The fighting had just ended—no, it hadn't even fully ended. The front line stretched for over ten kilometers, and the battle had ceased only where Gao Fei and the others were; elsewhere, it raged on.
The first day was still relatively safe. The enemy shouldn't have the strength to mount an attack, whether a large-scale counteroffensive or minor harassment.
Besides, after such an intense clash, their drones were probably mostly expended as well.
Complaining was useless, and disobeying orders was out of the question. If they wanted to survive, their best bet was to finish every preparation they could while things were still relatively safe.
Sokholov wasn't a particularly brilliant commander, but he had experience, and with experience came the knowledge of what needed to be done.
"Glaski, take some men and tear down all the camouflage netting you can find! Go, move!"
Sokholov had visibly tensed up as he issued the order to Glaski. Glaski didn't hesitate for a second. "You three, with me! Quick!"
They had to hurry—not just to finish before the enemy arrived, but to snatch up the supplies that would definitely be in short supply before their comrades beat them to it.
Right now, the most critical item was protective netting.
Drones were impossible to defend against completely, but protective netting could effectively mitigate their lethality. Grenades dropped by drones would be caught in the netting, and kamikaze drones would be stopped by it. If you didn't want to spend all day hiding in a hole, you'd better string up plenty of protective netting overhead.
"Samir! Rip up some wooden boards."
Sokholov looked over at Gao Fei and said with absolute gravity, "Everyone else works. Your job is to keep an eye on enemy movement. Just you. Stay sharp."
"Yes."
Not everyone could work; someone had to keep watch.
Sokholov gave a special warning: "Even if you spot the enemy, do not fire again. From now on, pointless provocation is strictly forbidden."
"Understood, Squad Leader."
Gao Fei understood what Sokholov meant.
If they could pull back after today's fight, Gao Fei could shoot all he wanted, because they wouldn't have to worry about enemy retaliation.
But if they had to hold this position, it was best not to provoke the enemy into a fury.
Gao Fei had too many guns right now. He had to stash the ones he didn't need into a dugout, then look for a spot that was sufficiently safe with a good field of view to keep watch.
"Andrey! Block off the entrance to this fortification and dig an entry here instead. Can you handle that?"
Andrey had plenty on his plate, but after looking over the spot, he could only bite the bullet and reply, "Yes, boss."
Sokholov paced back and forth in the trench. He needed to survey the terrain, choose an area to fix up as a resting place, and scout suitable spots to set up a machine gun position—or two.
The trenches formed a T-shape. The horizontal line was the main trench, but its fighting parapet faced toward the Russian lines—that is, eastward.
The vertical line was a communication trench running east to west, leading directly toward what had been the enemy's reserve position, which was now their main trench line.
This communication trench was the primary objective Gao Fei and the others had to defend going forward. It was bound to be a headache. It would be best to block it off, or at least blow up several sections to collapse it; they couldn't leave it wide open as it was, allowing the enemy to charge straight down the communication trench.
When the Ukrainians held it before, this key corridor had simply been the junction between two intersecting trenches, completely lacking the facilities for soldiers to live and hold out long-term.
As wars dragged on, soldiers began digging bunkers inside the trenches where they could sleep and fight. Those with resources would lay wooden planks over a stretch of the trench and pile dirt on top to build crude fortifications. Those without resources at least had to string up camouflage netting, so that spending days on end in the trench didn't mean living in constant terror of overhead drones.
They had to dig trenches, construct crude fortifications, and carve out at least two redoubts for machine gun positions. This was urgent work; the sooner finished, the better.
Only after the combat fortifications were built would they work on the living quarters.
The amount of labor was immense. With just the few men in 1st Squad, it would easily take two full days to finish, and if they wanted any degree of comfort, it would take a week or two.
Gao Fei entered the dugout where the barrier troops had previously sheltered.
The interior was drenched in blood, with corpses littering the ground. Gao Fei could only hunker down by the exit facing the enemy's communication trench, warily watching the outside.
His mind was a bit jumbled, but things having come to this, there was no choice other than making combat preparations as quickly as possible.
"Squad Leader! There's a long stretch of protective netting over that way. Hurry and cut it down! There's still a bunch of men left in the penal battalion. They haven't moved yet, but they're bound to scavenge netting too. We have to grab it before they do!"
When supplies were abundant, everyone was a comrade; when supplies ran short, everyone was a comrade competing for scraps.
To save their own skins, even comrades in the same company showed no mercy, much less caring about the lives of a bunch of convicts they didn't even know. Whoever grabbed useful supplies first owned them, and anyone who had a problem with it could have a shootout.
