Fifteen minutes later, on Colonel List's orders, Sergeant Major Lelouch and Sergeant Klose led a group of officers and men from the line-laying platoon of the army group's headquarters communications battalion back to the post and telegraph office near the beach.
This was the exact spot where Lelouch had transmigrated earlier that afternoon. Choking on the tear gas set off by the French Army remnants, he had stumbled out of the post office and collapsed on the adjacent beach, only to be jolted awake later by the crashing waves.
At first, Lelouch himself had found it strange: why would a post and telegraph office be built so close to the ocean? Did the staff really care that much about having a "front-row ocean view" while they worked?
However, after arriving and reviewing the blueprints and documents provided by high command before they set out, Lelouch quickly recalled the reason:
This particular post and telegraph office in Nieuwpoort served as a relay station to connect two segments of submarine telegraph cables. Since the town's local communication needs were incredibly low, it had been built right by the sea to save on costs.
Contrary to what many laymen of later generations might assume, laying submarine telegraph cables was actually a highly cost-effective method of long-distance communication—cheaper even than overland cables.
It required no digging, erecting poles, or requisitioning land. They simply had to toss the cable into the sea and use a warship to tow and lay it along the route. As early as 1866, humanity had already completed the first transatlantic submarine cable.
In 1908, along the coasts of Belgin and the Netherlands, the Siemens Company had assisted the telegraph companies of both nations in laying a submarine cable across the Britannia Channel.
This cable originated from Wilhelmshaven in Demania, passed through The Hague in the Netherlands, routed through Blankenberge and Nieuwpoort in Belgin, and finally crossed the channel westward.
Thus, when Lelouch and his men were transferred here to repair the cable, they brought along the original construction blueprints from the Siemens Company....
"Sergeant Major Schweinsteiger, can you fix it? Have you pinpointed the breakpoint yet?"
Inside the post office's equipment room, several technical NCOs had already been tinkering with the machinery for quite a while.
Growing anxious, Lelouch couldn't help but press Schweinsteiger, who had just been woken up around dinnertime.
The communications platoon's previous commander had died in battle. Schweinsteiger was the deputy platoon leader and their foremost technical expert; he had formally studied electrical engineering and worked at Siemens before the war.
Having been unconscious all afternoon, he woke up only to discover that Lelouch had bypassed him to become the acting platoon leader. It was hard to swallow. Just how many merits had this kid racked up in a mere few hours? Did he have connections higher up?
However, he remained deeply responsible toward his work. Faced with Lelouch's urging, he snapped back grumpily, much like any other technical expert:
"Don't rush me! The malfunction is much more complicated than we expected. The break doesn't seem to be around here, or even on the beach! Let me run another test."
Since Lelouch wasn't as skilled in maintenance, he obediently shut his mouth and waited.
A few minutes later, after repeatedly verifying the data, Schweinsteiger finally threw his hands up in defeat, pointing at the readout on the Siemens MBR08 Double-Arm Bridge Meter in front of him.
"We have a massive problem. I'm guessing we won't be able to fix this tonight. According to the bridge meter's readings, the break is over three kilometers away."
Lelouch didn't immediately catch his drift. "What does that mean?" he asked reflexively.
Schweinsteiger scoffed coldly, jerking a thumb over his shoulder toward the north. "It means the break isn't on land. It extends at least two kilometers out to sea—how are we supposed to fix that? Are we going to swim out there?
We'll have to requisition an auxiliary engineering ship. Once they pinpoint the break, they'll dredge both ends up, splice them back together on the deck, and drop them back to the seabed."
Startled, Lelouch hadn't expected their initial assessment of the malfunction to be so completely wrong.
To any ordinary person, if a telegraph cable snapped in a war-torn town, the overland section had most likely been blown apart by artillery. Take the cruiser that had been harassing the German Army from the sea all day, for example; its 150mm shells frequently blasted craters several meters deep into the beach.
Who could have imagined that the severed section would be the part resting securely at the bottom of the sea?
