I'm the Dauphin in France

Chapter 676: Burning Eastern Europe III
"You should be afraid of war." The burly curly-haired man in front of Yannick turned his head, "The Russians are not weaklings."

"So what?" The blond young man puffed out his chest, "I am a glorious crusader. I will destroy all heretics and invaders under the glory of God!"

The burly man shook his head and said disdainfully:

"God won't help you block the bullets..."

Drasovitz interrupted him immediately and loudly:
"Krzysztof, you're going to affect morale!"

He turned his head again and whispered to Yannick:

"He's from Livonia, you know...his family is all dead."

Livonia was originally a northeastern province of Poland, which was occupied by Russia during the First World War. Since then, Catholics there have been persecuted repeatedly. Krzysztof's family was executed for "supporting the anti-Russian resistance army", and he was still a child at the time, so he escaped.

Drasovitz pointed to a nearby farmhouse with rubble and broken wood piled up at the door - this meant that no soldiers lived there - and said:

"Let's go there."

What is most lacking here is empty houses, and as long as they don't stray too far from the breastwork on the east side, they can choose any "temporary barracks" they like.

When Drasovitz pushed aside the garbage outside the door and opened it, he immediately smelled a foul odor. Then he saw a dirty boy who looked to be about ten years old huddled in the corner, looking at him timidly.

Yannick followed in, glanced at the child, frowned and said:

"Why are you still in the village? The Russians are coming."

When the child heard the Polish language, he immediately asked cautiously, "Master, do you have anything to eat?"

From the voice it turned out to be a girl.

Krzysztof squeezed over, took a piece of black bread from his backpack and handed it to her:

"Eat."

The child grabbed the bread, took a bite, then turned around and shouted:

"Kachi, there's food, come out quickly!"

After a while, a little boy about six or seven years old, who was dirtier than her, came out from the fireplace, took half the bread and started to eat it.

Drasovitz looked at the two children:

"Didn't you leave with the adults?"

The girl chewed the bread vigorously and said vaguely:
"My aunt didn't take us away..."

It took a while for Drasovitz to understand that the father of the two children died of illness last month, and their relatives left them here.

The corporal hesitated for a moment, took out his own food, and motioned to Yannick:

"Give me yours, too."

He stuffed a few large pieces of brown bread and some bacon into the girl's hands and pointed to the west:
"Take your brother and keep going this way. You will see a supply station in two or three days. The baggage train there may be able to take you to Slutsk."

The girl looked at the food in her hands, enough for herself and her brother to eat for four or five days, and knelt down to thank the soldiers. Then, amid the rumbling of artillery fire, she pulled the little boy and ran out of the village.

Yannick watched them go away and made the sign of the cross on his chest:

“May God bless them.”

As soon as he finished speaking, he heard the sound of a shell breaking through the air passing by his ears. Then, a black iron ball slammed into the ground, raising a cloud of mud.

Under the huge inertia, the shell bounced from the ground, fell, bounced again, and then gently passed over the backs of the brother and sister.

"No!"

Drasovitz roared, dropped his gun, and ran over like crazy.

On the dry grass, there was only blood splattered far away and fragments of the girl's dirty clothes.

The person has disappeared.

The corporal felt a tightness in his chest and lowered his head to shout:

"Ah-ah-"

Several other soldiers also gathered around, staring blankly at the ground without saying a word. Suddenly, Krzysztof, with red eyes, raised his gun, pointed it in the direction of the shell and pulled the trigger hard.

A gunshot was heard.

He took out the gunpowder bag with rapid breathing and poured it into the barrel tremblingly.

A sergeant heard the gunshots and ran out of a small hut not far away with his men, pointing at Krzysztof and shouting:

"Henrik, what are you doing? You are not allowed to shoot without orders!"

"These bastards!" Krzysztof gritted his teeth and made a dull sound in his throat.

Drasovitz quickly took his gun and said to the sergeant:
"Squad leader, please forgive him. Two children were killed just now, so..."

He suddenly stopped, ran quickly to the haystack beside the squad leader, dug it hard a few times, and took little Kachi out.

"He's still alive!" he shouted over his shoulder.

Half an hour later.

The little boy slowly woke up in the smelly farmhouse and looked around in a daze.

The kind-hearted soldiers from before were all there, but his sister was missing.

The Russian bombardment continued all day.

Drasovitz no longer mentioned "the shells won't hit us" because the density of Russian artillery far exceeded any battle he had ever seen before.

Half of the houses in the village were destroyed by artillery shells. The soldiers no longer dared to stay in their houses, but gathered in groups of three or five under the breastworks.

At 10 o'clock the next morning, trumpets sounded almost simultaneously along the more than ten-kilometer-long Polish defense line.

Without the company commander's reminder, Drasovitz called out to the new recruits:

"Everyone, get up! Quick! The Russians are coming, get ready to line up!"

He had just joined the line behind the breastwork with a few new recruits when he vaguely saw a large number of Russian soldiers in gray uniforms emerging from the bushes in the distance.

The grayness in their field of vision grew larger and larger. Ten minutes later, the gray crowd had filled the open space in front of the breastwork, like a dark cloud with no end in sight, slowly surging towards the Polish defense line.

Soon, Drasovitz and others could vaguely hear the drumbeats from the Russian army.

Krzysztof swallowed and said in a hoarse voice:

"Damn, how many of them are there?"

Drasovitz glanced at the captain and whispered:

"Don't be nervous. There are less than 800 of them. They are probably just scattered soldiers used for testing."

The captain rode past them, shouting:

"Keep calm and don't move!"

Soon, the dark cloud was more than a hundred steps away.

The only two cannons in the village of Zagazk were pushed out of the haystacks and began firing at the Russians.

The shells left a few streaks of bright red among the Russian troops, but did not slow them down at all. When the nearest Russian soldiers approached to 60 steps in front of the breastwork, they stopped and began to shoot.

"Prepare--"

The company commander's voice finally came, and Drasovitz immediately raised his gun and signaled to the new recruits beside him:

"Did you hear me? Put your guns up, but don't shoot!"

Yannick excitedly aimed at the tallest Russian in his field of vision, and then he heard the officer's order, "Aim--"

"shooting--"

As soon as his finger touched the trigger, he heard a muffled "puff" sound. Turning his head, he saw that half of his teammate's head was missing. A pungent smell of blood immediately enveloped him.

(End of this chapter)