"You're so desperate? Why did you come back just now!?"
Looking at Onozuka Jin walking slowly from the forest, the squadron leader quickly stepped forward to check the situation.
It's not that he cares much about this soldier, but the kettle on this guy's body, which is an important material for everyone's survival.
"I'm really sorry, squadron leader." Onozuka Ren endured the severe pain and replied: "I was just stunned by the Chinese artillery fire, and I just..."
The squadron leader didn't have the patience to listen to Onozuka Ren's words. He directly reached out and took a kettle, and couldn't wait to take two sips.
Then many Japanese soldiers gathered around and divided the kettle hanging on Onozuka's body, leaving him alone and awkwardly standing there holding a branch.
Seeing his companions grabbing water like a group of wild beasts, Onozuka Jin felt mixed emotions.
After working all morning, his throat was almost smoking. He wanted to go up and get a share of the pie, but the pain in his legs made him unable to stand any longer. He sat down on the ground and groaned.
The squadron leader only took a few sips before putting down the kettle, closing the lid with some hesitation, and carefully hanging the kettle on his body.
Only then did he notice Onozuka Jin who was sitting on the ground, covering his legs and wailing.
"injured?"
"I'm very sorry, it was just the shelling...hiss...please rest assured, squadron leader, I can do it."
Onozuka Jin gritted his teeth in pain, with a pleading look in his eyes, because he did not want to be abandoned by his superiors because of his injuries.
You must know that the wounded in the current team are basically thrown in the corner to die.
Losing the ability to move means losing value, and no one will care about them at all.
"It's really troublesome. Another person has to go get water again."
The squadron leader just glanced at him and turned around to leave, muttering as he walked, with no intention of helping Onozuka Jin deal with his injuries.
In his eyes, suffering this kind of injury is basically the same as death. In a place where eating and drinking is a problem, who has the time to care about you?
Even if the other party had such an attitude, Onozuka Hitoshi was helpless. I have no choice but to blame myself for my bad luck.
"Aren, how are you? Can you still walk?"
Just when Onozuka Ren was at a loss, a familiar voice came to his ears.
The sergeant of the team, Yoshino Jiro, came over, checked his injuries, and said solemnly: "Your situation is not very good."
"Yoshino-kun, please help me, please!" Onozuka Jin begged, holding on to the other person's arm as if grasping a life-saving straw.
Yoshino Jiro and Onozuka Hitoshi come from the same place, both from Nagasaki Prefecture.
Yoshino had to join the army two years earlier and was promoted to squad sergeant due to his military exploits, so he usually took good care of him.
Now it seems that only this fellow countryman can help him. Onozuka Ren is full of expectations. After all, no one wants to die.
"I don't have gauze or medicine, how can I help you?"
Jiro Yoshino shook his head helplessly, looked into the distance and pondered for a moment, then said: "The island to the south of the unit's medical facility, why don't you go there and have a look?"
"Ah? But...how do I get there?" Onozuka Ren asked.
"Wait until the tide goes out, and then we can go through the swamp outside the forest. There is no other way."
Yoshino Jiro pointed in a direction, although he also understood that this behavior was very dangerous.
The Irrawaddy Delta is actually a large depression, and all the islands are almost connected together.
Once the tide rises or there is a heavy rain, the sea water will divide these places into hundreds of small islands of different sizes. If you want to go to other places, you have to rely on boats.
When the tide recedes, the water between the islands will become shallower, exposing a large amount of land and muddy swamps. In some places, you can even walk directly across it.
The team from the former joint medical clinic was on an island not far away. When they first arrived on the island, Yoshino helped carry the bodies of the wounded there, so he was deeply impressed by this incident.
After hearing this, Onozuka Ren seemed to have hope in his heart. No matter what, it was better to go there than to stay here and wait to die.
Anyway, the squadron leader already regards him as a dead person and doesn't care where he goes. If he wants to survive, he can only find his own way.
"Let's eat something first."
Yoshino mashed the vines and fruits of the sunflower seeds and put them in the helmet. The helmet was full of green and bubbling paste, which looked even more unpalatable than pig food.
Even though it was so disgusting, Onozuka Hitoshi still took it and swallowed it in big gulps.
He hadn't had a normal full meal since the day before yesterday. Everything he could find on the island was eaten up. If someone hadn't discovered that sunflower potatoes were edible, they would all have starved to death here.
Although the taste of this thing is disgusting, it is also the only wild vegetable that can be eaten raw and is an important source of starch and water.
…
Time passed by, and at noon, the surrounding tide finally receded.
Onozuka Hitoshi, who had suffered all morning, arrived at the southwest side of the island with Yoshino's help.
There is indeed a road here. After the tide goes out, the depth of the water drops sharply, revealing a large area of shoal swamps, which also connects to the adjacent island.
The water between the two islands is now less than knee-deep. You can walk along the shoal normally, but the danger is not in the water, but in the sky.
Chinese planes often hovered in the sky. Usually they were fine hiding in the woods, but once they were exposed in the open land, they would be shot by the opponent.
Because there was no food, the little devil had no choice but to wait until the tide went out and sneak to the water's edge to pick up fish and shrimp on the swamp.
And those fighter planes would always visit the islands when the tide was low. As long as they saw traces of the Japanese below, they would unceremoniously dive and output firepower.
Pilots call this behavior "rat hunting" and even compete to see who can shoot more "rats".
Yoshino Jiro observed for a while by the woods. There seemed to be no shadow of enemy planes above his head and no sound was heard.
At the moment, he could only pray that the enemy hadn't noticed this yet, so he immediately called to Onozuka Jin and prepared to cross the shoal now.
However, Yoshino Jiro did not agree to the request to escort Onozuka there.
Before leaving, Yoshino took out two palm-sized pieces of wild sweet potatoes and stuffed them into Onozuka Jin's arms. He didn't say anything more and just asked the other person to leave quickly.
Onozuka Jin understood what the other party meant, and it was the utmost kindness to send him here. After all, the other party was also afraid and did not want to take risks alone and expose himself to the enemy's fire.
Seeing that he couldn't miss the opportunity, Onozuka gritted his teeth and summoned up the courage, used the wooden stick as a crutch, and limped towards the other side.
There were no clouds overhead, the scorching sun hurt my skin, and the seawater splashing on my legs hurt like bones, but all of this was far outweighed by the desire to survive.
(End of chapter)