"Forget it. Since the break is underwater, we really can't fix it on our own. We need the navy's cooperation. Ah, what rotten luck."
Lelouch sighed and waved a hand, signaling everyone to call it a night. The technical NCOs began packing up the bridge meters and magnetometers.
Taking his confidant Klose, Lelouch prepared to jog back to the regimental headquarters in the dark to report the situation.
However, the moment he stepped out of the post office's front doors, the bleak, freezing sea wind sweeping through the street made him shiver.
A flash of insight hit Lelouch. It was as if he had grasped some elusive clue, and a web of disparate threads wove together.
"What's wrong, sir?" Klose asked, seeing him stop. He assumed Lelouch was feeling unwell.
"It's nothing. I just thought of a possibility. Several prior events are starting to connect," Lelouch muttered under his breath. As he spoke, his train of thought grew increasingly clear.
"Klose, have you ever considered why that Britannia light cruiser has been sitting out there on the water all day long?"
Klose replied, "Didn't it rush over to conduct shore bombardment and provide fire support for the French and Belgin ground offensives? Every time the enemy charges, the cruiser fires a few salvos."
Lelouch shook his head. "They wouldn't choose an Arethusa-class for shore bombardment. That type of light cruiser only has two 150mm main guns, yet it boasts six medium-caliber rapid-fire secondary guns. In other words, it's a ship strictly designed for hunting torpedo boats.
If I were the Brit Nation's naval minister, and I absolutely had to send a light cruiser for fire support, I'd definitely choose a Weymouth-class or a Chatham-class, which have all eight of their main guns chambered in 150mm."
Klose's scalp practically itched as he listened, as if his brain were physically trying to grow. "Sir, I know you have a good head on your shoulders. Just give me the answer."
"I suspect that cruiser's true purpose was solely to destroy our cable," Lelouch said. "That's why Schweinsteiger said the break was at least two kilometers offshore when he ran that test!
That enemy ship sailed right over our cable, precisely dredged it up from the seabed, and snipped it! They might have even hauled away a massive chunk of it to prevent us from repairing it!"
Hearing Lelouch spell it out, Klose understood. He also recalled a case study from the very beginning of the war—one taught during the training of all communications troops.
Realization dawned on him. "Ah! I remember! Is it just like that incident at the outbreak of the war on August 5th? The Britannia dogs declared war on us on August 4th, and the very next day they dispatched a cruiser to sever our transatlantic cable!
But that doesn't make sense! They acted so fast and accurately that time because the cable already relayed through the Britannia Channel, and they had obtained the construction blueprints before the war, allowing them to precisely pinpoint the route's coordinates. But today's cable doesn't run through Britannia. Only the Siemens Company and the owners should have the blueprints. Where did they get the coordinates?
Did we leak the information, or is there a spy? No, someone from the Belgia Telegraph Company must have handed the blueprints over to their allies!"
Though Klose was not skilled at intelligence analysis, there were only three candidates for this question: the two owners (Belgin and the Netherlands) and the single contractor (Siemens). One of these three parties had to have leaked the information.
Klose immediately ruled out the possibility of the Siemens Company betraying its own country, naturally casting his suspicion onto the Belgin people. This also perfectly aligned with common sense, as they were already allied with Britannia.
But Lelouch did not see it that way.
He stood in the cold wind and thought carefully for a moment, using the chill to help cool his supercomputing brain. After a long moment, he said, "I don't think so. The enemy must have thought to share this data in a rush, rather than coming prepared—
The first piece of evidence: after occupying this post office and inspecting the enemy's offices, we found the original file copies of the blueprints that the Siemens Company had left on file for the owner, the Belgia Telegraph Company. When I flipped through them earlier, I confirmed they still bore the Siemens Company's inspection seal.
This proves the Belgin personnel fled in extreme haste when they lost the town. Captain Andri's Cavalry Reconnaissance Company arrived too quickly; the Belgin personnel maintaining order in the town didn't even know our forces had arrived.
