Red Moscow

Belkin was worried that he could not find any armored vehicles in the camp ahead, so he used the accompanying radio to send a telegram to Rokossovsky's headquarters, reporting what happened on the road today, hoping that the other party could provide some information. armored vehicles.

Although Sokov is now a member of the Steppe Front Army, Rokossovsky was taken aback when he learned that he was in danger on the way, and quickly ordered the tank brigade near where Sokov was stationed to send two armored vehicles overnight past.

With these two armored vehicles, when the convoy set off the next morning, not only Sokov and Belkin sat in the armored vehicle, but even all the commanders above the captain sat in the armored vehicle. The officers sitting in the carriage also took off their epaulettes to avoid becoming the target of German snipers.

In the re-starting convoy, the two armored vehicles in the team are particularly conspicuous. If there are German snipers along the way, their eyes will be attracted by the armored vehicles, and the commanders sitting in the carriages will be directly attracted by him. ignore it.

During the march, the convoy encountered the German sniper who survived yesterday again. The cunning sniper knew very well that there must be important figures from the Soviet army inside the armored vehicle, and his gun could not penetrate the steel plate of the armored vehicle, so he aimed at the truck wheel in front of the armored vehicle, and directly blasted the wheel with one shot.

Seeing that the vehicle in front stopped suddenly, Seryozha, who was sitting in the car with Sokov, wanted to get out of the car to check. Sokov quickly grabbed him and said to him, "Serkov, don't you think this tire is Leak, is the leak too strange?"

After experiencing what happened yesterday, Seryozha immediately understood what Sokov meant. He hurriedly passed the car horn and ordered the soldiers on the truck in front: "Battle alarm, battle alarm. There may be German snipers in the nearby woods. A row immediately formed a battle formation and entered the forest to continue searching."

The soldiers of the guard company sitting in the car jumped off the truck they were riding on hearing Sergey's shout. The second and third platoons set up guards in place, while more than fifty soldiers in the first platoon entered the forest in groups of five to search.

When the German snipers saw the convoy stop, they aimed their guns at the door of the armored vehicle, intending to wait for the door to open and shoot at the people coming out of the door. But what he didn't expect was that the people in the armored vehicle didn't come out, but the officers and soldiers sitting on the truck got out of the vehicle and formed a formation to search the forest.

Seeing that the situation was not good, the sniper cursed in a low voice, and quickly ran towards the depths of the forest with his gun in hand. He knew very well in his heart that if he continued to stay here, many of them would be discovered by the search forces. If it was summer, the bushes and weeds in the forest were the best cover for him. But it was still winter, and there were unmelted snow everywhere in the forest. The searching Soviet army could easily find themselves according to their own footsteps.

After running for a while, the sniper, while throwing off the search troops, sadly found that he was in a position where he couldn't see the road at all, let alone carry out any sniping. He stood there in a daze for a while, and finally decided to go back to the place near yesterday, maybe he could gain something there.

The soldiers in the guard platoon found the footprints left by the German snipers during the search process, followed them for a while, and came to a small stream. The footprints disappeared when they reached the stream. Obviously, the German snipers fled along the creek, and the platoon leader who led the team ordered the soldiers to search both upstream and downstream, but they found nothing and could only announce a retreat.

The platoon leader returned to the armored vehicle and reported to Sergesha with a bitter face: "Comrade company commander, although we found traces of the German sniper, we lost his footprints when we chased to a small stream."

"Why are you so stupid?" Hearing that the platoon leader said that he had lost the enemy, Seryozha said angrily: "With so many of you, you can't even catch a single enemy. What are you doing?"

"Seryozha," fortunately, Sokov felt that searching for a sniper in the forest with a group of infantry was a very difficult task, and it was normal for him to be thrown off by the enemy, so he interrupted. Liao Sha's words comforted the platoon leader and said: "Platoon leader, although you have lost the enemy's trace, it just shows one point. The search you conducted frightened the enemy so much that he had to run away." Far away."

Having said that, he asked Seryozha who was sulking beside him: "Have you changed the tire?"

"It's changed."

