You Can't Hear

Gao Fei stared at Samir, watching his lips move in what looked like he was shouting, "Fuck!" Why swear into a walkie-talkie? Had bad news come through? But that didn't make sense. The lifesaving artillery barrage had just landed; this was hardly the time for Samir to be cussing people out. Yet looking at his expression, Samir seemed pleasantly surprised—stunned, even. "What is it? I can't hear you!" Gao Fei shouted his confusion, while Samir, listening to the voice coming through the radio, yelled excitedly, "It's Parker! He directed the artillery to save us! Fuck! It's Parker!" Lipreading really was unreliable at times. All Gao Fei saw was Samir's mouth opening and closing as he cursed three more times in rapid succession. Could there really be bad news? An order forbidding withdrawal, or perhaps to launch an immediate counterattack? Frustrated, Gao Fei called out, "I can't hear you! Stop talking!" Samir pointed behind them, looking thoroughly hyped as he yelled, "Artillery! Fire support! Call! Fire support!" Enlightenment dawned on Gao Fei, and his spirits instantly rallied. "Fire support?" he asked in delighted surprise. "Yes! Yes!" Watching Samir nod as his mouth shaped the word "Yeah," Gao Fei knew he hadn't misread him this time. Without hesitation, he unclipped the walkie-talkie from his shoulder, shoved it into Samir's hands, and shouted, "I can't hear! You take the radio! You handle communications!" Samir took the walkie-talkie at once, nodding repeatedly as he clipped it onto his own shoulder. Looking back toward the enemy positions now, the tension didn't feel nearly as suffocating. So what if it was a company? Even a whole battalion wouldn't matter. Bring on an entire regiment if they had the guts. As long as the artillery arrived in time, they'd get blasted flat just the same. Cannon fodder, cannon fodder—why was it called cannon fodder and not bullet fodder? Because bullets only punched holes, but before heavy artillery, mortal flesh was doomed to vanish into ashes and smoke. This single barrage had expended at least a hundred shells. Gao Fei was actually able to count artillery rounds now. Previously, he had only known the bare basics of military knowledge and hadn't known how to tally shells in practice. But now, just by gauging the density and duration of the explosions, he knew roughly a hundred shells had landed. Knowing that about a hundred shells had been fired, one then had to look at the density of impacts and the cadence of the waves. From that, it was clear that an artillery battalion had fired a five-round rapid-fire volley. An artillery battalion establishment consisted of eighteen 152mm howitzers. Normally, against a massed infantry charge, a three-round rapid volley was enough to do the job. However, if the enemy infantry attack was deemed massive or the situation critical, they would fire a six-round rapid volley. Rapid fire would be followed by fire for effect. Guns couldn't sustain their maximum rate of fire indefinitely; after pushing the limit with five or six rounds, the rate of fire inevitably had to drop. Thus, the entire barrage had lasted only about a minute. The maximum rate of fire for Russian 152mm guns was five to six rounds per minute. From this, one could deduce that the artillery in the rear had fired a five-round rapid volley at maximum speed, coming out to roughly a hundred rounds. Greenhorns certainly wouldn't understand any of this, but what was Gao Fei now? He was a veteran who had survived more than three days in Bakhmut! By the standard where surviving twenty-four hours made you a veteran, Gao Fei was a triple veteran. The shelling stopped, and the gunsmoke began slowly drifting away, but there was no need to worry about the enemy mounting another assault. Judging by the points of impact, at least five shells had scored direct hits inside the trenches. A one-in-twenty ratio—with density like that, barely any living souls would be left in the enemy's communication trench. Even if some weren't dead, they were definitely stripped of all combat effectiveness. So if someone had any ambition, now was the time to charge into the enemy position or communication trench to harvest some kills. Only a lunatic would do that, and Gao Fei would have to be crazy to try. Barring any surprises, the enemy would be shelling their side next. Trading blows back and forth was the norm of war. If only one side was hitting the other, the city of Bakhmut would have been captured long ago. It was precisely because an assault had turned into a seesaw battle of attrition that Bakhmut had held out for so long. He just didn't know how Ukraine would counterattack, or rather, how they planned to lay down interdiction fire to stop Gao Fei's side from taking advantage of the moment to countercharge. "The enemy infantry can't keep charging! We could pull back to the rear to shelter from the shelling, but—" Samir knew Gao Fei couldn't hear, and he knew Andrey, that bumpkin, couldn't hear even more, which filled him with despair. Two out of the three of them were deaf; he was the only able-bodied one who had to shoulder the responsibilities. Samir looked toward the reinforcements from D Company. But those guys were all shrewd operators. Seeing that a friendly position was about to fall—and that if it fell, they would go down with it—D Company had rushed over to help without hesitation. Yet now, seeing that heavy artillery had blown the enemy to smithereens and the assault clearly couldn't continue, D Company had zero intention of leaving their men behind to fill the gap. So without so much as a word of parting, the D Company men beat a hasty retreat, even hauling the dead machine gunner's body back with them as they went. "Don't leave—" Samir waved, but watching the D Company men leave without once looking back, he could only shout at Gao Fei, "You and Andrey fall back! Get to a safe distance and take cover from the artillery! Fuck! How do I even explain this to you? Take cover! Take cover!" To guard against the enemy's heavy artillery counterstrike, the sensible move was naturally to fall back to a safe distance and shelter, but not everyone could leave. Someone had to stay at the forward position to keep watch in case the enemy crept back up. Samir felt helpless. Looking around, he was the only one who could stay. Yet something this complicated couldn't be explained