Red Moscow

In the evening, Sokov took Sergesha's guard company, took several armored vehicles, cars and motorcycles pieced together from the division, left Mamayev Gang, and headed towards Lugansk.

Originally, he was planning to set off with Chuikov, but two hours ago, Chuikov received an order from Rokossovsky and had more important tasks to perform, so he canceled the trip to Lugansk.

Sokov sat in the armored vehicle and kept in touch with Seryozha in front through the car radio: "Seryozha, it's getting dark, find a place to stop and rest."

Seryozha originally had different opinions on Sokov's overnight journey. Hearing that Sokov offered to find a place to spend the night at this moment, he agreed.

A few minutes later, Seryosha told Sokov over the radio: "Misha, the motorcyclist who was just exploring the road ahead reported that there is a field camp of our army three or four kilometers away from us. Spend the night there?"

"Yes." Sokov naturally agreed to Seryozha's proposal, but in order to avoid misunderstanding, he still reminded the other party: "Seryozha, it is already dark, in order to avoid unnecessary misunderstanding, you first send Someone to contact. After the other party is ready, it is not too late to go there."

What Seryozha discovered was the station of a platoon-level unit, which was part of the 57th Army. When the platoon leader saw a convoy coming towards him, he was very nervous and thought it was a German. Fortunately, Seryozha heeded Sokov's warning and sent soldiers to get in touch with them, otherwise there was a real possibility of a fight.

After meeting the second lieutenant platoon leader, Sokov asked curiously: "Comrade second lieutenant, you are quite vigilant. If I hadn't sent someone to contact you, maybe both sides would have fought."

Hearing what Sokov said, the platoon leader replied with a wry smile: "Comrade Colonel, you don't know that there are really Germans haunting our platoon's quarters."

"Germans?!" Hearing what the other party said, Seryozha couldn't help interjecting and asked, "The Paulus Group has been wiped out. Where did the Germans come from?"

"I think it may be that after Paulus surrendered, the German soldiers who survived escaped here." The platoon leader reported to Sukov: "But their number should not be many."

"Comrade Second Lieutenant, you are very confident." Seryozha began to argue with the other party: "How do you know that the other party's number is not large?"

"That's right, Comrade Captain." The platoon leader glanced at Seryozha's rank and replied respectfully, "We didn't know there were Germans at the beginning. Until two days ago, one of our guards on duty at night was attacked. I didn’t know there were Germans around until the attack.”

"How did you attack?"

"The sentinel's throat was cut with a dagger." The platoon leader explained: "The weapon, the short fur coat he was wearing, and some food were all taken away. After inspecting the scene, I think it was the Germans. They should count Not many, otherwise they would definitely take advantage of the opportunity of the sentry being killed by them to carry out a sneak attack on us, but they did not do so."

"Your analysis is very reasonable, Comrade Second Lieutenant." Sokov felt that the platoon leader's analysis was somewhat reasonable, and after a few words of praise, he told Sergei Sha: "Sergesha, tonight's sentry, at least It's a group of four, understand?"

"Understood." Serezha's guard company has nearly 200 people, even if there are three or four groups of four guards, there are only a dozen people, so he readily agreed: "I will arrange it immediately. "

In the middle of the night, Sokov, who was sleeping in the armored vehicle, was shaken awake. He opened his eyes in a daze, and saw that the person who woke him up was Seryozha, so he asked casually, "Seryozha, what's the matter, is it dawn?"

"Not yet, Misha." Seryozha leaned closer to his ear and said, "I noticed something moving nearby."

"Is there any movement?" Hearing what Seryozha said, Sokov's drowsiness disappeared without a trace. He sat up straight and asked, "Seryozha, did you find anything?"

"Misha, look." Seryozha pointed to a forest to the north, and said to Sokov, "You can faintly see a fire in the forest over there, and there should be someone there."

"Who could it be?" Sokov asked back, "Wouldn't it be the sentinel assigned by the platoon leader?"

"I've already asked the platoon leader, and he said no." Seryozha obviously guessed what Sokov was going to ask, and said, "According to my estimation, it should be the Germans lurking nearby. Because the weather was too cold, they hid Living in the forest to keep warm, but we didn't expect to be discovered by us."

"Seryozha, take a platoon and go over to see what's going on." Sokov told Sergesha: "If they are really Germans, capture or destroy them."

