Chapter 57 Penetration

On the other side, Morin led his small squad quickly through the wreckage and shadows of the buildings.

On the map, the markers representing both friendly and enemy forces were intertwined like dog teeth, the intensity of the battle was clear at a glance.

Neither the Britannian soldiers nor the Kingdom Army soldiers had fought such complex street battles.

They lacked sufficient experience and didn’t think to completely control the buildings they had cleared.

In their view, as long as they pushed straight along the street and eliminated all visible enemies, victory would be theirs.

This simple and brutal tactic might be effective in a conventional field battle, but in street fighting, it exposed a fatal weakness.

They would clear one building and immediately rush to the next, leaving no reserve forces to consolidate the occupied area.

This gave Morin and his men an opportunity.

He led the squad like ghosts, traversing the areas the enemy thought were ‘safe,’ continuously infiltrating deep into the enemy’s rear.

Soon, Morin found a group of ideal targets on the map.

It was a Britannian infantry unit, less than a hundred strong, advancing on a street. They appeared to be the rearguard of the entire company.

“That’s them!”

Morin glanced at the distance between them and other units on the map and decided to strike this isolated force.

He quickly led the squad to the side and front of the enemy’s line of advance, finding a relatively intact cluster of buildings.

“Corporal Bowman!”

“Here!”

“You take two squads, ambush them on the second floor on both sides of the street. Open fire for a few rounds once the enemy is close. After that, don’t stay and fight; immediately leave the building and move toward the back of this house, wait for me to meet up with you!”

Morin pointed to a rally point on his paper map, rapidly laying out the task.

“I will take the remaining men and ambush in this row of buildings on the enemy’s right side, forming a long-flank fire zone!”

This was a classic ‘L’ shape ambush.

The short-side unit was responsible for providing the main suppressive fire, drawing the enemy’s attention.

The long-side unit would deliver the fatal blow from the enemy’s flank.

“Does everyone understand?”

“Understood!”

Corporal Bowman nodded heavily and quickly vanished into the ruins with his soldiers.

In the city that had dissolved into chaos, the various architectural wreckage and barricades allowed Bowman and his men to move covertly.

Morin, meanwhile, led the remaining soldiers to quietly slip into a dilapidated small building on the enemy’s flank.

The Saxon soldiers, gripping their rifles, nervously moved toward the windows on the first and second floors.

They held their breath, able to clearly hear the scuffing of the Britannian soldiers’ boots on the rubble of the street outside, as well as their noisy chatter.

Everyone’s heart was pounding.

They were waiting for a signal.

Just then, ahead on the street, Corporal Bowman’s group opened fire first.

“Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!”

Continuous gunfire erupted from the building where Corporal Bowman and his men were ambushed. The deadly bullets instantly took down the several Britannian soldiers at the very front.

The sudden attack immediately threw the Britannian unit into confusion.

“Enemy attack! Up front!” “Cover! Find cover quickly!”

Everyone’s attention was instantly drawn to the gunfire ahead.

They instinctively raised their rifles, aiming forward, while their bodies constantly pressed against the walls on both sides of the street, trying to find cover.

They were completely unaware that this instinctive move for safety was driving them straight into the embrace of death.

Just then, Morin raised his rifle.

He aimed at an officer in the enemy formation who was waving his hands and shouting.

“Bang!”

He used his first shot as a signal, the bullet accurately penetrating the officer’s chest.

Immediately following, the other soldiers in the building also began firing wildly at the targets outside through the broken windows.

A deadly ambush fire was instantly unleashed.

The Britannian soldiers who were trying to dodge to the sides of the street were shot down one by one by bullets that suddenly erupted from beside them, before they could even locate the enemy up front.

They were completely bewildered.

Bullets seemed to be coming from all directions. They wanted to return fire but found they couldn’t locate the enemy’s exact position.

The dark rooms and the bright street outside created a natural light difference, giving Morin and his men a huge advantage of the enemy being visible while they were hidden.

The Britannian soldiers could only fire blindly at the dark windows based on the muzzle flashes, launching a futile counterattack.

Soon, the Saxon soldiers in the rooms completed three or four rounds of shooting.

Morin was not greedy for more kills. When he saw on the map that a portion of the enemy’s main force ahead had been diverted and was rushing back to reinforce, he immediately gave the order to retreat.

“Alright, pull out!”

If he and his soldiers had been equipped with MP18s or other weapons with higher fire density, he would have tried to achieve greater results.

Unfortunately, the infantry equipment of this period was still extremely monotonous, consisting only of bolt-action rifles, and their grenades were nearly used up.

But for Morin, the issue was not major, as he was not aiming to completely annihilate these enemies anyway.

And for the easily spooked enemies in the town, the wounded actually hindered their attack more than the dead, and were also more troublesome to deal with.

After all, you could temporarily ignore a corpse, but if you ignored a wounded man, he would soon become a corpse…

Hit and run, never lingering in battle.

This was the essence of urban guerrilla warfare.

He led everyone out through the back door of the building quickly, disappearing once again into the ruins.

The reinforcements that had rushed back in a menacing manner found nothing.

They only saw bodies and wounded men scattered everywhere, but not a single trace of the attackers.

However, before they could catch their breath, Morin actively sought them out again.

After regrouping with Corporal Bowman, he quietly circled around to the flank of this returning reinforcement unit, and then…

Used the same trick again.

These Britannian soldiers were so focused on rushing to aid their attacked comrades that their marching formation was very dense, and they had no time to keep watch around them.

As a result, Morin and his men struck them again from the flank, taking down a large number.

The consecutive attacks on the rear completely confused the Britannian commander responsible for attacking this area.

He roared at the other officers around him: “What’s going on?! How can there be enemies behind us?! Didn’t we clear this street?! Did those Saxons crawl out of the ground?!”

He couldn’t understand how the enemies he had clearly repulsed could reappear like ghosts in his rear.

(End of this Chapter)