The crescent moon reflected a faint light, but it could not illuminate the darkness in the narrow valley.
On the north bank of the river, a group of wet people tiptoed to the bank. The panting mules half-tugged and half-carried Hu Yi to the bank. He dragged and dragged him, rolled and climbed to the bank, and lay down in the bushes, panting.
A group of people were shirtless and shivering slightly in the summer mountain wind. They wrung out their clothes and put them on again. The little girl took the clothes out of the bag on the mule's back and got into the bushes.
The group of people looked back and saw that when they were crossing the river, they were carried two to three hundred meters downstream by the river water, and they were drifting past the river where Chen Chong was fighting with the Japanese. Bullets were screaming overhead.
The Japs and Chen Chong and Pan Zhuzi were still fighting fiercely with each other, but they didn't notice the messy black shadows in the river.
"Count the number of people!" Ding De breathlessly ordered Li Xiang, he was the only one who could handle this place.
Li Xiang immediately started counting heads, which he was good at.
"Fox, what's wrong with you? Say something!" The girl who had changed her outfit, wearing a bright red robe, was groping at Hu Yi's body, who was lying on his back and panting.
Seeing that he had touched the armed belt, Hu Yi quickly reached out and grabbed the claws, but he felt a pain in his shoulder and back. He groaned: "Hey, don't touch it blindly. The Japanese shelled just now, and the roof hit the back again!"
"Smashed again?" The girl was dejected and slowly pulled her hand back, staring blankly in the darkness.
More than a hundred meters upstream, bloodshot eyes were staring at the other side of the river. Chen Chong and Pan Zhuzi fell into silence after being excited, nervously watching the Japanese in a daze.
The dark shadow floating in the river just now was finally not discovered by the enemy on the other side. He breathed a sigh of relief and immediately called on the soldiers to reduce the intensity of shooting. He got up and went downstream.
Until now, the ammunition is still sufficient. I brought more when I set off, and nearly half of the casualties were killed. The bullets were evenly distributed and added to the bullet boxes of the soldiers behind them.
Pan Zhuzhu was loading bullets into the gun. There was only one squad left in the platoon, with nearly half of the casualties. A few more wounded soldiers were carried away, and now there was only one squad leader.
On the other side of the river, in the camp where the Japanese engineers and infantry were mixed, the bonfire was still burning, but the Japanese all hid in the bushes behind the bonfire. Behind the rocks, the gunfire from the Eighth Route Army on the opposite side became sparse. It seemed that the combat effectiveness of the Tubal Road was not very good. of!
The Japanese lieutenant who had been chased out of the village stood in the darkness on the edge of the bushes by the river, frowning and slapping his sergeant hard.
There was no one on the Eighth Route Army's position, and they disappeared out of thin air. It was said that the Eighth Route Army could go up to the sky and into the earth, and it was indeed well-deserved.
"Report, eight footprints were found by the river, eight...maybe...maybe swam across the river!" A Japanese soldier came over to report.
The lieutenant's palms ached slightly, so he rubbed them and took a deep breath: "Ba Ge...immediately go upstream, put out the torch, and swim across the river!"
"Hai... But if you don't throw away the equipment, it will sink to the bottom of the river?" The sergeant did not dare to touch his face, but he had to suggest it.
The lieutenant roared: "During training, didn't I teach you to use an empty kettle to cross the river? Are you only thinking about women's thighs and breasts, huh? What are you thinking about?"
"Hai...thank you, Lieutenant, for your guidance." The sergeant no longer felt aggrieved by the beating, and turned to look at the ferry: "But, why can't the engineers get there?"
The lieutenant stared at the sergeant and blinked for a few times, then suddenly stood up, raised his hand and slapped the sergeant again, and then pointed at the sergeant's nose: "Asshole, at this time... what you want to think about is crossing the river. The engineers and soldiers have to build the bridge. They have to cross." River fart is of no use, if you don’t act, I’ll chop you up!”
The sergeant stood at attention and looked at the expressive lieutenant. In the light of the torch, his face showed an expression of admiration.