"I don't need to go out for such a small matter." Sergey Sha said, ordered a soldier to call three guard platoon leaders, and he said to the three: "Comrades, there are flames coming from the forest in the distance." , presumably the enemies who escaped from Stalingrad are hiding there to keep warm, who of you is willing to lead someone to catch them?"

As soon as Seryozha finished speaking, the three platoon leaders raised their hands in unison. Seryozha smiled with satisfaction at the performance of the three, pointed to a platoon leader casually, and said to him: "First platoon leader, I will let you all go to the forest to see the situation. If it is really an enemy, Then capture or destroy them. Understand?"

"Understood, Comrade Company Commander." The platoon leader agreed, then turned around and sent to assemble the team.

While waiting, Seryozha suddenly remembered an important matter, so he asked Sokov curiously: "Misha, there is something I have wanted to ask you for a long time."

"what's up?"

"I heard some time ago that the superior plans to set up a guard army in our army, consisting of the 37th Guards, the 39th Guards and the 41st Guards." Seryozha asked curiously: "There have been rumors in the battalion that It is possible for you to serve as the commander of the army. But after so long, why hasn't the formation of the Guards been rolled out?"

"Sergesha, you don't know that the situation has changed." Sokov explained to Sergesha: "According to the order of the superior, the 62nd Army only retains three guard divisions, and the rest are all transferred."

"What, only three divisions are reserved for the 62nd Army, and all the rest are transferred?" After hearing this amazing news, Seryozha asked in puzzlement, "Why did you do this?"

"As far as I guess," Sokov tried hard to recall what he learned in later generations, and translated it into his own understanding: "The reason why the superiors did this is because the heroic troops who participated in the defense battle have rich combat experience and With heroic and tenacious spirit, they can be dispersed into various armies to become the new backbone of the battle. In the following days, they can be used in offensive campaigns to carry out breakthroughs in the main assault direction; in defensive campaigns, use They went to carry out a counter-assault."

After listening to Sokov's explanation, Seryozha nodded with a face of enlightenment, and said with emotion: "So that's the case, the superiors are more comprehensive than us in thinking about issues."

After a pause for a moment, Seryozha said something else that was on his mind: "Misha, there is one more thing I want to ask you. Why did you break up the downsizing regiment and organize it into three guard regiments?" You know, this is your direct army, so it would be a pity to dismantle it like this."

"Seryozha, you are right. The downsizing regiment is my direct line of troops, and commanders at all levels can understand my combat intentions during battle." Sokov said with a smile: "Scatter them to various places nearby. In the guard regiment, they want to use their influence to let the commanders and fighters of the entire guard division learn how to understand my intentions and master my tactics in battle."

"So that's how it is." Seryozha nodded, and said, "Misha, you are really thoughtful."

While the two were talking, gunshots and explosions suddenly came from the distant forest. The awakened soldiers immediately clenched the weapons in their hands, stared closely at the direction of the gunshots and explosions, and anxiously waited for Sokov's order.

Sokov listened for a moment, then turned his head and asked Seryozha: "Seryozha, do you think your subordinates can deal with this enemy hiding in the forest?"

"There shouldn't be a problem." Seryozha replied confidently, "To answer, the troops in the guard battalion are also your direct descendants. Their combat effectiveness should be the strongest in the whole division. There shouldn't be any problem in dealing with a few stragglers."

No sooner had Seryosha finished speaking than the sound of gunfire and explosions in the forest stopped. Sokov smiled and said to Seryozha: "Seryozha, it seems that the soldiers in the platoon are not bad, they settled the battle so quickly."

"Misha, I have already said that the soldiers of the guard battalion are the elite of the whole division. And our company is the most powerful in the entire guard battalion." Hearing Sukov's praise, Seryozha felt a little bit nervous. Floating: "It's not a piece of cake to deal with a few Germans."

After waiting for more than ten minutes, a platoon leader came back with the soldiers.

A platoon leader quickly ran up to Sokov, raised his hand in salute, and reported: "Comrade commander, the platoon leader is reporting to you. My platoon was ordered to go to the forest to clear up the single Germans. After some fighting , killed two people, captured one alive, and came here specially to report back to you."

Knowing that there were only three Germans in the forest, Sokov couldn't help being stunned for a moment. Before he could speak, Seryozha asked first, "First platoon leader, are you sure there are only three German soldiers in the forest?"