"Now that the tires have been changed, let's continue to set off." Sokov waved his hand at the row leader and said, "You should go back to the army too."

After the German snipers were scared away, the rest of the journey became extremely smooth. Although the road condition along the way was very bad, the convoy arrived at a town called Higre at noon on the third day.

At the entrance of the town, there is a checkpoint. Not only are there cross bars, but there is also a wooden fence with wire in front. On both sides of the checkpoint, there is also a sandbag fortification with a turntable machine gun mounted on it. The soldiers stared at the road ahead with vigilant eyes.

Seeing Sokov's convoy approaching, a second lieutenant immediately stepped forward to block the way. Waving the green and red signal flag in his hand, he signaled the convoy to stop for inspection.

Knowing that he could reach his destination today, Seriosha did not share the car with Sokov. Instead, he sat in the front jeep and was responsible for contacting friendly forces.

The second lieutenant walked up to the jeep, bent down and looked into the car, then took a step back, raised his hand to salute Seryozha, and asked politely, "Hello, Comrade Captain."

"Hello, second lieutenant!" Sergei Sha said, opened the door and got out of the car, looked at the wooden fence in front, and said to the second lieutenant: "Comrade second lieutenant, please ask your people to remove the things blocking the road." We have all moved away, and we have to hurry to Kastornoye."

Knowing that Kastornoye is the headquarters of the Front Army, the second lieutenant asked cautiously, "Which part do you belong to? What are you going to do in Kastornoye?"

"Comrade Second Lieutenant, we used to belong to the Sixth Army, but now we have been transferred to the Steppe Front Army, and now we are going to the headquarters to report to General Konev."

The second lieutenant did not believe even a single punctuation mark in Seryozha's statement. After looking Seryozha up and down, he asked cautiously: "Comrade captain, where are your documents?"

"Here, here is my certificate." When Sergey took out the certificate and handed it to the second lieutenant, in order to avoid unnecessary words, he even handed over Sokov's transfer order: "This is our commander's certificate." Comrade’s transfer order, you should take a good look at it.”

The second lieutenant took over the military certificate and transfer order, checked it carefully, frowned and said to Sergesha: "Comrade captain, this is a transfer order from General Sokov, you will never tell me that you are Sokov Major general."

"Of course I am not." Seryozha said plausibly, "But I am his company commander, and he ordered me to be in charge of contacting the friendly troops along the way."

"I'm sorry, Comrade Captain." The second lieutenant handed back the documents and transfer order to Seryozha, and said blankly, "I can't let you pass until I see General Sokov."

Sokov, who was sitting in the armored vehicle at the back, saw the convoy standing still for a long time, and guessed in his heart that Seryozha might have encountered a gangster who didn't know how to adapt. Thinking of this, he raised his hand and opened the car door, and was about to get out of the car!

Seeing that Sokov was about to get off the car, Belgin was taken aback. He quickly grabbed Sokov and reminded him, "Misha, be careful of German snipers."

"Don't worry, my Comrade Commissar." Sokov smiled and said to Belkin: "This is our army's defense zone, and the surrounding area is open. There is no way for enemy snipers to hide. I will be fine."

Hearing what Sokov said, Belkin quickly probed out to look around, and saw that the surrounding terrain was indeed as Sokov said, an open field, and the position where snipers could ambush was at least 500 meters away. No matter how good a sniper is, the chances of hitting a target at such a long distance are very low.

After confirming that there would be no danger for Sokov getting out of the car, Belkin let go of Sokov's hand and said to him, "Misha, let me go with you."

Sergesha, who was checking the checkpoint and arguing with the second lieutenant, couldn't help being surprised when he saw Sokov and Berkin approaching. He quickly said, "Comrade commander, why are you here? You must know that there may be enemy snipers hiding nearby. , you should hurry back to the car."

"Don't worry, this is our army's defense zone, and there is an open area nearby, so it is impossible for German snipers to appear." Sokov came to the second lieutenant, stretched out his hand to him, and introduced himself: "Hello, comrade second lieutenant Let me introduce myself, I am Major General Sokov, I have just resigned as the commander of the Sixth Army not long ago, and now I am preparing to go to Kastornoye to accept a new position from General Konev."

