Red Moscow

"Comrade Chief of Staff, you guessed right." Sokov nodded, and said in an affirmative tone: "The news I want to tell is indeed related to your son. When he returned from his reconnaissance mission, he was attacked by the German army. Unfortunately, he was seriously injured by the shelling..."

Before Sukov finished speaking, he saw the papers that Sidolin held in his hand slipped and his body swayed. If it wasn't for Ponegerin who was next to him to help him in time, he might have fallen straight down. on the ground.

After Sidolin was helped by Ponejielin to sit down at the table, he immediately looked up at Sokov and asked, "Comrade Commander, has my son died?"

"No, no." Sokov didn't expect the news to hit Sidolin so hard. No wonder Cuikov made such a roundabout call. It seemed that he knew Sidolin better than himself. He hurriedly waved his hands, and said to Sidolin: "Comrade Chief of Staff, I didn't specifically issue a death notice for you. Your son Sidolin was bombarded by the German army and was indeed seriously injured, but after several hours of fighting Rescue, he is out of danger at this moment. According to General Chuikov, he will be able to wake up tomorrow morning at the latest."

Hearing Sokov mention Chuikov, Sidolin immediately understood why Sokov asked himself and Ponegerin to avoid him when he was talking to Chuikov. It seemed that the two were talking about his son. To be precise, Sokov only wanted to avoid him alone, but since Ponegerin was there, he had no choice but to avoid both of them in order to avoid getting caught.

After thinking about this, he tentatively asked: "Comrade Commander, if I'm not mistaken, when you asked me and the Deputy Commander to avoid you just now, you and General Chuikov were talking about my son, right?"

"That's right." Now that the matter has been clarified, Sokov has no need to continue to hide it. He nodded and replied affirmatively: "At that time, little Sidolin was undergoing rescue in the operating room. Whether he can be rescued or not is still a question." Unknown, so I dare not tell you, lest you be stimulated."

"Comrade Commander, you look down on me too much." Sidolin tried to force a smile on his face and said, "I am also experienced in many battles, and I am used to seeing life and death. Other people's children can die on the battlefield, how can I Can't your child?"

Pornegerin put a cup of hot tea in front of Sidolin, and said softly, "Chief of Staff, drink some water, I hear your voice is hoarse."

Although everyone knew that Sidolin's hoarse voice was caused by being too emotional, but no one exposed it. Sidolin took a sip of tea and said with a wry smile, "If my son sacrificed like this, I don't know what face he will use to meet his mother when he goes underground."

Don't look at Sukov and Sidolin have been partners for a long time, but they have never heard the other party talk about his family. At this moment, when Sidolin mentioned his wife, he tentatively asked, "Chief of Staff, did your wife die very early?"

"Yes." Sidolin nodded and said, "My wife is a bus conductor, and once the bus she was working on was running, and because of a puncture, she ran headfirst into a tree on the side of the road. When I heard the news and rushed over, she was already dying. She held my hand tightly, and the last words she said were: take good care of our son, raise him up, and marry a beautiful wife in the future .”

"How many years has it been since your wife died?" Ponegerin asked aside, obviously he didn't know anything about Sidolin's family either.

"Ten years." Sidolin replied: "At that time my son was only eight years old and had just entered the second grade. I dared not tell him the news of his wife's death, but said that his mother had gone far, far away. place, and will not come back for the time being.”

"Comrade Chief of Staff," Sokov couldn't help asking curiously, "Your wife has been dead for ten years. Haven't you thought about finding another one?"

"Thinking about it, but nothing suitable."

Hearing this, Sokov smiled: "Comrade Chief of Staff, don't be ridiculous. With your handsome appearance and decent conversation, I don't believe that no girl is attracted to you."

"How should I put it, the girl I like has been there before." Holding the teacup in both hands, staring at the map in front of him, Xidolin started his meeting: "She is little Xidolin's music teacher. She is so busy that she doesn’t have time to pick up the child even on weekends, so she takes the child home. Once or twice is okay, but if there are too many times, I am also embarrassed. At that time, I said that I can give her some money, right It was her payment for helping me take care of the children, but she refused."

