From the moment the Prussian cavalry company pursued them, it was destined that the subsequent evacuation operation would not be safe.
The speed of the carriage cannot be compared with these cavalry, and the only way it can go is through the woods to the north. As for the Prussian army, as long as the Sixth Army is surrounded, the surrounding woods will become the target of raids sooner or later, so the escape route of the Kawei Guards has already entered the opponent's territory and is locked.
Dilemmas need to be faced anytime and anywhere on the battlefield. Aleister's decision is doomed to make sacrifices, and the unarmed Kavi can only follow orders.
It is impossible to fight with the escort.
The team originally lacked weapons, and Kawei had never even touched a gun, so keeping them was a burden. Moreover, the duty of the guard itself is to protect his safety. Only when Kawi is alive can the whole team be rewarded. If something happens to Kawi, the entire team will be punished, and no one will be spared.
At this time, Kawei chose to be obedient and evacuate, not only to save his own life, but also for the sake of the soldiers in the escort team.
Of course, Aleister's decision was not rational. Who left and who stayed was not randomly assigned.
From a capability perspective alone, keeping a captain with good command and judgment skills next to Kawi is the best choice. But in order to make those who stayed behind completely give up, and in order to increase the intensity of the resistance and give Kawei time to escape, he needed to stay.
Even Kawei could see what he was thinking, and so could the soldiers who were with him.
In the two minutes after Aresta made his decision, the team members did a lot of ideological work for him, and at the same time, they forcibly took off his military uniform and exchanged it with a soldier. Finally, in order to reassure him, they all swore by their respective unit numbers:
"I am from the 5th Dragoon Regiment, and I will never take a step back until I die!"
"I come from the 16th Rifle Infantry Regiment of the Second Army, and I will never take a step back until I die!"
"I come from the 22nd Chasseur Regiment of the Seventh Army, and I will never do it until I die."
The woods are covered with grass and soft soil. So many people walking quickly will inevitably leave footprints.
Time counts against the clock, and the team is moving in such a hurry that there is no time to deal with these traces. They can only hope that the soldiers left behind can block it for a while, and the pursuit of the Prussian soldiers can end here.
Kawei didn't know the final outcome of this temporary position. He only knew that gunshots rang out not long after he left. The deeper we go into the woods, the lighter the sound of gunfire becomes. Those soldiers are indeed abiding by their oath and blocking the enemy's attack.
Until they heard the sound of artillery shells exploding.
"This small company actually carries cavalry artillery?" Aleister glanced behind him in disbelief, and then continued to lead the team forward. "Our cavalry regiment is only equipped with 2 -3 mounted cannons, the Prussian equipment is too luxurious."
"With artillery, the position just now won't last long." The soldier beside him muttered.
"Give me the map!"
Last night, Aleister took a few team members for a walk around the area, and also went to conduct distant reconnaissance with the sentries of the Sixth Army. The map in hand was drawn by the team members at that time. Although the icons and lines were very simple, at least some important landmarks were recorded.
"You can see a small village a little further in this direction." Aleister pointed ahead and said, "If nothing else happens, at least we can keep up with the supplies for the next few days."
"There should be a path out further north of the village."
"There are always roads, but not every road can be taken." Aleister considered many situations. The number of escort soldiers was suddenly reduced by half. He also had to be more cautious. "Wait until we reach the village before considering the next step." It’s about that.”
"Is there anyone else in the village?"
"I don't know. There wasn't even a light when we came here at night. The time was limited, so we only took a look at the outside and didn't go in."
"The war has been going on for so many days, maybe we should have escaped long ago."
"It's hard to say, there are still people from the previous Gablenz who are still there."
"I remember that there was a large field of wheat between the woods and the village, without any cover, and the straight-line distance was estimated to be more than 300 meters." Aleister said to the surrounding soldiers and doctors, "I guess I will have to stop when we get there. , let’s do a good job of investigating the surrounding area before moving forward.”
In addition to preventing other Prussian chasseurs in the woods, the reconnaissance also gave the doctors and nurses a chance to rest.
