Chapter 98

The thick fog gradually dissipated. In the observation station, I could barely see through the telescope that the cavalry soldiers in black cloaks and wielding sabres were following the tanks and rushing to the enemy line in the distance.

The telephone on the desk rang, and then I heard the voice of the commander: "I'm rokosovsky, where are you?" I turned away from my telescope to hear if there was any good news of victory.

"Comrade commander, this is Panfilov!" In the receiver came the anxious voice of the division commander of 316 Infantry Division: "I would like to ask, what is the task of our 316 infantry division?"

"Comrade division commander," rokosovsky said with obvious dissatisfaction, "the order is very clear. Your division's task is to stick to wolokramsk, so as to ensure the flank safety of the attacking forces."

"However, comrade commander," Mr. Panfilov tried to argue, "our division's commanders and fighters can do more. We can not only launch a counterattack against the German army, but also deploy part of our forces to support other troops participating in the counterattack..."

"The purpose of holding on to wolokramsk is to ensure that the flanks of the counterattack forces of the group army are not attacked by the German forces. You should understand this, comrade teacher. " The Group Commander's attitude was extremely severe. After a pause, he said with a tone of lesson: "Comrade division, every place in the war is equally important - both offensive and defensive. I have to remind you of this. Do you understand what will happen if the flank of my counter attack forces is attacked by the enemy? If you all leave the position and take part in the counterattack, who will stop them? "

"But..." Panfilov at the other end of the phone wanted to distinguish something, but he was interrupted by rokosovsky: "don't go on, sir. I will let you go when it's your turn to go up in the future. At present, your task is to hold fast to wolokramsk, firmly guard the city and ensure the safety of the flanks of the group army. Do you understand? " Then he hung up.

"Comrade commander, should we go to the frontier?" Seeing that the commander finished answering the phone, chief of staff malining carefully put forward his own suggestions.

"Well, all right, let's go and have a look. Comrade marinin, make arrangements to move the headquarters forward to skilmanovo as a whole. "

"Yes, comrade commander." Malining replied aloud.

He first faced karzakov, who was sitting at the table, and said, "let's go, comrade artillery commander, and see what the results of the artillery you command are?" Then he turned to me and said, "Rita, you're coming with us, too."

The headquarters and I came out of the observation post, and under the protection of a dozen soldiers with submachine guns, we crossed the wide battlefield and went to the newly recovered skilmanovo.

There was no one in the open battlefield, but when I looked closely, I immediately found that there were soldiers' bodies in camouflage or black cape everywhere. The more we go forward, the more dead soldiers there are. Looking at the bodies of the soldiers who were destined to be unable to stand up and fall on the road of charge, I couldn't help but burst into tears.

Rokosovsky, who may have been used to life and death, became indifferent to all this, and they walked on calmly. Khazakov, who was walking in front of me, suddenly said, "do you know what the commander of the fourth tank brigade is like? You see, we've been walking for such a long time that we haven't even seen a destroyed tank except for the infantry and cavalry soldiers who died in the battle. "

Rokosovsky replied, "ask the commander of the fourth tank brigade. His name is katukov. He's an interesting guy. I've known him for more than ten years. I remember when I was 36 years old, I once watched an exercise he participated in. During that exercise, the armored forces on his side had the task of breaking through the "enemy". Before breaking through, they found that the trench dug by the "enemy" actually exceeded the crossing width of their own tanks. When the other units were at a loss, he ordered the soldiers of the t-18 tank unit under his command to drive two of them into the trench, and then, in an almost barbaric way of "burying cars as bridges", drove the tanks across the fortified area. Afterwards, he was called "Kutuzov type commander" by Marshal Tukhachevsky of the national defense people's Committee. "

"Yes, this katukov is very powerful," deputy chief of staff o'lear continued after taking over the topic: "the Colonel took over the fourth tank brigade in early October. At that time, the brigade had only 45 old-fashioned tanks with insufficient ammunition, and their task was to guard the west gate of Moscow, mzensk, and block the German goodrian armored cluster."

"It's 45 tanks. It's not easy to block goodrian." Kazakov said with emotion.

"The Colonel knew that hard fighting was not the way, so he urged the soldiers to dig fake bunkers day and night, and made a large number of fake tanks with plywood for camouflage, while the real tank positions were deployed four kilometers away. The soldiers were tossed about for days and nights by katukov. Behind his back, they all scolded him as "a German spy commander who wants to kill the Russians."

