Battlefield Priest's Diary

Chapter 113 Confrontation
In Baledik, on a cold morning in late February, a thin mist hung over the platform.

In the crisp morning breeze, citizens carried luggage of all sizes, preparing to board buses to Paris.

Recently, rumors have been circulating in some cities that the Germans are about to attack, causing widespread panic among citizens. Many people are packing their bags and preparing to flee south for refuge.

As the bus approached, people crowded towards the platform. There were almost no young men in the crowd; the elderly, children, and women were packed together.

A burly middle-aged woman, carrying a basket, tried to squeeze forward to the front of the line. Just as she was about to succeed, a woman casually tossed her suitcase aside, blocking her from the front.

The fat woman was furious and wanted to lash out, but when she saw the seemingly intimidating young woman in front of her, her momentum dissipated. She muttered a few words of rural slang and rejoined the line.

Chanel put her suitcase back in and glanced at the burly woman, a slight smile playing on her lips. She had been making a living in society since she was 16, and dealing with shrewish women like this was second nature to her.

The driver opened the car door and blew the whistle.

A staff member shouted down, "Let the boxes come up first! Let the boxes come up first! Everyone else, wait a minute!"

At this moment, staff members carried several wooden crates filled with various personal belongings onto the bus, and the surrounding passengers simply watched quietly without causing a disturbance.

The box contained the belongings of the fallen.

In early 1916, France enacted the Wartime Transport Law, which stipulated that the dead and their belongings had priority over the living in passage.

No means of transportation may transport ordinary passengers unless it is guaranteed to transport the belongings of the deceased.

Large boxes were loaded onto the bus one by one, quickly taking up about a third of the space. Chanel breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing this.

Luckily, I queued here tonight, otherwise I might not have been able to get back to Paris today.

The whistle blew again, and people began to rush to the bus, but just as Chanel's shoes were about to step onto the footboard, a group of soldiers jogged to the station.

The second lieutenant in charge exchanged a few words with the staff, who then closed the car door again.

A notice was posted at the station, and a crowd gathered to discuss it. Half a minute later, a huge commotion broke out.

Pétain, in his capacity as the supreme commander of the theater of operations, ordered the requisition of all vehicles in the area surrounding the city.
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At noon, the thunderous sound of artillery once again enveloped the Verdun region, where hundreds of thousands of German and French troops clashed in an area of ​​40 square kilometers.

A German albatross reconnaissance plane flew high in the sky. The young pilot carefully observed the ground situation through his thick goggles, and would occasionally take out a pencil to record the information he saw in his notebook.

He had to deliver a good performance to impress his superiors, after all, he was a cavalryman who switched to piloting halfway through his career, and a few months ago he even crashed his plane to pieces during a solo landing.

If he wants to realize his dream of being a knight in the air, he needs to produce some outstanding results soon. Otherwise, let alone flying fighter jets, he'll probably have to go back to the logistics department to count potatoes.

This was not what he wanted. He aspired to be a great ace pilot like Oswald Polk, how could he retire without shooting down a single enemy plane?!
My old friends would laugh themselves to death if they heard this.

As he focused his gaze southward, a strange sight caught his attention.

A narrow country road was shrouded in dust, with dozens of trucks lined up in a long procession moving forward. A tall cross on the lead truck stood out conspicuously.

A few days ago, his colleague mentioned encountering a special "truck" on the road that miraculously escaped being bombarded by artillery fire; it seems this is the guy in front of him.

What are the French trying to do?!

After a moment's thought, the daring pilot lowered the fuselage and swooped down toward the other convoy.

The altitude dropped instantly, and the Albatross reconnaissance plane sliced ​​through the airspace above the convoy like a pair of scissors. At a low altitude of only a few dozen meters, the young German pilot could even see the faces of the convoy drivers.

A strong wind blew up, and a corner of the truck's tarpaulin was lifted.

The pilot was surprised to find that the contents were boxes of ammunition.