"Rejected by her?" Bornejelin said in surprise, "Why?"

"She said that she is a teacher, and taking care of the children is her job. Besides, she has already received her salary at the school, and it is impossible for her to charge me extra fees." Sidolin continued: "She also said, little Sidolin With a talent for music, she brought him home just to make it easier to tutor him."

After hearing this, Sokov thought to himself, if this kind of thing happened in his own country decades later, it would be a fantasy. Don't talk about taking care of your children for you. If you don't let your children enroll in my remedial classes, I won't take care of your children. But this kind of thing was a trivial matter in the Soviet Union.

"Comrade Chief of Staff, I'm curious, since this female teacher is very good to you and the children, why didn't you get together in the end?" Sokov asked puzzledly: "Is there any problem between you?" ?”

Sidolin was silent, with a painful expression on his face, it seemed that Sokov's problem brought back his sad past.

"Comrade Chief of Staff, did this female teacher go to Siberia later?"

One word awakened the dreamer, and Pornejelin's understatement reminded Sokov that Sidolin's wife died in a car accident ten years ago, which should have been between 1934 and 1935. And the time when he met the female teacher should be a year or two later. I believe everyone will still remember what happened at that time.

After listening to Ponegelin's question, Sidolin nodded slowly and said, "Comrade Deputy Commander, you are right. Her father was dismissed as a factory engineer because of some kind of suspicion. was exiled to Siberia."

"After so many years, you have never been in touch again?" Sokov asked.

"I once wrote letters to the labor camp, but the letters were all returned." Sidolin said with a wry smile, "The reason is that there is no such person."

As soon as he mentioned that there was no such person, Sokov knew in his heart that the two probably would never have the chance to meet again. After all, not everyone who entered the labor camp can come out alive. But in order not to affect Sidolin's emotions, he still comforted the other party and said: "Chief of Staff, I have a hunch that you may have a chance to meet again after the war is over."

A spark of hope flashed in Xidolin's eyes, but it went out after a while: "I don't think this possibility is very big. After all, there has been no contact for eight years. Whether she is still alive or not is unknown."

Seeing Sidolin say what he was thinking, Sokov didn't know what to say for a while. Fortunately, Pornegelin came out in time to make a rescue at this time: "Comrade Chief of Staff, you are not in a good state of mind today. I will replace you on duty at night."

Upon hearing this, Sokov quickly said, "Comrade Deputy Commander, I should be on duty at night."

"No, no, no." Sidolin waved his hands and said, "I'm fine, I can be on duty normally, so don't worry about it."

Sokov and Ponejielin gave way again, but seeing Sidolin's resolute attitude, they couldn't say anything more, so they could only agree that he would continue to be on duty tonight.

Nothing to say all night.

Early on the first day, Sokov came to the headquarters and asked Sidolin who was about to leave: "Chief of Staff, did something happen last night?"

"No, Comrade Commander." Sidolin shook his head and said, "It was a peaceful night, nothing happened."

After Sidolin left, Sokov was about to call Koshkin to ask the soldiers he sent to carry out surveillance missions if they had found anything, but Koshkin walked in from the outside.

"Captain Koshkin." Sokov asked the other party, "Did the soldiers sent to monitor yesterday find anything?"

"Comrade Commander, I am going to report to you."

Sokov quickly took out a pen and paper, then raised his chin at Koshkin who was standing in front of him, and said, "Say it!"

"I really didn't expect that New Year's in Poland is the same as ours." Koshkin said with a smile: "After the New Year's bell rings, they start to visit neighbors' houses with gifts. The scene is so lively gone."

"Captain Koshkin," Seeing that Koshkin actually talked about irrelevant things to himself, Sokov said with some displeasure: "We can discuss the difference between the customs of Poland and our country at another time, and now I want to know , The soldiers in charge of monitoring last night, did you find anything?"