"What was the result of the war?" Political commissar lobachev also asked curiously.

"It was only at the beginning of the battle that the officers and men found that following this" slippery brigade commander "would at least save their lives. It is said that during the battle of msensk, katukov used every soldier carefully, and stipulated that every tank should have three or four firing points, and each tank should be fired in another place, which would make our army very strong. His deception tactics worked so well that the German aggressors were deceived. When they reported to their superiors, they even claimed that there was a war among thousands of tanks. The fourth tank brigade fought fiercely for eight days and nights in msensk and achieved brilliant results. It destroyed 133 enemy tanks and shot down two planes, while its own troops only lost three failed tanks and successfully completed the tasks assigned by the superior. "

"It's incredible to lose three of the 133 German tanks. It's a bit overqualified just to make him a brigade commander. " Rokosovsky began to sigh: "if I were the commander of the front army, I would let him command a mechanized army." With these words, we came to skilmanovo unconsciously. Maybe the German army had been attacking since they set foot on the territory of the Soviet Union, so they were thinking about how to attack, not how to defend. Even in this village, there were no decent fortifications. Only on the side facing our army, we dug up a few scattered bunkers and machine gun positions. Near these bunkers, there are bodies of our soldiers and German soldiers. It seems that not long ago, there was a deadly battle here. In order to capture these bunkers, our army paid a lot of casualties. We passed through the ruins of the building and came to the middle of the village. Although most of the buildings were destroyed in the bombardment of our army, the village chapel was miraculously preserved. In the middle of the village, everyone looked around in silence. Although the fighting here is over, the fierce fighting is still going on two or three kilometers away, and the sound of guns comes from the southwest from time to time. Behind me came a roar of motorcycles. I turned to see a soldier wearing goggles coming towards us on a motorcycle with a straddle. I thought that the chief of staff sent someone to send some emergency information, so I quickly called rokosovsky: "Comrade commander, you see, there is a motorcycle coming. I don't know if the chief of staff sent someone to send the message." Without waiting for rokosovsky to speak, the motorcycle had already arrived in front of him. Driving, the soldier turned over and got off the motorcycle, and came forward to pay a standard military salute to rokosovsky: "Comrade commander, lunch is ready. Comrade chief of staff asked me to bring it to you."“ Well, "rokosovsky nodded and said," give us lunch in the car. "“ Yes With a promise, the soldier went to the motorcycle, took off his goggles and bent over to get our lunch from the straddle. When the soldiers took off the goggles, I was surprised to find that the other side turned out to be a female soldier. It seems that great personnel changes have taken place in the headquarters during this period. At least I haven't seen a female soldier in the headquarters before. The female soldier came to rokosovsky with several stacked aluminum lunch boxes. The commander took down the one on the top and pointed to me, saying, "give me one first. She hasn't eaten since early in the morning, so she must be hungry." The female soldier came up to me and said politely, "please, comrade commander." I also took a hot lunch box from the top and politely expressed my thanks to the female soldier. I was about to lift the lid to see what was in it. The female soldier suddenly jumped on me and knocked me to the ground. All the food in her lunch boxes was scattered on me. I am a little angry, just want to open mouth to scold her a few words, did not expect a series of shouts around: "lie down, it's a sniper!"“ Shoot“ The enemy is on the top of the church. Shoot The soldiers who served as guards shot and fell down one after another, and the intensive fire made the roof rubble splash. I looked up at the woman soldier who fell on me. Her head was resting on my chest. The wound on my neck was bleeding and dyed my clothes red. I put my hand in front of her nose and couldn't feel any breath. It seems that the bullet just came to me. This young female soldier just blocked the bullet for me“ Comrades The deputy chief of staff, o'lear, who was lying on the ground, got up and "rushed forward and wiped out the enemy's snipers." After shouting, he picked up the submachine gun in the hand of one of the dead soldiers and took the lead to rush forward“ Go The soldiers got up one after another and rushed forward with the deputy chief of staff. There was only one German sniper. Although he shot down several other soldiers, he was soon beaten to the ground by the soldiers. He fell from the top of the church and fell heavily on the snow. The huge impact splashed the snow high on the ground. Seeing that the soldiers had eliminated the snipers, I sat up from the ground and carefully laid the remains of the female soldier on the ground. Then I stood up and took off my hat to let her in silence. Rokosovsky and a few of them also gathered around, like me, took off their hats and observed a moment of silence for the female soldiers.