Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei's War Journey

Chapter 74 The Death of Hermann

Lu Mingfei looked around. He was still in a daze. There were so many corpses around him. There was almost no place to step in the trench. It was piled with corpses and the ground was covered with blood.

He staggered to a corpse that was entangled with another corpse, bayonets piercing their bodies.

Those were the bodies of Bruckner and a French soldier.

Lu Mingfei has done everything he can to take care of this seventeen-year-old boy who should be in college.

Whether in the recruit training camp or during the previous shelling, he always protected this young boy who was truly barely a teenager.

Although he wasn't much older than Bruckner, he was already an adult and had gone through an incredibly bloody initiation ceremony. Moreover, he was the class leader of these people, and he had a responsibility to take care of them.

But that's war. He couldn't protect everyone. His cruel rite of passage was so insignificant in the face of real war. The number of corpses in this short trench was several times greater than the number of corpses in the plane before.

He didn't know how many people he had just killed—twenty, thirty, or forty? He couldn't quite remember.

Lu Mingfei looked at Bruckner's young but stiff face, and at the rifle in his hand that he had never let go of until his death, the rifle that had pierced the enemy's chest.

He realized that the boy he was protecting was actually a qualified soldier, but on the battlefield, a qualified soldier was the least valuable asset.

He knelt down and gently closed Bruckner's lifeless eyes.

"Squad leader—" Otto's voice rang out beside him, so hoarse and so tired. The blacksmith's son's face was covered in blood, sweat and mud, and a fresh wound on his left cheek was still bleeding, but he had done a good job of the task Lu Mingfei had given him.

"We need to take stock."

Take a count of the living, and take a count of the dead.

Lu Mingfei nodded mechanically, forcing himself to look away from Bruckner and begin to identify familiar faces among the corpses and survivors.

Karl was still alive, leaning against the side, clutching his injured leg, his face pale. Of the original twenty-five men in the Hansband, only eighteen, including himself, could still stand. The situation was even worse in Hoffmann's group, where Caesar had less than ten men left, and all of them were wounded.

Caesar himself leaned against a collapsed section of the breastwork, his head bowed, his golden hair matted together with blood, obscuring his expression.

Soon, those who were still alive began to clean up the battlefield, removing usable weapons from the corpses and piling them aside. They then painstakingly dragged and moved the corpses one by one to a slightly flatter area behind the trenches, separating them according to whether they were friend or foe.

In the end, they counted 210 bodies in the trenches, of which 130 were French soldiers and 80 were Lu Mingfei's company.

Of course, the French army couldn't have lost only that many men; these bodies were all those who successfully jumped into the trenches and died in close combat.

Some of the French soldiers' bodies were left in that 300-meter-long death zone; they dared not climb out to count them.

However, conservatively estimated, there are at least two hundred blue-clad corpses lying haphazardly among the shell craters and barbed wire outside. This wave of French attack, conservatively estimated, wiped out an entire company.

The casualty ratio between the two sides, roughly calculated, reached an astonishing 3:1, or even higher.

This is the trench warfare of World War I, where the attacking side had to suffer huge casualties in order to achieve some minor gains.

It was quite remarkable that Lu Mingfei could achieve such results in his first battle, but he was not happy at all, because his recruit company had suffered more than half casualties in less than ten hours after entering the front line, including the wounded who could not fight.

"Report, Platoon Leader, all the wounded have been transported to the rear, and the ammunition and weapons have been counted." Otto reported to Lu Mingfei again.

"Yes, have the soldiers check their guns and fix the machine gun as soon as possible; we need it," Lu Mingfei nodded.

"Understood!" Otto replied, about to relay the order, but Lu Mingfei called him back.

"What about Herman? Is he still alive?" Lu Mingfei asked.

"That guy? He's still alive! He's incredibly tough! The cannons didn't kill him, and the French didn't even get to the corner where he was hiding." Otto's face immediately darkened at the mention of Hermann, still filled with anger and disdain.

"We carried him to the relatively intact air-raid shelter at the back."

Almost everyone thought Herman would be their pillar, but to their surprise, Herman's performance was not even as good as that of a complete new recruit.

"I'll go check on him," Lu Mingfei said, standing up and walking towards the air-raid shelter Otto had mentioned.

The air-raid shelter was relatively intact, with only Hermann inside. He had recovered and was leaning against the wall smoking.

"You've come—" Herman turned to look at Lu Mingfei as he walked in and said in a hoarse voice.

"Hmm." Lu Mingfei responded and sat down next to Herman, then took out a cigarette and lit it.

The two sat side by side, silently smoking.

"Have I disappointed you all? Do you all think that I am a complete coward?"

"A deserter?" Herman suddenly spoke, his voice laced with self-deprecating laughter, but Lu Mingfei could see that his eyes were a little red.

"You're not a coward—you're just sick—" Lu Mingfei said softly.

In this era, people did not know what PTSD was. They called it shell shock syndrome, and it was generally believed that the huge shock wave from the explosion of a shell directly damaged the brain nerves, leading to mental abnormalities.

But many others, especially officers, politicians, and patriots far from the front lines, still believed it was pure cowardice, a lack of willpower, and a lack of masculinity.

They despised and even hated these soldiers who suffered from PTSD, believing that they tarnished the honor of the army. They even treated these mentally broken soldiers as deserters or those who were faking illness, sent them to military courts, and executed them after a brief trial as an example to others.

However, Lu Mingfei came from the future, and because he himself had PTSD, he understood the condition better, and he knew that Herman could not be blamed.

