The endless historical battlefield that began with World War I

Chapter 96 Return to the Ground

Joseph sat up in the British engineers' tunnel.

This tunnel was lower than the German section; he could touch the supporting beams with his head when he sat up straight. The space here was even narrower, less than a meter wide, just big enough for one person to crawl through and work.

But there were lights, bright sapper lights, shining on the mud walls and on the faces of several men in British uniforms. They stared at Joseph, at McDonald, at Wilkins, their faces showing fear.

A combat engineer with a thick brown beard squatted down in front of Joseph. He wore thick gloves and had mud on his forehead. He asked, "Where are you from—?"

Joseph removed his gas mask and took a deep breath.

This was the first breath of air he hadn't taken through a rubber filter in a long time. He smelled the earthy odor, the sweat on people's bodies, and the burning smell of sappers' lamps. The mixture wasn't pleasant, but it was clean and free of chlorine.

He looked at the engineer.

"We came from the German side," he said. "By the way, about sixty meters to the north, there is an attack tunnel with explosives already in place. The wires come out of the explosives terminal and run south. If you dig north, you can reach the detonation wire within ten meters."

He paused for a moment.

"Don't touch that wire yet. Wait until I get up there; I need to make a phone call first."

The sapper paused for a few seconds, then looked at the earthen wall behind him, still crumbling from the aftershocks of the explosion, turned around, took off his gloves, and extended his right hand.

"My name is Reed, from the 171st Engineer Company. Which unit are you from?"

Joseph took his hand.

"Joseph Lyndon, infantry, 17th Division," he said. "Do you have any rope ladders? I have a comrade with a broken leg who needs help getting up."

To the north, the rumbling had ceased, and the soil had settled, sealing off that section of the tunnel completely, as if nothing had ever happened.

Only the wire remained, connected to the explosives, extending southward, silently waiting for Joseph to decide its fate.

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Reed had a rope ladder brought from the deepest part of the tunnel. It was made of hemp rope and hung in the main vertical shaft, dangling down from the ground with the end half a meter below the tunnel floor. Reed confirmed that the knots were secure and then glanced back at Wilkins' leg.

"Can you climb?"

"Yes," Wilkins replied.

He climbed the rope ladder with both hands and one foot, his broken leg dangling in the air. He struggled to climb up the rope ladder, pausing every few steps to catch his breath before continuing.

When he was halfway up the well, someone above him was already lying on the edge of the well, reaching down and grabbing his wrist to pull him up.

Then it was McDonald, and then Joseph.

Joseph was the last to come out. He braced his hands on the edge of the well and leaned his upper body out. Then someone grabbed his arms and pulled him up. He rolled out and lay face down on the ground.

ground.

He pressed his face to the ground, feeling the solid soil beneath his feet and the sky above his head. The afternoon sunlight shone on him, making him squint.

The sound of cannons came from afar, intermittently; the fighting was still going on, and the battle was not over yet.

He stood up.

Reed stood to the side, took off his gloves, rubbed his hands together, and looked the three of them over: "How long have you been down there?"

"About two hours." Joseph raised his hand to wipe his face. He saw dried blood on the back of his hand, which he had rubbed off in the tunnel, but it wasn't all his own.

Reed looked at the back of his hand, then at his face, and asked no more questions. He turned and waved to his engineers, arranging for two men to support Wilkins.

They emerged from about 120 meters behind the British positions, behind a mound of earth created by artillery fire. There was a row of makeshift bunkers there, where the engineering corps was stationed.

Joseph looked around and recognized the direction—Lieutenant Colonel Chatrick's forward command post was in this direction.

He asked Reed, "How long does it take to get to command post?"

"It's not far, about a five-minute walk."

Reed pointed in a direction, and Joseph nodded, then turned to McDonald: "Let's go."

McDonald hung the sapper hammer back on his belt.

His coat was blackened by the explosives, and there was a mud mark on his right shoulder.

He touched the bandage wrapped around his left hand, which Joseph had put on him in the tunnel. His hand had been cut by flying wood shards during the final explosion. The wound wasn't deep, and he hadn't mentioned it at the time, but Joseph noticed and forced him to stand while the bandage was applied. He hadn't uttered a sound the whole time, finding it too troublesome.

They walked toward the command post, Wilkins sandwiched between two engineers, stopping every three steps, but he insisted on walking himself and wouldn't let anyone carry him.

Lieutenant Colonel Chatterley was in the command post, with a battlefield map spread out in front of him and two messengers standing beside him, marking something on the map.

A messenger peeked out and then tapped another man on the shoulder; both men turned their heads at the same time.

