"Hey, look there! British soldiers! ”

In a field on the south bank of the Shannon River, an Irish man in a black coat and a round-brimmed hat has his eyes upstream. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 infoIn the low-lying area on the bank of the river, a loose line is moving quickly towards it. Unlike the usual British soldiers in khaki uniforms, these men were dark from head to toe - black boat-shaped hats, dark blue tops and narrow trousers, without epaulettes, armbands, or any conspicuous ornaments to indicate rank, this was the British "Kitchener Army", volunteers urgently recruited by War Secretary Kitchener at the beginning of the war. Since the British government was not prepared for a massive expansion of the army, the army of volunteers was assembled with a severe shortage of uniforms and weapons, and blue cloth was more readily available than khaki, so most of the new troops were issued improvised blue uniforms, and their opponents on the battlefield quickly discovered this interesting feature. These British recruits generally used earlier models of Lee-Enfield magazine rifles, which were slow to reload and often stunned when faced with enemy charges, earning them the infamy of "British chicks".

In France, the "English chicks" in khaki uniforms were beaten to the ground by the Germans, but in Ireland the situation was slightly better, after all, many Irish fighters were not as well trained in military training as they were.

The new British army in front of them, numbering about two hundred and thirty or forty men, was approaching dusk at this time, and they were in a hurry, as if they were probably trying to sneak up on the camp of the Irish independence forces at night. With the exception of one who went to alert the two German scouts who were spying on the British gunboats, the rest of the Irish armed men were rifles, loaded with bullets, ready to open fire on the British at any moment. In their opinion, as soon as the guns were fired, the companions in the rear should be alert, but they ignored the constant loud noise of the two British gunboats.

The two German scouts quickly retreated from the bushes in front of them, and after observing the enemy, the higher-ranking German soldiers made a "beware of misfire" gesture to the Irish fighters, and then took a piece of paper from their notebooks and quickly wrote two lines, signaling the fastest Irish here to bring it back to the German officers in the camp. When he was gone, the Germans waved to the remaining six Irish warriors and led them to trot along a parallel course with the British, leading them into a long wooded strip before their opponents.

"Prepare to fire, follow my orders to shoot!" The high-ranking German soldier said in jerky Irish.

The British army was in a hurry, and had no intention of crossing the woods. When they reached a distance of about two or three hundred meters from the woods, the German soldier commanding the battle raised his right hand at his companion, his index and middle fingers closed and separated, and the other man understood and turned the muzzle of his gun aimed at the front of the British column to the rear.

"Fire!"

The German soldier commanding the battle shouted at the doctor and pulled the trigger. At this time, most British soldiers only listened to the sound of the guns and did not know where the bullets came from. Six Irish soldiers wasted no time in firing one after another, and in the blink of an eye, seven or eight corpses were left in the front of the British ranks, while another German soldier calmly opened fire on the rear of the line, firing two shots and two shots, causing more than 200 British soldiers to be thrown into disarray.

After a few moments, the British soldiers finally broke up, crawled down, and opened fire into the woods in a haphazard manner. The foliage of the forest largely concealed the smoke of the ambushers' gunfire, and the aimless fire of the British posed little threat to them. If this was a group of British professional soldiers who had undergone the baptism of war on the battlefield in France, they would have quickly judged the strength of their opponents and launched a swift and agile counter-assault, but these "chicks" did not have such vision and courage at all. By the time the officers reacted and began to urge the soldiers to get up and move forward, the casualties on the British side had already exceeded twenty.

"Hans, grenade!"

Some British soldiers were seen rushing in with their guns in their hands, and the German soldiers commanding the battle called out to their compatriots in German. In an instant, two long-handled grenades flew out of the woods, and they landed at the feet of the British soldiers impartially, knocking down five or six in an instant.

Before the smoke of the explosion had cleared, the Germans shouted in Irish: "All retreat, retreat south!" ”

But it was difficult to find direction in the woods, and two of the six Irishmen went in the wrong direction, but fortunately they looked back and turned back in time to follow their companions.

During the retreat, two German soldiers took the initiative to retreat, they stopped from time to time to snipe, and made a few improvised traps with ropes and grenades, and in a short time killed more than a dozen British soldiers, so that the British troops who entered the woods did not dare to pursue them unscrupulously.

