The Sword of the United States (1)
The rain was still falling, a steady drizzle.
This dreadful battle in the Meuse-Argonne was just as muddy and suffocating as the rain now trickling down my spine.
Those cockroach-like doughboys—no matter how many you killed, there was no end to them.
Since 1914—at Tannenberg, across the vast plains of Poland, and finally in the collapse of the Russian Empire—the great Imperial German Army, which had written a long legend and dominated the Eastern Front, had now encountered a new enemy: the doughboys.
They were not serfs oppressed by a Tsar's autocracy, yet they burned with a zeal greater than anyone else.
Even before our clearly visible, powerful defensive lines.
Even under the relentless rain of overwhelming artillery fire.
They rushed forward as if charging toward us were a divine mission—only to meet death.
At first, we laughed at them.
They seemed pitiful, struggling despite having no chance of victory.
But at some point—
A day passed. A week passed.
And even after a month had gone by, those doughboys kept pouring in relentlessly.
And despite killing and killing them, we found ourselves being pushed further and further back.
Why were we forced to retreat despite defeating countless enemies?
Why were there so few defensive lines left?
And once we fell back to the final line—where would we retreat to next?
Gradually, any sympathy for them faded.
What remained in its place… was fear.
Even the commander's briefing only fanned that fear instead of easing it.
"The newly deployed enemy is the American 93rd Division. It seems the Americans are so short on manpower that they've resorted to using blacks. They are inherently inferior, lack fighting spirit, and are a primitive race without even a proper language! The German people will never be defeated. All soldiers are to hold their ground and fight until the day of victory!"
"The 93rd Division?"
"I've heard of them. The Devils of Amiens. Inferior, my ass…"
"The Devils of Amiens."
Even if they were just trench rats wasting time on the Western Front, they were monsters who had devoured an entire division in a single day.
We weren't new to war anymore. Everyone knew what commanders were like—they always had a habit of belittling the enemy.
But this was going too far.
If you underestimated the enemy like that, how were you any different from that idiotic 208th Division?
Before long, the trenches were filled with rumors about the legends created by the 93rd Division—the Devils of Amiens—spreading like the flu.
"I heard the 93rd Division is called the 'Scourge of Attila.'"
"Ah, I've heard that too. Supposedly they're led by the last descendant of Genghis Khan, with slanted eyes."
"They say wherever they go, they behead soldiers and civilians alike, piling up towers of heads. Instead of praying to some dark god of the East, they're given bodies that don't die even when shot."
"You there! Spreading rumors in the ranks will be punished! Shut your mouths at once!"
"Come on, Sergeant, join us. We've got a few Lucky Strikes left from the doughboys."
"Ahem, ahem. Well… let me have one, then."
The sergeant who had just been talking about punishing rumors casually sat down on the edge of the trench and began eagerly sharing his own stories. Having been an enlisted man himself not long ago, there wasn't the slightest sense of distance.
"The platoon leader told me—the enemy commander is supposedly descended from the Chinese imperial family. Apparently the surname 'Kim' was used by Chinese royalty."
"Huh? Then why is he in America?"
"Who knows. Anyway, they say the Chinese royal family were originally Tatars, so he's skilled in cavalry warfare. You've heard of Cambrai, right? They say he rampaged there leading tank units—enough to make the higher-ups tremble."
"Well, if he's Tatar, I guess he's good with tanks too."
"Must be. Just like we Germans are orderly and rational, isn't it a Tatar specialty to grab savage blacks in one hand and leave nothing but corpses and ruins in their wake?"
Rumble—!
At the familiar sound, everyone sprang to their feet and pressed tightly against the trench walls.
It was definitely not thunder.
This all-too-familiar sound was—
"Artillery! Incoming artillery!!"
"Take cover! Get everyone outside into the trench!"
The trench shook with a terrifying impact.
No matter how many times it happened, this bombardment was something you could never get used to.
Even if you covered your ears, the deafening roar and shockwaves burrowed into your skull.
One minute.
Ten minutes.
An hour.
As time passed, some of the bolder ones even started calmly eating the food they had stashed away.
"Hey, where'd you get that chocolate bar?"
"From the doughboys."
"Damn."
"You looted cigarettes off corpses too. Same difference."
"Give me a bite."
Those guys really had everything.
The Russian Slavs—officers usually had plenty of valuables, but kill a common soldier and you wouldn't find a speck of dust.
But doughboys? They were walking treasure troves. Food, cigarettes, ammunition—they had their pockets stuffed full of supplies.
Could we really defeat enemies like this?
…No. Maybe having so much made them weak.
He tried to shake off the creeping defeatism, but instead of letting his mind be swallowed by the thunder of artillery, he chose to dwell on thoughts of the Yankees instead.
Two hours.
Three hours.
Four hours.
When the bombardment was this intense, there was only one conclusion.
The enemy was coming here.
They would have to face that horrifying army—the forces of Attila.
At last, the artillery fell silent, but the ringing in their ears refused to fade. The pounding would probably echo in their heads even as they tried to sleep tonight.
"The enemy! Air attack incoming!!"
Shouts and explosions erupted from all around.
At the same time, black dots began to appear one by one in the distant sky.
"Prepare anti-air fire!"
"Everyone, rifles up! When the enemy aircraft get close, fire all at once!"
Huddled in the trench, he clutched his rifle tightly.
The magazine—where was it? Ah, there.
He hastily stuffed the dropped magazine back into his pocket and carefully took aim.
Tat-tat-tat! Tat-tat-tat-tat!
Fierce machine-gun fire.
And then bombing.
The rain of killing intent falling from the sky was something even worse than artillery.
Could you even shoot them down with a rifle?
He wanted nothing more than to just hide, but orders were orders.
