After more than half an hour, a captain walked into Rokossovsky's headquarters. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 After raising his hand to salute several group army leaders, the haggard commander put his hand down and stood there silently.

Rokossovsky walked up to him and asked with a calm expression: "Comrade Captain, what is your name, which part of it turned out to be?" ”

"Comrade commander," the captain quickly straightened his back and replied respectfully when he heard Rokossovsky's question, "I am Captain Gurel of the 38th Infantry Division. ”

"Where is your division commander, Colonel Kirillov?" Rokossovsky asked nervously.

"Sacrificed." Gurrell replied very simply.

Hearing that Kirillov died in the breakout battle, Rokossovsky felt a little sad in his heart, but he didn't feel surprised at all, after all, from the outbreak of the battle to the present, the Soviet army has sacrificed too many commanders and fighters, even the commander of the front army like Kirponos has died in battle, let alone ordinary division commanders. After a pause, he then asked, "How many people did you take to break out of the enclosure?" ”

"Two hundred."

"Two hundred?" Rokossovsky was still a little surprised to hear that so many people had broken through the encirclement, after all, the people who had recently been contained were small troops, ranging from seven or eight people to only about twenty people. Now there were two hundred people, which was indeed a bit unexpected to him, and he raised his eyebrows, and then asked, "Captain, what position did you hold in the division?" Battalion commander or regimental chief of staff? ”

Rokossovsky had the impression that because the commanders of the troops had suffered too many losses in battle, some commanders of higher rank had temporarily taken over the command at the battalion and regimental level.

Gurel hesitated for a moment, then replied: "Comrade commander, I am the company commander. After receiving the order to break out, I led my company to desperately break through to the east, and after breaking through the three lines of defense of the Germans in succession, there were only nine men left in the whole company, including me. Seeing what Rokossovsky wanted to ask, he quickly continued, "On the way, I encountered scattered small units from time to time, so I took them in and incorporated them into my company. In this way, by the time we arrived here, we had more than 200 people before we knew it. ”

"Captain, you must be tired." Without waiting for Rokossovsky to speak, Lobachev suddenly came to Gurel, raised his hand and patted him on the shoulder, and said in a friendly manner: "Let's take your people to rest first." After you have a good night's rest, we will integrate you into the new combat unit. ”

After Lobachev finished speaking, he called one of the staff officers in the command headquarters and ordered: "Comrade staff, place the captain and his men in an empty house in the east of the village and provide them with food and hot water." ”

Rokossovsky saw that Lobachev was a little impatient to arrange for Captain Gurel, and although his heart was full of curiosity, he remained silent in order not to dismiss Lobachev in public. It wasn't until after the staff officer had left with Captain Gurel that he asked strangely: "Comrade Military Commissar, I would have wanted to ask a few more words, why did you send him away?" ”

Hearing Rokossovsky's question, Lobachev smiled faintly, turned to look at Kazakov, Malinin, Orel and others, who had been listening: "Comrades commanders, tell me, who is this captain just now?" ”

"Ukrainians!" Orel preemptively said: "I heard his Russian a little not very authentic, with some accents, probably from the Western Ukrainian region. In order to increase the persuasiveness, he also deliberately emphasized, "After all, many oblasts of Western Ukraine only joined our Soviet family at the end of 39, so it is not surprising that they cannot speak authentic Russian." ”

"Not really." And Kazakov waited for Orel to finish speaking, but shook his head and said: "Comrade Colonel, almost all Ukrainians are black-haired, but didn't you just see that all the hair under his hat is blonde?" I think it's possible that it's Estonia or Lithuania, which also joined the USSR for a short time. ”

Rokossovsky looked at Lobachev with some surprise, and said in his heart that his military commissar would not be so boring, and he actually discussed with several main leaders of the army group headquarters which country an ordinary commander was, and there must be some other reason. Thinking of this, he coughed lightly, and then asked tentatively: "Comrade Military Commissar, do you think there is something wrong with this Captain Goodall?" ”

Lobachev frowned and nodded: "Anyway, from the moment the captain walked into the command headquarters, I felt that something was wrong. But I can't tell what's wrong. ”

"Could it be a German agent?" As soon as Lobachev finished speaking, Malinin preemptively asked.

