"Medical officer! Where's the medical officer?! Call him here right now!!!"
After the shelling intensified, in the Black Powder Fleet, which had already lost more than two-thirds of its strength, soldiers on the flagship were dragging a blood-soaked man toward the cabin.
"Put...put me down..." Caught in the blast wave, several shrapnel fragments embedded in his body, the man coughed up blood and weakly waved his arms, trying to get the soldiers to put him down.
"Sir, you need to stop the bleeding immediately!" The soldier, his face covered in sweat and blood, said urgently to him.
"It's...it's no use." The man's eyelids drooped, knowing that his injuries were so severe that there was no possibility of saving him.
Unable to summon a medic, the soldiers had no choice but to take off their uniforms on the spot and tear off the sleeves of their shirts to bandage the man's most severely injured thigh.
"They...they couldn't hold on in the end...and they left, right?" the man asked weakly.
The rumble of cannon fire echoed outside the ship's cabin, and the ship would shake violently every now and then. The soldiers exchanged glances, knowing that the enemy had not actually withdrawn; they were merely conducting a tactical retreat, increasing their distance from the dock to avoid the shells.
Just minutes earlier, their shelling density had increased again, and now many enemy ships were firing from a safe distance, which had significantly improved their hit rate, as evidenced by the rapid sinking of their own warships.
"Wh...what's wrong?" The man asked again when he didn't hear a reply from the soldiers.
"Martin!"
Just as a soldier was about to speak, a man suddenly ran out from the cabin passageway. He shouted as he burst into the crowd, immediately knelt down in front of the dying man, and hurriedly snatched the shirt from the soldier who was haphazardly bandaging him. He then used a more professional technique to bandage the man's groin.
The person who arrived was none other than Sebastian, who had been hiding in the ship's corridor.
When his lieutenant Martin was dragged into the ship's passageway by the soldiers, Sebastian could no longer sit on the ground and wait to die alone.
This was his adjutant, whom he had worked with for many years. Martin wasn't very smart, had a somewhat weak personality, and was often cunning. He would always ask for his opinion with an indecisive look on his face, but in reality, he was afraid to take responsibility. Therefore, he could never stand out, which was why he could only be an adjutant.
But at least, he had been by his side for many years and was a "barely qualified" deputy.
Sebastian, who rushed over, saw Martin's severe injuries. His already despairing heart was still gripped by intense pain from the blood all over the ground and Martin's half-charred face.
No one can calmly accept the death of someone they know in front of them, even if they themselves will die soon after.
Now that we've seen it, we can't pretend we didn't.
"Sir...the enemy has retreated, hasn't they?" Martin asked, coughing up blood intermittently.
The shirt was tied around the thigh where the bleeding was most severe, but the bleeding just wouldn't stop, and in the blink of an eye, the shirt was stained bright red.
"Yes, they've left." Sebastian said involuntarily, looking at his hands covered in blood.
He didn't even realize what he was saying, but he thought perhaps it was because Martin was about to die that he subconsciously gave him the answer he wanted.
What's wrong with fulfilling the wishes of a dying person?
"They've left, haven't they?" Martin asked again.
"They've withdrawn, Lieutenant Colonel." The soldiers beside him gave the same answer, all in unison, deciding to send Martin to his death with a lie.
"I... I can't hear your voices." Martin had stopped coughing up blood, and his voice was becoming increasingly weak.
Sebastian immediately knelt beside Martin's head, shouting into Martin's ears, which were already deafened by the explosion:
"The people of Yan cannot hold on any longer!"
"We dealt them a heavy blow! They slunk away!"
"This defensive battle has ended in our victory!"
Martin seemed to have truly heard him. A faint smile gradually appeared on his blood-stained face. He struggled to turn his tear-filled eyes and looked at Sebastian's face, which also wore a faint smile, and said:
"Sir."
"Please take my body back to my hometown, the town of Bolden that you came with me to, do you remember?"
Upon hearing this plea, some of the soldiers beside him lowered their heads, while others quietly turned away, tears streaming down their faces. Explosions rang out above them, and the collapsed masts burned fiercely in flames. The flames gradually burned through the deck, and clusters of flames fell downwards.
Everyone understood that no one could survive this battle, and even if they died, their bodies would remain forever on the seabed less than a kilometer from their homeland.
Sebastian continued shouting into Martin's ear, "Remember!!! I'll bring you back!!"
A loud crash.
Seawater was pouring into the black hole created by the damage to the warship's hull. The warship was slowly listing, and all the soldiers were falling to the ground. Meanwhile, the fire above was growing bigger and bigger, and thick smoke was billowing into the passageway. The soldiers were coughing loudly.
The tears stopped flowing, and the smile vanished. Martin's eyes gradually glazed over, his pupils slowly dilating. He stared at the deck above him, which was gradually turning black from the flames, and gasped for breath with all his might, but he could no longer take in a single air.
Even so, a final, faint sound still escaped from her gradually losing function.
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