There sure were a lot of mosquitoes visiting today.
As the number of "mosquitoes" grew into dozens, then hundreds, even the platoon leaders seemed to give up.
"Forget it, lower your rifles and take cover! Just don't die!"
And then the bombing continued.
The traces of all that desperate digging… vanished one by one.
The trench too.
The barbed wire too.
Comrades too.
Superiors too.
The pillboxes too.
Even things that shouldn't be disappearing seemed to vanish along with them—but what could you do? You just had to accept it.
What was even more terrifying was this: just how massive an assault were they planning, to concentrate this much firepower on such a tiny patch of land?
And after taking that bombardment cleanly to the face, the enemy finally revealed themselves.
"Blacks."
"Damn it… they really are blacks?"
From far away, carried on the wind, came the sound of singing.
He couldn't understand the lyrics, but even at a glance it was full of confidence and passion.
Were they completely ignoring us, waiting here with bloodshot eyes?
"Machine guns! Prepare to fire!"
"They've all been destroyed!"
"Damn it. How are we supposed to hold this line without machine guns?"
"Should we fall back to the second line?"
"Look behind you."
The sergeant gestured back. There too, thick black smoke was rising just like here.
"Those planes earlier—they smashed up the rear even worse. You won't find any glory back there either."
"This is insane…"
"Aim! Aiiiim!!"
They raised just their heads and rifles slightly above the trench.
But at that moment—
Tat-tat! Tatatatata! Tat-tat!
"They're firing!"
"We have no means to return fire!"
"They're charging! The blacks are charging!!"
"Waaaargh!!!"
"Fire! Just fire already!!"
Orders scattered amid the thunderous shouting.
He hurriedly aimed and fired shot after shot, but unlike his racing heart, the bolt-action rifle fired at a frustratingly slow crack… crack… pace.
Even without aiming, one of those bullets would hit somewhere in that surging black wave.
He emptied a magazine in an instant, swapped it out, and braced for the next enemy.
"Fix bayonets! Fix bayoneeets!"
"The doughboys are coming!!"
And then—entry.
At last, the first American black soldier set foot in the sacred trench of the German people.
Bang!
"Ugh—!"
"Die! Die!!"
Bang! Bang!
The charging soldier collapsed, blood spraying from his body.
But then what?
"KILLLL!"
"Waaaaah!!"
A mass of dark-skinned figures filled his vision.
He pulled the trigger before he even realized it. Bang!
"Ghk… ghk… L… Liber…"
"What the hell are you saying, you damn black bastard!"
He kicked the dying enemy aside and immediately aimed at the next—
Rrrrrrrrt!!
Rrrrrrrrrt!!
"A grease gun!"
"A submachine gun! Conserve your fire—gk!"
His arms went limp, the rifle slipping in his grasp.
There was no way to win.
Maybe elsewhere—but not here, not under this overwhelming storm of fire.
He gave up everything, letting it all go, and without a thought began crawling out of the trench line.
Only then did an open view greet him, instead of the suffocating trench.
"Ah…"
A wave of steel.
Dozens—hundreds—of tanks rolled proudly down the road.
Behind them stretched an endless line of trucks, too many to even count.
And beyond that, entire hills filled with black soldiers.
Now he understood.
The doughboys weren't just charging in relying on numbers.
This endless supply.
This endless manpower.
Even if the great German people killed a hundred thousand of them, they would simply sneer and send in another hundred thousand tanks.
"Heh… heh heh… hehahahahaha…"
"SURRENDER!"
"Screw you, you black bastards."
Bang!
Even in the moment he closed his eyes—
That procession of steel never left his sight.
***
"Observation reports red signal flares rising from the enemy's foremost line."
"So the first line's broken. As expected of the 369th Regiment."
I wanted to rush to the front immediately, practically bouncing in my seat, but under Omar's sharp gaze, I had no choice but to sit back down.
"What about the armored units?"
"They're advancing smoothly. All obstacles to their advance have been eliminated."
"Contact Covel. Tell the engineer regiment to keep securing the route no matter what. Push the tanks as deep as possible."
"He's going to curse you out endlessly, sir."
"If he starts grumbling, tell him I'll spread a rumor that the length of the breakthrough equals the length of his dick. And if the armored units fail to break through… well, you know."
As I pinched my fingers together, Omar—usually stern and composed—gritted his teeth hard.
"They're making such a fuss over failing to break through something this easy."
"If you concentrate divisional artillery on a single battalion sector, who wouldn't break through?"
"And who was it that didn't do that before, turning soldiers into Heinz ketchup?"
Idiots.
I had no intention of wasting precious firepower across the whole line. Concentration and decisive kills—that's basic knowledge. Anyone who's played a few strategy games knows that.
"The Jerries probably think concentration and infiltration are their exclusive specialty."
But hey—those Jerries stole my patent first.
So if I borrow a bit of Hutier tactics, they should understand. Consider the payment to be their heads.
"Send the armored units in as deep as possible. I've already told Anastasio, but keep encouraging him to rampage however he likes."
"What about the artillery?"
"Move it forward. Even if it costs lives, get all our field guns up onto that damned ridge."
West Point suddenly came to mind. I kind of missed those days messing around with ceremonial guns.
"Omar."
"Why are you suddenly getting sentimental?"
"Remember when we seized those ceremonial guns and aimed them at those Navy bastards? They went absolutely berserk."
"That was ages ago… but yeah, I remember."
"I want to give the Jerries ten times that feeling. So tell them to shut up and move the guns up."
It's not like I hate that hill or anything.
I just want to place my artillery wherever I like—that's not too much to ask, is it?
"Before the men get their evening rations, we'll blow away the second defensive line."
At this rate, we could push through.
The road to Sedan was opening.
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