Hearing Lu Mingfei's words, Herman looked at him in disbelief. He had thought that if he didn't get punched and kicked, he would at least be insulted. He didn't expect Lu Mingfei's attitude to be so gentle.

"Sick?" Hermann repeated the word, the cigarette between his fingers trembling slightly, ash falling softly.

"No, child, you don't understand. This is not an illness, it is a brand, a wound left after the soul has been licked by the flames of hell, a wound that can never heal."

He took a deep drag on his cigarette, the smoke swirling in the dimly lit bunker, making his face appear even more tired and aged.

"The Marne River — In September 1914, our company was ordered to hold an orchard outside a small village called Épernay. The French artillery fire turned the place upside down like a volleyball. We hid in shell craters and ditches. There were pieces of flesh and severed limbs everywhere, and we couldn't tell whose they were."

His voice was very soft, as if he were telling someone else's story.

"The shelling stopped, and the French came up. We repelled them three times. By the fourth time, we were almost out of ammunition. But our company commander at the time was a young nobleman who had just graduated from military academy. His hair was neatly combed, and his shoes were polished to a shine. Even on the front lines, he maintained a ridiculous appearance."

"He stood on the edge of a shell crater, brandishing his pistol at us, the blood-soaked, exhausted wounded soldiers, and ordered us to fix bayonets and launch a counter-charge. He said—for the Emperor, for glory."

Hermann's lips twitched, revealing a smile more painful than a grimace. "Glory—ha."

"We charged out because he was an officer, because it was an order, but my comrades fell one by one, my bayonet broke, so I used the butt of my rifle, stones, and my teeth—in the end, I was the only one left standing, surrounded by corpses, some of ours, but mostly French. My uniform was soaked in blood, and my rifle was reduced to half."

"And then—" His voice began to tremble uncontrollably.

"Then—I saw it—at the very top of the pile of corpses was a French soldier, very young, probably not even as old as you. He wasn't quite dead yet; his stomach had been ripped open, and his intestines were spilling out. He was looking at me with an expression that was both pleading and cursing—"

"Then I went over and picked up a bayonet—" Herman suddenly closed his eyes, his fingers digging deep into his thigh until his knuckles turned white.

"I didn't want to kill him, I just—wanted to end his suffering—but—but I couldn't stop—I kept stabbing him in the chest—"

He couldn't continue speaking, only breathing heavily, as if the bloody scene was once again choking him.

Lu Mingfei listened quietly without interrupting, but he was reminded of his own experience in the Andes, though Herman's experience was far more gruesome.

It took Herman a while to catch his breath. He opened his eyes, which were bloodshot.

"Later, they awarded me the Iron Cross First Class, saying that I single-handedly held the position, killed dozens of enemies, and demonstrated unparalleled courage and loyalty."

He gave a bitter laugh, a laugh more painful than a sob: "Courage? Loyalty? They don't know that from that day on, I haven't been able to sleep a full night. Every time I close my eyes, all I see is that young face, those intestines, that blood—"

And myself, like a madman—”

"So, you volunteered to train the new recruits?" Lu Mingfei asked.

"Yes, I think—maybe I can teach you everything I've been through, so you can live a little longer, even if it's just one more day—maybe that will make me feel a little better." Herman wiped his face.

"But I never expected that as soon as I heard the real sound of cannons and smelled the real gunpowder, I would turn back into the madman who was trembling in the Eppendorf orchard."

He looked at Lu Mingfei, his eyes filled with complex emotions: "You did very well, Hans, much better than me. You're a natural commander—calm, decisive, and you don't care about honor; you only care about how to keep people alive."

"I'm not some commander—I just don't want to die—" Lu Mingfei said softly; he just wanted to live.

"That's enough. On the battlefield, that's more important than anything else. All honors are bullshit. Listen, kid, I can no longer command the battle. You know what kind of scum our company commander is. They can only rely on you now."

As Herman spoke, he took off his watch and put it on Lu Mingfei's wrist, but he wore it backwards, with the dial below his wrist.

"This is our former company commander's watch. He didn't charge with us, but the sunlight reflected off his watch and was spotted by the French on the other side. He was later shot in the head—" Hermann continued to impart his experience.

"Go on, the soldiers outside need you." Herman patted Lu Mingfei on the shoulder again, but this time Lu Mingfei felt something was different. Herman's tone was like entrusting his son to someone. However, Lu Mingfei really should go. He was still needed to take charge of the situation outside.

"When I get back, I'll find a way to cure your illness," Lu Mingfei said, standing up. He wanted to use the methods the psychologist had used on him to treat Herman, but now was not the time.

Lu Mingfei stepped out of the air-raid shelter, but before he had gone far, a gunshot rang out behind him, and his body froze instantly.

"What's going on!" Upon hearing the gunshots, the people around quickly and warily gathered around, fearing that there might still be any French soldiers remaining.

Lu Mingfei took the gun from a soldier, pulled back the bolt, pointed the muzzle upwards, and pulled the trigger.

"Fire your guns! To bid farewell to Sergeant Hermann!"

After a brief moment of shock, the surviving soldiers, whether Hansband or Hoffmann, raised their rifles, aimed at the still-smoky sky, and pulled the triggers. They understood what was happening.

Although Hermann's previous performance disappointed, angered, and even disgusted them—

But he did, through his cruel, almost abusive methods, teach them how to protect themselves in trenches, how to find cover during artillery fire, how to deal with poison gas, and how to fight with bayonets.

After all, he was a veteran who had earned the Iron Cross First Class and crawled out of real hell.

In the end, he chose to end his pain and humiliation in his own way, and entrusted his responsibilities and hopes to those he believed were capable.

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