OR1-EP5: Hymn of the Bridge (19)

McNeil listlessly greeted the soldiers on the side of the road as he burrowed into the large tent that served as a makeshift command post, came over to Colonel Duttmann's desk, and began searching through all of the papers without a care in the world. After ten minutes or so he left the command post clutching several bags of papers, stuffed them in his rucksack and went straight to Adalbert's quarters. He had just walked into the tent when he saw Colonel Duttmann tied up in the corner grunting like a fat pig to the slaughter, a look that did not inspire the least bit of pity, but only a sense of comical mismanagement. Michael McNeil avoided the other man's gaze, placed his backpack on the table, and handed Adalbert the paper bag.

Adalbert Herzog took out one of the documents and looked at McNeil with a skeptical face:

"Is this all?"

"The other documents are probably not in the hands of our officer here and will have to be requested from the division there." McNeil replied in a calm tone, "In any case, this place can't be defended anymore, we have to find a way to retreat, we can't die here pointlessly."

Major Herzog's heart grew heavy as he looked at the contents of the document. Finding the truth wouldn't ease the dilemma he was facing in the slightest, instead it might aggravate the division and discontent in the army. He couldn't die here, he still had his career, he had the Herzog family name to carry on, and he had to try to survive. Adalbert looked at the still writhing colonel and a brilliant idea came to him.

The young officer handed the file back to the equally young soldier and they began to talk about the next response in front of the colonel.

"That rumor is confirmed." McNeil dropped another piece of heavy news, "The rebels - the ones that are besieging us, to be exact - are in unrest. Their commander appeared to wish to make peace with our side, but the Britannian advisors preemptively killed the commander and seized control of the force. Similar situations are not isolated incidents; we have heard of such infighting within the rebel forces to varying degrees."

"It seems they are more afraid than we are, so that is a relief to me." Adalbert stepped in front of Colonel Duttmann, "Sir, since you are so deathly afraid of life, I don't mind sending you back to the rear ... However, it is a matter of bringing you back alive to be investigated or tried, depending on the severity of the situation. You can rest assured that we will be in charge here in your absence."

Colonel Duttmann could have been indifferent to all of Adalbert's sarcastic digs, except for the fact that Adalbert's claim that he was going to be brought before a court of law really alarmed him. Any other punishment had a moderating influence, but once the matter became so serious as to require the intervention of the law, all stratagems failed. Colonel Duttmann was not in a position to interfere with the courts, nor did he know any friends or dignitaries who could be of use on such occasions, and the penalty which awaited him was imprisonment for his crime.

This was the conclusion reached by Adalbert and McNeil after many discussions. They had to find a plausible excuse for their retreat, and Colonel Duttmann was perfectly suited to play the part of the mastermind. They could put most of the blame on Colonel Duttmann and retreat with confidence and boldness. Even if the superiors intended to hold them accountable later, the more serious Duttmann would be the one to take the blame. Moreover, it would be unwise to penalize a subordinate for ignoring a superior's crimes if he or she had carried out all the wrong orders in direct relation to the superior. Adalbert was sure that the defense officers would know how to deal with similar incidents, and these fatuous men would not dare to offend Governor-general Herzog.

Several soldiers entered the tent, and they picked up Colonel Duttmann, who was already tied up, and stuffed him into the train used to carry the goods, ready to send him back by the return train. If the train was bombed halfway by the pitifully small rebel air force, they would be relieved of a major problem. With that accomplished, McNeil returned to the front lines, as ordered by Adalbert, to redraw the topography of the standoff. Thanks to the rebels' recent civil unrest, they had not launched a large-scale attack, which gave the defense forces a chance to catch their breath. Adalbert, who had secretly taken over command after capturing Colonel Duttmann, who had attempted to escape, immediately decided to fully contract the defense line and concentrate his forces on a few neighboring strongholds in order to target a counterattack.

A limping McNeil, on crutches, advanced cautiously along the cliffs. He saw the town below, guarded by Smilas, and the bodies of many rebel soldiers lay strewn across the road leading to it. Many of the rebels had realized the horrific end they were about to face, and some of the smaller units had retreated backwards without orders from their superiors, thinking they would meet no obstacles on their way to escape, which made Smilas's counterattacks particularly deadly. In yesterday morning's encounter, Smilas succeeded in routing an enemy force that numbered nearly twice as many as his men and made a decision that would have shocked even Adalbert after the enemy had lost the will to fight and laid down their arms: to have his improvised black militia throw the prisoners into the huge mine pit next to the town. Such retaliation, Smilas explained, could drastically increase the militia's will to fight, or they might have routed before the next round of firefighting took place.

