Chapter 18: Plan for Damascus

Okay, So I had this thing to ask of you guys. Though I have heavily edited the rasicm part have you encountred any paragraph where I have missed it. If yes, or if you do in future chapters, please comment on that paragraph to let me know.

If the answer is now then comment here to let me know.

That's all for know.

..........................................

The night was silent and the Ottoman soldiers, who had been busy all day were in sweet sleep, except for a few sentries who kept their posts dutifully, but only for a little while, and it was not long before the sound of snoring rose from their posts.

"Bump bump bump ..." Just as everyone was sleeping soundly, from the hillside diagonally opposite the camp came a volley of shots that crackled through the camp.

"Enemy attack!! Enemy attack!!" A machine gunner who had been sleeping on a sandbag didn't even have time to fix his helmet, pulled his machine gun and burst into a burst of fire from a place he didn't even know existed.

The roaring Maxim sent a trail of smoke across the desert, brass shells clanked to the ground and a long chain of 250 rounds of canvas shells emptied before the machine gunner stopped.

"Where the enemy is?" The officer who had only just lifted his own trousers crashed through the door of the room and shouted upstairs.

"No, but it looks like they're coming from across the hillside."

"Now what?"

"They've run off."

The officer hid in his bunker with his binoculars and looked for a while to make sure the guerrillas who had come to shoot the black guns had disappeared before getting up in annoyance and preparing to go back to sleep again.

"You stay on guard, the rest of you, go back to sleep. We still have to patrol tomorrow."

An hour later, as the machine gunners were once again in sweet dreams, the sound of gunfire rang out again, this time more intense, and one machine gunner froze and was wounded by a stray bullet.

"Ah, I've been shot, medic, get over here, Fast!" As the machine gunner wailed, the Ottoman troops, furious at having their dreams interrupted once again, grabbed their long guns and rushed out of their quarters to fire freely into the distance, the crackling of gunfire as lively as New Year's Eve.

After a few thousand rounds had been fired, the Arabs who had opened fire were immediately lost, and this time the officers had a good idea to stay awake and wait for the Arabs to come to them.

However, an hour passed, two hours passed, and it was almost five o'clock. The officer thought that the Arabs would not come again, so he was ready to go back to sleep for a while, after all, until about eight o'clock, when a military train would come to refill the water.

But, to the officer's dismay, not ten minutes after he had fallen asleep, there was another crackle of cold shots, and the sentry reported what appeared to be a small group of cavalry in the distance.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhh." The officer who couldn't stand it for a moment rolled over and got up, then with a big wave of his hand, all aboard, let's go in pursuit.

Two Austro-Hungarian KFT reconnaissance vehicles (I don't know which one is the prototype of the Battlefield One, but it looks more like a KFT, if any of you know it you can tell me) drove out of the camp with sixteen Ottoman soldiers and pounced on the Arab cavalry in the distance, who, on seeing the vehicles coming, immediately scattered and ran in all directions.

"Retreating? Chase them, I won't sleep well and you won't live." The hated officer had no idea that the cavalry he was chasing were only a few in number, and were mistakenly thought to be more numerous because the horses had branches trailing behind their backs, and the smoke and dust caused by the light at night prevented the Ottomans from noticing.

After chasing them for a dozen kilometres, and seeing that the Arabs were running faster than rabbits, the officers were relieved and ordered the drivers to return to the camp.

Only, when they returned to camp, they did not notice that the Ottoman soldiers standing by the two MG08 Maxim machine guns had changed.

"Damn these Arabs, sooner or later I'll have to hang them up and strangle them." Cursing, the Ottoman officer pushed open the door to his room, only to find an unrecognisable Westerner sitting in his place eating a tin of beef he had saved up.

"Who are you?" The officer immediately pulled out his pistol and shouted a loud question.

"Me? Just here to borrow something from you." Ethan dropped the empty canister and burped with satisfaction, then wiped his hands and looked at the other man with a smile.

"Borrow what?"

"A loan of your ministry's arms." Ethan pointed behind the officer, then Zara, who was hiding behind the door, stepped forward with her pistol raised.

"Put the gun down."

"Just you guys, aren't you daring?" The officer looked at Zara who had seized his pistol and was threatening with his mouth, "There are dozens of our men out there."

"Really, why don't we go out and take a look?" Ethan got up and walked out of the room.