With a shudder, he quickly asked the Japs to empty the kettles. After a while of fussing, they finished cleaning up. They tied the four kettles together and let one Japs tie them to him. It was just enough for a class of Japs. They formed a group and pulled each other. A safety rope to prevent it from being washed away by the river.
After everything was ready, the sergeant carefully observed the terrain secretly, and was slapped in the face again by the lieutenant: "Can't you take a good look? There is no Eighth Road here!"
A new palm print appeared on the sergeant's face, and he immediately slapped the Japanese soldier who was lighting the torch and ordered him to put out the torch.
The lieutenant looked at the Japs and slowly groped their way upstream. He immediately ordered the messenger to convey the order to the engineers on the riverside, telling them to be careful that the people in the river were their own.
The lieutenant immediately ordered the remaining men to put up the crooked handles and pull away the grenade, staring at the occasional muzzle flashes from Tubal Road on the other side of the river where they were having fun fighting with the engineers.
The Japanese sergeant led his men to the river slowly, and simply blocked the muzzle of the gun with a strip of cloth. A group of Japanese soldiers slowly walked down the river like chasing ducks, holding the rifle with one hand and the butt tilted upward. , setting the standard, the Japanese were connected by safety ropes and slowly floated downstream by the river.
The soldiers were hanging kettles on their bodies, standing up their rifles, pulling out the purge strips, rolling up some cotton they didn't know where they got, and starting to stick it into the barrels.
Hu Yi had a dark face. Under the weak moonlight, he looked at Political Commissar Ding squatting next to him. A faint bitter smile suddenly appeared on his tired face: "We should have succeeded. We have blocked the Japanese for so long, so we should retreat."
"What did you say? Retreat?" Ding Deyi didn't quite understand Hu Yi's suggestion: "Now that we have the advantage of the terrain, the Japanese want to cross the river, but there is no way!"
"We have successfully held off the Japs for so long... If the Japs really have an advancing team, it might be the group Wang Erniu and the others met in the afternoon. There must be a radio station among the Japs. Then, the Japs are in such a hurry to advance, which means that the Japs are advancing. It is entirely possible that the team has arrived near the division headquarters."
"So, what do you think?"
"No idea, the water will come and the earth will cover it. Since the enemy's target is the division headquarters, we have to gather the team together, reinforce the division headquarters at full speed, go to the division headquarters to join the main force, and then make the next step."
There was a bang, the sound of a kettle falling to the ground, and a figure came out of the darkness, making Commissar Ding stagger two steps. The person who rushed over in a hurry was Chen Chong. He didn't even bother to look at his brother who was squatting on the ground and firing the gun barrel, and said directly. : "Political Commissar, Company Commander, the Japanese are here! Swimming from the river!"
The political commissar and Hu Yi, who were lying squatting, instantly turned over and stared into the dark night into the river without blinking.
"We have set up a secret sentry by the river. We have just returned. If there is no one behind you, those black guys in the river should all be Japs. There are about a dozen of them. They should also come ashore from here later."
"I don't know...should I laugh now." Ding Deyi suddenly turned his head and asked Hu Yi. Many places along the river bank are steep. In this river bend, there are only a few places where you can go ashore. Devils It is a joy to come here.
Looking at the unshaven face of the political commissar, Hu Yi moved his shoulders, using the pain to drive away the fatigue. He also smiled, although the smile was very weak. He stretched out his hand to straighten the military cap on his head, and started to buckle it neatly. Wearing wet clothes, and then carefully adjusting the length of the armed belt, feeling the tightness, it was so meticulous that I could not speak.
Finally he raised his head and frowned: "Since the Japs want to swim across the river, hehe, there is no ferry now, so they should all rush here. The Japs on the other side must be watching, and they will definitely provide fire cover and kill the Japs crossing the river. The rest of the people...just watch the arrangements. Uh, in addition, go over and tell Pan Zhuzhu to lead his people to guard there, stay hidden, and ask them to ignore those guys in the river...take care of the Japanese on the other side of the river. That’s it.”
Chen Chong thought briefly and stood at attention: "Company commander, should we move a few rocks here? If we build a fortification and get two machine guns, everything will be fine?"