The wheat field is open and surrounded by woods on three sides. If there are enemies, they can easily find them, so this area needs to be passed at full speed.
However, it took more than an hour to drive at full speed northwest from the high ground before we could see the wheat field. The rugged muddy ground covered with small rocks could easily drain the energy of an ordinary person. Ordinary medical staff like Kawei and Ignatz who lacked training had no way of getting through there as quickly as the convoys.
In fact, Aresta still overestimated these doctors, and it soon became apparent that his physical fitness was unsustainable.
A sprint quickly turned into a jog, and gradually gave way to a walk in less than half an hour. The planned one-and-a-half hour walk through the woods was stretched to two and a half hours, and all the doctors, including Kavi, were exhausted.
But the escort is not without good news. At least there is no trace of the enemy in the rear or surrounding areas.
When the sun gradually rose and the time approached noon, Aleister asked everyone to take off their military uniforms, and then led a group of more than 30 people through the wheat fields quickly under the gentle autumn wind.
After entering the village, they discovered that it was more like a small town than a village. The architecture is in a typical Central European style, and houses built of bricks and wood can be seen on both sides of the street.
The town occupies a small area but is fully equipped with not only churches, workshops and workshops, but also schools, hospitals and libraries. Surrounded by farmland, pastures and orchards like just now, the only drawback is that everyone in the town has run away.
Aleister divided the remaining escort soldiers into three groups.
He took the lead in one group to protect the safety of the Kawei medical team, one group was guarding the intersection where they had just entered the town, and the other group was at the forefront to explore the road. Their main purpose lies in two points, one is to collect food and water for the team, and the other is for transportation.
Beyond the town is an open area, losing the visual barrier of the woods.
Without the barrier, they also lost the opportunity to walk slowly. If they wanted to completely avoid the battle, the escort had to rely on carriages to speed them up.
"Nate, take a group to the pasture to see if there are any horses."
"good."
"Let's go to the church first, and then split up to look for food and water wells." Aleister raised his head and glanced at the sun, "The speed must be fast. I hope to leave this place in half an hour."
"knew!"
The medical team was placed in the only church in the town. After a whole morning of transfer and evacuation, their legs were sore and swollen. They were finally able to rest here for a while. Aleister still seemed uneasy, leaving himself and a soldier to protect their safety.
"Captain, we're all in town, there's really no need to stay here." Kawei said while lying on the bench, "I'm not a prisoner."
"Your safety comes first."
"Are there still Prussians here?"
Kawei's voice echoed in the church, and there seemed to be some dissatisfaction in his tone. Aleister understood what he meant and said with a smile: "Protecting your safety is my duty and the order I received. I have followed you all the way from Vienna and there will be no change until I return to Vienna."
"Are you afraid that I will run away alone?"
".That's not the case."
Kavi sighed: "If it was just to ensure my safety, there would be no need to run like this when Gablenz was attacked. The Geneva Conference just ended three years ago, and the Prussians would not blatantly violate the convention and kill and seriously injure soldiers. and surgeons.”
"Dr. Kawei is still too naive, and guns are ruthless."
"The guns are indeed ruthless, but I remember that there was an eye-catching red cross sign above the Gablenz operating room." Kawei argued, "As long as the building has a red cross sign, it will not be attacked by the Prussians. That hospital The operating room remained intact until it was out of my sight.”
"That's just good luck. I can't risk your life."
There is only a window paper left in the relationship between Kawei and the Guards. Anyone with a discerning eye can see something fishy, but Aleister is still unwilling to expose it: "And even if you dodge the shells, no one can guarantee it." The safety of prisoners. Once you become a prisoner of the enemy, we may all have to court martial when we return to Vienna."
At this time, Ignatz, who was sitting next to Kavi, stood up to smooth things over: "It's better to save some energy and have a good rest. We have to run a long way back to Olmitz."
In fact, Kawei had discussed this matter with Aleister before, and both of them had a tacit understanding.
