When Dillon finally stood on the southern high ground of the pine forest, an hour had already passed.
Having smoked an entire cigarette, he still couldn't understand how the New Alliance, with fewer than two hundred people, had managed to hold out for a full hour under the siege of two thousand-strong teams.
What astonished him even more was that not a single prisoner had been captured.
The resistance from the soldiers of the New Alliance was exceptionally fierce. Many times their troops had already breached the trenches, only to be repelled by the enemy's desperate counter-fire.
These soldiers seemed to possess endless strength and courage, fighting with bayonets, rifle butts, engineer shovels, or even rocks picked up at random when they ran out of bullets.
Killing one New Alliance soldier often cost them five—or even more—casualties.
And this was when the enemy was nearly out of ammunition and supplies.
As for taking prisoners, that was impossible.