Chapter 20 Chapter Nineteen

The last few hours before the battle were not peaceful in Shangguan Peak.It was twelve o'clock in the middle of the night when the troops arrived at Heifengjian, and immediately dispersed in the forests on both sides of the stream, and turned to a concealed standby state.Jiulian was placed in a masson pine forest on the east side of Jianxi.In accordance with the general requirements of the combat regulations, Shangguanfeng ordered the entire platoon to immediately start building individual concealment units commonly known as "cat's ear holes".He supervised and inspected in various classes for a while, and then returned to a place he had chosen with sparse trees around, and dug a hole with all his might.

Not long after, the Ninth Company, which hastily settled down in the woods not far to the south of the third row, received a call from the battalion command post.Battalion Commander Xiao Bin conveyed Deputy Commander Liu's instructions to Cheng Ming, saying: "Hurry up and let the troops rest! Before going to sleep, check the combat readiness again. The cadres must watch each gun. No bullets are allowed to be loaded, and it is absolutely forbidden to fire! Which company has a problem, which has exposed our army's intentions. Which company has a problem? The chief officer of the company is in charge!"

Cheng Ming couldn't sit still.The third platoon was the closest to the hiding spot of the company headquarters. Among the three platoon leaders, he was most worried about Shangguanfeng, so he went to the third platoon first.Seeing that Shangguanfeng was leading the whole platoon to dig the cat's ear holes, he became angry and blamed the third platoon and their platoon leader: "You're so serious about a broken cat's ear hole! You are not allowed to garrison here! ... Don't go to bed quickly! There are only a few hours left before dawn. If you don't take a good rest, how can you fight tomorrow!"

The reason why he felt that the third platoon shouldn't be serious about digging the cat's ear holes was because the battalion commander's instructions from the deputy head just now didn't include the item of digging holes.But the third platoon began to dig holes without his order, and reminded him vaguely of a clause in the long-forgotten combat doctrine: the task of the reserve team in the first phase of the battle is to stay hidden and preserve their strength, mainly to defend against enemy artillery fire attack.After Cheng Ming scolded Shangguanfeng, he suddenly thought that Heifengjian is located in the north of Heights 342. Tomorrow, when the battle starts at dawn, the enemy's support artillery fire will be used first to attack our army's attacking troops and block the follow-up troops. come here.But letting the third platoon continue to dig holes would not only make the soldiers look down on him, but also contradict the deputy commander's instructions.After thinking about it, he decided to send someone to dig a hidden department for the company headquarters.

"Third platoon leader, I order your platoon to draw a squad to dig a hideout for the company headquarters," he said to Shangguanfeng, "go right away!" Shangguanfeng looked at Cheng Ming in surprise.The company commander didn't let them dig a hole, but assigned someone to build a concealed department for himself. He couldn't help being surprised that a grassroots commander did such a contradictory thing.Liu Youcai, the leader of the seventh squad, understood what the platoon leader was thinking, and stepped forward to calm down the matter and said: "Platoon leader, let's go!"

Cheng Ming walked to the second row in the forest ahead.Then Liu Youcai also took the seventh class away.Ge Wenyi, the eighth squad leader, came over and asked angrily: "Platoon leader, are you still digging?" "Keep digging!" Shangguan Feng said.During the march, the instructor told him that the company commander did not understand military affairs, but he thought it was unlikely. Based on the situation just now, he felt that what the instructor said might be true.When the reserve team arrived at the standby location, the first thing they did was to dig a hole to hide in.He looked down on the company commander a little bit.

