Companion

After drawing his equipment, he went straight to eat. The food wasn't exactly lavish, but there was enough of it. The staple was black bread cut into chunks; the soup was borscht. There were large pieces of roast meat, roast chicken, pickled cucumbers, and baked potatoes—he wasn't sure whether those counted as a dish or a staple. There were no leafy greens; the only vegetables were the green peppers and carrots served with the roast chicken. Bottled water sat off to the side. He couldn't say the food tasted very good. The roast meat especially had been cooked in advance and was barely more than lukewarm now, but there was plenty of it and it filled you up, and you could just go get more once you'd finished. Gao Fei had a table to himself and dug in. Whatever came next and wherever they were going, filling his stomach first was the important thing. Just then, a middle-aged man who looked to be around thirty approached Gao Fei's table. After a moment's hesitation, he sat down opposite him. "Hello." Gao Fei looked up. The man seemed to be one of those who had gone in with him earlier to collect weapons. His skin was a little dark, and he looked somewhat different from the Russians. Gao Fei raised his head and said, "Hello." "I'm Lebanese. Where are you from?" Introducing himself before asking the other man was the mark of someone who knew how to talk. Gao Fei had no intention of hiding his nationality, so he answered at once, "I'm Chinese." "Samir Bek. Pleased to meet you." Samir held out his hand. Gao Fei immediately took it and said, "Rex. Pleased to meet you." "I asked around. Most of this batch of foreign mercenaries today are from Central Asia. They came together through an agent, and they're hard to deal with. They don't speak English, only Russian. Do you speak Russian?" "I don't speak Russian. That'll be a problem." People were social animals. Samir was on his own too, and since he couldn't find anyone he could communicate with, it was natural that he'd seek out Gao Fei, who spoke English. Samir shrugged. "It'll be better once we reach the frontline. They'll put us in an international battalion, so communication shouldn't be a problem. But speaking of going to the frontline…" Samir paused, then lowered his voice. "Don't you think today's vetting process was too simple? And they handed us weapons right here. By usual practice, we shouldn't get our weapons until we reach the frontline." "Right. That's trouble. It means things are tense at the front and they're desperately short of men, so they're giving us all our weapons. We might be thrown straight into combat as soon as we arrive." Gao Fei wanted to seem like a veteran, so he said exactly what he was thinking. Samir pursed his lips and let out a breath. "You're right. That's exactly what worries me, buddy. This really isn't good news." Samir looked glum and seemed to have no appetite, but Gao Fei was still hungry. He said what needed saying, but when it came to eating, he wasn't about to let his mouth rest for a moment. Seeing Gao Fei wolfing down his food, Samir couldn't keep talking indefinitely. After taking a few tasteless spoonfuls of soup, he suddenly stood up and went straight to the table where the water bottles were, coming back with several bottles in his arms. Samir had taken six bottles, and Gao Fei had no idea what he needed so much water for. Samir picked up his canteen, unscrewed the cap, and started pouring bottled water into it. The canteen was aluminum, wrapped in EMR camouflage cloth, and held 750 milliliters. One bottle wasn't enough to fill it, and two were more than it could hold. After filling his own canteen, Samir said quietly, "Give me your canteen." Gao Fei handed his canteen over. Samir opened a fresh bottle and started filling it. "Once we get to the frontline there won't be any bottled water, so try not to drink any now. We don't have a unit designation. We should have been assigned directly to some unit, but we weren't. That means they're sending us to the frontline as replacement troops. Where's the fighting the hardest right now?" Samir opened the second bottle. Before he could say it, Gao Fei said quietly, "Bakhmut." Where the Russians had advanced, where the fighting was the most intense, even where the casualties were the highest—none of it was any secret. With a grave expression, Samir nodded and sighed. "All right, you know it all. Hmm… good luck to you. Good luck to us." Samir handed the filled canteen to Gao Fei. Gao Fei took it and screwed the cap on himself, then said earnestly, "Thank you." "Eat. Have more. Once we're at the frontline, we definitely won't eat well." He kept urging Gao Fei to eat more, but Samir couldn't even get down the small piece of black bread in his hand. He managed only two bites, while in the same amount of time Gao Fei had eaten two pieces. Actually, the black bread wasn't bad. It was cold, but it had been baked not long ago and was still soft, with a slight sourness. Eaten with the borscht, it was quite tasty. "Put the water in your pack and hide it. We're not allowed to take it, but no one enforces the rule." Samir was a good sort, just a little long-winded, but everything he was saying was the valuable experience of an old soldier. Gao Fei certainly wasn't annoyed; he only felt lucky. Gao Fei asked quietly, "Did you work for Wagner before?" Samir shook his head and said quietly, "I've been in the Middle East all this time. A