58: Chapter 59 Night Raid on "Versailles"

The torrential rain cast the night over Iron Field into a piece of dead iron.

Raindrops hammered against their helmets, like countless steel balls dancing.

Jack lay prone in a muddy puddle, his eyes the only warm things on his body.

The sour bile in his stomach had long been vomited out, and now his intestines were twisting together, the pain causing cold sweat to stream down his temples, mixing with the rainwater until it was impossible to tell which was which.

"I can't go on," Brother Bao's voice crackled over the radio, light as a mosquito's buzz. "If we don't get something to eat soon, I'm going to swallow this rock."

"Even if you swallow a rock, you'll need the strength to chew it," Jack muttered, burying himself a little deeper into the muck.

Three hundred meters ahead lay the American camp.

Unlike the deathly silence here, that place was lit by searchlights, their beams illuminating the falling raindrops until they glittered brightly.

The roar of the generator sounded like a tireless beast, but this noise couldn't mask another scent.

That scent drifted with the wind, drilling into the nostrils of every Volunteer Army soldier lying in the mud.

It was the aroma of frying Spam fat bursting open, the scorching fragrance of hot coffee, and even a cloyingly sweet hint of chocolate.

For Jack and his comrades, who had been without rations for three days, this smell was more poisonous than mustard gas, making their very guts spasm.

"That's the Palace of Versailles," Jack stared at the brightly lit area, his teeth biting his lip until it bled.

"Want to pull a job?" Brother Bao asked.

"Do it."

The three moved like black snakes emerging from a hole, slithering close to the ground.

Brother Bao took the lead.

At this moment, his ears, honed as a professional esports player, became a life-saving radar.

The rain was astonishingly loud, but he could precisely filter out the squelching sound of leather boots in the water and the crisp click of rifle bolts from the overwhelming white noise.

"Two on the left, sentries," Brother Bao gestured with his fingers toward a clump of bushes to the front left. "Go around them."

They scraped through a drainage ditch, the sewage rising over their nose bridges, leaving only their nostrils exposed for air.

Oil slicks and discarded American cigarette butts floated in the water.

Jack even saw half a half-eaten sandwich drifting downstream; the bread was bloated, like a swollen, floating corpse.

Dai Dai stared fixedly at the sandwich, her hand halfway reaching out, but Jack grabbed her.

Jack shook his head at her, pointing ahead.

That was the US Army's refuse disposal point.

The three 'savages' slipped into a blind spot in the American defenses.

This area was piled high with empty cans and cardboard boxes.

Jack casually flipped open a cardboard box stamped with 'U.S. ARMY,' and his eyeballs nearly burst.

An entire box of oranges.

Their skins were golden yellow, emitting a crisp, fruity fragrance.

Some were simply thrown out because the skin had a minor bruise.

Nearby were several black, shiny garbage bags he had never seen in his life; the mouths of the bags were open, revealing T-bone steaks that had only been bitten once.

Red wine stained the white napkin, looking like blood.

"Animals..." Brother Bao's hands were shaking. He snatched the piece of steak, not caring if it was covered in ash, and tore into it immediately.

Jack didn't move.

He saw a rain-soaked notebook on top of the trash pile.

The cover was leather, very elaborate.

He opened it, catching the faint light from the distant searchlight, and made out the English writing.

The handwriting was sloppy, exuding arrogance.

"May 28th. Rain. Awful weather; this godforsaken place only has mud and lice.

Today we sniped two 'Yellow Ducks' digging for wild vegetables on that slope over there.

God, they were thin; the bullets passed through with almost no resistance.

Too bad there are no women here; once this fighting is over, I'm going to Tokyo to have some real fun."

Every single word was like a needle piercing Jack's retinas.

"Yellow Ducks."

Jack chewed on those three words.

That was him, his comrades—the Political Instructor and Little Li who risked death crawling out of the bunker to dig up some roots to feed the wounded.

It was also the local folks of this land, and the four hundred million compatriots behind them!

Jack's fingers dug into the paper, his knuckles turning white.

He didn't speak; he tore off that page, crumpled it into a ball, and stuffed it into his mouth.

The pulp was bitter, mixed with the taste of ink.

He chewed forcefully, as if crushing the enemy's bones.

The muscles in his jaw bulged, and his eyes were as fierce as a wolf that had just finished feasting on a human.

"Pack it up," Jack growled.

If they didn't have bags, they took off their puttees and tied their trouser legs shut.

Spam, compressed biscuits, chocolate, even those oranges.

The three stuffed things into their chests, crotches, and sleeves like madmen.

This wasn't just food; it represented thousands of lives on this position.

"Who?" A slightly slurred English voice sounded from the side.

An American Second Lieutenant, holding up his trousers, staggered out from behind a tent.

He had just finished urinating and still had half a cigar dangling from his mouth.

Four eyes met.

The Second Lieutenant froze. He looked at the three 'monsters' covered head-to-toe in black mud, only their teeth and the whites of their eyes showing, and his brain stalled for a second.

That second was the boundary between life and death.

Jack didn't let him utter a second syllable.

He launched himself from the trash pile like a snapped bowstring.

Mud splashed, and the bayonet in his hand sliced through the curtain of rain without making a sound.

*Thwuck.*

The sound of the blade cutting through the trachea was insignificant in the heavy rain of the night.

The Second Lieutenant's pupils dilated, and the cigar in his hand dropped into the mud with a hiss as it extinguished.

Jack clamped his left hand tightly over the man's mouth, held the bayonet in his right hand, twisted it inside the neck once, and then yanked it out violently.

Blood sprayed across Jack's face.

Hot.

The Second Lieutenant slumped down, and Jack dragged his body, shoving it behind the stack of orange crates.

"Go," Jack wiped the blood from his face and unhooked the two grenades hanging from the Second Lieutenant's belt, clipping them onto his own chest.

The return journey was ten times harder than the approach.

Each man carried dozens of pounds of supplies, pressing down until their spines groaned.

A sharp whistle sounded from the American camp behind them—the body had been discovered.

Gunfire erupted wildly.

The searchlights were like crazed light-sabers, slashing randomly through the rain curtain.

Bullets chased their heels, splashing mud high into the air.

Jack felt no fatigue; his mind was filled only with the words from that diary and the hard Spam cans tucked against his chest.

When they reached the entrance of the dugout, the three practically rolled inside.

The dugout was pitch black, the air thick and stale, filled with the scent of blood and decay.

Several severely wounded soldiers lay on the damp straw, their breathing so faint it was almost inaudible.

"Food..." Jack dumped the contents of his arms onto the ground with a clatter.

That meaty aroma instantly exploded in the narrow space.

A trace of light appeared in the ashen eyes of the wounded soldiers.

Jack pried open a can and dug out a lump of dark red mince, offering it to the Platoon Leader, whose leg was broken.

The Platoon Leader opened his mouth but couldn't bite down. He grew anxious and tried to reach out to grab it, only then realizing his hand was gone.

"Platoon Leader!" Dai Dai cried, throwing herself over him and carefully stuffing the piece of meat into the Platoon Leader's mouth, bit by bit.

Jack leaned against the dugout wall, gasping for breath.

He watched the scene, watched his comrades voraciously eating the scraps that they had exchanged for their lives—food the Americans wouldn't even feed their dogs.

Bullet comments scrolled frantically at the edge of Jack's vision.

[Is this their civilization? They'd rather throw away food than give it to us?]

[I'm crying watching this. That diary was too real; in their eyes, we aren't even human.]

[Eat! Eat more! Once you're full, fight these beasts to the death!]