Fukui lowered his head, looked at the water, and walked away, until he reached the shore and realized that he was finally safe. Looking around, five landing craft also landed at the same time, and the soldiers who came down lined up on the beach in a long line. He saw an officer approaching him, and heard him ask, "Which unit?" ”

"It's a reconnaissance detachment, sir, and it's on the beach."

So the officer ordered them to wait in a coconut grove not far from the sea. Everyone stood in line, followed behind the officer, and stumbled along the way as the team slowly stepped on the soft sand. He didn't feel happy or worried at this time, and there was only one thought in his heart; He believed that the punishment given to him by Heaven was postponed.

After walking about two hundred yards, the team came to a stop in front of the woods. It was already very hot, and most of the people threw away their backpacks and lay down on the sand. There had already been a presence here, and the troops who had arrived first had apparently assembled in this area, for the sand had long since been trampled hard and flat, and empty cigarette shells were thrown underground, and occasionally discarded boxes of dry rations, the kind of rubbish that was always indispensable everywhere the troops passed. However, this group of troops is now deep inland, advancing in the jungle, so there is not a single person to be seen. Looking to the left and right, there was an open beach of about two hundred yards on each side, and after that, they all curved backwards, and turned out of sight. Within four hundred yards there was silence and few people. There might have been a bustle around the corner, but they thought it was hard to say. Logistics supplies were not yet forthcoming, and the troops that had come ashore with them were rapidly dispersed. More than a hundred yards to the right, there is a naval command post, which is actually nothing more than a small collapsible desk, where an officer works, and a car hidden on the edge of the jungle behind it. To the left, just around the corner two hundred yards away, the task force headquarters had set up a point and started working. A few orderly soldiers were digging foxholes there for concealment by the general's staff officers, and two other soldiers were walking down the beach to the other end, pushing an eighty-pound wire reel in their hands, where they were laying telephone lines. A jeep drove right next to the sea (where the sand with water was more solid), and after passing the naval command post, it disappeared. At the end of the task force headquarters, near the colored pennants, was where the landing craft had just landed, and now the landing craft had retreated to the sea and were heading for their own fleet. The color had already brightened, and through the fog at this time, the sea water seemed extremely blue, and the ships seemed to tremble a little. From time to time, a destroyer would come and fire a volley or two of guns, and after a while a long "shhhhh Occasionally, a machine gun would rattle in the jungle, and the Americans' light automatic weapons might immediately respond with a sharp sound like hammering rivets. Fukui looked at the trees behind him, and the tops of the trees had been cut off in the shelling. But further back, there is also a forest intact. He shook his head and thought to himself: Such an artillery bombardment is indispensable for the ghost animals of the United States left behind! So he said; "This cannon is not very powerful, it can't be compared to the time on White Feather Island."

Aida Elephant, who also participated in the battle on Hakuba Island, was aroused. "Yes, White Feather Island is amazing." He rolled over, lay on the sand, lit a cigarette, and said with some trepidation: "I can already smell the stench on this beach." ”

"How can you smell it?" Someone said, "Nothing is so fast." ”

"To smell a stench is to smell a stench!" Aida said to him. He didn't like those recruits who had just enlisted, and although it was too much to say that the faint and unpleasant smell wafting from the jungle was a corpse smell, he was unwilling to fight it. A long-standing and familiar melancholy permeated his whole body, and he only felt tired and irritable in his heart. It's still early to eat, and I've smoked too much cigarettes. He said: "What kind of landing warfare is this kind of, it can only be regarded as an exercise: an amphibious combat exercise." After saying that, he spat hard.

Fukui felt his heart beat fast. There were several corpses on the shallows a hundred yards away from them, and Fukui was watching as a soldier from the task force headquarters came and dragged them out of the sea one by one. There was an aircraft patrolling in the air.

"Hell, that's so quiet." Someone said.

"Bang!" Suddenly there was that screeching sound in the jungle, followed by another sound, then a third, then a fourth. He thought to himself: is this a mortar? It can be seen that the rice guys reacted quite quickly. Just thinking about it, I only heard a sharp whistling at the head, just like a car stopped at the moment before the collision, and the "squeak" sounded heartbreaking. Instinctively, he fell on his body and fell into the pit. He was confused for the next three or five seconds. All he heard was a terrifying explosion, so loud that it seemed to fill his entire head, even though it was on the ground, and the ground beneath him trembled and shook. He instinctively felt the sand fly all over his body, and a strong gust of wind rushed towards him. Then there was another explosion, and then the sand shook, and then the wind, and so on. He hated and feared. Another shell fell, and he shouted like a little doll: "Don't fight, don't fight!" "Until the cannon was over, he lay there shivering for a while.