If it hadn't been for the scene on the high ground just now, he might not have mentioned it again until the end of the war. But now that it has reached this point, both publicly and privately, Kawei feels that the entire evacuation plan is serving the mission of the escort team and is not beneficial to him.
The escort had already lost half its soldiers, and in the end it only gained a moment of peace.
The Geneva Convention is not universal, and Austria is even more conservative, so doctors and nurses are not equipped with military uniforms with red cross marks. For a long period of time, Kawei lost the protection of the "Red Cross" and was likely to die under the gunpoint of the enemy.
"In fact, even if there was no Red Cross, the other side would not do anything to the doctors and wounded soldiers." Ignatz had experienced war and knew very well the position of hospitals in the minds of both warring parties. "There was no Red Cross symbol in the Franco-Austrian War. When both sides captured the other side's temporary aid center, they did not harm the doctors or wounded soldiers."
"There are still a lot of accidental injuries."
“It’s because of friendly fire that the red cross symbol is there.”
"I am not a worker who makes the red cross logo. I am just executing orders. The soldiers who resisted the enemy's footsteps are also executing orders." Aleister argued, "After all, this is an order from King Franz. People can disobey.”
Kawei looked at the captain who had been with him day and night for more than half a month and didn't know what to say.
On the one hand, he is very grateful to these soldiers, who have been doing their best to ensure his own safety. But at the same time, he also felt that he had lost his most basic freedom, and his every move was under their "monitoring".
Maybe they didn't mean to monitor him, but those lines of sight still existed. They move around his body all the time, just like preventing the dog from leaving his sight when walking the dog, making him very uncomfortable.
But even if the two of them quarreled to this point, Aleister just asked the accompanying soldiers to wait at the door of the church, and he still did not leave.
Upon seeing this, Kawei was too lazy to argue with him anymore, and instead discussed with Ignatz how to handle the situation when the military hospital became a target. These include the Red Cross armbands of medical staff, the Red Cross flags of hospitals, and the mattresses of wounded soldiers should also preferably have the Red Cross mark.
"Once they are besieged, there is no need to transfer seriously injured soldiers from the hospital. They may survive as prisoners, but if they get on an ox cart, they will basically not survive."
"Just take the initiative to leave seriously injured soldiers to the other side?"
"right."
"That seems to make sense."
"I think it is necessary to write it into the transshipment regulations. The transshipment method like Gablenz's is really torturous."
Inside the church, two top surgeons were formulating new rules for the military medical manual, while outside the church, the escorting soldiers became a real raiding party into the city.
They are more united than ordinary soldiers, and they know what they need better than those soldiers who only know how to rob and indulge when they enter the city.
Easy-to-preserve bread and biltong are the most valuable items, followed by cheese and root vegetables, followed by leafy greens and cooked food scraps. In terms of water source, the small amount of wine left in the residence is the best, followed by well water and stream water that are not safe enough.
As for those coins, they are a burden that increases the burden on the body on the battlefield.
Not long after the dispersal operation, the convoy soldiers discovered a problem.
There was no wine in the house, but there was enough water from the central well, and everyone was soon drinking to their heart's content. Nothing else could be found, and no food was left at all. After searching, they only found two pieces of bread and half a piece of meat, and half of it was moldy, making it impossible to eat.
"It can only be said that it is a blessing in misfortune. At least there is water." Aleister glanced at the "trophy" and asked, "Is there a horse?"
"I only saw two delivery trucks. The old ones were a bit old, but the wheels and axles were still usable."
"No horse?"
Knight shook his head: "The pastures are all empty, let alone horses, there are no old cows."
"Are there any enemies around?"
"No."
Aleister glanced at the sun again and simply calculated the time: "It has been more than three hours since we left that position. Although the possibility of being overtaken is not high, we still have to remain vigilant."
Unexpectedly, before he finished speaking, he heard a series of crisp footsteps in the distance, which was the sound of the soles of military boots hitting the stone ground.
The person who came was the sentry who had been guarding the entrance. When Aleister saw it, his heart sank immediately: "What's wrong?"
"The Prussians are coming!"
(End of chapter)