Therefore, the Britannians urgently dispatching a cruiser nearby to destroy the cable was likely an after-the-fact remedial measure, not something premeditated long in advance. In other words, they only hastily organized the sabotage after hearing the town had fallen. That perfectly explains why the telegraph cable hadn't been cut when Captain Andri first arrived, but was completely severed by daybreak today.
Siemens wouldn't commit treason without reason, and the Belgins were caught off guard and abandoned their blueprints. So in my eyes, the prime suspect is the telegraph company of the neutral country, the Netherlands.
Don't be fooled by the Netherlands' current stance of neutrality, or the fact that they haven't formally joined the war. The foreign trade and financial interest factions within their borders are all heavily aligned with Britannia. Those companies in the communications sector are also likely more pro-Brit Nation than pro-us.
It's highly likely there's a mole within the Netherlands National Telegraph Company. As a result, the moment Niopold was captured by our army, they bowed to Britannia's demands and leaked the blueprints to the Royal Navy!"
Lelouch couldn't actually rule out the possibility with one hundred percent certainty that the Belgins themselves had made a copy beforehand and taken it with them to leak. However, he leaned more toward using this opportunity to warn high command to be wary of Netherlands spies.
In his previous life, he had read the history of espionage in World War I and knew that the Netherlands Telegraph Company had engaged in extensive cooperation with the Britannia military. Even if it wasn't necessarily the Netherlanders who did it this time, using this chance to bring it to the higher-ups' attention was a surefire gain with no downsides.
Perhaps it really would yield results, and he'd get promoted again upon his return. Lelouch didn't care much about promotions per se, but he cared deeply about escaping the front lines as quickly as possible, getting far away from the hail of bullets and the life-and-death slaughter.
Only by rapidly becoming a high-ranking officer and leaving frontline combat behind could he make himself safer and secure a better life.
Beside him, having listened to his platoon leader's entire analysis, Klose was staring with wide, bugged-out eyes, as if he were looking at a ghost.
Was this guy even human? How was his brain wired?
Just from measuring a cable's breakpoint and analyzing the behavioral patterns of an enemy cruiser, he could deduce and extrapolate all of this entirely on his own? Seriously?
"So, are you planning to report all of this to Colonel List? But even if they know, it won't help us with the battle right in front of us, will it?"
Lelouch shook his head. "I'll only say what needs to be said right now. Tonight, I'll just have the Colonel use the radio to request instructions; we shouldn't delay official business. As for my analysis just now, it might not be useful in the next day or two, but I believe it'll come in handy sooner or later in this campaign—
And your job is to keep your mouth completely shut. Honestly, even I didn't expect to extrapolate so much, which is why I was bouncing ideas off you. Had I known, I would have much rather kept it all in my head, letting the left and right hemispheres of my brain spar against each other to deduce it."
Klose snapped to attention. "Don't worry, sir! I am absolutely loyal to you! I won't breathe a single word of this to anyone!"
Lelouch waved a hand dismissively. "Let's go. Head back to regimental headquarters with me first."
A few minutes later, Lelouch arrived at regimental headquarters and delivered a concise report on the maintenance situation, sticking strictly to the details that needed to be said.
Hearing that the sabotage was so severe that it required the deployment of naval vessels to coordinate repairs, Colonel List didn't give the communications platoon a hard time.
He could only sigh and order the regimental telegraph operator to contact division command using the FU-08 Wireless Radio Set, requesting them to relay the orders regarding the other psychological warfare deployments.
After issuing the orders, the Colonel genially urged Lelouch to go get some rest. "You boys go to sleep first. There will still be a lot keeping you busy at dawn tomorrow, so hurry up and recover your energy. I'll arrange for others to handle the defensive battle tonight."
Lelouch was then sent to rest in a cellar.
In reality, he couldn't fall asleep at all that night; he could only lie there with his eyes half-closed.
Especially going into the latter half of the night, the back-and-forth artillery fire over the town grew louder and louder, and the battle cries of the charging soldiers surged in increasingly massive waves.
French troops, Belgin troops, British troops, and German troops were all involved, practically sweeping through the ruins of the town all over again.