"That's right, there are only three people." A platoon leader reported, "I personally interrogated the captives. He said that more than 20 of them had escaped, but due to lack of clothing and food, people died along the way. Wait until here At that time, there were only four people left. One of them froze to death last night, and they feared repeating the same mistakes, so they risked a fire in the snow pit and exposed their whereabouts."

Sokov originally wanted to interrogate the prisoners himself to find out the numbers of their troops. But after hearing such a detailed report from the platoon leader, he lost interest in interrogating him. Instead, he ordered the platoon leader: "First platoon leader, we have to travel after dawn, and it will be inconvenient to take the prisoners with you. This prisoner is handed over to the friendly troops stationed here, and let them deal with the prisoner."

"Yes, Comrade Division Commander." The platoon leader replied loudly, "I will hand over the prisoners to the friendly army immediately."

When setting off early the next morning, Sokov told Sergei: "Sergesha, keep a distance of at least 100 meters between each car. At the same time, the car must be staffed on duty to keep an eye on the two sides of the road. Sideways, to detect enemies that may be hiding in snowdrifts in time. Understand?"

As Sokov's confidant, Sergesha naturally knew the news of Ivanov's sacrifice. Hearing Sokov's order, he didn't dare to be negligent, and quickly replied loudly: "Understood, we will maintain the vigilance we should during the march."

To be on the safe side, once Seryozha found something was wrong behind the snowdrift on the side of the road, he would order the machine gun mounted on the top of the cab to fire in that direction, or send soldiers on motorcycles to check.

It was originally just a measure taken out of safety considerations, but I didn't expect it to be really effective. The convoy traveled less than 60 kilometers, and no less than 20 bodies were found behind those suspicious snowdrifts. Some of these corpses died of freezing and starvation, while others were beaten to death automatically.

When Seryozha saw these corpses with his own eyes, he still couldn't help but broke out in a cold sweat. If it wasn't for the division commander's repeated instructions to be more vigilant when marching, maybe they would have been attacked by German soldiers who were not frozen to death or starved to death.

According to the original idea, the convoy should arrive in Luhansk at noon. But in order to prevent being attacked by the German army, the convoy had to slow down and did not arrive in Lugansk until evening.

There was a checkpoint outside the city. Seeing a convoy approaching, the soldiers on duty quickly stretched out their hands to signal to stop.

After the car stopped, the soldier walked up to the first car and asked, "Which part are you from? What are you doing in Lugansk?"

Seryozha, who was sitting in the cab of the first car, heard the soldier's question and quickly replied: "We are the leading unit of the 41st Guards Division, and we are preparing to build a defense here."

Hearing what Seryozha said, the soldiers did not let go, but returned to the checkpoint, called the company headquarters, and reported the convoy to the company.

After the Soviet company commander received the call from the soldier, he immediately woke up Samoilov who was sleeping in the room and told him: "Comrade lieutenant, I just received a call from the checkpoint, saying that a truck, A small convoy of armored vehicles and motorcycles. They say they belong to the 41st Guards Division, I would like you to go and identify them and see if you know them."

When Samoilov learned that a convoy was coming, he quickly called up the soldiers who were still alive in the guard platoon, and followed the company commander towards the checkpoint.

When there were still 40 to 50 meters away from the checkpoint, Samoilov ordered the soldiers to deploy on the spot, occupy a favorable terrain, point their guns at the convoy on the other side of the checkpoint, and shoot immediately when they were ready to find something wrong . After making these arrangements, Samoilov followed the company commander into the checkpoint.

Seeing the company commander and the commander of the friendly army coming, the soldiers on duty quickly reported the situation just now. Samoilov walked out of the checkpoint with a pistol in his hand, stopped a dozen or twenty meters away from the truck, and shouted loudly: "I am Lieutenant Samoilov, the guard platoon leader. Where are you?" a part of?"

"I'm Sergey Sergey, the company commander of the guard." As early as Samoilov walked out of the checkpoint, Sergey could see him clearly with the help of the car's headlights. Hearing his shout at this moment, he pushed open the car door and got out, stood on the pedal and replied, "He escorted the division commander here."

When Samoilov heard Seryozha's voice, his heart burst into ecstasy. Hearing that the division commander had also arrived, he trotted all the way to Sergei Sha, and asked anxiously, "Comrade captain, where is the division commander?"