The endless historical battlefield that began with World War I

Chapter 90 Authentic

The moment Joseph stepped down with his right foot, the entire ground beneath him suddenly collapsed.

He didn't have time to shout or lunge. He fell down with the clod of earth, his hand flailing in the air but grabbing nothing. He plunged into darkness, followed by a crash.

His shoulder hit something hard first, turning his body sideways. His heels touched the ground, his knees buckled, and he rolled two steps forward, landing face down in a patch of cold mud.

Joseph didn't move.

He first lay down, pressed his face against the mud, and let his body feel where he was injured.

I bumped my right shoulder; it hurts dully, but thankfully it's not dislocated. The rifle is still in my hand; it didn't fall.

He looked up.

About two meters above his head, there was a circular hole, about three feet in diameter, pointing vertically upwards. It was a hole he had drilled through, and that's where he fell.

Above the breach was a vertical shaft, reinforced with wooden planks on the inner wall. A sliver of light shone through the well opening, leaking in from the gaps in the trenches on the ground. It was pale and thin, but better than nothing.

Using this sliver of light, Joseph began to survey his surroundings.

The floor beneath my feet is made of neat, evenly spaced wooden planks; it wasn't just haphazardly laid out.

He stretched out one hand on each side, with wooden walls on both sides. At fixed intervals, there was a square cross-section support frame with chisel marks on the surface. The frame extended from the floor to the ceiling, and was reinforced by diagonal braces on the sides. The whole structure was like a mine shaft.

He bent down to look at the ground. In the gaps between the wooden planks, there were white mineral deposits, formed by groundwater seeping out and crystallizing on the surface of the wood. They had a rough texture to the touch.

The ray of light overhead allowed him to barely make out the outline of the corridor—wooden walls on both sides, supporting beams above, the corridor extending south and north, disappearing into the darkness beyond the reach of the light.

This is neither a naturally formed underground cave nor a hiding place dug casually.

This is a corridor, designed and built by someone, supporting and extending to an unknown depth beneath his feet.

Joseph felt something click in his head, and a puzzle piece fit perfectly into his body.

That map showing the German garrison.

In the southern corner, the German abbreviation "St." that he had quickly jumped over was next to a square symbol.

He initially thought it was a place name—Saint, a place with a lot of prefixes like that in French place names.

However, "St." is an abbreviation of "Stollen".

typical.

This is a German tunnel.

The Germans constructed a layered system beneath the surface of the Somme: the shallow layer served as shelters for infantry during artillery bombardments, leading directly to the front-line trenches. Below that was a deeper living area, nine to fifteen meters below the surface, containing dormitories, command posts, telephone exchanges, medical stations, and some rooms for high-ranking officers, reportedly decorated with paintings. The deepest layer consisted of acoustic and offensive tunnels, dug into the no-man's-land and beneath British positions, filled with explosives, awaiting detonation.

The British military high command knew of the system's existence and its name, but no one knew the extent to which it extended.

On the first day, 60,000 people died on the Somme. The British bombarded the German positions for seven days, thinking they had leveled them, but in reality, the Germans were all underground, waiting to emerge when the bombardment stopped.

Now, Joseph was standing in one of the tunnel corridors.

"Joseph".

McDonald's voice came from the darkness.

Joseph activated the visual mode of tactical intuition.

On the eve of the Battle of the Somme, he used points to upgrade this skill, and now his tactical intuition is at LV3 advanced level.

The biggest change after the upgrade is that he can distinguish more information about the outline, making it clearer. In the normal and enhanced versions, he could only see a red humanoid outline. In the LV3 advanced version, the red outline becomes a layered signal, showing the temperature differences in different parts of the body, the strength of blood circulation, and the changes in body surface temperature caused by adrenaline under stress.

In other words, what he can perceive now has changed from "whether there is anyone" to "what state that person is in now".

In the darkness, McDonald's silhouette emerged like a dark red light, its edges blurred, its center slightly brighter—the chest cavity, where heat dissipation is most concentrated in the human body. The silhouette was standing, without any other abnormalities; its limbs were intact, not curled up, and its posture was cautious but stable.

He followed the outline and whispered, "I'm here."

The two approached each other in the darkness, stopping a foot apart. McDonald's hand groped for his shoulder, confirming their position.

How are you?

"I bumped my right shoulder, but it's nothing serious. How about you?"

"He rolled in, and his palm is slightly scraped."

Just then, a groan came from the south.

The sound was quickly suppressed, as if it had been forcibly swallowed, only a sound escaped from the mouth before silence returned.

Joseph looked south.

He saw a human silhouette sitting on the right side of the corridor, about several dozen meters away from him and McDonald. The silhouette was paler than normal, a sign of blood loss or early shock. The person's body temperature was dropping, but circulation was slowing down. The lower half of the silhouette was abnormal; the right leg was discolored.

The man had an injury to his right leg.

Joseph walked south along the right-hand wooden wall, with McDonald following behind him. In the visual mode, the silhouette became clearer and clearer, and when Joseph was about four or five meters away, he recognized him.

That's Wilkins; he fell down too.

Joseph slowed his pace and said in a low voice, "It's us."

Then he squatted down.

Wilkins sat with his back against the wooden wall, his right leg held at an odd angle below the knee.

He landed slightly south of Joseph, where the wooden planks of the corridor ceiling had collapsed under the weight of the earthwork, and he fell through the gap. He didn't land on his feet; he fell sideways, his right leg hitting the edge of the corridor first.

Joseph deactivated his tactical instincts and reached out to examine Wilkins' leg. From the knee down to the mid-calf, Wilkins' breathing suddenly changed, he caught his breath, and didn't utter a sound, but just leaned back, pressing his head firmly against the wooden wall.

Tibial fracture, closed, with no skin penetration at the fracture surface.

Using the darkness, Joseph rummaged through his personal space and found a first-aid kit, inside which he found bandages and two splints, and used them to create a simple splint to immobilize Wilkins's calf.

Wilkins remained silent throughout, only uttering soft, restrained breaths.

Once secured, Joseph patted him on the shoulder.

"Can you walk?" he asked.

"He can't walk on his own, he needs someone to help him, but he can shoot while sitting." Wilkins' voice was hoarse. "Both grenades are still there, the rifle isn't damaged, I checked it myself."

Joseph stood up, walked back to the bottom of the shaft breach, and looked up.

The pale, scattered light was still there, but it was thinner than when he had just landed—the earth above was slowly moving under the influence of gravity, and the breach was being plugged.

He reached out and touched the compacted earth and gravel with his fingertips. He ran his hand around the edge and found it was very compacted, without any looseness or gaps.

He pulled his hand back.

Gunfire from the trenches above carried down through the soil. The 185 men were still fighting, unaware that they had fallen.

Even if they discover that Joseph and his two companions are missing, and even if they find the collapsed section, they will find that the earthwork has sealed the shaft shut.

They lacked suitable engineering tools and time, and were unable to dig through the embankment to rescue them during the battle.

They were trapped inside.

They need to find their own way out of the tunnel.