An hour later, Cheng Ming came back from the second row.He forgot to implement another instruction from deputy head Liu in the third row.He made the whole platoon line up in the woods and checked everyone's combat readiness one by one.During the inspection, he was critical and angry at everyone. "Third platoon leader, come here and take a look at your soldiers!" He yelled at Shangguanfeng angrily, "How can this be done! If the fire goes off, the whole company and the whole battalion will not be exposed?!  … Who of you can take responsibility for the accident!..." It turned out that the loaded rifle of Zhao Guangliang, a recruit from the eighth squad, was not safe.Zhao Guangliang was trained by the company commander for the first time, sobbing and crying.Cheng Ming stopped talking, turned around, and blamed Li Le, the squad leader of No. 9, for not carrying water and dry food as required, but instead brought extra bullets and grenades.The eighth squad leader, Ge Wenyi, couldn't stand it any longer, and quietly tugged Shang Guanfeng's sleeve, and whispered:

"Platoon leader, you should talk about it! The company commander is too much!" In the past, Shangguanfeng would not have followed Ge Wenyi's words, the company commander is the company commander after all.It's different now, he already looks down on Cheng Ming a bit, and feels that the latter is really making a fuss out of a molehill.He walked up to Cheng Ming, hiding his needles in his face, raised his voice slightly and said: "Company commander, didn't you ask us to be responsible for our platoon at the cadre meeting tonight?...You go back to the company headquarters, and I will do the rest myself!"

This was the first time that Shangguanfeng said such tough words in front of him. Cheng Ming couldn't help being stunned for a moment, and took a serious look at this half-grown child like a platoon leader, feeling that in a short period of time he seemed to have become another person.Realizing the schadenfreude that secretly arose in the queue, Cheng Ming became annoyed and shouted angrily: "Okay, okay, third platoon leader, I'll let you find out by yourself!... Let's still use the same ugly saying: Whichever discharges the problem, which platoon leader is responsible!"

He stormed off.Ever since Deputy Head Liu brutally pushed the military court in front of him during the march, Cheng Ming felt that from tonight onwards, every cadre and soldier in the whole company would be in danger if he was careless. , so he was worried about each of them anyway.Well now, since your third platoon leader has publicly said that you are willing to take responsibility for the whole platoon, then you will be responsible for it yourself! After Cheng Ming left, Shangguanfeng carefully checked the weapons and equipment of the entire platoon—that is, the eighth and ninth squads, and the seventh squad went to the company headquarters for a business trip and did not return. If no problems were found, the team was disbanded. up.He checked the sentinel, and curled up in the cat-ear hole he had dug.It was already two o'clock in the morning, and the war would be fought in a few hours. He thought that he would not fall asleep tonight no matter what.He still has some very important things to think about in his heart. If he doesn't think about it now, he won't have a chance after these few hours.

