Red Moscow

The people on the truck opposite also saw Sokov's convoy and stopped immediately. Then the soldiers in the car jumped out of the car and quickly dispersed to the sides of the road and the highway, forming a fan-shaped defense circle.

"Sov, what are they doing?" Andrei asked Sokov curiously.

"I think something is wrong." As a veteran who had fought on the battlefield of the Great Patriotic War for several years, Sokov immediately noticed that something was wrong with the other party, and quickly turned his head and said to Andrei: "Andrei, immediately send a signal to the soldiers behind and let them prepare for battle. I suspect these people are disguised by the Germans."

When they set out in the morning, Sokov was worried that they might encounter the enemy on the road, so he agreed on a special contact signal with the soldiers in charge of each car.

Andrei heard what Sokov said and realized that there was something wrong with the group of soldiers. He quickly raised his hand and knocked on the board behind the driver's seat, and opened the small window casually. Soon, a soldier came to the window and asked, "Andrei, what's going on?"

"Did you see the group of soldiers in front?"

"Yes."

"Sokov suspects that they are disguised by the Germans. You signal the cars behind to get them ready for battle."

"Okay, I'll signal immediately."

The soldier in the second car saw the signal from the first car and immediately sent it to the second car. The second car then sent a signal to the third car, like a relay.

The guard sitting in the co-pilot seat of the car saw the soldier in the car in front constantly making gestures to the back, and hurriedly called Vlasov, and then said in surprise: "Comrade Commander, please look quickly, the soldier in the car in front seems to be sending some signal to the back?"

Vlasov took a look and saw that a soldier in the car in front was constantly making gestures in his direction. He also didn't know what was going on, so he could only frown and say, "Strange, what is this Sokov doing?"

The convoy stopped about ten meters away from the defense circle. Sokov got out of the car with a submachine gun and saw a captain standing in the middle of the road with his hands behind his back. He turned to Andrei who was still sitting in the car and said, "Andrei, let the soldiers prepare for battle. If they find anything wrong, they will shoot immediately. Do you understand?"

"Sokof, isn't it too dangerous for you to go alone?"

"It's okay. With you guys as my backup, how can I be in danger? . "

Sokov came to the captain with a gun, raised his hand and saluted and asked: "Comrade Captain, I wonder what you are doing here?"

"We received a notice that Germans have sneaked into this area, so we have to conduct strict inspections on passing vehicles."

"Oh, really."

Sokov remembered three ways to quickly identify Germans: First, identify the accent. Russian has a lot of retroflex sounds, and some syllables are very difficult. People who are not native Russian speakers find it difficult to speak exactly the same. Just because of this small difference, the disguised enemy can be exposed.

Second, look at the documents. The staples used on the Soviet documents are made of crude steel and are easy to rust; while the staples used on the fake documents used by the Germans are stainless steel and will not rust at all.

Third, the spikes on the soles of the boots of the Soviet and German armies. The Soviet boots use round-headed nails, and the German boots use square-headed nails.

Now the man standing in front of him, wearing the rank of captain, it was obviously unrealistic to ask him to say more; and checking his ID was even more impossible. Because the only way to distinguish between the enemy and us is to look at the nails on their feet. Sokov looked behind the captain and saw a row of footprints on the mud.

After a quick identification, he determined that the footprints printed on the mud were the marks of square-headed nails left by German military boots.

After confirming the identity of the other party, Sokov turned his head and looked behind him, and found that his soldiers were looking at him, as if they were ready for battle.

He turned around and faced the captain again, and then asked in fluent German: "If I'm not mistaken, you are the Brandenburg troops, right?"

The captain showed a shocked expression on his face, and then reached to his waist, as if he was ready to draw his gun. But how could Sokov give her the opportunity to shoot? He quickly lay back and sat directly on the ground, and pulled the trigger of the submachine gun in his hand at the captain.

Amid the continuous shooting, countless blood splashed on the captain's chest and abdomen. He screamed twice, covered the wound on his chest, and fell to the ground.