"That, how can that be." The officer who had followed closely behind went out to see that his men had been disarmed and were being dutifully tied up in sacks by a gang of Arabs.

"You guys, how despicable." It took a moment of clarity for the officer to realise why the other side was constantly harassing him, it was all a fucking ruse.

"How is that despicable? We snuck right through the dunes at the back, you were the ones who were looking ahead." Ethan smirked as he put on his opponent's cap and then signalled for his men to get on the rope.

"The Empire will not spare you." Ottoman officer

"No problem, I'll wait here."

After tying up all the prisoners without fail and throwing them on the horses, Ethan expertly directed the Arabs to scavenge for the spoils of war.

Weapons, ammunition, food and fuel were the priority, two MG08 Maxim machine guns and 30 Mauser rifles, as well as the commander's Ruger P-08 and sabre, were taken by Ethan alone, and there were even more bullets and grenades, the two scout wagons were stuffed to the brim, followed by the Ottomans' uniforms, furniture, tools and even the wooden frame beds which Ethan directed the soldiers to cut into sections. Even the wooden beds were cut up into sections to be taken back for the fire.

All in all, the water station was left with nothing but the house still standing.

"Is this really good?" Zara was puzzled by Ethan's approach.

"War, it's about hitting your opponents by any means necessary, you have a lot to learn." Ethan strapped Ruger to his waist along with his holster and then after picking up coke and writing the line 𝑳𝑨𝑾𝑹𝑬𝑵𝑪𝑬 𝑶𝑭 𝑨𝑹𝑨𝑩𝑰𝑨 on the outside wall of the house, he clapped his hands and jumped into the scout car, the sun was just now rising and it was time to go home and get some sleep.

Not long after Ethan had left with the Arabs, the first of the trains in need of water arrived at the water station and the Ottoman troops on board were really surprised by the empty camp, yes, Ethan had taken down the doors and windows as well. The only thing left inside was the dead bodies of the soldiers.

"Lawrence of Arabia." The name soon reached the command of the Ottoman Desert Dispatch, and the Ottoman general in command of the war against the Arabs chewed it over and over again before finally responding if it isn't the British for fuck's sake.

"These fucking Brits, they weren't beaten hard enough at the Battle of the Dardanelles." The Desert Dispatch's main target was the Arab coalition army, consisting of tens of thousands of cavalry from several large tribes and dozens of small and medium-sized tribes, who had arms supplied by the British army and were familiar with the desert terrain and were the main opponents of the Ottoman army.

As for the return that the camp had been emptied, it was a sign that the guerrillas were running out of steam.

As for this Lawrence, just send a contingent to kill him. This man is not that important. The General had no idea what consequences his hasty decision would have for the future.

With the captured weapons and ammunition, Ethan's side began to fight instead of train, eating Ottoman cans and using Ottoman weapons every day, these Arab guerrillas soon had a new look. The Ottomans, who were already worried about the desert, were even more reluctant to go into it.

In fact, the Ottomans misunderstood Ethan, who had not given orders to take everything since the last attack, but rather the Bedouin had followed his example and would even follow suit, burning what they could not take with them.

As for why the train had derailed, Let's go back half an hour.

"Ready, release." With a roar, the Krupp 75mm FK-16 field gun mounted on the hillside shook and a high explosive charge of howitzer flew out, hitting an Ottoman train running on the tracks four hundred metres away.

The wooden carriages were torn apart in the explosion and the whole train was skewed by the impact. The driver subconsciously pulled down the brakes, which provided the gunner with another window of fire.

"Aim at the carriage behind the train and fire."

The yellow casing was retired from the chamber, emitting hot air, and then the gunner finished filling the second shell, made a rough adjustment of the angle through the gunsight and pulled the rope again.

This shot destroyed the carriage carrying the coal and also killed the driver who was not far away, while the impact of the shot naturally toppled the already tilted train off the track.

The few Ottoman soldiers still on the train, carrying a load of clothing and ammunition, were still struggling to get out of the overturned carriages.

"Machine gun suppression, drive the soldiers away from the carriages, howitzers don't fire. Flank the cavalry and watch for incoming fire, our goal is to get them to surrender."

