Imperial Elite

Chapter 14 Damn it, the design bureau is incompetent, it seems I have to come out of retirement!

Joe was reluctant to drive such an ugly thing, which looked like an illegal building, into the battlefield.

Joe was already quite resistant to the idea of ​​fighting for the king.

Now that he has to drive this ugly thing into battle, Joe thinks he must have gotten up the wrong way today.

Those who frequently reincarnate know that being strong is only a matter of one version, but being handsome is a matter of a lifetime.

It was one thing to be wielding an entrenching tool to repair the earth before, but now I'm sitting in such an ugly tank...

Joe thought his old friend would laugh his teeth out.

Moreover, just from that tower on top of the tank that looks like an illegal structure built by the IJN, Joe could tell that the designer of this thing must be a damn Navy person.

At sea, this thing allows warships to see farther and shoot more accurately, but on land, needing this thing means you're afraid others won't be able to see you.

Joe could imagine how, when he drove this thing into battle, the Teutons would laugh their heads off and then call for his name from the artillery.

Damn you, Navy! You should know shame! Know shame!
Yes, Joe knew that, theoretically speaking, sitting in such an illegal building would definitely give him a much higher chance of survival than hiding in a trench.

But can the car that the navy made actually drive?
It just won't start!
However, the captain leading the way seemed to mistake the resistance in Joe's eyes for shock.

Seeing that Joe's hand was trembling slightly, the captain patted Joe's arm to acknowledge him.

This is the perfect culmination of imperial technology and engineering. With these glorious water tanks, we will surely be able to break through the Teutonic defenses, rush all the way to Germania, and shave the Emperor's beard off!

As they were talking, the captain called over two soldiers and had them take Joe's luggage to the officers' tent while he led Joe to the regimental headquarters.

Joe used all his self-control to refrain from rolling his eyes so hard they almost landed on the top of his head.

Joe thought that if this moving thing was the pinnacle of Imperial technology and engineering, it would explain why he was now rolling around in the mud on the front lines instead of swinging a T-square and pencil around in his studio back home.

Damn it! Those old men upstairs are all a bunch of bastards!
Just as Joe was mentally ordering insect hats for the older men above him, the captain led Joe into the regimental headquarters.

It was called the regimental headquarters, but in reality it was just a better tent reinforced with wooden planks.

At the regimental headquarters, Joe met the regimental commander, a colonel who looked to be in his late thirties or early forties, wearing a clean uniform, a medal for outstanding conduct like Joe's, and a well-trimmed goatee.

Just by looking at him, you can tell he is a respectable gentleman.

"Lieutenant Harrison, welcome to the team!"

After receiving Joe's transfer and promotion orders and looking at them, the colonel smiled and extended his hand to Joe.

"I am Colonel Hugh Ells, and I hope we can have a wonderful time together from now on."

Joe gently shook Colonel Els's hand.

"Of course, if the Teutons surrender tomorrow, I think the rest of the time will be good times."

"Hahaha!"

Upon hearing Joe's words, Colonel Els burst into a delighted laugh.

“We will make them surrender. Once those big guys are on the battlefield, no one can stop them.”

At this point, Colonel Els looked Joe up and down.

"I remember you received a Medal of Distinguished Service. Why don't you wear it on your chest? Do you think it's not good enough for you and want a Victoria Cross instead?"

Joe gave a slightly awkward laugh.

"Colonel..."

Colonel Els interrupted Joe with a laugh.

"Just call me Xiu."

“Okay, Hugh, I’ve been on the front lines the whole time, you know, there, wearing medals…”

Colonel Els interrupted Joe again.

"You're easy to attract bullets, aren't you? I know, but when you show up on the battlefield wearing medals, it's more likely to boost morale, isn't it? You're an officer now, so you need to learn to look at things from a new perspective. Courage and honor are what distinguish us from ordinary soldiers."

Colonel Els patted Joe on the shoulder.

"I hope that next time I see you, you'll be wearing the medal, and..."

