At first, they did not understand what "fire in the hole!" meant. But when they saw grenades rolling down the stairs, accompanied all the way by the sound of "Clang...!", they instantly understood.
Actually, back home, anyone who had played a gunfight game would basically understand what that phrase meant. Even some elementary school students would shout it when tossing a grenade in a shooting game.
There was no other meaning to it. It just felt awesome, as if they were really there.
They understood, but was it too late to understand? The Captain's face instantly went pale. More than a dozen of those grenades rolled down the stairs, leaving the squad leaders in the team utterly despairing, because there was no time for them to dodge.
"Take cover! Take cover!" the Captain shouted. His mind and voice were quick enough for everyone to hear him, but everyone's bodies—including the Captain's—reacted too slowly.
By the time everyone got to their feet and threw themselves aside, the sounds had already erupted around them.
"Clang! Clang!...!"
"Boom! Boom!...!"
A dozen consecutive explosions instantly killed several fellows who failed to evade them. Of the rest, more than ten were wounded. Only a few who had been at the edges and reacted quickly enough to crawl to the wall suffered merely light injuries.
Everyone who could still move shook their heads, their ears still ringing so badly that they could not hear anything. However, that did not stop them from helping their companions. Whoever could move hurriedly staggered to their feet, grabbed the wounded, and moved toward cover.
Although these armed personnel had not received systematic training, they had years of firefight experience. In such circumstances, they naturally had to quickly find somewhere to take cover and do their best to rescue the wounded.