Seeing the captain being shot and falling to the ground, the soldiers who were arranged in a fan-shaped formation woke up as if from a dream, and quickly raised their guns to aim at Sokov. But Sokov would never let them hit him, and rolled on the ground, leaving the shooting area of ​​the bullets.

Without waiting for these fake Soviet soldiers to shoot again, the weapons in the hands of the soldiers in the car opened fire intensively, and for a while, the soldiers were beaten like leaves in the wind.

When no one was left standing, the soldiers in the first car jumped out of the car and came to Sokov.

Vlasov also got out of his car. He quickly came to Sokov and asked with a stern face: "Comrade Sokov, explain to me why you shot at our own people and killed them all without leaving a single one."

Faced with Vlasov's accusation, Sokov said calmly: "Comrade General, what you see with your own eyes may not be true. You see them as one of your own, but in my eyes , but they are enemies.”

"What, they are enemies?" Vlasov looked at the enemies lying in a pool of blood, frowned and asked, "How do you prove it?"

"If you want to prove it, it's very simple." Sokov bent down and dragged a corpse in front of him, lifted one of the corpse's feet, and said to Vlasov: "Comrade General, you saw it, the Germans used The spikes are square, but our army’s spikes are round.”

In order to prevent Vlasov from believing in himself, Sokov searched the body for a while, took out an ID card, held it in front of Vlasov, and continued: "Comrade General, take a look, in the military ID card None of the staples are rusty. You know, the staples in our military ID cards are easy to rust, but the German staples are made of stainless steel, so they won’t rust.”

After reading Sokov's comparison, Vlasov couldn't help but gasped: "Sokov, so it means they are Germans in disguise?"

"That's right," Sokov nodded and said in a positive tone: "I can confirm that this team is disguised by the Germans."

Vlasov roughly counted the bodies on the ground and said expressionlessly: "There are only 19 of them. How dare they attack our convoy of nearly a hundred people?"

"Comrade General, the reason is very simple." Seeing that Vlasov seemed a little doubtful, Sokov quickly added: "They may have seen your car in the convoy and thought we had the big fish they wanted, so they Regardless of the fact that they had fewer troops than us, they hurriedly set up a cordon on the highway."

When Sokov said this, Andrei added: "Comrade General, Sokov is right. After the Germans set up a cordon here and blocked the way of our convoy, you will definitely get out of the car and ask in person. What's going on? When you show up, that's when they do it. But they never dreamed that they would be identified prematurely."

"That's it, Comrade General." Sokov waited for Andre to finish, and then continued: "The Germans must have wanted to wait for you to get out of the car and catch you, this big fish, so they saw that I was the only one getting out of the car. , they didn’t act rashly. Who knew it was this wrong decision that led to the annihilation of their entire army.”

A soldier came over with the military identification card found on the body and handed it to Sokov.

Sokov opened it and took a look. The staples inside were indeed made of stainless steel, with no rust at all.

"Comrade General, look, this is the military ID they carry." Sokov handed the military ID in his hand to Vlasov: "It is the same as what we have."

After reading the military certificate in his hand, Vlasov finally recognized Sokov's statement in his heart. The small unit that was eliminated was indeed disguised by the Germans. After he handed the military ID card back to Sokov, he asked: "What should I do with these corpses?"

"Of course we have to dig a hole and bury them," Sokov said. "Otherwise our passing troops will mistake them for our own people when they see them."

"Sokov, you are right." Vlasov nodded and said: "We can't let them lie on the road like this, lest our own people misunderstand them. When you lead people to dig holes to bury them, remember them All the uniforms and weapons were taken away.”

"Understood, Comrade General." After Sokov agreed, he ordered Andre: "Andre, you immediately lead people to dig a hole and bury these corpses. We have to continue on our way."

"Why do you always leave this kind of drudgery to me?" Andre muttered, turning around to call for help, preparing to find a soft soil location next to the road, dig a hole and bury the bodies of the Germans.

When Andrei was digging a hole on the roadside with his men, Vlasov said to Sokov: "Comrade Sokov, although you are a new recruit, I think you are not simple. Waiting for this new appointment Are you interested in staying with me after you come down?”