Okada ran past where the landing signal flag was hoisted, and saw the naval officer lying in a small ditch next to the jungle. At this moment, the mortar suddenly fired several more times, followed by a machine gun fire, which sounded very close. A few grenades also exploded, with a loud bang, as if they had burst several empty paper bags full of air. He thought to himself: "This group of people who fight mortars are already dealing with them." As soon as he thought of this, he heard the terrifying whistling of mortar shells coming straight at him. He made a small whirlwind and fell to the ground. He probably felt the sky crack before letting a piece of shrapnel split his head in half.

Fukui watched as Okada's body fell. On the other side of the beach, a reserve squad dug a long zigzag trench, where they evaded the shelling and counterattacked. After a while, the sound of the artillery died down, and news came that the group of American soldiers who fired the mortars had been annihilated.

Fukui didn't want to talk to people, so he walked in the head unconsciously. As soon as he turned the corner along the beach, he saw Okada with his face on the ground, punishing himself in the sand, a deep crack in his steel helmet, a small pool of blood under his head, and one hand with the palm facing upwards and his fingers bent as if he wanted to grasp something. Fukui was sad to see. He liked Okada, but this kind of friendship was actually shared by many of the brothers in the detachment, although there was an element of caution in it, because he had already estimated that such an outcome might come. The main reason for Fukui's uneasiness was that he remembered that the two of them were sitting on deck together that night, and in the face of an air raid, Okada did not forget to blow his lifeguard to his heart's content. Thinking of the scene at that time, Fukui couldn't help but feel a sense of horror, as if he had realized that there was someone behind them that night—a god should be said—who was there with cold eyes and sneered.

Aso Shaozo walked up from behind, staring blankly at the corpse, also with an uneasy look.

Soon, the landing force began to advance.

After passing through the woods, the left and right ends were opened; But about five miles in depth there was a series of overlapping hills, running parallel to the coast. The U.S. defensive line was built on the left, one end from the foot of the cliff wall like a fortress of mountains, and the other end to the sea, roughly in a straight line. According to General Kazuo Kobayashi to his subordinates, he "crossed the coast, and he had to make a left turn, for example, he left the Kangzhuang Avenue and turned into a narrow street, with the wall of a large factory in his right hand and a ditch (referring to the sea) in his left hand.

His rotation was brilliantly directed. There are quite a few thorny issues in the operation. His front line, which had so easily stabilized, now had to turn ninety degrees to the left, that is, the left flank, which was safer by the sea, had to move only half a mile, while the right flank had to go in a small circle and cross six miles of bushland, and was in danger of being beaten every minute.

He had two possible options. A more prudent plan was to order the right-wing troops to drive deep and straight down the mountain. When you get to the bottom of the mountain, you can first temporarily deploy a front in the slash, and then slowly turn the right flank forces around and advance along the high mountains and ridges until you reach the front of the American defense line. But it can take days, even weeks, and there may be a lot of resistance. A much riskier alternative would be to send right-wing troops straight down a cliff near the U.S. line. With this solution, the transfer of the entire line can be completed in just one day.

But this approach is extremely dangerous. The Americans must have an assault force in their hands, and they will see the opportunity for the Japanese army to attack, insert it from the side, and outflank it. The general had to spend a day moving his troops, and on this day his right flank was bound to be in a state of defensive emptiness. But he still took the risk, and he was ready to make a plan. On the day of the operation, he drew a squadron from the road-building unit and kept it at hand as a reserve, while ordering the commanders of the right flank detachments not to think about their flanks and tails, but to advance through the jungle. Their mission was simple: to pass through six miles of no-man's land, and that night they would rush to a mile in front of the outpost of the American line, and build a defensive position close to the cliff.

General Kobayashi was right. As soon as the troops moved, the other side really sent a company of American troops to secretly outflank them, and the general transferred his reserve troops to block the attack, and almost completely surrounded the company. A melee in the dark lasted for several days in the jungle behind the new position of the Japanese army, and as a result, all but a few of the men sent by the US military to attack were killed. There were more enemies in the rear with cold guns, and the pack caravan was ambushed once or twice, but these were trivial matters, and the general did not take them seriously. After the battle line was transferred, he was too busy to consolidate the new position. In the first two days, he asked the soldiers in the front to open a new path in the jungle, fence around the barbed wire, clear the firing range, and establish communication with the troops on both flanks and at the rear end. The American troops came to fight a few times, and the general was not too anxious. In the blink of an eye, four days passed, and five days passed. The general will build more fortifications for a day after a day, and step up the construction of the main road in front of the branch. He knew that it would take at least two weeks for the road to reach the front, and until then he had only one way to strengthen his defenses. If the U.S. military launches a large-scale attack now, it will still be very nerve-wracking, but he can't help but take this risk.

