dozing. The sentry on the left: one man, his back to them, his gaze fixed on the northwest, his fingers tapping unconsciously to a rhythm on his knees, looking utterly bored.

In the blind spot on the right were six ammunition boxes, neatly stacked and covered with a waterproof tarpaulin. The fuses were coiled up and placed to the side, indicating they were for heavy artillery.

Fifty meters behind the earthen embankment, the outline of the gun carriage could be seen, at an elevation of about fifteen degrees, with two, perhaps three, guns still visible in the shadows. Joseph mentally compared the proportions of the gun barrels and the carriage—

105 millimeters.

He spent less than forty seconds of the five-minute visualization before turning it off and switching back to perception mode.

He pulled back and mentally reviewed all the data: the location of the weak point, the distance between the sentry posts on both sides, the coordinates of the ammunition storage point, and the approximate location of the heavy artillery.

That's enough information. It's time to go back.

He gestured for O'Connor and McDonald to retreat.

Just as he was about to move, the man on the left, who was crouching down, moved.

He stood up.

Joseph's palms were sweating. He immediately gestured for the three of them to lie flat, flattening themselves into the ground.

McDonald's hand stealthily reached for the grenade at his waist, gripped it, but didn't pull the pin, waiting.

The German stretched and yawned, his voice surprisingly clear in the darkness.

Joseph used his senses to focus on the angle of his head—left, twenty degrees, twenty-five degrees—

Stopped.

Density crouched down again, back in place, his gaze still directed north.

Joseph realized he had been holding his breath for those ten seconds, and only slowly exhaled when he came to. He looked down at his hands and felt a faint warmth at his fingertips, exactly the same as when he bought the amulet, gone in an instant.

Maybe it's just my imagination. Maybe it isn't.

Only after his senses confirmed that the density had completely stabilized did he slowly move for the first time.

*****************

Retreat was more difficult than arrival.

When they came, their focus was one-way, only needing to move forward; when they retreated, they had to move while simultaneously pushing their senses backward to track the movements of the three sentries and ensure that no one discovered them.

McDonald was the last to fall, clutching a grenade in his hand; it was their only way out—if the two ahead of him were discovered, he would stay behind.

The sentry on the left moved.

He stood up, stretched, opened his arms, then squatted down again in a different position.

Joseph raised his hand, palm down. Everyone froze.

After waiting for fifteen seconds, the person regained their composure, their gaze still fixed on the north.

Continue the withdrawal.

O'Connor crawled to his left, paused suddenly, and then followed.

Joseph used his senses to scan that area, where there was an unusual density of human-shaped blank spaces—corpses, German soldiers, already rotting in the mud.

One hundred meters, one hundred and fifty meters, the silhouette of the trench appeared.

The three men climbed over the trench and landed.

**************

Joseph leaned against the trench wall, waiting for his heartbeat to slow down.

O'Connor sat at the bottom of the trench, catching his breath, then put the cigarette he hadn't lit all night back into his mouth, took out a match, and lit it.

McDonald leaned against the moat wall, took the wooden horse out of his pocket, and continued his carving under the candlelight, one cut at a time, as if the past two hours had just been a short walk.

Joseph pulled out his notebook, grabbed a half-pencil, and began to draw. Location, distance, coordinates, weak points marked, sentry post spacing, ammunition storage point size, heavy artillery positions—he drew quickly, while his memory was still sharp.

O'Connor leaned closer to look for a while, then asked, "It was so dark just now, how could you see all that clearly?"

"almost."

"How did you confirm 105 millimeters?"

"You can tell by looking at the proportions of the barrel and the carriage," Joseph said, without looking up, "and the shape of the counterweights."

O'Connor paused for a few seconds, then uttered his usual phrase, the one he used to respond to everything he didn't understand:

"Okay, sure, that feels right."