A slogan was written in French on one side of the vehicle, which he, being of aristocratic background, could easily recognize: "France needs Paris, Paris needs Verdun, and now Verdun needs us!"

It's a French transport convoy!!!
This is crucial intelligence! The pilot took out a pencil to record what he saw, then turned the plane around to try to get a clearer view and record more detailed information.

At the same time, the French lead vehicle also spotted the German aircraft. The driver on the other side accelerated again, kicking up all the sand and dust on the ground, and for a moment, nothing could be seen around the convoy.

"A cunning fellow!" The pilot smiled; the opponent's resistance only fueled his competitive spirit.

The Albatross reconnaissance plane swooped down again, this time lower and closer, so that they could see each other's faces even through the smoke and dust—a man in black clothes who turned his head and even smiled slightly at him.

The next second, the cross on the front of the car flipped over, and a blinding light shone directly into the pilot's eyes.

"Damn it!" The pilot, who had briefly lost his sight, pulled the plane up almost instinctively.

call! !

The albatross brushed past a dense canopy of trees and barely managed to rise into the sky.

Thank goodness! If I had been a second later, I would have crashed into the tree!
This cunning fellow had already planned to scheme against him. The German looked on resentfully from the sky at the Renault truck, which was running like a fox mocking a bird of prey that had missed its target.

Meanwhile, sighs and groans echoed from the Renault trucks.

"What a pity! Father, you almost killed him!" the soldiers escorting the vehicle said regretfully.

The black-robed priest beside him shook his head helplessly. The tactic he had just used was the one used by our army's transport units on the Korean Peninsula to lure American reconnaissance planes into crashing into mountains at low altitude. The core principle was that when the plane was traveling at speeds below 140 km/h, visual observation would be conducted, and the distraction would greatly reduce the reaction time.

However, the opponent reacted quickly and managed to escape. If we didn't kill him this time, the same trick probably won't work next time.

He gripped the steering wheel with one hand, opened the window, and looked out. At that moment, the German pilot, wearing goggles, leaned down to look at him.

The two people looked at each other from a distance of more than 200 meters.

Finally, the Albatross reconnaissance plane rose high and distanced itself from the convoy.

A white carrier pigeon, used for delivering messages, was released from the reconnaissance aircraft, while at the same time a small black dot emerged from the convoy and followed in the air.

At 15 p.m., the Albatross reconnaissance aircraft successfully returned to its base.

The young pilot jumped off the plane and went straight to the communications department. In his haste, he rushed in without even taking off his goggles.

"Squad leader, did you receive the message I sent back?" the young man asked urgently.

"Calm down. German soldiers must remain calm at all times." The company commander patted him on the shoulder.

“Mr. Richthofen, I have not received any messages from you, but you can tell me in person.”
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Quack!! Quack!! Quack!!
A noisy commotion arose from the roof of the vehicle; it was Odin loudly protesting that ever since he traded a broken stone for a bag of jerky, the pay for his work had started to rise.

The black-robed priest picked up a wounded pigeon that had been caught and took out a letterbox that had been tied up at his feet.

After reading the words, the priest in the black robe sighed, "I'm afraid it won't be so easy to go back."

On March 2, 1916, in order to alleviate the shortage of supplies at the Verdun front, General Pétain, commander of the Second Army, requisitioned a large number of vehicles to urgently transport supplies to the front. Trucks, buses, tractors, and even horse-drawn carts carrying hay—anything with wheels—were sent to the front.

However, all he relied on was a narrow, potholed path no more than 6 meters wide. This section of the Balduk-Verdun road, later known as the Sacred Road or the Miracle Road, was under German artillery fire for a third of its length.

On March 3, German reconnaissance planes spotted the first wave of French transport troops. A bloody battle ensued over this 70-kilometer stretch of road.

However, the French transport team was unaware of this at the time, and the leading officer was still arguing with another priest in black robes about whether to take the wounded back.

(End of this chapter)