through hand gestures alone. Samir gestured frantically. Gao Fei couldn't hear, but he roughly grasped what Samir meant. "I get it, but there's no need to take cover from shelling. I can't hear, so let's just wait right here. I don't think the enemy's going to attack anymore today—they don't have the strength left to keep pushing." That was Gao Fei's judgment. He figured scraping together a counteroffensive of this scale was already their limit. If they could immediately push forward another company right after one had been blown to pieces, the front line in Bakhmut wouldn't still be holding here. If they truly had an endless supply of cannon fodder, infinite artillery shells, and countless drones, Ukraine would have pushed the Russians back long ago. So, as routine went: you hit me today, and I'll be sure to hit you back tomorrow. Having that attitude and proving your strength was enough. Every day was decisive battle day, but the ultimate showdown was always tomorrow. This was a grinding war of attrition designed to bleed the other side dry. Understanding that made it clear neither side's commanders would act in undue haste. Andrey sidled up to Gao Fei once more. "Boss, how about launching a counterattack?" Gao Fei couldn't hear, so he had no reaction. Samir, however, really, really, really wanted to kick Andrey onto his back again. Andrey pressed on, "That artillery strike definitely knocked the fight out of them! You saw how big their attack was. If we counterattack right now, we can bag at least a captain, maybe even take down a major! That's a huge merit, lots of bounty!" Gao Fei couldn't hear, so he looked at Samir. Samir raised a middle finger at Andrey, venting in aggrieved anger, "Could you use some brains for once?! Fuck! The bounty for capturing Parker alive last time hasn't even been paid out yet!" Gao Fei didn't need to hear what was being said; one look at Samir's reaction told him Andrey wasn't spouting anything useful. They had Andrey's foresight to thank for this battle, along with his self-sacrificing courage in risking getting blown to bits to blast the communication trench apart in advance. Even so, Gao Fei would be damned if he ever listened to advice from a brainless hothead like him. Without saying a word, Gao Fei merely patted Andrey on the shoulder, kicking up a puff of dust, then gestured downward, signaling Andrey to crouch back down. Go back into the dugout and stay there. Keep quiet; nobody was going to mistake Andrey for a mute. Andrey could at least read Gao Fei's intent. Looking helpless, he crouched down, casually picked up a rifle, and ducked back into his own dugout. Samir pointed at the dugout, gesturing for Gao Fei to go in as well. It made sense—there was no point in all three of them staying exposed outside. So Gao Fei slipped into the dugout as well. Gao Fei dug into his ear vigorously with one finger, then cupped both palms tightly over his ears. He was definitely concussed deaf. If his eardrums were ruptured, it might take a long time to recover his hearing. But if it was just temporary acoustic trauma, his hearing should return quickly once the noise was gone. He could still hear explosive thuds, and his ears didn't feel particularly painful, so his eardrums probably weren't ruptured. Communication was a huge problem right now. Besides, since he couldn't hear anyway, he might as well use earplugs to protect what was left. Gao Fei pulled the earplugs Sokholov had given him out of his pocket and plugged his ears first to avoid further acoustic trauma from intense noise. He wasn't entirely deaf either; a piercing ringing buzzed relentlessly in his ears. So this was what blast damage felt like—not being able to hear only made things seem noisier. Still, the relaxation that followed a fierce battle brought an overwhelming wave of exhaustion. Gao Fei hadn't been much of a smoker, but right now, all he wanted was to light up a cigarette. Gao Fei pulled out a cigarette and lit it. Before he had taken more than a few puffs, he saw Andrey leaning over. He handed Andrey a cigarette and lit it for him. Since neither of them could hear anyway, there was nothing to talk about; Andrey could just head back to his own dugout and wait. Only now did Gao Fei remember he seemed to have caught some blast from a shell earlier, but feeling around, nothing on his body particularly ached. A quick check revealed no blood either. Shrugging it off, he curled up in the dugout, smoking to rest his nerves. As for an after-action review—thinking back on it, today's fight had just been a messy brawl with zero technical finesse. Live if you were lucky, die if you weren't. There was nothing worth summarizing. After intense mental strain came crashing down, drowsiness took over. Gao Fei finished his cigarette, closed his eyes, and drifted off into a daze before falling asleep. Yet judging by his composure, if Gao Fei tried to claim he wasn't a veteran now, no one would believe him. Who knew how long he had slept before someone nudged him awake with a foot. Opening his eyes, he saw Samir looking tense, lightly nudging him with a boot. Gao Fei poked his head out of the dugout and looked around in bewilderment, only to spot Parker. Gao Fei's eyes went wide with shock. Parker was dressed in Russian military camouflage, devoid of shoulder boards or armbands, yet walking beside him was their own company commander. There was nothing strange about the company commander coming along with Parker. The issue was that the company commander was trailing behind Parker. Gao Fei's brain stalled for a second. Crawling out of the dugout, he instinctively snapped to attention before Parker. There were three of them in total: the company commander, Parker, and an unfamiliar face whose bearing made it obvious he was an officer. No wonder Samir looked tense—he had punched Parker quite a few times back then. The company commander stood by Parker's side and announced impassively, "This is the new deputy chief of staff of our 4th Assault Detachment, concurrent operations staff officer of the Joint Operations Department, and special advisor to the Wagner Group. It is enough that you know Sir Parker's rank; saluting is not required." Parker walked up to Gao Fei, gave a casual wave, and said with evident delight, "I'm genuinely glad to see you alive. Now, please return my mobile phone. Oh, I forgot—you can't hear."