When he heard that the war had begun, Lyon registered in the army despite his family's objections, preparing to return to his country from distant French Algeria to join the war.
However, after the war began, France's internal systems fell into chaos. The French did not have a mobilization plan that was as rigorous and highly executable as the Germans. Their plans were more flexible and correspondingly much more disorganized than the Germans. In addition,
The execution of the mobilization plan by the superior government departments was far less than that of the Germans. Compared with Germany, France's mobilization was a complete mess.
In fact, even Lin Youde could not guarantee that his mobilization plan was better than the Germans'.
Because of the above reasons, Leon did not board the ship back home until a few weeks ago. After being bumpy on the sea for far longer than he expected, he was left to grow mushrooms in a small town on the coast without even getting a gun or military uniform.
By the beginning of November, someone in the French government seemed to have finally remembered that there was such a group of pioneers returning from the colonies with passion on the shore.
Leon received a set of military uniforms that were not very well made and did not even get a change of uniforms. He went to argue with the chief of staff. The veteran who looked very fierce and had scars on his face that had not been cleaned took one look at him and left him.
One sentence: "Survive the first battle first, and then come to me to change your military uniform."
Then Leon and his comrades were put on the train.
Along the way, they saw refugees all over the mountains and plains. Everyone's face was ashen and their expressions were dull and dull.
On the second day of the railway journey, Leon saw an old lady running after the car and shouting: "Don't go! Don't go! Don't go, all of you! Think of your families, don't go for their sake!"
Although the train was not moving fast, the old woman was still exhausted quickly. She fell to her knees and cried loudly: "My three sons..."
The young people in the car looked at the old man who was gradually being left behind in silence, their expressions quite gloomy.
"Hey," Jiang Bo'er, who signed up to join the army with Leon, patted Leon on the shoulder, "Don't be like this, that old mother just happens to be unlucky."
Jiang Bo'er was an optimist. (First . hair) He took out his harmonica and played cheerful music.
The atmosphere in the carriage was somewhat relaxed, but everyone knew that the shadow had been cast, and the battlefield full of knightly romance and glory in everyone's minds had been cast with an unknown color.
As the train approached Paris, Lyon heard the sound of cannon.
The rumble of artillery sounded like thunder. This reminded Lyon of the rainy season in Algeria. Lyon was born in France, but as long as he could remember, he had been living with his family in French Algeria. At this moment, he began to feel inexplicable
I miss that land.
The train did not enter the city of Paris, but entered a station in a small town on the south bank of the Marne River.
Leon got out of the car with thousands of soldiers in the same car. Before he could figure out the situation, a shell fell on the station. Like all the recruits, he opened his mouth wide and looked at the broken human limbs and various miscellaneous things.
The objects were thrown into the sky together.
"Oh my God!" Jiang Bo'er looked panicked, "They sent us directly to the front line? This is wrong. We should receive military training first! I only shot a shotgun in my hometown! And I never hit anything!
"
Someone was blowing a whistle at the station. Leon looked in the direction from which the whistle came and saw a large officer standing on the side of a carriage. Leon could not recognize his rank.
The officer shouted to people with a loudspeaker: "Follow the instructions! Go to the river and take a boat! If you stay here, you will be blown up!"
As if the German army deliberately cooperated with the officer's words, another shell fell directly on the officer's head. He and his carriage were blown to pieces. The loudspeaker used to shout was covered with blood and other unknown things, and he fell into the crowd.
middle.
The crowd started to move like whipped horses, rushing towards the river. Leon was caught in it, and even got separated from Jiang Bo'er.
When he arrived at the river, he boarded a ferry with the crowd and started sailing to the other side of the Marne River.
As soon as his ship set sail, German artillery fire covered the ferry. The recruits who had not had time to board the ship instantly turned into pieces of smashed watermelons, and the dust raised by the explosion of the shells was blood red.
Leon began to vomit, as did many people on the ship.
He finally understood what the division chief said. It was true that many people did not need an extra set of military uniforms.
Another ferry sailing in front of Lyon's ship was capsized by German artillery fire, so the officer standing next to Lyon climbed onto the side of the ferry, waved the pistol in his hand, and shouted to the recruits who fell into the water: "That way.
Swim! Anyone who dares to swim back will be shot!"
Leon thought it was just a threat, but the next moment the officer actually fired into the water with his pistol.
There was a crackling sound of gunfire, and all the officers were firing into the water.
Leon held his head and shouted over and over again in his heart: "It's so crazy, this world is crazy!"