Sokov couldn't help but tremble after hearing this. He thought to himself, "I can't even hide from you, but I still follow you. Isn't that the old man hanging himself because he doesn't want to live too long?"

However, he did not refuse Vlasov face to face. After all, he still had to escort him to Moscow. He could only say tactfully: "Comrade General, thank you for your kindness. As for where I will go in the future, I will wait for your new appointment." Besides, if the Supreme Command wants to keep you in Moscow, I’m afraid I won’t be able to stay even if I want to.”

"Why do you say that?"

"People are needed on the front line." Sokov said sincerely: "People like me with a little combat experience will definitely be sent to the front line."

While talking, a motorcade drove up from a distance, and the supplies on the vehicle were all covered tightly by dark green canvas.

The convoy stopped dozens of meters away, and an officer and several soldiers came over. Their weapons were not in their hands, but in their hands. They seemed to be ready for battle.

Seeing this, Sokov quickly gestured to the machine gunner standing in the carriage. After the other party understood, he aimed the machine gun above the bridge at those people. As long as he saw Sokov giving a signal, he would pull the trigger without hesitation.

"Which unit are you in?" the officer leading the team shouted from about ten meters away.

"We are from the 4th Mechanized Army." Since Sokov's unit did not have a designation, it could only temporarily borrow the designation of the unit commanded by Vlasov: "We were ordered to escort a senior commander back to Moscow."

Hearing what Sokov said, the officer raised his hand to ask the soldiers around him to lower their guns. Then he walked up to Vlasov alone, raised his hand and reported his name, rank, and unit to the other party. positions held here.

After finding out that the other party was a transport captain, Vlasov asked with interest: "Comrade Lieutenant, I wonder where you plan to send this batch of supplies?"

"Report to Comrade General that this batch of supplies is sent to Nirvana."

"Oh, it turned out to be sent to Nizhin." Vlasov said with a smile: "We just left there early this morning."

"Comrade General," the transportation captain looked at the corpses thrown aside and asked curiously, "What's going on with these corpses?"

"It's a group of Germans disguised as our troops." Sokov said first: "They tried to intercept us here, but we saw through it and the whole army was wiped out."

In order to convince the transport captain that what he said was true, Sokov even pulled him to squat next to a corpse: "Comrade Lieutenant, you see, the spikes on the bottom of the shoes they wear are square, and the spikes of our army are It’s round.”

The transportation captain carefully looked at the soles of the corpse's shoes and found that the spikes on the soles were indeed square. He nodded and said, "Yes, his spikes are indeed square."

Sokov then handed the transport captain a seized military ID card: "Look at the staples in the military ID card. They are all made of stainless steel."

"Comrade soldier," the transport captain said to Sokov after finally confirming that the corpses on the ground were not his own, but Germans disguised as his own, "I saw so many corpses of the enemy lying on the ground from a distance, and I thought They were part of a small force that was wiped out by the Germans, so they came over with a few soldiers to check on them. Fortunately, they didn't act recklessly, otherwise they would have started fighting with each other."

The misunderstanding was cleared and the convoy was about to continue on its way. Sokov quickly asked Andrei and the others to move the corpses on the road so as not to affect the normal movement of the convoy.

The transport captain asked curiously: "Comrade soldier, I see you don't have any military rank. Why do these soldiers obey your orders like this?"

Before Sokov could speak, Andrei said first: "Comrade Lieutenant, in our army, we do not look at rank or position, but at who has the ability. Even though Sokov is a new recruit who has not long joined the army, but He has made great achievements. Because of this, no soldier in the company disobeys him. Therefore, even if he does not have a military rank, all soldiers in the company will obey every order he gives. "

"So that's it." After the transportation captain figured out what was going on, he nodded slowly. Seeing the truck he was riding in approaching, he stretched out his hand to Sokov and said with a smile: "Comrade soldier, we will meet again later. I hope that when we meet again next time, you have obtained a military rank that matches your abilities."