Chapter 36: Mud and Blood
How exactly did Bruno find himself in this situation, despite holding the rank of Generalmajor? Well, if he had to reflect on his actions that led to this point. He would say that he made an error when calculating human nature versus the societal conditioning.
For years in his past life, he had learned that the Empire of Japan and its soldiers were fanatically loyal to their Emperor, so much so that they were willing to charge through machine gun fire with swords in hands in order to achieve victory.
And while that may be true for the individual soldiers that are composed of the Army. The same level of zeal and bravery evidently could not be found in the Japanese leadership who were not compelled by Bruno's challenge and instead used him as a scapegoat to mask their repeated failures.
There was just one problem with this scheme.... Bruno emerged victorious in his charge up 203 Meter Hill and somehow managed to survive the conflict completely unscathed. Currently Bruno was standing within a trench line, having secured the entire hill, he was covered in blood. Just as the blade of his bayonet was.
But it was not his blood. No, it was the blood of the many Russians he had killed, either by shooting them in close quarters, or by stabbing them through their vitals with his bayonet. In fact, Bruno wasn't just covered in blood, but mud as well.
After all, trench warfare was incredibly dirty business, and he had slipped and fallen on his ass during one of his melee encounters. How he managed to survive, well perhaps the Lord God almighty really existed and had sent a guardian angel to protect him.
Even now Bruno struggled to comprehend how he managed to escape from a dangerous position, and instead kill the man who had tried to take his life. Heinrich and Erich had boldly followed Bruno into the field. They were no doubt pissed at the man for so recklessly charging through machine gun fire.
But even so, they followed after him, and survived somehow or another. Albeit, they weren't nearly as lucky as Bruno was. Heinrich had a glancing blow from a bayonet to his forearm. While Erich had been shot in the calf by a Nagant Revolver.
Neither of which was anything more than flesh wounds. Which were currently being treated by the Japanese medics, along with all the others who had been wounded in the fighting. At the same time, the two men were speaking to Bruno. What exactly they were saying, Bruno didn't know. He was, after all out of sorts, so to speak.
Instead, after his focus shifted from the sea of corpses which laid lifeless in the trenches to that of his subordinates, Bruno could finally hear what they were saying.