Two soldiers appeared in the woods ahead of them, and when they saw McNeil still patrolling, they hastily asked to take over McNeil's job.

"I'm fine, you guys go about your tasks."

McNeil had finally determined that the gunshot wound from that day had irreversibly damaged him. Perhaps these effects would be gradually erased in the long process of self-healing, but for now he had to accept the reality: he could not play the role of a combat specialist who could stand on the front line and boost morale as he had done in the past. He was somewhat frustrated, a frustration that stemmed from his inability to do anything in the face of chaos. He had not yet achieved a position where he could directly intervene in the situation from the top, and could only do his small part to end the war in his personal capacity. In the past, a doctor had thought that increasing the efficiency of weapons to kill people would make wars take less time, so the man had invented the machine gun, which had only resulted in a new form of war that was even more grueling than the original. McNeil didn't know what role he had played, perhaps his presence had just made the war longer and bloodier.

He came to the front of the enemy's position and cautiously watched the enemy's movements. The fact that the Britannian advisor had killed the commander had not lowered the enemy's combat effectiveness. On the contrary, perhaps due to the fact that the Britannian advisors had more complete control over this part of the rebel army, they were able to move all kinds of supplies and weaponry as they wished. More military rations and artillery were transported to the front lines, and the enemy forces even deployed helicopters. In the past, the rebels would not dare to use helicopters in the field, and the defense forces, which had control of the air, would most likely shoot these helicopters right down. So, the rebel air force was rendered useless for a long time, and had to lie in the airfields as a sitting duck. Now, they may have given up the illusion of preserving their strength and decided to pull out all their cards to fight the defense forces to the end.

Two soldiers were setting up their artillery, while the scouts next to them informed them about the position of the defense forces. Adalbert had ordered most of the soldiers to withdraw from their original positions, which meant that they would need to abandon a portion of the small fortress that Colonel Duttmann had constructed - a decision that a number of the soldiers opposed. Adalbert reasoned that the enemy was so outnumbered and superior in firepower that they would be blown up alive if they hunkered down in their fortresses, rather than retreating to the vicinity of the bridge and concentrating all the firepower at hand to counterattack the rebels.

In fact, Adalbert had only one purpose in mind, and that was to make an honorable escape. He was initially an advocate of this risky plan, but when he realized that there was no longer any possibility of victory, he was also determined not to fight to the end in the same bloody manner as some commanders who were bent on doing the same. Soldiers entrusted their lives to their commanders, and commanders could not let their soldiers die in vain on a battlefield where there was no chance of victory. With a heavy sigh, McNeil reached out with his right hand and grabbed a tree above him, nimbly retreating upwards and away from the edge of the enemy's position. In his opinion, the action of the Britannian advisors had been a veritable disaster, which had cut off the last hope of peace talks between the Rhodesian rebels and the South African authorities - a secret deal.

Only 500 meters away from him, Andreas Darlton was checking the soldiers' armament for the last time. He touched the scar on his face, the only memory the South African soil had left him. He didn't care what these people would think, the laws of the world were made by the strong, and the weak who couldn't learn to obey had to be eliminated.

"The enemy forces have contracted their defenses; it looks like they are preparing to escape."

"Escape? They won't leave so easily." Darlton looked around at the craters that had been blown out by the defense force's artillery, "Before, they defended this place to the death at all costs, and unless things have fundamentally changed, they won't immediately choose to abandon a location that they barely defended at a heavy cost."

That fundamental change might refer to Darlton's decision to remove the compromised faction within the rebels. But if the defense forces guarding the place were seriously aware of these internal dealings, they should have played along with the rebels instead of killing each other for real. Judging from the last two months of fighting, even if there were commanders in the defense force who specialized in liaising with the rebels, those people would definitely not be in the army in front of them. Therefore, Darlton judged that the contraction of the Defense Force's defenses was simply a sign of a lack of strength, and beyond that there were few details worth deciphering.

Winter was over in South Africa, and spring was coming to a close. The gradual rise in temperature was making the soldiers more and more tired, an environmental factor that affected both sides in much the same way, while the rebel soldiers suffered a somewhat greater psychological blow. It had been a long time since they had heard news of a victory, rumors of defeat followed each other, and every day it was said that the commander of a unit had fled again, leaving behind the soldiers who had died for him. This panic and the fact of defeat greatly contributed to the slowness of the soldiers, and with the rebels' habit of using cheap native soldiers to attack the impregnable forts, the fighting strength of the African Britannians was plummeting.