But he still couldn't immediately return to his contemplative state of mind.Outside the cat's ear hole, Li Le, the leader of the ninth squad, came with Zhao Guangming, a new soldier of the eighth squad who had just been reprimanded by the company commander, followed by Zhao Guangming, a new soldier of the ninth squad.Zhao Guangliang was still sobbing, his thin shoulders shrugged. He had to get out of the cat ear hole.Li Le said unhappily: "Platoon leader, there is such a thing, look—" He turned his head and pointed to the crying recruit, "Zhao Guangliang from the eighth squad insists on being transferred to our squad!" "Transfer?...Why?" Shangguan Feng didn't understand.There is going to be a war soon, and some people are asking for shifts! "Platoon leader, we brothers, please!" Zhao Guangming, the older brother, said before the twin brothers, "Guangming wants to stay with me." Zhao Guangming is another Zhao Guangliang in terms of body and appearance, but with a little more shrewdness in his eyes.Shangguan Feng thought: This person is the soul of the Zhao brothers, maybe he was the one who came up with the idea of ​​shifting. "Why did you two get transferred together?" he asked Zhao Guangming. "I'm two brothers born in one birth," Zhao Guangming said boldly, blinking his eyes, looking like he was about to cry, "My two brothers grew up together, and we were only eight years old when our mother died. Before he died, he told me that no matter where we go, Guangming and I will be together... Tomorrow there will be a war, and my brother and I still want to be together." Shangguanfeng still didn't understand why they had to be transferred to the same class.Li Le stepped in and said: "Platoon leader, just agree, it's not a big deal. Anyway, they are fighting wherever they are. ...Let them be together, they may feel more at ease in their hearts." "Okay," Shangguan Feng agreed, and Li Le's words made sense. "Then let Zhao Guangliang come to your class." Li Le was not happy. Zhao Guangliang was a new recruit, and if he was assigned a new recruit in the squad, his combat effectiveness would naturally be affected.But he still agreed. "I don't care," he said, "Zhao Guangliang can come if he wants to," looking at the platoon leader, "Does that mean I have to send another person to Class Eight?" "You should discuss it with the eighth squad leader." Shangguanfeng said. Li Le took the Zhao brothers away.Shangguanfeng did not enter the cat's ear hole again. He leaned against a big tree, sat down on the grass in front of the hole, and then half-lyed down again.There was complete silence in the woods.In the depths of the grass and roots beside the ear, a male cricket screamed excitedly, loudly and persistently, which was connected with the chirping of insects from far, near, front, back, left, and right; Illuminated by the moon, the rushing sound was sent to his eardrums very clearly, but it made him feel the silence of the night more clearly.A series of chaotic footsteps came from the edge of the forest in the south, from light to heavy, and he heard that it was the seventh squad that went to the company to build the hidden department.They didn't come to him, but walked straight back to Benban's bivouac.Soon there was the sound of pickaxe and round pickaxe digging.The seventh class is the cat ear hole that was not completed before continuing to dig out the tolerance. At last even this movement died away.The sound of night returned to silence.He thought that the soldiers of the Seventh Squad also fell asleep in the cat's ear hole... Suddenly, the sound of another person's footsteps sounded hoarsely in the woods, approaching him straight.With the help of the streaks of moonlight streaming in between the tree trunks, Shangguanfeng saw clearly that the person who came was Liu Youcai, the leader of the seventh squad. "Platoon leader, are you still asleep?" "No." Shangguan Feng replied, sitting upright from the grass. Liu Youcai sat down on the grass next to him, took out a cigarette from his coat pocket, and handed him one. "No, I won't." Shangguan Feng refused.His parents warned him since he was a child that smoking is a bad habit, and he hasn't touched it until today. "Take it." The seventh squad leader's voice was very soft, but very stubborn, and let Shangguanfeng hear some kind of affection that is not the squad leader to the platoon leader, but the elder brother to the younger brother.This feeling warmed Shangguan Feng's heart, and he was embarrassed not to pick up the cigarette. Liu Youcai put another cigarette in his mouth and lit the platoon leader and himself.Shangguanfeng tried to take a breath, and immediately coughed again and again. For a while, Liu Youcai smoked in silence.Shangguanfeng felt that he wanted to say something to him, but he didn't speak for a long time.After finishing a cigarette, Liu Youcai seemed to be about to say something, but two people walked towards them one after the other. It was Ge Wenyi, the leader of the eighth squad, and Li Le, the leader of the ninth squad. "I know the two of them haven't slept." Ge Wenyi laughed and said to Li Le, with a bit of undisguised joy in his voice.They also sat down on the grass, took out their cigarettes, and Liu Youcai gave way to each other to smoke. Later, it was Ge Wenyi who spoke first to Shangguan Feng: "Platoon leader, there will be a war tomorrow. Tonight is the last night. It is fate that we can get together. Since we can't sleep, we might as well get together and talk." Shangguan Feng was slightly