Scavenging timber to build fortifications took too long, while putting up protective netting to cover their heads was much simpler and faster.
Hearing Glaski's report, Sokholov didn't hesitate: "Rex, you stay and keep watch. Everyone else, with me. Move, fast!"
Gao Fei listened as the group hurried off. Half an hour later, he heard people returning.
They didn't all return together; some brought back protective netting first and immediately began putting it to use.
"Pave it with dirt! Camouflage this section first..."
It was noisy and chaotic, the frantic bustle tinged with an unmistakable undercurrent of dread.
Gao Fei didn't turn back to look at the work site behind him. His duty was to monitor enemy movement, and he couldn't afford to divide his attention.
Time flew by. Two hours passed, and the protective netting scavenged from elsewhere had all been stretched across the trench held by 1st Squad.
"No more protective netting."
"Keep working on the fortifications! Don't slack off! No one slacks off! The enemy won't attack today—this is our last chance to reinforce our positions. Get the fuck up, who said you could rest, bastards! If you don't want to die, get moving!"
Sokholov cajoled and cursed, driving the men to keep working.
Gao Fei had it easy, feeling nothing besides sheer boredom.
Yet Gao Fei would never volunteer to do manual labor.
Since he was the squad's core firepower, and since repelling an enemy assault would depend primarily on his marksmanship, he couldn't afford to waste stamina elsewhere.
Nobody knew whether Gao Fei could maintain his pinpoint accuracy when dead tired, and without knowing, taking that risk wasn't worth it.
The men who finished laying the netting turned to earthworks—in other words, digging. Samir and Andrey widened what had originally been firing slits into entryways, blocked off the former entrances, and carved out new firing ports next to them.
They also had to dig new dugouts, as the existing ones were no longer enough.
A pit that looked small often took a long time to dig out; at the very least, none of them could dream of taking a break before nightfall.
Sokholov wished he could split each man into two, and he didn't slack off either. While putting the others to work digging trenches and building fortifications, he began scavenging weapons and ammunition from enemy corpses.
Supplies were supposed to arrive—weapons, ammunition, food, and water would all be sent. But until those supplies actually arrived, Sokholov operated under the assumption that they never would.
After hurriedly collecting a dozen or so magazines, a severe sense of crisis crept over Sokholov, forcing him to interrupt the bustling men once more.
"Stop what you're doing, everyone! Count your ammunition right now and report to me. Glaski, how many rounds do you have left?"
Glaski didn't count, having always kept exact track of his ammunition.
"Two hundred-round belts, and about forty-some rounds left in the gun."
"Does anyone else have machine gun rounds? Anyone?"
No one answered, which meant none of them did.
Soon, Gao Fei spoke up first: "I have four full magazines, three empty ones, and a hundred and twenty loose rounds. No hand grenades."
Gao Fei still had two hundred and forty rounds left—not a large quantity.
Samir called out, "I have three full magazines and another two hundred loose rounds. No hand grenades. I can gather some empty magazines and load them up."
The counts trickled in, and the picture wasn't optimistic. The ammunition remaining per person hovered around two hundred-plus rounds, with the highest at barely three hundred.
And between all of them, only four hand grenades remained.
Yet there was another problem: Gao Fei's group had consumed relatively little ammunition in their fight, yet they were down to barely two hundred rounds per man. Units elsewhere along the front line had expended far more.
The dead enemy soldiers didn't have much ammunition left either, as their guns hadn't stayed quiet while resisting.
They were told to dig in and defend, yet with under three hundred rounds per man, they couldn't even sustain a moderately intense firefight.
Sokholov began to grow anxious. Halting his previous orders again, he issued a new one.
"Glaski, Rex, Samir—you three stay. Everyone else, fall back with me to scavenge ammunition! Prioritize grenades, then machine gun rounds. Move! We need to hurry!"
Andrey asked, puzzled, "Boss, shouldn't we dig the fortifications first? Logistics will bring ammunition. Do we really need to run around gathering it?"
"Shut up! What the fuck do you know? You'd have better luck trusting the Ukrainians to hand-deliver ammo than trusting rear logistics to get it here on time!"
Andrey had military training, but this was his first time in actual combat, so he still didn't understand.
Never trust Russian logistics. Never, under any circumstances.
And the ones who trusted Russian logistics the least were always Russians themselves.
And among Russians, the ones who trusted Russian military logistics the least were inevitably Wagner veterans.
As a Russian and a Wagner veteran, Sokholov would rather waste precious time and risk getting blown apart by enemy artillery and drones just to scour the battlefield far and wide for ammunition.
That was just how it was.
Chapter 61