Several officers followed Darlton, asking him for information related to the Britannian Empire. They desperately needed to learn everything related to the Empire so that they could gain a foothold in the New World instead of becoming obsolete trash.

Darlton was disgusted with these people. Emperor Charles had decided to promote a group of new nobles based on their abilities rather than their bloodline, so if these people who only thought of exploiting the opportunity became nobles, it would be a great insult to the Emperor's wisdom and tolerance. He could not allow such scum to mix into the ranks of the nobility, and he would never admit that it was because he himself had not received any noble titles so far.

"I'm serious, the Empire is facing the biggest change in a hundred years." Darlton, who was sitting on a rock and directing his soldiers to carry various types of equipment as planned, explained to the respectful officers in front of him, "Of course, the difficulty of becoming a noble for those who have neither the ability nor the birthright to do so was exactly the same in the past as it is now."

He couldn't immediately shatter these people's illusions just yet. Since he had promised to lead the commanders of the Rhodesian rebels to flee to the Britannia Empire, he needed to do everything he could to hoodwink the poor officers before these people realized that this promise had no credibility. The Rhodesian rebellion was seen by the African Britannians as a laudable resistance, a righteous act of defiance against South Africa; but to the Britannian Empire, who orchestrated these upheavals behind the scenes, it was just farce, a game of chess used to hold EU's energies and deepen the level of chaos in the EU's African colonies. Only those who are really the leaders have the chance to be rewarded by the empire for their greater role, the rest of the soldiers or officers who have become part of the rebel army without knowing it are just tools.

After using rhetoric to gain the trust of the rebel commanders, Darlton ordered a general attack. For the sake of this duel, the rebels no longer thought about how the battle would end. They knew only one thing: if they didn't win, they would be torn apart by the citizens in the rear who were begging for supplies. Following Darlton's orders, the rebel commandos split into four detachments and attacked the defense positions from the cliff face, preparing to threaten the defense base camp from the rear. However, the defense forces seemed to have anticipated the rebels' plan, and the commandos sent out by Darlton were ambushed halfway there, and were killed or wounded; most of the soldiers were wounded and fell off the cliff to their deaths, and only three of them managed to escape back. They were able to save themselves from death after telling Darlton about the defenses, and Darlton then ordered his troops to keep pushing from the front. It seemed to him that since the defense forces had placed enough men in the rear to prevent a sneak attack, the front line must be empty.

The rebels, who attacked in groups at 1:00 p.m. the following day, went up the mountain by three roads, the route on which the railroad was located being the gentlest, while the steep slopes close to the cliffs posed, as always, unimaginable problems for the rebels. Seeing the attack blocked, Darlton hastily discussed alternate measures with the rebel colonels and decided to send helicopters to drop incendiary bombs on the forest along the route to clear a new path. Two helicopters headed northwest of the rebel command with this mission. One helicopter was shot down halfway with a rocket by a defense soldier who appeared out of nowhere, and the other managed to drop the incendiary bomb at the intended location, but the wind direction unexpectedly changed at that moment, and the fire burned in the direction of the rebels. Darlton's prearranged reserves in the vicinity were so frightened that they fled in panic from their hiding places, with the result that they were exposed to the defending troops, and fell to the ground in a hail of bullets. The rebels skimmed off more than a hundred bodies that day, with dozens of seriously wounded, something Darlton had not contemplated.

On the third day of the battle Darlton asked the main body to follow the road cleared by fire yesterday and attack the northwest side, the most difficult of the three routes of the defense. Previously, the area had been relatively thickly wooded, and the complexity of the road had forced the rebels to take a narrow, steep path up the mountain, which the defenders had repulsed at every turn. Yesterday's fire, while inflicting considerable casualties on the rebels, likewise left the defenses fully exposed, and the rebels were able to look more closely at the spread of the enemy's lines and correct their response. The rebels' death squads started to attack one after another, causing great pressure on the defense forces. Seeing that the opposing firepower was getting weaker, Darlton was overjoyed, thinking that he would soon be able to take the road in one fell swoop. However, the accident that he did not expect appeared: large-scale shelling seriously damaged the mountain, and Darlton himself is not clear about the internal structure of the mountain, a sudden landslide in addition to cutting off their hope to follow the road to the top of the mountain, but also buried more than fifty soldiers' lives. Darlton, who was lucky enough to regain his life, was in a state of shock and fear, and he gave up the idea of rushing up to the front line to supervise the battle once more, only intending to step in and stabilize the people when the situation was already settled.