Under Ethan's command, the guerrillas under his command were like a wide-open net, poking at the Ottoman soldiers who were caught off guard, the MG08 Maxim with its heavy hammer sound and the rustling of the Lewis hissed interspersedly, many Ottoman soldiers who had just crawled out of the carriages were immediately pinned down and could not lift their heads, a few Ottoman soldiers even tried to struggle for their lives by relying on the carriages for cover, only to have Ethan shot them in the head with his martini.

"Oooooooooh." The Bedouin shouted indiscriminately as they continued to cut back and forth across the battlefield, the dust raised by the horses' hooves adding to the Ottoman soldiers' fear.

When the last Ottoman officer who screamed back was lifted off his head by Ethan, the Ottoman army chose to surrender.

So the next scene was that of a dozen Bedouin soldiers preparing to drag away the locomotive.

"Mauser again, dammit, can't you Ottomans get any other weapons?" Ethan, who had come to inspect the trophies with his martini on his back, had a headache when he saw the brand new Mauser in the ammunition box, although it was very manly to pull the bolt, it was too painful to shoot, just like the martini, which felt good in the hand but was too slow when reloading.

"Move." Just as Ethan was checking out the rest of the train's cargo, Zara tugged an Ottoman officer in black uniform over to him.

"Mr Lawrence, I found an officer and he's carrying a strange weapon." With that, Zara pulled out a black pipe several dozen centimetres long from his waist pocket.

"Sir, it's not a weapon, it's a pipe." The Ottoman officer looked at Ethan accusingly. (TN: 𝘔𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘐𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵)

"Pipe? Your marching band is also going to the front line to fight?" Ethan took the baton, played with it for a moment, then tossed it back to the Ottoman officer.

"We're from Task Force Seven and were supposed to be there to celebrate the General's sixty-fifth birthday." The officer who took the baton hurriedly placed his treasure in his arms and protected it carefully.

"Celebrate a birthday? Celebrate my victory first. Perform something for me." Ethan gave a big wave of his hand.

Then the Ottoman officer also took his black pipe and blew a piece of Ottoman celebratory music.

"Not bad, not bad." After the song, Ethan nodded in satisfaction, and seeing that Ethan was satisfied, the officer immediately said very solicitously, "We are all in the military band, so why don't we play an ensemble for the officer."

"Men, the officer wants to hear us play in an ensemble."

At the officer's yell, out of the prisoners came a dozen or so grizzled soldiers of the military band, looking woefully out of place, though these men did keep their instruments well.

"Reporting to the officer, the 7th Contingent Military Band is assembled, please instruct."

"Good, start."

The drummer banged the big drum in his hand hard, and listening to the familiar intro, Ethan couldn't help but squint his eyes and nod his head in approval.

...

At the end of the song, Ethan nodded in satisfaction, "Very good, but we'll have to change the tune to our British one later."

After the war, the captured military band will be taken by the British straight to London to play a piece of God Save the Queen and even played the La Marseillaise in Paris, but of course, that was to be done later.

In short, Ethan became famous. When the Arabs were first established, he had only fifty men and a barely functioning Lewis light machine gun, but only a month later he had three hundred Arabs under his command, a rifle for each man, a machine gun, a field gun, a scout car, a motorbike, a military band that could play the bombardier's march while fighting.

The whole desert now knew that a British officer called Lawrence of Arabia with a Bedouin guerrilla force had stirred up the Ottoman rear and even Britain itself had written at length about Ethan's exploits. But now, a British officer had smacked the Ottomans in the face, and that meant something.

But Ethan didn't know that he was now famous, he was now preparing a gift and Prince Faisal, who was in command of the Allied Arab Forces, had agreed to see him.

Prince Faisal, who had just turned forty this year, had a huge tribe of tens of thousands of people and dozens of tribes attached to him, he was also a thorn in the side of the Ottomans at the moment, as he was also in command of the largest Arab revolt yet.

"Remember, try to be respectful, the prince also has a few of your British officers with him, but they are here to eat and drink and are not as good as you." Ali rode his camel and kept giving Ethan instructions on what to look out for.

"The prince is now bent on taking Damascus, but the Ottomans' Wolf King is like a rift valley to us, no matter how many cavalries we have or how many infantry we have, they are no match for the Wolf King." (TN: 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺'𝘳𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘮𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘴 𝘞𝘰𝘭𝘧 𝘒𝘪𝘯𝘨.)

"What about your artillery, didn't the British government sell you some artillery?"