Lieutenant Colonel Chatterley looked up, saw the three people standing in the doorway, and paused for a few seconds.

"Lydon?" he said. "Where the hell did you come from?!"

He walked around the map table, strode over, and looked Joseph up and down. Joseph was covered in dirt, his uniform was torn in two places, and there was blood on his mouth and hands. He stood at the entrance of the command post, looking like a man who had just crawled out of a grave.

But he stood very straight, his eyes were clear, and his breathing was steady.

"I thought you were still on the front lines—" Lieutenant Colonel Chatrick said.

"I was underground," Joseph said. "I fell into a German tunnel and stayed there for about two hours before I found the exit and got out."

Lieutenant Colonel Chatterley shut his mouth, then after a few seconds spoke again: "Where did you say you were?"

"A tunnel. The Germans built an underground system under this front line. The three of us fell in and got out through the British engineers." Joseph took two steps inside, walked to the map table, and pointed to the map. "Here, roughly at this location, there's an attack tunnel directly opposite the foundation of our artillery position. The explosives are in place, the detonation wires are connected, and the detonator is behind the German position. They can detonate it at any time."

Lieutenant Colonel Chatterick's gaze followed his finger to the map, paused for two seconds, then turned to the messenger beside him, "Go, call the engineer liaison officer, now," then turned back, "and continue."

Joseph recounted the entire incident, from falling into the shaft to emerging from the British tunnel. He omitted the details of the "golden touch," the concealment, and the hand-to-hand combat. Regarding the attack on the two German soldiers, he described it as, "I took advantage of their backs and used a chokehold to finish them off."

He explained the tunnel layout, the approximate location of the explosives, the troop strength in the northern work area, the location of the storage room, and the route of the detonating wires—everything was clearly described.

Lieutenant Colonel Chatterley stood next to the map and listened in silence for a while.

Then he turned to the engineering liaison officer, who had arrived and was standing at the door, listening intently, his face already looking rather grim.

"Did you hear me clearly?" Lieutenant Colonel Chatrick asked him.

The engineering liaison officer nodded and was already taking out his communication notebook.

"That wire," Joseph added, "could we cut it through the British tunnel system? Don't cut it, take a detour and find the source of the wire from the side. If we cut the wire, the Germans will have abnormal readings, and they might detonate explosives elsewhere prematurely. We need to cut it between the detonator and the explosives, so that even if they press the switch, there will be no signal."

"Cut off" and "sever" sound similar, but they are actually different.

Cutting it would be the stupidest thing to do, because there would always be electricity running through that line, indicating to the German instruments on the other end:

The circuit is intact, the explosives are still there, and it can be activated at any time.

If they simply cut the wire, the electricity would disappear, and the meter needle would turn downwards, indicating that someone had moved and thus deducing that the tunnel had been infiltrated.

By then, they might detonate explosives buried elsewhere prematurely.

Therefore, we can't simply let that wire break; we have to make it lie. We need to connect it from the side, detour the signal, and at the same time block the section leading to the explosives.

Thus, the German troops would see normal readings and assume everything was ready, but when they pressed the detonator, nothing would happen.

The engineering liaison officer looked up, glancing at Joseph with some surprise. Then he lowered his head, jotted down two lines of what Joseph had just said in his notebook, and turned to leave. The sound of him giving orders could be heard outside.

Joseph took the map out of his inside coat pocket, unfolded it, and placed it on the map table.

"This was taken from a German storage room," he said. "It's a hand-drawn floor plan of their tunnel system, with the scale bar in the lower left corner."

Lieutenant Colonel Chatterick's gaze fell upon the yellowed blueprint, then he gestured with his chin toward the messenger beside him.

The messenger understood, pulled out a roll from under the table, unfolded it, and flattened it.

That was a tunnel survey map by British engineers, covering the tunnels beneath this war zone. It was clearer than the German map, a proper printed map with the latest work progress marked in pencil.

Joseph placed the two images side by side, aligned them with the ground coordinates, and then bent down to compare them.

"Here," he pointed to the southern end of the German map, then moved it to the corresponding location on the British map, "the southernmost point of the German tunnels stopped here; they didn't continue digging south." He moved his finger a little north, landing at the end of a thin line on the British map, "the farthest point of the British engineers' northward operations is here."

These two locations are not far apart, but they are not connected.

"How far apart are these two locations?" Lieutenant Colonel Chatterley bent down to get a closer look. "Have you calculated it?"

"Converted to the scale," Joseph said, "it's about four to six meters."

Lieutenant Colonel Chatterley didn't respond immediately. He straightened up and looked at the two pictures several times.

"You mean," he said, "that the Germans are very close to our tunnels, but neither side knows how close the other is."