Red Moscow

By the time the engineers finished clearing the landmines laid by the German army, it was already daylight. The soldiers who had been blowing the cold wind on the road all night got on the truck again and continued to move towards their destination.

When the convoy arrived at its destination, a captain walked up to Ivan and asked expressionlessly, "Is this Major Ivan?"

Ivan guessed that the other party might be sent by the headquarters to pick him up, and quickly replied: "Yes, I am Ivan."

"I'm the staff officer of the 765th Infantry Regiment. I'm here to pick you up under the order of the regiment commander." The captain shook his head at Ivan and said, "Please come with me, Comrade Major, and get your company commander Take them with you, and I'll take you to see the regiment leader."

Ivan took his three company commanders, followed the captain and staff officer through the busy crowd, and came to a wooden house. The captain asked Ivan and the others to wait outside the door and go in to report by himself.

After a while, the captain came out of the room and said to Ivan, "Come in, Comrade Major, the commander is waiting for you inside."

Lin Hua followed behind Ivan and strode into the command post. Due to the dim light in the room, Lin Hua could barely see several commanders sitting next to the wooden table in the middle of the room. Like Lin Hua, Ivan hadn't waited to adapt to the light in the room for a while, so he couldn't see clearly who was the regiment leader he wanted to meet.

Fortunately, the commander sitting in the room noticed Ivan's embarrassment, got up and said to his adoptive father: "I am Lieutenant Colonel Batrakov, commander of the 765th Regiment of the Fifth Guards Division, and you are Major Ivan. Bar?"

When Ivan learned that the commander in front of him was looking for Lieutenant Colonel Batrakov, he quickly raised his hand and saluted and said, "Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, Colonel Ivan, Commander of the Second Battalion of the 1077th Regiment of the 8th Guards Division, would like to extend his greetings to you." Report, our battalion is ordered to come, I am waiting for your order, please instruct!"

"Comrade Major, according to the order, you should be here at two o'clock in the morning today." Lieutenant Colonel Batlakov said, raised his hand with the help of candlelight, looked at his watch, and then said in a stern tone: "And you were six hours late. You must know that every minute on the battlefield is precious. If you do this, you will delay the opportunity of the battle."

Ivan, who was criticized by the lieutenant colonel, immediately blushed with shame. After the other party finished speaking, he replied with some embarrassment: "Comrade lieutenant colonel, please listen to my explanation. Our convoy encountered a car park laid by the Germans." Mined fields. The engineering troops barely cleared the mines on the road an hour ago."

"Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, don't blame Major Ivan." A commander stood up from the table and said to Batrakov: "Things have been clarified. The reason why they didn't arrive here on time was because they were arrested by the Germans." The minefield of human beings blocked it. Fortunately, things have not been delayed yet, so you can assign them combat missions now."

Ivan saw clearly the commander who spoke for himself, with the rank of colonel on his collar badge, he thought to himself: "Who is he? Why is Lieutenant Colonel Batrakov treating him so respectfully? Could it be that he is the commander of the Fifth Guards Division?" Is that right? No, division commander Mironov's rank is general, but this is colonel."

Batrakov noticed that Ivan's eyes had been lingering on the colonel, and quickly introduced him: "This is Colonel Malinin, the chief of staff of the army group. Major, you are lucky, and the comrade chief of staff has spoken good words for you. Arrive Come here with the map, and I will assign you some combat missions."

"Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, I am ready to carry out any combat mission you assign." Ivan couldn't help secretly heaving a sigh of relief when he saw that he had passed the level so easily, and then added: "All the soldiers of our battalion are confident that they will complete the mission well." The task entrusted to us by the superior."

Batrakov, who was standing in front of the map, sneered and said, "Comrade Major, I hope you will do what you say." He picked up a explaining stick, pointed to the map and said, "According to the order of the superior, the Guards No. The task of the Fifth Division is to take back the Istria Reservoir from the Germans. The task of our regiment is to seize the high ground here and open the passage to the Istria Reservoir for the whole division.”

As soon as Batrakov finished speaking, Ivan immediately replied: "Understood, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel."

"Understood?!" Batrakov sneered, and said, "Comrade Major, I don't think you understand anything. Although this is just a small highland, the German defense is extremely tenacious. More than a dozen attacks were repelled by them without exception."

Lin Hua, who was standing behind Ivan, couldn't help but sink when he heard what Batrakov said. He said in his heart that on a small high ground, the 765th regiment launched more than a dozen consecutive attacks, but none of them succeeded. See Lieutenant Colonel Batrakov will hand over the task of capturing the high ground to the second battalion.

"Understood, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel." Ivan replied bluntly after listening to Batrakov's assignment: "The task of our battalion is to seize the high ground and wipe out or drive away the Germans on it."

"Wait a minute, Major Ivan." Just after Ivan was about to leave and leave, Ma Linin suddenly stopped him and asked, "How many people are there in your battalion?"

Ivan quickly turned to Ma Linin and replied, "There are still two hundred and twenty-eight people in the whole battalion, Comrade Chief of Staff."

"There are only more than two hundred people left?!" Hearing that there were only so few troops, Ma Lining seemed very disappointed, because he remembered that the Eighth Guards Division had a full staff of 15,000 people. Seriously, but each battalion can guarantee at least 400 people. He was silent for a moment, then asked again: "Where are your weapons and equipment?"

"There is a heavy machine gun and a dozen light machine guns. Except for a few soldiers equipped with submachine guns, the rest are Mosin Nagant rifles."

After learning about the strength and equipment of the Second Battalion, Ma Linin pondered for a moment, then turned to Batrakov: "Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, transfer a mortar platoon to them."

"Comrade Chief of Staff," Batrakov said with some embarrassment to Malinin's order, "there are less than twenty mortars left in the regiment. attack, provided artillery cover."

"Comrade Lieutenant Colonel," Malinin said impatiently when Batrakov pushed back and forth, "Are you going to let the soldiers of the Second Battalion charge against the enemy entrenched on the high ground without the cover of artillery fire? "

"Okay, Comrade Chief of Staff." Seeing that Malinin's tone was so severe, Batrakov could only bite the bullet and replied: "I will give an order to the commander of the mortar company to draw a platoon to support the nearby Comrades from the Eighth Division of the Guards."

"Who is Lieutenant Sokov?" Just as Ivan and the others accepted the combat order and were about to leave the regiment command post, Malinin suddenly asked again: "I want to talk to him."