"As we just received word of the declaration the enemy will have already started moving. I want everyone to gather their rifles and get ammunition from the armoury. After you have gathered your things 2nd battalion and B and C company from 1st battalion will be heading down to our trenches and defensive set-up. Until we have confirmed sightings of the enemy we will be doing a two company rotation, that is at any one time two companies will be resting in the fort whilst the rest is ready at the defences. Dismissed, and good luck to you all!"
Alexander hurried to join the rest of 1st platoon after the speech from Colonel Aber. Lieutenant Skinner hurried them to gather their rifles and get to the armoury as there was very likely the be a queue outside.
When they got to the front of the queue outside the armoury each soldier was assigned 30 cartridges and one solider was given an additional rucksack filled with cartridge cases. Hurrying to put the cartridges into the different pockets of his uniform Alexander almost dropped some of them because of the nerves.
"Relax boy. If you try to hurry too much you will just end up getting killed quicker. Take a long breath and we will get going."
Corporal Elden placed a hand on Alexander's shoulder and nodded at him. Taking a breath he managed to calm down, managing to put away the cartridge packages without any problems. Seeing him relax Corporal Elden indicated for the squad to start making their way towards the defences.
Once outside the fort they followed the rest of 1st platoon and moved to one of the trenches quite a distance to the left and in the front of the fort.
Inside the trench there was room enough for two people to walk side-by-side. On the side facing towards the principality there was a raised platform they could stand on. When standing on the platform they would just barely have their heads above the ground. This would allow them to rest the rifle on the ground, have a stable firing position and also limit their profile.
Since no enemies had been spotted yet they sat up a squad rotation where one person from the squad stood and watched towards the other end of the valley whilst the rest could sit on the platform and rest. The rotation itself was set to last about 10-15 minutes per person.
Sitting and waiting for something to happen started to tear at most of the soldiers nerves. Some started to pace whilst others decided to joke around to occupy themselves. Some even had thought to bring along a pack of cards, allowing some squads to play and relax that way.
After roughly two rotations they finally started to see movement in the distance, and at the same time the scouts returned to the trenches reporting the approach of the enemy. Given the distance they were from them at the moment the men would have some time to get ready.
Most of them loaded their rifles, stood up and rested their rifles on the edge of the trenches.
"Hold your fire men, we want them to get as close as possible before we fire. I would also like for us to fire as one, since the scouts currently report that the enemy is moving as line infantry. There doesn't seem to be any cavalry, but given the geography of this valley they would have been quite stupid to bring any."
Lieutenant Skinner relayed the command given by Colonel Aber to his platoon. He also added at the end that they would be free to fire at will after the first volley.
They stood there, resting their rifles for what felt like hours, though it probably wasn't more than 30 minutes. The movement had resolved into a mass of men. They were walking with 25-30 men per column.
Given the effective range of the newly deployed breech-loading rifles of just under 1000m they would be able to fire long before the enemy got within their effective range. Just as the enemy passed some stones that had been laid out to mark out 650m a shout came from behind the trenches.
"AIM!…. HOOLD!!.. HOOOLD!! FIRE!!!"
A large 'BOOOM' could be heard as nearly 1500 rifles where fired from the defensive positions. Bullets flew at a velocity of around 300 m/s towards the enemy. Two seconds after they had fired they watched as almost the entirety of the front line of the enemy fell.
"Fire at will! They will most likely try to charge to cover the distance quickly as they don't know how quickly we can reload."
Alexander wasn't sure if he had hit any of the enemies as he had ended up closing his eyes just before pulling the trigger. Seeing the sight of so many men just falling to the ground shocked him, but the shout for them to fire at will brought him back. He quickly grabbed a new cartridge from the pack he had opened earlier and reloaded his rifle. Aiming down his sight he ended up closing his eyes again as he pulled the trigger.
For the next minute or two the sound of rifle fire was almost constant as they reloaded and fired, then reloaded and fired again and again. From the looks of it the enemy had no chance at all to get close enough to them to actually kill anyone.
Seeing how well they were faring Alexander wasn't sure what to think. The entire strategy from the enemy at the moment seemed only to be rushing forwards. No one seemed to even try moving to the side or dropping to the ground to crawl or something. Even he, who had no real knowledge about warfare, thought their current strategy was nothing but suicide.
Sure he had played some strategy games when he was still Ryan, though how well he remembered them was another matter. From what he could remember from those games the best option for the enemy at this point would have been to pull back and establish some kind of forward defences. Secondly he thought he would have tried to get some form of artillery set up to bombard the trenches.
Even if trenches would help against cannons, and perhaps some more modern artillery as well, just using something like a scatter shot like ships do against other ships would probably help them.
Thinking about all this he continued to fire and reload. Most of the time he kept closing his eyes as he fired. But after a while he did managed to open his eyes when he pulled the trigger. He soon realised that he had been firing way above the enemy. If he had hit anyone at all it would have to be someone at the very back of the enemy lines. And at that point the bullet would probably have lost quite a lot of momentum.
Trying to correct his aim he slowly lowered the barrel so that it was sighted closer to the centre mass of the enemy front line. Firing he wasn't sure, but thought the the bullet had fallen quite short. After he reloaded he started to concentrate more and remember all the training they had done at the firing range. Imagining the distance from him to the enemy and roughly what he thought the velocity of the bullet was he pulled on what knowledge he remember of physics and fired again.
One of the men that had been moving towards them roughly at the point where Alexander had aimed fell about a second after he had fired. He did a small fist pump since he had managed to hit one of them. Before he realised that he had just killed another human. Weirdly, he thought, he didn't feel much of anything towards this. He was certain that he would have thrown up the first time he killed someone, but nothing happened. In a way it just felt surreal, by just pointing a large wood and metal stick towards someone he could kill them in a second.
There was no smell of blood, the only thing he could smell was gunpowder, loads of gunpowder. Nor could he see any blood because of the distance. Perhaps if he had not closed his eyes so much earlier he would have seen one of the enemies head explode when it was hit. But luckily he hadn't seen that.
They continued to fire towards the enemy, quickly going through the cartridges they had been assigned personally. Man after man fell on the enemy's side.
'Surely they would retreat at this point?'
Firing his rifle again towards the enemy he waited for the bullet to fly towards them. He counted in his head for two seconds. Nothing. No one fell. Not a single enemy. Looking around he saw that everyone still kept on firing but no enemy fell.
At this point the enemy had stopped moving forward. Slowly the front line of the enemy parted. A shape started to emerge from the gap they had made. A slight blue shimmer seemed to encase this shape. As the shape passed through the gap it was clear to see that it was indeed a person. They stopped a meter or so in front of their front line.
The firing of rifles slowly died down at this sight as they heard a shout coming from somewhere in the trenches.
"MAGE!!!!!"