Colonel Els glanced at Joe's boots.

“I don’t know what you were like in the past, but in London, an officer should at least be wearing shiny boots.”

After speaking, Colonel Els reached out to the side, and a major handed him a list.

“We are short-staffed right now, but you haven’t been promoted yet, Joe. So I’ll have you temporarily act as the deputy of another lieutenant. You can go to Company C. You happen to know the company commander of Company C.”

As he spoke, Colonel Els looked up from the list and addressed the captain who had led Joe into the regimental headquarters.

"Daniel, go and call Cecil over."

As the captain left the regimental headquarters, Colonel Els put down the documents in his hand and began to ask Joe how much of what was said about him in the newspapers was true.

When asked by Colonel Els, Joe could only laugh awkwardly and say that it was all propaganda. Although he did have a factory and had indeed invented some things, he absolutely did not capture a trench by himself; it was all thanks to the hard work of his comrades.

Upon hearing Joe's words, Colonel Els laughed and patted Joe on the shoulder before asking him which university he had attended, Oxford or Imperial College London, as he had many friends who graduated from those two universities.

As soon as he finished speaking, Colonel Els raised his hand to signal Joe to be quiet; he wanted to guess.

Oxford University is full of hypocrites who feign high-mindedness, Imperial College London is full of bookworms, and Joe's ideology is completely different from theirs, so...

"You and I both went to Cambridge, right?"

Upon hearing Colonel Els's guess that he had attended Cambridge University, Joe could only manage an awkward but polite smile.

Just as he was about to explain that he was a graduate of Garidon University with a bachelor's degree and Commuting University with a master's degree, Captain Daniel walked in with a young man.

Although Joe had seen many young men in the army, the guy who walked into the tent with Daniel seemed a bit too young to Joe.

He looked like he wasn't even an adult yet, his face radiating a kind of innocent foolishness and naivety. "Selsey, this is Joe, Joe Harrison, the war hero in the newspapers the other day. He'll be your second-in-command for the next while."

Upon hearing Joe's name, the young man's eyes lit up immediately, and he quickly walked up to Joe and extended his hand to him.

“Hello, may I call you Joe? I am Cecil Augustus Winslow-Cavendish.”

Upon hearing this rather excessively long name, Joe wanted to say, "You're Serci? Where are the rest of the people?" However, his past experience dealing with these nobles taught him that this was clearly not a good time to joke, especially since this guy would be his boss in the future.

As for why Joe knew this guy was a nobleman.

Without considering anything else, just by hearing the surname Winslow Cavendish, you can tell that this kid must be the descendant of a marriage between two noble families. These two noble families are so prominent that they can't function without either one, so they adopted a dual surname.

Those families that can create such a dual-surname structure all start as earls.

Although many thoughts flashed through his mind, Joe immediately grasped Cecil's hand.

"Of course, may I call you Cecil?"

"That won't work."

Joe was surprised when Cecil suddenly turned serious.

"Out of respect for the nobility, you must call me Cecil Augustus Winslow-Cavendish."

Upon hearing Cecil's words, Joe's smile froze for a moment, but before Joe could speak, Cecil smiled again and patted Joe's arm.

“Just kidding, of course you can call me Cecil. I’ve read your story in the newspapers. You’re a real hero.”

Upon hearing this, Qiao quickly put on an awkward smile.

"No, no, the regimental commander is the real hero. Look, he also has the Medal for Distinguished Conduct, and he's a colonel. He's much more capable than me."

In a pleasant atmosphere, Joe finished his report.

And as an officer, even as the lowest-ranking second lieutenant, Joe received a single tent, a cot, and two brand-new officer uniforms.

It seems that Joe's life should be much better from now on, but obviously the person who issued Joe's transfer order did not consider how torturous it would be to combine officer training with the training Joe would receive after joining the heavy machine gun regiment.

Joe had to undergo both short-term officer training and tank operation and maintenance training in one day, and these two trainings not only overlapped slightly in time, but were also quite far apart.