"It's useless, the Wolf King's artillery has a much longer range, and besides, the Ottomans have an air force." Said Ali, with a sudden look of longing in his eyes, "Those steady planes are like falcons, they come and go without a trace, they drop their bombs and take out those artillery pieces with ease."

"Planes." Ethan scratched the stubble on his chin, the best aircraft the Ottomans could equip in this period was the Fokker DR-1 triplane, although he reckoned that, depending on the Ottoman's financial resources, the number of triplanes or whatever was probably very small, instead of the Fokker E, which had been phased out in the European War, was a strong possibility.

"But Prince Faisal should like these gifts from you, we need a victory badly, because being passive all the time, the prince is not actually very smooth, and those vassal tribes have their ideas too."

"Don't worry, I've come this time to give your prince a heart attack."

"Heart Attack? How will you go about it?"

"Just take Damascus, won't that do?"

"But there are tens of thousands of Ottoman defenders in Damascus, they have artillery, armoured trains, and aircraft."

"Then wouldn't we just grab those things?"

"You're joking." Ali thought it was possible that the previous victory had left Ethan a little fluttering.

"How will we know if we don't try?" Ethan waved his hand, then flung the pole in his hand and drove the camel along at a brisk pace.

Watching Ethan's distant back, Ali suddenly had the feeling that maybe Ethan could actually do it?

The two men sped along with their entourage, arriving in just two days at Prince Faisal's land, less than sixty kilometres from Damascus.

"What's that?" Ali, who was waiting for his contact to appear, pointed to a small black dot that was weaving its way through the gorge.

"That's a Fokker fighter." Ethan jumped off the camel almost instantly and then also yanked Ali off, leading the camel towards the foot of the hill.

"Quick, give me the machine gun." Ethan, who had taken Louis' machine gun, pulled back the tripod and placed it on the camel's back, ready to give the Fokker fighter a shot when it came over, except that the Fokker E didn't come over, but dropped ahead over the canyon.

"What's the situation?"

"That's Prince Faisal's camp." Ali woke up like a dream, rolled over onto his camel and hurried over.

By the time Ethan had followed him over, all he saw was the sight of several Fokker E fighter planes raging over a huge military camp, licking the ground with only a Maxim and bombs dropped by the pilot's hands, but it was enough to deal with the disorganised Arabs.

The camp of tens of thousands of men just blew up, frightened camels and war horses running around, dazed Arab soldiers likewise dropping their armour and looking for cover everywhere, while in the crowd, a warrior on a warhorse wearing a white turban and wielding a jewelled scimitar was cursing after the plane.

"Ugh." Ethan could only kick Ali in the crook of the leg, bringing him to his knees, then had Ali grab the machine gun's kickstand and pull the trigger on the nearest Fokker E.

The hissing Lewis machine gun's top plate spun and a .303 brass casing clanked down at Ethan's feet, and since there was no tracer to guide him, Ethan could only try to roughly adjust the trajectory, and after one 47-round plate, the Fokker E was suddenly missing a piece of its left-wing.

"Got it!" Ali said excitedly as he fanned the muzzle smoke.

Ethan dropped Lewis, took a Lee Enfield off the Camel's back and continued to snap and shoot.

Perhaps having finished dropping their bombs, or perhaps having been startled by Ethan, the Fokker E fighters wiggled their wings and then flew off quickly.

"Come on, let's go and see this prince." With the planes gone and the commotion below the camp subsiding, Ethan shoved his shot rifle back on his camel's back and followed Ali as he trotted along, reaching Prince Faisal's tent.

"We must retreat."

Hearing his voice before he saw it, Ethan heard a very heavy British accent before he had even lifted the curtain of the tent.

"We have no air superiority, no firepower advantage, we must retreat, retreat to Egypt, join the 𝐀𝐍𝐙𝐀𝐂s there, and then come back to attack Damascus.". (TN: 𝘐 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘛𝘕 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘰𝘯. 𝘚𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘫𝘶𝘮𝘱 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘨𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘦𝘣 𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.)

(TN: 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝑨𝒖𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑵𝒆𝒘 𝒁𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑨𝒓𝒎𝒚 𝑪𝒐𝒓𝒑𝒔 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘍𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘞𝘢𝘳 𝘢𝘳𝘮𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘱𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘢𝘯 𝘌𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘍𝘰𝘳𝘤𝘦. 𝘐𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘌𝘨𝘺𝘱𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘋𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 1914, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘥𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪 𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘨𝘯.)