"Try to persuade a surrender." Multiple rebel officers made this suggestion to Darlton during a meeting on the evening of the fourth day.

Andreas Darlton watched the demeanor of the crowd with a stony expression; he did not see anyone else show any obvious opposition and went along with the program.

"However, it is impossible for those natives to surrender."

This struck Darlton as somewhat comical. He had previously commanded the natives to rebel against the brutal rule of the EU South African authorities, and a few months later he was leading the African Britannians, who wanted to exterminate the natives altogether, to continue to fight against the still stubborn South African governor. For the Britannians, the Empire's interests were their priority in everything they did outside the Empire, which was enough to explain their contradictory actions from time to time. Darlton was not a cold-blooded machine after all, and another plan surfaced in his mind: to find a way for the natives of Africa to develop into another powerful force capable of threatening the EU's rule, and to defuse as much as possible the conflicts between them and the African Britannians or other white rebels. Otherwise, even if the Britannian Empire did decide to intervene in Africa someday, they would soon face the test of whether or not they were going to honor their promises. Those natives wanted to fight for their freedom more urgently than the African Britannians, and it was not known if those black nobles of the empire would have some sympathy when they saw their compatriots who shared the same skin color as them.

The defense forces were indifferent to the rebels' persuasions to surrender, and Darlton, who had lost patience, ordered chemical weapons to be dropped on the defense positions. These chemical weapons are the defense forces stored in the warehouse spare; they will never think that these weapons have been sealed for a long time the first time the first time to come in handy actually being thrown on themselves. Darlton was pleased to see that the resistance of the defense forces was declining at an alarming rate, and that they could no longer pose a strong threat to the rebels. Some of the rebel soldiers, seeing the enemy's counterattacks weakening, were busy charging up the hill, intending to be the first to take the site, only to be daggered by the defense soldiers behind their bunkers. Infuriated, Darlton ordered the continued shelling of the defender's positions while organizing the death squad again, this time intending to be at the forefront himself - it seemed that he had forgotten the panic he had felt when he had encountered the landslide earlier.

The target of Darlton's attack was the rest stop that served as a temporary command post for the defense forces, and he led a charge of more than sixty soldiers, successfully storming the interior of the command post and engaging in a white-knuckle battle with the remaining defense soldiers, capturing the place on the sixth day after the general attack began. To his immense disappointment there was nothing in the enemy's command but a dozen wounded soldiers, and all the papers and supplies had been carried away.

The soldier who had been commissioned by the rebel officer to go up the hill and inquire into the state of the battle found a downcast Darlton.

"How do you do, and how is the battle going?"

"I can't believe they just slipped away under our close scrutiny." Darlton laughed in exasperation, "Very well, I rather admire their skill ... Let's hope they're lucky enough not to let me catch them."

Darlton expected the defense force to have completely given up on resistance and proceeded towards the bridge with confidence and boldness. To his surprise, the soldiers once again encountered an enemy attack as they advanced, which turned out to be a fire point in the defense line that had not been eliminated. Darlton dispatched three snipers to the front line to deal with the trouble, and one of them quickly hit the machine gunner in the chest. The rest of the soldiers swarmed into the last line of defense, dragged out the gas-masked machine gunner, and brought the soldier, who was not mortally wounded, before Darlton's eyes. Darlton spared a moment to order the removal of the other man's gas mask, and was shocked to find that underneath it was McNeil.

"Pleased to meet you, once again." Darlton lifted his military cap and saluted the other man, "We're kind of old foes, but I didn't know your name until now."

"Michael McNeil." McNeil replied weakly.

"Well ... Mr. McNeil, where did your comrades go?" Darlton looked around the bunker, the rebels hadn't found any soldiers other than McNeil.

"They started retreating the day you dropped chemical weapons on the position." McNeil coughed twice, "More than that little ... Mr. Darlton, would you be interested in hearing my story?"

TBC

Chapter Notes:

Even the best commanders don't have the ability to bring bullet-ridden troops back from the dead.

... Perhaps the experience gained by the Britannian Empire during this armed conflict will help in future wars.