Fortunately, Cecil was a good man, and after learning about Joe's predicament, he was willing to lend Joe his horse.

However, the price was that Joe had to tell him stories from the front every night.

As someone who had also only recently arrived at the front lines, Joe had no frontline stories to speak of. Naturally, he could only use stories from his friends, slightly modified, or stories he had heard from a veteran, to tell Cecil.

It was at this moment that Joe realized his superior was actually younger than he had thought.

When the war broke out, Cecil, before the women could even turn white feathers, rushed to the conscription office to enlist, declaring that he wanted to fight for the king.

The conscription office in Buntania, adhering to the principle that everything in its arsenal is fair game and everyone is responsible for their own life, conscripted Cecil into the army.

Then Cecil's father and grandfather went crazy. "You're only sixteen! You're not even as tall as a rifle! What are you doing on the front lines! Get back here!"

Of course, having already joined the military, leaving wasn't so easy. So Cecil was sent to the naval research institute by a duke and an earl to study water tanks.

However, Cecil, who was eager to go to the battlefield and fight his way to a high position with sword and spear, soon discovered that there were differences between the water tanks.

Then, by studying water tanks, he transitioned to a test driver and then to a field unit, gradually working his way up to the battlefield.

After hearing Cecil's life story, Joe silently raised his head, tears streaming down his face and into his heart.

After spending a few days in the heavy machine gun regiment, Joe felt as if his life had returned to his college days.

As soon as I got up in the morning, I had to borrow Cecil's horse and rush to Abel to attend the short-term officer training course. Then, in the afternoon, I had to rush back to the company before the training ended and learn with the crew how to use and maintain the tank known as the Royal Fist MK-1 from the technicians from London.

However, after sitting in it for the first time, Joe felt it would be more appropriate to call this thing 'the Navy's number one stupid design'.

Just as Joe had initially guessed, when he was sleeping in his officer's tent on his first night, his old friend almost couldn't breathe when he saw the Royal Fist.

For the next while, Joe spent a pleasant time with his old friend; after all, nothing is more enjoyable than venting about some stupid design with a friend.

If anything, it's that Joe's old friend just won a battle against those Space Marines, destroying those bad cans and their blasphemous creations.

Next, they need to purge all heretics from the hive city. Of course, heretics here basically refer to all two-legged creatures that can breathe.

Although this kind of work may last for several years, it is as pleasant as a picnic compared to the previous battlefield where one was under the guise of bolt muskets and plasma swarms.

Since most of his comrades-in-arms had already passed away, Joe's old friend was promoted to captain and was in charge of a newly reorganized infantry company that was not yet fully manned.

Or, at this point, it would be more appropriate to use "supplementary" instead of "promotion".

Although his rank was much higher than Joe's, Joe's old friend was extremely envious of how quickly Joe had been promoted from corporal to second lieutenant.

He counted on his fingers how many bad guys he had taken down while Joe was slacking off.

Joe's old friend said that Joe is a lucky jerk, and if he doesn't treat him to Crazy Thursday next time they meet, he'll be lying on the ground and won't get up.

However, when Joe saw his old friend again the next night, his old friend was no longer envious of Joe at all.

The reason is also very simple.

Once Joe actually sat in the tank, he discovered...

The towering observation tower on this tank, which the designers claimed was for observing the battlefield and guiding artillery fire, was not the most foolish design feature of this tank.

The most foolish design on this tank was that the designers placed the engine in the middle of the hull, which was good in itself, as it facilitated maintenance and prevented unexpected malfunctions.

But what's the point of not designing an exhaust pipe, letting the exhaust fumes turn the entire interior of the car into a large sauna and a small gas chamber?
Watching the crew members being suffocated by the fumes, driving while wearing gas masks or wet towels.

Even so, they still remembered to design a teapot on the engine to use the engine temperature to boil water for tea.

Upon seeing this mysterious design, Joe thought, "Damn it, the design bureau is incompetent. It seems I have to step in!"

(End of this chapter)