"But I can't leave my people behind." Another voice retorted.

"If Your Highness chooses to go along with this, then the British Empire will not continue to provide support." The British accent threatened again.

"Then can I be given some time to think?"

"Retreat? Why retreat when it is clear that Damascus can be taken in three days?" Ethan lifted the curtain and stepped into the tent, looking at the cadre of men seated inside.

"Three days, your name is Lawrence isn't it, what, all the officers out of the Arab Bureau are braggarts?" A British lieutenant colonel in pencil uniform stood up and refuted.

"So the Egyptian side of the army is all a bunch of cowards? Soldiers in the European cadre dare to face the German Maxim straight on, and you are intimidated by a few Ottoman planes?"

As Ethan and the British officer taunted each other, an Arab warrior sitting in the main seat also sized up Ethan, then Ali leaned over quietly and after a burst of words to him, the Arab warrior stood up.

"And does Mr Lawrence know what the greatest obstacle to our taking Damascus is?"

"Nothing more than that armoured train, and the railroad gun it is attached to."

"Do you have a good plan to break the enemy, sir?"

"Not yet, but give me seven days and that armoured train will no longer be a problem for you." Ethan also turned and looked directly at that Prince Faisal, who saw something in Ethan's eyes that he hadn't seen in a long time, the conviction that he would win.

"Fine, then I'll give you ten days, if we destroy that armoured train then we'll take Damascus straight away, but what if we don't get it done?"

"Then you won't see me either."

The Wolf King, as the Ottomans called their most powerful armoured train, with its cast-iron armoured carriages, revolving turrets of 75mm field guns and 105mm howitzers, and countless Maxim machine guns and flamethrowers, was a spiky, heavily armoured monster that could run through the desert at a speed of thirty kilometres per hour, which was considered the top class of coal-fired locomotives of the period. The top of the class. (TN: 𝘈𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 19 𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘴/𝘩𝘳)

In addition to its firepower, the armoured train carried dozens of well-equipped soldiers of the Ottoman contingent with flamethrowers, light machine guns, shotguns and grenade launchers, veterans of 100 battles who rode in scouting vehicles to hunt down the remnants of the enemy while the Wolf King was in action.

In addition to his own force, the Wolf King had a junior partner, a 170mm railgun from Germany codenamed Samuel, which created a storm of death that could tear apart men and cover for dozens of metres around, and relying on this heavy firepower from near and far, it was safe to say that unless the British spared pulling over a battleship to blast it, there was nothing the Arabs could do about it.

"Have you thought about what to do with that train?" After leaving the tent, the British officer on the Egyptian side caught up with him, his concern was not that Ethan was blowing smoke, his worry instead was that Ethan was pulling Prince Faisal's men for a wave of delivery so that the British would be on their own to face the Ottomans head on.

"Sure, but maybe I need a little help." Ethan pulled the British lieutenant colonel over, "I need light machine guns, K-bombs, and shells for the 75mm field guns."

"Why should I help you?"

"Because you have nothing to lose if I die, but if I succeed, the war report will include an extra sentence about being under the wise command of some British Lieutenant Colonel. How's that for solid business?"

The Lieutenant Colonel wriggled his throat a few times, then nodded, "Yes, I'll give you whatever you need, I just hope you understand that the course of the war is not going to be decided by you wiping out a few hundred Ottoman soldiers."

"But at least it will speed up the course of the war." Ethan slipped the other man a handful of captured 𝗹𝘂𝗴𝗲𝗿𝘀. (TN: 𝘢 𝘵𝘺𝘱𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘎𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘱𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘭.)

"A small token of appreciation."

...... ...... ...

Since he was going after the Wolf King, Ethan had done a lot of homework early on.

During the previous month's raids, he had targeted the main points of the Wolf King's patrol routes and captured hundreds of prisoners of war in a dozen strikes, many of whom were officers and non-commissioned officers.

Ethan gave them two choices: either stay naked in the desert for three days or reveal everything they knew and go to a prisoner of war camp.

Between life and death, the Ottoman officers made their choice.

Through the information he had gathered, Ethan discovered the weakness of the Wolf King, the armoured train had no radio.