"Comrade Commander, don't worry, I'm going to report this next time."

"Then speak quickly."

"In the early hours of this morning, the villagers in the village also began to walk among each other." Koshkin reported to Sokov: "58 people entered the house of the village head of Djemon, and 6 people entered the house of Odzansky."

"It seems that there are not many people visiting Odzanski." Sokov said while recording, "So, the old man's popularity in the village is not very good, and there are not many people who even go to pay him New Year's greetings." indivual."

"I think these few people who came to pay New Year's greetings are probably the ones with a particularly good relationship. Out of face, I have to visit."

"Apart from these few people, is there no one to visit?"

"Yes, Comrade Commander." Koshkin continued: "At about four o'clock in the morning, that is, after the New Year's greetings were over, two shadows came in from outside the village. After they arrived at the gate of Odzansky, After looking left and right, he entered the yard and knocked on the door. After a while, the door opened, and by the light of a candle, our soldiers saw that the person who opened the door was Odzhansky's wife. She stood at the door with two people. After saying a few words, she let them enter the room. Before closing the door, she looked around, as if trying to find out if anyone around saw her guest. "

"Captain Koshkin, I think there is something wrong with these two people." Sokov put down the pen in his hand, looked up at Koshkin and said, "Where did they go after that?"

"My people waited for almost half an hour, and then saw a person coming out of the house. He stayed at the door for a while, and then walked towards the house of the village chief Jamong."

"Then he came into the house?"

"Yes, in the house."

"I see." Sokov nodded and said, "This man should be Jamon's son, and he came back with his brother-in-law. Captain Koshkin, you think they popped up on New Year's Eve, would they What is the reason?"

As a former member of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Koshkin naturally has his own unique side in the analysis of many things. Hearing Sokov ask himself at this moment, he tentatively said: "I think the Germans should have discovered that their scouts had lost contact. In order to find out what happened, they sent Odzanski and Jamon The two sons were sent back. Their purpose is twofold, one is to find out the whereabouts of the German scouts; the second is to take over the reconnaissance work after discovering that the German scouts had an accident."

Sokov agreed with Koshkin's analysis: "You are right, Comrade Captain, this should be the case."

Hearing that Sokov agreed with his analysis, Koshkin was not complacent, but asked instead: "Then what should we do next, arrest both of them?"

"Don't worry, Comrade Captain." Sokov shook his head and said, "If we arrest these two people now, the Germans will send new people to perform reconnaissance missions. I think we can get rid of these two people." Make a fuss about yourself."

Before Koshkin could ask again, Ponejielin's voice came from the door: "Comrade Commander, what are you going to do?"

"Comrade Deputy Commander, you came just in time." Sokov called Ponedelin to him, repeated the situation reported by Koshkin to him, and finally said: "Just now Captain Koshkin asked me if I Both of these people should be arrested. But I think we can use these two people to make a fuss and see if we can get useful information from them."

"Well, that's right, we can't move these two people for the time being, we just need to monitor them." Pornegerin also expressed his opinion: "Judging from the situation of the German army's mobilization of troops yesterday, they may want to take some measures recently. What kind of action, that's why we strengthened the reconnaissance of our army's defense area to figure out our defensive deployment. If we caught these two in a hurry, the Germans would definitely send more scouts to carry out this task You know, we don't know when the Germans will send out new scouts, and from where they will pass through our army's defense zone. At that time, we will be passive, so it is better to let these two people move freely for the time being. Just spy on it."

"Captain Koshkin, do you understand everything?" Sokov waited for Ponejielin to finish speaking, then turned to look at Koshkin and said, "Just send someone to closely monitor the whereabouts of the two of them. They grab it."

"Should we continue to monitor the houses of Odzansky and the headman's family?" Koshkin asked Sokov for instructions.

"The monitoring of their two families will continue." Sokov said: "No one knows whether there will be new German scouts stationed in their two families."