moved, but couldn't find a word to answer for a while.From Ge Wenyi's words and the attitude of the three monitors around him towards him, he suddenly felt a sense of intimacy and security in his heart. No one said anything.Liu Youcai still bowed his head in thought.Li Le lay on his back on the grass, chewing a straw stick at the corner of his mouth. ... or Ge Wenyi went on to say: "Platoon leader, the brothers in our class are alright, but the deputy class leader, Qin Erbao, is more coquettish... Class 9 is 'Er Zhao'," he looked at Li Le as if seeking approval. "Brother Zhao Guangming is smarter, Zhao Guangliang is somewhat timid. But with everyone, there will be no major problems." He paused, waiting for someone to pick up his words.But no one came up.He waited a while, then went on: "Don't take what the company commander said seriously! After all, our battalion is the reserve team, and we are the reserve team in the battalion, and the third platoon is still the reserve team in the company. Even if there is a real battle, the brothers will not pretend to be bears.  … ...Squad Seven, am I right?" Shangguanfeng suddenly became excited, he understood why Ge Wenyi and the others came to him. ... He wanted to say "thank you", but he couldn't open his mouth. ... He noticed that the three monitors were avoiding his gaze at the moment. "Platoon leader, what are you thinking?" After a moment of silence, Li Le sat up straight on the grass and asked. "Me...I'm thinking about tomorrow's battle," Shangguan Feng was a little flustered for a moment, he didn't expect the ninth squad leader to ask this question, and after thinking about it, he realized that it was natural for Li Le to do so.Tonight, these three people who had almost never met him took the initiative to come to him, open their heart to him, and comforted him. He was so moved in his heart that he felt that it would be immoral for him to hide anything from them, but at this moment he really didn't think anything about yourself. "...Oh, just now I was thinking about my parents, my teacher, and my friends," he changed his mouth, and almost said Liu Xi's name on the spur of the moment, but then stopped, not because he didn't want to say it , but shy.Compared with the three monitors around him, he is still too young. There was sincerity and trust in his words, and the other three felt it. After another five minutes, the atmosphere finally did not become lively again. Ge Wenyi glanced at Li Le with a little disappointment, stood up, threw away the cigarette butt, scratched the back of his head, but couldn't think of anything else to say, smiled, Say: "Platoon leader, squad leader and I came here just to tell you, don't be afraid, we can do it in the third row!... Now we're going back!" "Thank you!" Shangguan Feng still said what he wanted to say. Ge Wenyi and Li Le left.Standing up, Shangguanfeng suddenly realized that it was not appropriate to say what he just said to those people who gave their lives to him without reservation.They came tonight, and after only sitting for ten minutes, he felt the sense of security and warmth of being in a group again in his heart, and the weight that had been weighing on his life seemed to be bearable... The seventh squad leader Liu Youcai also stood up from the grass, followed Ge Wenyi and Li Le, and walked a few steps forward. After the eighth and ninth squad leaders had gone far away, he turned around and walked back. He didn't look at Shangguan Peak, but looked at something nearby, and asked in a low voice. road: "Platoon leader, you... have you written a suicide note?" "Suicide note?... What suicide note?" After Shangguanfeng said this, he immediately understood Liu Youcai's question, and his heart tightened. "Many people in the platoon have written suicide notes." Liu Youcai continued to speak eagerly, staring at a small tree on the left that was brightly illuminated by the moonlight pouring into the forest. "Platoon leader, I want to tell you one thing... I also wrote a suicide note and hid it in my shirt pocket. If I am killed tomorrow, you can take it out and give it to your superiors.... This I’m only telling you about this, and I hope you can keep it a secret for me.” Shangguanfeng heard his heart beating wildly.Dark clouds of death billowed and gathered in the sky of his newly clear mind. "What did you write in your suicide note?" He asked after a second of silence. "I don't want to talk about it right now." Liu Youcai looked at Shangguan Feng shyly, and stopped talking. "Platoon leader, the situation in my family is different from yours, Ge Wenyi and Li Le. I did this as a precaution. ...Of course I may not die tomorrow. The company commander doubts whether we can fight, which means he doesn't understand The soldier's thoughts: Now that you are on the battlefield, it is not the same whether you are afraid of death or not, and the bastard has to become a hero....Okay, I should go back!" Liu Youcai left.In his words, there is a kind of sincerity between close friends, a kind of firmness and intensity that regards death as home, Shangguanfeng can hear it.He sat down on the grass in front of the cat's ear hole again, realizing that a new subtle change was taking place in his heart, and he was eagerly looking forward to something. The moonlight in the forest and at the bottom of the stream dimmed.He longed for them to be bright again. "War," he thought, "...yes, it's not death that I've been able to understand, it's war. There's nothing wrong with death, I've understood its full meaning from the very beginning.  …Death is just a part of war. The result. But what is war anyway?" he asked inwardly. "War puts us on the battlefield, let Liu Youcai, Ge Wenyi, Li Le and I walk into this desolate valley this night, ready to die....'War is the continuation of politics', Clausewitz said Say," a voice answered him. "...But war is not ordinary politics. War is an activity between some human beings and another part of human beings with the purpose of destroying life, and this matter itself is incomprehensible, because the nature of any individual life is to enjoy life And hateful death... Maybe people from ancient times to the present have not fully understood it, and have not really accepted it emotionally, but have always used it to compete for land, water, food, and the opposite sex, or simply use it to promote the values ​​of tribes and nations. Pride, for this reason even gave rise to the ancient and tragic profession of the soldier..." He was meditating, realizing that the above question was not really understood by him, but his thoughts flowed like a stream to another new exciting point . "Soldier... yes, I'm a soldier." This sudden thought brought tears to his eyes. "In the past, I couldn't accept war and death because I never regarded myself as a soldier. Liu Youcai, Ge Wenyi, Li Le, company commander, and deputy regimental commander were able to accept them easily precisely because they understood their own He is a soldier." In a short while, his mind was filled with many poems related to soldiers, "In the Qin Dynasty, the moon was bright and the Han Dynasty was closed, and the people who marched thousands of miles have not yet returned", "Drunk on the battlefield, Lord Mo Xiao, how many people have fought in ancient times" and so on. . "But what kind of profession is a soldier?" My thoughts became coherent here, but my heart became sad because of the verse just now. "Soldiers are such a profession. They exist for war, and at the cost of their lives to obtain the victory of the war and the glory of the nation, the country, and individuals....Yes." He affirmed the abstract thoughts in his mind, feeling that he Seeing myself more clearly. "Soldier," he thought hotly, "from the day you put on your uniform, you are no longer a candidate for a local university, a future mathematician or astrophysicist, no longer a twelve-year-old or At the age of seventeen, war has not only become your occupation since then, but also your destiny. Your death tomorrow will not seem strange to others, because it is something that may happen within the scope of your occupation. It doesn't have much to do with others, it only has great or small, long-term or short-term significance to the history of a nation....I understand." He thought, feeling that he really understood, and his thoughts did not go deeper, but Flowing to a very superficial very bright spot. "Life has become so simple for me: be a good soldier, wait for the battle now, take your platoon into battle at dawn tomorrow, try to win the battle and live, or die on any hill Or in some unnamed canyon. . . . Now?" he asked himself, "the thing right now is to sleep, nothing else." However, he knew that he would not be able to sleep tonight no matter what.There was a gentle voice in my heart. "...you can't sleep. This will be the last night you spend in this world, a bright moon night, you should cherish it." The moonlight really became bright again, and the leaves and grass in the forest were illuminated by it The leaves become thin and transparent, and covered with a furry halo.The moonlight at the bottom of the stream was thicker and whiter, illuminating the meandering stream like mercury.He didn't want to go back into the cat's ear hole, so he put his arms behind his head and lay on his back on the low-sloping grass. "Tomorrow there will be no one like you, and tonight you're alive and lying here," he thought wildly for a moment, "and the world doesn't know that it's going to lose a mathematician, an astrophysicist, a Nobel Prize winner." The winner of the prize...but it’s nothing, someone will get the prize." The strange thing is that thinking of this, he no longer feels sad in his heart, but has a kind of peace and relaxation, especially relaxation.Ever since Liu Youcai said that, he suddenly felt relaxed.Death was real and approaching, he could feel it, but was no longer surprised.He still doesn't admit its plausibility, but gets used to it. "Should I also write a suicide note?...No, there is no need", he laughed mockingly, "People will forget about you soon, including Liuxi, she will go to college, fall in love, and get married The only ones who will never forget you are father and mother. But even they will gradually forget you, put you in a secret corner of the heart, and move all their love to the little sister... This is also very normal, No one to blame. But you better not fall asleep tonight, you get to feel every second that your life is going away, it's important, and it's kind of fucking exciting." For a long time he kept his eyes wide open.He swears, for the first time like a soldier, and is not ashamed of it.Everything was silent in the woods.The flowing sound of Jiandi stream is monotonous and loud.His eyes closed unconsciously. "I can't sleep, I...don't...will...sleep," he murmured in his heart, struggling with the sleep demon, but in the end he forgot about war, death, responsibility, dignity, and honor, and lay on the grass in front of the cat's ear hole fell asleep.