After finally reaching the shore, Leon and other recruits were driven by the officers to several carriages parked on the shore. On the carriage stood an officer with a microphone. He shouted to the recruits: "One person holds a gun.
Take the bullets alone!”
Leon received a magazine of bullets and was pushed by the crowd behind him to continue moving forward.
He heard the sound of gunfire, and the sound of machine gun fire was much lower than expected, but at this time, Leon instinctively realized that the dull chug sound was the sound of the wind left by the death scythe.
Leon was pushed into the trench, and then pushed along the horizontal trench. Along the way, he passed several basements with poor excavation technology. He could hear the moans of the wounded coming from inside. He also saw the doctor amputating a wounded man's limb.
The anesthetized wounded man looked at Leon with dull eyes, which made him feel creepy.
There was an electric light in a basement, and the officers inside were drinking coffee and arguing over a map.
Then Lyon entered a vertical communication trench, and soon entered another horizontal trench.
The most significant difference between this trench and the previous one was the astonishing stench. Leon soon discovered the source of the stench: the corpses in the trench had no time to bury them, and were just piled up in the cat-ear holes beside the trench, surrounded by swarms of flies.
The buzzing sound was even louder than the German guns.
In comparison, a trivial matter like the red soil on your feet is not worth mentioning.
Leon's palm holding the magazine was already sweating, and he had to change his hand to hold the magazine.
"Listen!" A noncommissioned officer whose uniform was as dirty as a beggar appeared in front of Lyon and the others. "The Freezes captured the trench a hundred yards in front of us an hour ago. We blew up the communication trenches between the trenches.
.Now we have to launch a counterattack to regain the lost positions! Don’t be afraid, the veterans will charge with you!”
"Freeze?" Leon asked subconsciously, which made the sergeant stare at him fiercely for a while.
"That's the Germans!" said the sergeant. "Of course you can call them pigs if you want!"
"I do not understand……"
"You don't need to understand! In the trenches, Freeze is the German! I don't know who started shouting first! Now shut your mouth, take a deep breath, and we will charge as soon as the whistle blows!"
"But," Leon hesitated for a moment, then spoke, "I don't even have a weapon..."
"Then go pick it up!" the sergeant pointed out of the trench, "There are many weapons on the way to the charge. Just pick one with less blood on it and use it!"
At this time, the whistle sounded.
"For damn France, charge!" the noncommissioned officer shouted and climbed out of the trench first, and then was directly hit by a stray bullet in the thigh and fell to the ground.
The new recruits in the trench were stunned. At this time, the new recruits in the nearby trench section had climbed out of the trench with the veterans and roared to charge.
The sergeant who was lying on the ground pointed his gun at the recruits and pulled the bolt: "Fuck me, if you don't charge, I will kill anyone now!"
Lyon made a determined effort, climbed out of the trench first, and ran towards the enemy.
At this time, Leon finally understood why the knight's charge in the old man's story always had a "battle cry that shook the sky", because otherwise the fear in his heart could not be dispelled.
Leon roared, completely squeezing the air out of his lungs. Even so, he still couldn't dispel the fear that grabbed his throat.
Just as the sergeant said, the road rushing to the trenches controlled by the Germans was full of weapons and human corpses. Leon bent down and picked up a handful. This action allowed him to escape the scythe of death.
When he straightened up again, he suddenly found that there were no comrades around him. A little further away, French soldiers were being knocked down like wheat.
Leon suddenly felt that the distance of one hundred yards was so far away, so far away that it could never be reached.
At this time, he saw someone turning around and running towards the trench where they started, so he also turned around and ran towards the position.
In just a short moment, the attacking wave turned into a retreating wave.
The German machine guns stopped, but just when Lyon felt that the Germans were not as cruel as the newspapers said, the machine guns on the French army's position rang out. The supervisory team opened fire, and the French machine gunners fired from
The colonial recruits were mopped down in droves.
At this moment, Leon's heart was filled with despair. He crawled to the ground, his head pressed against the smelly soil, and cried loudly: "Mom...Mom..."
At this time, the machine guns on the French side also stopped.
Leon heard vague English with an unfamiliar accent in the air: "Our commander asked you to stop! He said that this will not serve any purpose except increasing the casualties of his comrades. In addition, he also asked you to inform yourselves as soon as possible.
Sir, I said that the 1st Aztec Mercenary Division of the Chinese Federation Marine Corps has arrived at the front line and wants to discuss a joint attack with them."