Syrian friend called me over here, but after I reached Moscow I couldn't reach him anymore. He's in Kherson. I wanted to go to Kherson to look for him, and I told the recruiters that plainly, but those bastards will definitely send me to Bakhmut instead of Kherson. Kherson's already lost; they won't send anyone there. Now I'm even more worried my friend might already be dead." Once you signed the contract, you no longer had any say over your own life. Gao Fei didn't know what Samir was thinking, but with his mouth full of food, he mumbled, "Don't worry. It might just be a temporary loss of contact. Speaking of contact, do you have a phone?" Samir shook his head and said quietly, "They took it. Everyone's forbidden from carrying a phone, but the old soldiers at the frontline will definitely have them. I'll have to wait until we get there to find a way to contact my friend. I hope he's all right." Just then an old man in uniform started shouting in the dining hall. It was Russian, and Gao Fei couldn't understand a word. But soon someone nearby shouted in English, "You have five minutes to eat! Assemble outside in five minutes! Move fast, hurry up!" Samir's expression changed drastically. He looked at the food in front of him, then suddenly ran over to where the food was laid out and came back with a pile of black bread. Gao Fei stared, dumbfounded. Samir piled the black bread on the table. Someone was yelling at him in Russian, but Samir ignored them completely. He just opened his backpack and desperately stuffed the bread inside. The backpack had a thirty-liter capacity. After Samir stuffed his own pack full, there was still half a bottle of water and about a whole loaf of black bread left on the table. He immediately said to Gao Fei, "Open your pack! Put the bread in! Hurry up—I'll go get more water." Samir hurried off for water. After being shouted at a few times, he slunk back, embarrassed. Then, while hastily stuffing meat into his mouth, he mumbled, "Food and water are always the most important thing. My friend told me never to trust the Russians' logistics. Never trust them." "Yes, you're right!" Gao Fei couldn't have agreed more. He stuffed everything Samir had brought back into his own pack. If better options came along, he could swap out the black bread, or simply throw it away, but until there was reliable supply—no, until he had something else to fill his pack with—the black bread had to stay. Gao Fei realized it wasn't that the others didn't want to take any—they were just too embarrassed. After Samir ran over and came back with a pile of black bread, several others had meant to follow suit, but they were too slow and got shouted away. So it really was true: the shameless got to enjoy the world first. Gao Fei hurriedly finished the food on his plate. As soon as the time was up, someone immediately shouted, "Everyone assemble! Assemble!" It was shouted in Russian first, then in English. Gao Fei put on his bulging pack and slung his rifle over his shoulder, then burped and said, "Not being able to communicate is a real problem." "They'll group the English speakers together and deploy us as a unit. We're done for—we really are going to Bakhmut. They won't even let us finish a meal in peace. It's definitely Bakhmut." Samir looked utterly dejected, his face a few shades paler. In truth, Gao Fei was scared too, because he knew the battlefield at Bakhmut was called a meat grinder, with an extremely high death rate. But it was too late to say he wouldn't go now, so he might as well face it calmly. Besides, what came from paper always felt shallow. Gao Fei knew war was terrifying, but just how terrifying it was, he could only imagine, so in the end he wasn't all that afraid. He even felt a faint flicker of anticipation. They assembled in the courtyard. Gao Fei counted roughly; there were only about eighty-odd people in all. Then they were sent off by bus again. This time he had company on the bus. Gao Fei sat side by side with Samir. There were luggage racks on the bus, and most of the soldiers put their bags up on them, but Samir was probably the sort who lacked a sense of security. He hugged his pack, much fuller than the others', against his chest. Gao Fei thought it was better to do the same as Samir, so he hugged his pack too, which made the bus seat—reasonably comfortable to begin with—not so comfortable anymore. Once the bus started moving, Samir said quietly to Gao Fei, "We're friends, right? We're already friends, right?" Gao Fei nodded. "Yes, of course we're friends. You're the first friend I've made here." "In the army you have to stick together, especially mercenaries. If someone bullies you, I'll definitely help you! In the same way, if someone tries to mess with me, you have to help me too. Buddy, brother, we have to support each other. That's the only way we won't get bullied. Two people are definitely better than one. Trust me, that's how it is with mercenaries. We're fighting for the Russians, but the Russians won't treat us as one of their own. Brother, right now we can only rely on each other." "If you ever need help, I'll be there. I promise!" Gao Fei didn't casually treat anyone as a brother, and he certainly wouldn't keep the word "brother" on his lips all the time. But given what Samir had done, even if Samir hadn't said all this, Gao Fei would still step up if anything happened. After all, Gao Fei really was a man who valued loyalty.