Kobayashi also changed the camp of the headquarters. The task force had advanced nearly 25 miles since landing, and radio communication was now difficult, and telephone lines were stretched too long and unsafe. So he moved the camp fifteen miles forward, in a wooded area, right next to the main road. Compared to the first command on the beach, it wasn't so agreeable; The soldiers directly under the wing were busy for several days, clearing the woods of miscellaneous trees, laying barbed wire, digging new pits, erecting tents, and building bunkers. It's just that it's much hotter here, surrounded by jungle on all sides, and there is no wind blowing at all, but fortunately, just outside this oval circle of barbed wire, there is a small stream flowing through it, and you don't have to go far to have a place to bathe.

Kobayashi's service team was stationed across the road. He knew that in the future, as long as his troops did not retreat in a major way, his camp could remain in place until the end of the battle, and there was no need to relocate, so he slowly carried out some construction as time permitted. A simple shower was erected for the officers, tents in the canteen were erected, and large tents were erected in various parts of the command. The camp was cleaned up every morning, the roads were paved with small stones, and the exit from the depot to the main road was made of empty gasoline barrels to drain the culverts.

In this way, the general felt that it was infinitely enjoyable. No matter how familiar the camp is, the situation has gradually improved, and I am always happy when I look at it. Only a week after the transfer of positions at the front, the general felt that it had become a small village.

A few drops of rain crackled on the tent. The color of the sky dome is extremely peculiar, and there is a little bit of childcare in the gray and black, like the tinted glass on the window, but it is covered with a layer of luster, as if the light outside the window is extremely strong. A storm was imminent, and the sky was almost black. Fukui lay down on his back again.

A gust of wind swept through the tent. The rain also came, and at first it was not fierce, and it hit the blanket of the tent with a loud sound, but in a blink of an eye it became heavier. Before long, the rain was already falling like hail. The tents were blown crookedly. There were several thunderstorms in the distance, and the rain above my head became more and more like a pour.

The jungle outside the barbed wire fence was already scattered with branches and leaves, as if they had been trampled by hordes of wild beasts. Fukui poked his head out and opened his eyes. I couldn't help but shake my head. The camp could no longer be seen clearly, and in the wind and rain, there was only a confused green shadow, and the grass and trees on the ground had long been beaten so that they couldn't even lift their heads. The wind was fierce. Aita, who had been kneeling on his knees and struggling to hold the crossbar, silently felt the power of the wind. Although he had already shrunk his head, his face was still watery. The cracks and threads on the tent were dripping with water, and the tent mouth flew into the water again, and there were bursts of droplets like waves, and there was no way to block them. The gutters were already full of water, and the water didn't reach their beds. Fukui rolled up the blanket, and the three of them pressed the poncho that was lifted by the wind and squatted under the poncho, but the foot couldn't dodge left and right, so they had to soak in the water. A large pool of water had already accumulated outside the tent, and the pool was still growing, like many huge amoebae, stretching out their feet and eating up the earth piece by piece.

The soldiers were soaking wet. As soon as it rained, they hurried outside to tie the tent pillars one by one. Turning back, he quickly put away the blanket, stuffed it into the waterproof rubber backpack, and landed on his knees, bent over, and held down the crossbar for fear that the tent would be overturned by the strong wind.

A gust of wind slashed across the camp like a great scythe, chopping down large bunches of leaves, raining down like exploding cannonballs. They watched and saw a tent burst out of its stakes and soar into the sky, like a frightened bird flapping its wings and swept away by the wind. After a while, two more tents rolled up into the sky, and the people in the tents were scurrying around to find another place to stay.

Kazuo General Kobayashi was in the middle of it, as if there was nothing left in this body, and there was only one head left. The storm came immediately after the landing of the Yue army, and the speed with which it came was truly astonishing. Just ten minutes before the rain, he received a report from the 2nd Squadron that a fierce battle had broken out at the front of their position, with heavy artillery fire. But while speaking, the storm caused the telephone lines to be scattered, and his command post became a blank field; None of the radios could be reached. At the moment, he doesn't know what is going on at the front line, and he doesn't have a score in his heart. It is likely that the Americans will take advantage of the situation to counterattack and break through many openings in his forward positions. The troops didn't get his orders, and God knows what would happen.

Fortunately, he had transferred more than a dozen tanks to the Second Wing two days earlier. Otherwise, don't even think about pulling tanks up tonight, in fact, there are tanks on the front line, and they can't be dispatched now. The front line is now in chaos. If it drags on until tomorrow, a complete front will only be left with a few isolated small positions. But he couldn't get through on the phone, so he could only do it in a hurry. It's not sure how bad it will be. It was easy to turn the battle line 90 degrees to the left, and perhaps within two days the previous gains would be wasted and still retreat to the same place.

(To be continued)