The importance of radio was self-evident in later times, except that it was still the First World War, and radio technology was far less advanced and reliable than in later times, so this Wolf King was moved by pigeon, and each movement of the Wolf King required three carrier pigeons to transmit three confirmation codes, and the three commanders were in different positions to prevent the possibility of being caught in a pot, and most importantly, the communication messages were all in code, which meant that Ethan and the others needed a code book.

"So where's the code book? How do we get it?" Zara, who had always been excited about blowing up trains, was now so excited that he could not bear the dynamite pack and go straight in.

"The contingent, the Ottomans clearing out the Arabs must have it." Ethan put his pen down and looked over at Ali, who was being a crowd pleaser.

"What's wrong?" Ali looked at Ethan in confusion, he knew nothing about the military and had wanted to slack off and go to bed, but Zara pulled him over and told him to learn.

"I think you have quite a few tribal friends."

"Yeah, what's up?"

"Ask around about the movements of that random Ottoman contingent for me, use whatever supplies you can from the seizures, I just want results."

"Okay, no problem." Ali nodded, he didn't know how to fight, but asking for information was his forte, otherwise he wouldn't have been responsible for receiving Ethan, as for the cost, the Mauser rifles that Ethan had captured were enough to send the other Arab tribes packing.

A hundred or so rifles were scattered, and soon there was a return, as the survivors of an Arab tribe that had just been purged came straight to the door, saying they didn't want to be paid, just to follow Ethan for their revenge.

...... ...... ...

𝙎𝙞𝙣𝙖𝙞 𝘿𝙚𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙩

8am.

A contingent of Ottomans had just completed a clearing of the guerrillas, and the Ottoman soldiers, who had been fighting for days, were sleeping soundly in their carriages as they returned to their base for a few days' rest, and were therefore were not attentive to notice that a section of track was missing from the bend in the track in front of the train.

With a terrific bang, the speeding troop train went off the rails with a good deal of surprise, the hooks linking the carriages to each other broke in pieces and a single carriage cut a deep trench in the desert like a plough and harrow.

"Bang." Before an Ottoman soldier struggling to get out of the carriage could get up, there was an extra bloody hole in his chest, and his earthy yellow uniform was soon stained red.

Then came a great ensemble of all sorts of machine guns and rifles, Lee Enfield, Ross, Martini Henry, Manlysia rifles, and Mauser and M-95, hundreds of Bedouin Arabs who had already been ambushed again raised their weapons and levelled their fire frantically towards those carriages, firing for ammunition and pulling the bolt to load, they had come for the code book this time, so they could not leave anyone alive or evidence.

The firing continued for a full ten minutes until the wooden carriages were broken beyond repair and only then did Ethan order a ceasefire.

"Keep your eyes open, don't leave anyone alive, check the battlefield carefully, the bodies of the fallen soldiers are all placed over here, no touching the belongings of the dead. Weapons and ammunition are all stacked neatly, and team leaders keep an eye on the number of their men at all times." While loudly instructing these new Arabs under his command, Ethan casually pulled open a section of the broken carriage.

Weapons, ammunition, and some medical supplies, that was all that was in the carriage. Unlike the European battlefield, which had been fought with all means, the Middle East battlefield was far less brutal, and at least these Ottoman contingents did not have boxes of gas and incendiary bombs.

After searching all the carriages carefully, Ethan found what he was looking for in the officer's carriage close to the convoy, a small book in a sealed metal box, this was the Ottoman army's code book, with this Ethan could execute his next plan.

Thirty Lewis light machine guns, three hundred Lee Enfields, and even two 1.59-inch Vickers infantry guns, which fired shells but had a large trailing flame when the shells were firedplus a dozen kilos of nitroglycerine.

Although the Brittish Army was not impressed by Ethan's venture, they reluctantly provided this support, after all, as Ethan had said, it was a sure thing.

So the British scrounged through their own stockpile for the supplies Ethan needed, but the rifles were better than nothing for Ethan, after all, both Lee Enfield and Mauser could kill men, and Ethan only wanted the weapons to arm the soldiers of the other tribes that Ali had pulled in.

With the codebook in hand, Ethan's next step was to take over.

Before the war had broken out, the town had been a trading and buying ground for more than a dozen nearby tribes, and with the arrival of the Ottoman army, it had become a very important logistical base for them, with ammunition depots, barracks, and armour repair workshops all located around the town of Asse.