"I'm sorry, Comrade General." Although Sokov had already revealed his identity, the second lieutenant still said relentlessly, "I don't know you, please show your ID."

Sokov could tell from the second lieutenant's tone of voice that the other party was a dull person, but he didn't bother with him, but rather cooperatively took out his military ID card and handed it to him: "Comrade second lieutenant, this is My military ID."

After reading the documents, the second lieutenant stretched out his hand again: "Comrade General, where is your transfer order?"

"Tiaoling, didn't I show you?" Seryozha said angrily, "Why do you want to read it?"

"I'm sorry, Comrade Captain, this is a necessary procedure." The second lieutenant said persistently, "Please cooperate with me."

Seeing that Seryozha was about to argue with the other party again, Sokov raised his hand to stop him, took the transfer order from him, and handed it back to the second lieutenant.

The second lieutenant slowly compared the name on the transfer order with the name on the military certificate, and after confirming that it was correct, he returned the certificate to Sokov, raised his hand and saluted, and said apologetically, "I'm sorry, Comrade General. I did not recognize you."

Sokov knew that the other party was an old-fashioned person, so he didn't argue with him, but waved his hand and said, "It's okay, you are performing your duties, and you are doing the right thing."

After verifying the identities of Sokov and the others, the second lieutenant quickly ordered the soldiers in the checkpoint to come out and move all the obstacles in the middle of the road aside.

After the vehicle was back on the road, Belkin, who was sitting with Sokov, shook his head and said, "Misha, it's been a long time since I met an officer who does things so dull. It's a good thing he's not in my unit, otherwise I would have Let him act as an anti-tank man and follow the methods learned in textbooks to blow up tanks."

Sokov couldn't help laughing when he heard Belkin's angry words, and he said immediately: "My political commissar, although the second lieutenant just said that he was inflexible and didn't know how to adapt, he was not useless. Strict interrogation like him If you pretend to be an enemy of our army, you may be able to reveal your flaws, so as to prevent the enemy from sneaking into our defense zone."

"Misha, you are really magnanimous." Belkin shook his head and said, "If I were interrogated like this again and again, I might scold him. How could I be so easy-going like you."

The convoy continued to drive forward for half an hour, passing through three checkpoints successively. However, the checks at these checkpoints are not as strict as the first checkpoints. Basically, once Seryozha showed his identity, he let him go without even checking his documents.

When the convoy came to Kastornoye, the checks here became tighter again. The checkpoint officer guarding the entrance of the town did not allow the convoy to enter the town at all, and even Sokov showed his certificate and transfer order, but the other party still refused to buy it. It is said that in order to protect the safety of the front army headquarters, foreign vehicles are not allowed to enter. However, considering that this place is a bit far away from the headquarters, he made an exception and allowed Sokov and a driver to go there by jeep.

In desperation, Sokov had no choice but to let Samoilov act as a driver for himself, and took a jeep to the front army headquarters.

Soon, the jeep came to the church in the center of the town. From a long distance away, Sokov saw sandbags on the steps of the church, and there were patrols walking back and forth at the door.

Sokov's jeep was stopped again. A lieutenant leading a patrol, after reviewing Sokov's credentials and transfer order, shook his head at him and said, "Comrade General, please come with me, and I will take you to the headquarters." Seeing Sokov When the husband got out of the car with the assault rifle, he also kindly reminded, "Comrade General, I think you'd better leave the weapon in the car, so as not to have to hand over the weapon when you enter the church."

Sokov cooperated very well with such a strict security inspection by the Konev Command. Not only did he put the assault rifle in the car, but he even took off the gun and handed it to Samoilov, saying to him: "Comrade Lieutenant, you stay here and wait for me. back."

"Yes, Comrade Commander." After putting away Sokov's weapon, Samoilov replied, "I will stay in the car and wait for you."

Sokov was satisfied with Samoilov's answer. He nodded at the other party, then turned to the lieutenant and said, "Comrade lieutenant, please take me to the headquarters now."