This north-south wood, no more than 100 meters wide and about two kilometers long, is small but lush in vegetation, and it is difficult to track the target's whereabouts after walking forty or fifty meters. The British soldiers, who were dozens of times more numerous than their opponents, were abused to the point that they had no temper, and they had neither the time nor the patience to sweep the entire woods, and after a period of pursuit, they found that the losses would outweigh the losses, so they withdrew from the woods in a huff, while two German soldiers and six Irish soldiers had been on a reconnaissance mission so far, and they did not carry much ammunition with them, and they could drag a company of British troops here for half an hour, killing and wounding thirty or forty people, which was quite a remarkable result. Seeing the British retreat, they did not turn back in pursuit, but quietly watched in the woods as the British gathered the remains of the fallen soldiers, collected the weapons and ammunition, and assigned some soldiers to return the wounded to the rear. As a result, more than a quarter of the combat force of more than 200 men was reduced, and only 1560 men continued to march in a south-western direction. After such an extremely aggrieved battle, the "British chicks" all beat drums in their hearts: will there be a bloody massacre waiting for them in front of them?

A few kilometers away, the Irish Independence Forces, who had already learned of the enemy's situation, were making corresponding preparations, and under the leadership of a platoon of German officers and soldiers, more than 400 Irish Volunteer soldiers set up arc-shaped blocking positions in the open fields.

By nightfall, the Duke of Hill's family had boarded a river steamboat at the docks north of Limerick. Perhaps to evoke memories of the great industrial era, or perhaps due to the lack of funds and demand for new ships, most of the sightseeing motorboats that travel between Dublin and Limerick are paddle wheels. Of course, it was not until the second half of the 19th century that marine propellers were put into practical use, and by the end of the 19th century, European shipyards no longer built new paddle steamers, but there were still plenty of these old boats sailing on inland lakes.

Sitting at the tea table at the stern of the boat, Charlotte Hill, in her top hat, stared out at the water. Five years ago on the Danube, it was also such a quaint and exquisite cruise ship, she sat opposite him, the atmosphere was so graceful, and the air was filled with intoxicating fragrance. She thought to herself that it would be great if she could leave the troubles of the world behind and wander freely. Looking back now, it was indeed an unattainable extravagance, time never stopped, the strife in the world continued to accumulate, and finally turned into a terrible war, and he, the brilliant and wise German prince, shone as one would expect, and became the god of war of this era. He fulfilled his ambition and was admired and worshiped by all in his country, but was his heart truly satisfied?

Maybe, maybe not, Charlotte suddenly found herself no longer able to figure out his mind as she had done before, for the two had been separated for so long that she could only see a vague face in her dreams.

Two lines of tears slipped unconsciously.

There was the sound of footsteps behind her, and she wished it would be him, even though it would leave her in a state of inextricable entanglement.

"Miss Hill, the river is windy, I suggest you go to the cabin and rest!"

The voice came from the Duke of Hill's aide-de-camp, who was ordered to escort the ladies all the way to Dublin. Nowadays, with the exception of a few counties in the north of Ireland, almost all places are unstable, and the Irish independence elements have attacked and harassed the British garrison everywhere, attacked officials, policemen, and security personnel working for the British government, sabotaged railways and bridges, and engaged in roadside ambushes, pinning down a considerable number of British garrisons in various places, which greatly affected the tactical movement of British troops. It was precisely because of the recent threats to the Limerick-Dublin railway line that the Duke of Hill arranged for his family to take steamboats, and even without the escort of military vessels, the Irish Independents had little chance to attack ships sailing on the river as long as they did not dock, and usually only against those used by the British.

Charlotte gently wiped the tears from her face with a handkerchief and whispered, "Thank you for the kind reminder, Mr. Ensign." ”

"You don't have to be out of sight." The handsome young officer smiled and said, "Call me David!" Don't look like I'm a little old-fashioned, I'm only four years older than you. ”

The self-deprecating tone did not attract Charlotte's attention in the slightest, and all sorts of worries seemed to have made her forget her age and forget anything else related to her age. She raised her head to look at the bright moon in the night sky, and suddenly sighed, "Oh, one month will be his twenty-fourth birthday!" He said that his twenty-four years old would be wonderful, and as he said......"

Charlotte's self-talk did not shy away from the consideration of others, the second lieutenant officer had not been with Duke Hill for a long time, but he had heard a lot of rumors and anecdotes about the family, especially the Miss Hill in front of him.

"Although he is our enemy, we have to admit that he was a genius born for war, and this is destined to belong to his time. Perhaps he could get everything he wanted, except for the throne of that empire, and could even completely crush England with repeated wars, depriving the British of their proud dignity and thus bringing the Anglo-Saxons to the feet of the Germans. The second lieutenant's words showed his clever side, and in Charlotte's situation, any words that belittled that person would not resonate with her, but rather this complex of praise and resentment might dispel Charlotte's resistance and give her a chance to communicate with her.

No, Charlotte responded in a cold tone: "Everyone has their own mission, and his mission is not as bloody and tyrannical and ruthless as all of you think. Time will tell! ”

(End of chapter)