"Twenty-four riflemen, three snipers, officer in the house in the south-east corner, used to go out for a cigarette after dinner. Patrols ten minutes apart, suspected elite heavy armour out."

A thousand metres or so from the town, a sand dune suddenly and slowly topped with a small opening, Ethan leaned on his binoculars with one hand and kept writing on the datapad he was holding.

It was the fifth day, he had been lurking here in the desert for three full days, unlike the previous strongholds they had fought, the Ottomans attached extra importance to this logistical town, not only had they transformed it into a fortress, they had also stationed nearly two hundred soldiers here.

In addition, there were fifty soldiers stationed at the ammunition depot less than three kilometres away from the town, and most crucially, God knows how these Ottomans managed to get two 𝗥𝗲𝗻𝗮𝘂𝗹𝘁 𝗙𝗧𝟭𝟳s (TN: 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘴.)

As the first tank in history to have a 360° rotating turret, the Renault FT17 has a significant place in history, and it symbolised a new era in warfare.

It may have been a dud in later times, but for the Arabs, the Renault's 37mm gun and 8mm machine gun would have been the big guns.

And Ethan had lurked here for so long, one to figure out the Ottomans' military configuration and two to destroy these things.

Originally Ethan came alone, Ali and his men were not at all comfortable with the idea of leaving any work to him but Ethan said it would be easier to do it himself, and the other side left it at that.

Without the followers, it was also easier for Ethan to bring out the equipment he had saved and even more so to use his 𝗡𝘂𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗦𝗵𝗶𝗲𝗹𝗱 to shield himself from the sand while he was on his way, which was much better than a face scarf. (TN: 𝘍𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘍𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘍𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘺 𝘟𝘐.)

After marking the last patrol's route trajectory, Ethan retrieved the datapad into subspace and then slowly withdrew from the cover, the dune caving in slightly, but then the slightest trace of it disappeared as the gale blew.

Walking slowly down the hill, Ethan lifted the dust cloth covering the KFT reconnaissance vehicle, then expertly started the engine and drove the car out from behind the dune in a big way.

The sentries and patrols who heard the noise looked around and dropped their guard when they realised it was one of their own KFT reconnaissance vehicles, the Arab guerrillas couldn't drive them even if they had captured their equipment, so this KFT must be friendly.

After driving along the road next to the railway line for a few kilometres, a dozen or so wooded marble pillars appeared on the left side of the road, and below them, the purpose of Ethan's trip, two Renault FT17 tanks and several German-built EV-4 armoured vehicles, a four-wheeled armoured vehicle covered in iron armour with three machine guns and a rotating machine gun turret.

"State your reason." A sentry asked curiously as Ethan swung the vehicle into this Ottoman armour repair yard.

"I'm a communications officer with the 6th Division, the vehicle is running out of fuel, can you help me fill up and find some food?" Ethan, wrapped tightly in his turban, said vaguely, while pulling out his previously seized papers.

"OK, drive the car over there and wait a while." The sentry nodded and directed Ethan to park the car in place, then lifted the curtain of a tent and gestured for Ethan to enter.

"We don't have anything good here, just make do, you've come at a really bad time, the supply wagon won't be here until tomorrow." Ethan had just sat down when an Ottoman soldier came into the tent with two tins and a pot of tea, placed them on the table, took out his dagger again and opened the tins with a pang, "Eat, we only have enough tinned beef here."

"Thanks." Ethan nodded, then uncapped the tin can and suddenly said in surprise, "There's a lizard in there."

"What, how is that possible?" The Ottoman soldier didn't believe him and went over to check, and found that the jug only had cold water that had been pumped up, how can there be a lizard? "Are you seeing things wrong." The soldier was about to turn back, then he felt a blackness before his eyes and fell limply to the ground.

"If I say there is, than it is there." Ethan withdrew his hand knife, picked the soldier up and placed him on the marching bed in the corner of the room, covered the other man again, then took his knife and slashed the canvas on the back side of the tent and slipped out.

He had checked out the repair yard before he arrived.

Perhaps because of its proximity to the fortress and the railway, it was not heavily guarded, with only two permanent sentries, although patrols from the fortress would come every half hour, and the camp was limited to a dozen mechanics and engineers.

It was now 9 P.M. and, judging by the last few days, the engineers had largely gone back to their rooms to rest, and the car park where the tanks were parked was deserted, so he could easily do whatever he wanted.