Cannon Fire Arc

Chapter 880: Chapter 16 Unparalleled Blessings (8K)_2

The soldiers rolled into the water like dumplings.

When it was Thomas’s turn, he heard Jack shouting, “I can’t swim! Damn, this water looks like it’s two meters—”

Thomas grabbed Jack and rolled into the water, and the screaming stopped.

Actually, the water wasn’t deep; when standing, it barely reached past Thomas’s navel.

However, at this moment, he wished the water were deeper so he could stay submerged and not face the fierce machine gun fire.

Thomas, dragging Jack, sprinted all the way and finally reached a spot behind an anti-tank obstacle, taking a long breath.

Only then did he have the chance to check on Jack, who had been dragged along.

“Buddy, how are you?”

Jack spat out a mouthful of water, gagged twice, and then replied, “Damn it, I’m never joining a landing operation again.”

Thomas patted Jack on the shoulder, “I think we won’t need a second landing. If this one fails, we’ll just wait for the Anteans to push to the Carolingian and stare at us across the sea!”

Saying this, Thomas stood up, picked up a carbine wrapped in a plastic bag, and shouted to the soldiers hiding behind the anti-tank obstacles around them, “Guys! Staying here only makes us practice targets for the Prosen machine gunners. Moving forward at least gives us a chance to make them our targets! Forward!”

Saying this, Thomas left the tank obstacle.

Jack wanted to follow him, but Thomas pushed him back behind the obstacle, “You and I can’t both go. If we’re both killed, there’ll be no one to command!”

Then Thomas, all by himself, charged towards the beach.

He had no time to look back to see if anyone was following, focusing solely on running forward.

Before them, many Federation soldiers had already dashed to the shore, and Thomas could see soldiers hiding behind various cover.

Suddenly, he had a thought: if the Prosens didn’t put up these anti-tank barriers, the entire beach would have no cover, and the landing force’s losses might be much greater—

Anyway, the tanks couldn’t make it ashore.

For the first time, he looked back and indeed didn’t see a single tank.

Theoretically, 60 tanks equipped with D gear should have joined the first wave of the landing force, but now Thomas didn’t see even one.

Thomas turned back and found the first coastal defense dune was just ahead.

With a flying leap, he landed on the defensive dune.

This dune could block coastal landing forces, but from the reverse side, the firepower inside the enemy bunkers couldn’t hit those hiding behind it.

The beach couldn’t form a perfect defense structure like a bastion; there would always be places like this to exploit.

In fact, the dune had flanking fire cover, but the traffic tunnel was lifted by naval artillery, so the defenders couldn’t access the bunkers. The flanking bunkers on other beachheads were still operational, and the Federation Army hiding in the shadow of the dune had to deal with those bunkers first.

Thomas was unaware of this; he was looking for a way over the dune.

Going over the top was definitely a no-go, as it would lead to being shot and riddled by machine gun fire.

Moreover, there was still some barbed wire left behind the dune—unlike mines, barbed wire wasn’t much affected by blast overpressure, and shock waves couldn’t remove large sections of barbed wire since it was quite heavy.

The good news was that the sand dike could be blown open with explosive tubes, and people could crawl under the barbed wire to avoid machine gun fire.

Thomas looked at the unfamiliar sergeant beside him and shouted, “Who’s in command here?”

The sergeant looked at his captain’s insignia and replied, “You, sir!”

Thomas cursed, shouting loudly, “Engineer! Has anyone seen the engineer?”

At this point, Captain Jack ran over, crouching beside Thomas to report, “I’ve gathered seven people, and someone even saw Barbara.”

Thomas reminded him, “His name is Pablo.”

“Whatever! You’re the only one who can pronounce it right! Someone saw Barbara, so he shouldn’t be dead. Eight of us survived from the boat! What’s the order?”

Thomas: “Find the engineer, use demolitions to blast open the front sand dike and create a passage, and we’ll go through it.”

Jack: “I thought you were going to throw a smoke bomb.”

Thomas: “Save the smoke bomb and go find the engineer!”

“Yes.” Jack turned, crouching and sprinting along the sand dike.

At this moment, the Prosens started shelling the sand dike with mortars, likely their backup measure after the flanking bunkers had been neutralized.

Unfortunately for them, many of their mortars were probably destroyed by naval bombardment, so the fire density wasn’t high.

A radio operator carrying a large box rushed over to Thomas’s side, “You’re the first living officer I’ve seen!”

Thomas glanced at the large box in the radio operator’s hand, “You carried that thing over here?”

“Yes, and my typewriter.”

Thomas: “The typewriter is useful; you should have ditched the radio for a lighter load—wait a minute, the typewriter you’re talking about, is it the one I think it is?”

The radio operator took out an actual roller-style typewriter, “I don’t think so.”

Thomas snatched the typewriter and tossed it far away, “You don’t need that thing! You can use a pencil to replace it!”

Radio operator: “What about the radio?”

Thomas: “Since you brought it here, lie down here, kid.”

With that, he pulled the radio operator down beside him.

“Use your high-power radio to call the fleet and tell them all the tanks have sunk, there’s no tank support on the battlefield, we’ve all been stopped at the first sand dune, first wave attack failed, repeat, first wave attack failed!”

At this point, Captain Jack returned with several engineers and a large number of explosive tubes, “I found the engineers, but they’re not the ones assigned to us! We might have landed on the wrong beach; our target should be four miles eastward.”