Chapter 316 Billy Shen
Hi everyone, let me explain:
The review time for pictures with portraits is often longer, which may involve issues related to portrait rights. Sometimes it may take more than ten hours to see them the next day. This was the case with the two pictures yesterday. It was not that I missed them.
If you don’t see it at the time, you will see it when you look back the next day.
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The arrival of the 5th Australian Light Horse relieved the pressure on the defense line.
In order to avoid the incompatibility of combat habits and tactics between the French and Australian armies, Tijani handed over the trenches on the east side to the Australian army for defense, and he led the French army to guard the trenches on the west side to face the surrounded enemy.
This does not mean that Tijani is handing over the more dangerous enemy main attack direction to the Australian army for defense.
The fact is that Tijani believed that the enemies surrounded to the west were more dangerous and more important, and that the Australian army was unable to take on this task, so he made such arrangements.
"If the enemy gives us two days, it means we must organize a counterattack," Tijani said. "And the best direction of attack is the west. We should do everything we can to force them to surrender, whether with the coordination of the fleet or by any other method. For such a battle, we certainly cannot pin our hopes on the Australian army."
Tijani still looked down on them, and there was always a sense of superiority in his words, even though the Australian army performed well on the battlefield.
…
The next morning, the sky was dimly lit.
The artillery fire was still ringing intermittently; it was the Allied fleet bombing the enemy.
Under the command of General Winter, the fleet adopted a rotation bombing system: he divided the battleships into five groups, each with two to three ships, and each group bombed for about four hours.
General Winter believed that this uninterrupted bombing would keep the enemy under pressure and prevent them from resting, so they might collapse at any time.
Charles originally thought this would be useful, after all, any bombing is better than no bombing.
However, when Charles woke up in the early morning and looked towards the enemy with a telescope, he found that all this was in vain: the Ottoman army took advantage of the cover of night to build a trench, and the closest point was only two or three hundred meters away from the French trench.
In order to avoid accidental killings, battleships often concentrate their shells on the farther tip of the "A" angle when bombing.
Tijani also saw this after crawling out of the tunnel. He laughed at himself and said, "They must be laughing at us in the trenches, wasting shells and doing useless work all night."
Charles didn't say anything. He put away the telescope and ran along the communication trench towards the trench where the Australian troops were stationed on the other side.
As expected, the Ottoman army on this side also built trenches to a distance of two to three hundred meters.
Tijani came over and looked in the direction of the enemy, and said in surprise: "They are trying to shorten the charge distance!"
"Not only that, General," Charles replied, "they are squeezing our living space."
Tijani said "Oh" and understood what Charles meant.
Then he felt a little regretful. He should have sent troops last night to fight for space with the enemy and then dig trenches and advance layer by layer, so that he could accommodate more reinforcements.
But last night, all he was thinking about was how to consolidate his defense line and how to deal with the enemy's charge today.
Charles hadn't expected this either. He and Tijani were both stuck in habitual thinking, thinking that the enemy would be the same as yesterday.
But this was not the case. The opposing commander was very clever. He used defense instead of attack to trap the French defense line in the middle, preventing it from advancing.
"The good news is that the enemy may not attack again." Charles judged: "At least not in the next one or two days."
"Why?" Tijani asked.
As soon as he asked the question, he thought of the reason:
The space on the French defense line had been compressed to the extreme and the French force could no longer be increased, so there was no need for the Ottoman army to attack.
Otherwise, the attack during the day would fail, the French army would be reinforced at night, and ultimately nothing would change.
It would be better to wait for two days, accumulate strength and wait for grenades and mortars to arrive, so that the French defense line can be taken down in one fell swoop.
"I understand." Tijani sighed and cursed fiercely: "Damn Germans!"
This must be a trick the Germans came up with. The Ottomans didn't know how to fight this way.
Colonel Richard ran over in a panic. He stood respectfully beside Tijani, with self-blame in his tone: "I'm very sorry, General. This is my fault. The sound of artillery shells covered up the enemy's trench construction. We didn't realize that they had built a defense line in front of us."
Tijani said nothing. He could not blame Colonel Richard because the same thing happened on the other side and he also did not notice the enemy's movements.
Suddenly, Charles noticed a not very obvious bright spot passing by in the opposite trench, and Charles realized that it was the sunlight reflected by the lens of the enemy's telescope.
Charles immediately put away the telescope and aimed his rifle at the bright spot.
It might be a big fish, Charles thought. It should be an officer observing the situation in the French trenches.
Charles's eyes jumped over the crosshairs and found half a head wearing a black round hat on the other side. It almost blended into the black background. If it weren't for the bright spot just now, Charles would not have been able to find him at all.
Tijani's eyes searched in the direction of Charles' gun, but saw nothing. He laughed at himself and wondered if it was because I was old and my eyesight was not good.
Just as Charles was about to pull the trigger, there was a sudden gunshot, and the "black round hat" burst into red and then disappeared.
Charles quickly put away his gun and retracted his head. This shot was not fired by Charles, but it was incredibly accurate, hitting the half of the head that was sticking out accurately at a distance of 300 meters.
Tijani didn't even know the result. He leaned forward and asked Charles half-doubtfully, "Did he hit it?"
Charles nodded: "Yes, he was hit. It should be an officer."
Charles turned his gaze to Richard: "Who hit him?"
Richard was stunned and replied, "I'll go and take a look."
As he said this, he crouched down and ran towards the direction of the gunshot, and soon brought a soldier with him.
He was a corporal, about thirty years old. What surprised Charles was that he had a Chinese face.
The corporal calmly stood in front of Charles and reported in English: "Colonel, I fired the shot!"
Charles asked curiously, "Have you ever been a soldier?"
"No, Colonel," the corporal replied, "I just joined the army a month ago."
Charles looked at the corporal in confusion. Was that shot a coincidence?
The corporal seemed to understand what Charles meant. He puffed out his chest and said with pride, "Colonel, I have been hunting kangaroos in my hometown since I was a teenager. I have been doing it for more than ten years. Such a goal is not difficult for me."
Hit the kangaroo?
Chinese?
Charles thought of a man, a famous sharpshooter during World War I.
"What's your name?" Charles asked.
"Colonel," the corporal replied, "My name is Edward Shen!"
(The picture above shows William Edward Sing (1886-1943), a famous sniper in the Gallipoli battlefield of World War I, also known as Billy Sing. He was of Chinese and British descent. His father was a vegetable farmer in the suburbs of Shanghai before he immigrated to Australia. His mother was a nurse who served in the 5th Light Horse Regiment of Australia.)
(End of this chapter)
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