"Comrade Chief of Staff, you are too sensitive." This speculation of Malinin was immediately refuted by Kazakov: "If one or two people came, it was probably a spy sent by the Germans." You know, he brought 200 people, and the Germans would never let so many people put on our uniforms and blend into our defense area, right? ”

The speaker has no intention of listening, and Kazakov's casual words made Rokossovsky fight a cold war with great vigour. He raised his hand to stop Kazakov from continuing, and then told everyone what he thought: "General Kazakov, there is a possibility, have you thought about it. Maybe there are only a few of them, and while they go deep into our army's defense area in disguise, they contain some of our scattered commanders and fighters, so they will have such a force as they are now. ”

"Comrade commander," the expression on Kazakov's face became serious when he heard Rokossovsky say this, and he asked cautiously: "The difficulty is that the Germans have really mixed into our defense zone." ”

Rokossovsky looked at Malinin with his eyes and said word by word: "I agree with the chief of staff's guess that in this unit that has just arrived, there must be German spies, but more of them are our own people. So how to identify German spies from two hundred people is a headache. ”

"Comrade Commander, let's see if you can call Captain Gosha over." After waiting for Rokossovsky to finish, Malinin immediately suggested to him: "After all, they are troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and they are professionals against the enemy infiltrated in disguise. ”

"Yes," Rokossovsky readily agreed to Malinin's proposal, and then ordered: "Let Captain Gosha report to me at once." ”

……

In a private house in the east of the village, there were nine soldiers dressed in Soviet uniforms, and the one with a large-brimmed hat was none other than Captain Gurel, who had been to Rokossovsky not long ago.

He commanded a soldier standing in the doorway, wearing a steel helmet with a submachine gun on his chest, "Roffl, go outside and keep guard, and don't let anyone approach here." "He did not speak Russian not in the same way as he had just spoken to Rokossovsky, but in German that he was much more proficient and fluent in. It turned out that it was not a Soviet commander or fighter who stayed in this room, but a German detachment disguised as a Soviet army.

When the soldier received his order, he nodded, turned and walked out, and closed the door casually.

Captain Gurel, no, to be precise, Lieutenant Mark of the German army, began to present the reconnaissance intelligence to his men: "...... The headquarters of the Russians was in a large house in the village, where they had previously become the office of the village Soviet, in a brick and concrete structure. There are three rooms inside, one is the commander's war room, and they use the information they receive to formulate strategies against our army; One was a spacious communication room, through which the battle plans they had drawn up were conveyed to the various units below; There was also a room, although I didn't get in, but I guess it was a rest room, and the commander would lie down and rest in it when he was sleepy. ”

"Mr. Lieutenant," asked a German soldier wearing a sergeant's badge, cautiously "are they well defended?" ”

Lieutenant Mark shook his head and said, "It can be said that there is no defense, there are only two sentries at the door, and there are no fortifications nearby. All we have to do at night is to touch it and kill the sentry, and we can touch it without knowing it, and take out this headquarters in one fell swoop. ”

"Mr. Lieutenant, we have received an order to terminate the Russian Front Command." The German soldiers said with some displeasure: "Wouldn't rashly dealing with their army group headquarters expose all our intentions?" ”

Hearing his subordinates say this, Lieutenant Mark couldn't help but sneer, and then said in a mocking tone: "Sergeant, do you think we can still leave when we get here?" Listen to them, and tomorrow morning, they will assign us to combat units. With that, he looked at the rest of his men, "You don't want to be assigned to the troops and then be killed in battle with our own men, do you?" ”

In response to the question raised by their commander, all the German soldiers, including the German sergeant who raised the objection, shook their heads neatly, expressing their unwillingness to accept the fate of being killed by their own men.

Seeing that there were no longer any dissenting opinions, Lieutenant Mark began to give orders: "Sergeant Stephen, you take two people to settle the Russian sentry. After the sergeant stood up and said yes, he continued to order, "When the sentry is cleared, the rest of the men will throw grenades into the house before rushing in, and then rush in after the explosion is over." For their commanders, they captured alive if they could, killed all of them if they couldn't, and blew up all their radio stations. Immediately after completing the task, we retreated to the south......"

"Mr. Lieutenant," Sergeant Stephen asked again, without waiting for Mark to finish, "our troops are to the west of the Russians, so why are we withdrawing south?" ”

"Fool, you goddamn idiot!" Mark finally couldn't hold back the anger in his heart, and scolded this subordinate who always liked to speak against him: "Since our troops are in the west, then the Russians must also have heavy troops deployed in the west. Do you want to go through the depths of the Russians' defenses, through the front lines of the exchange of fire, and then back to your own people? Let me tell you, even if you manage to get through the Russian zone, you will be shot to death by our own men as Russians before you reach our zone. ”

After firing a fire, Mark's mood returned to normal a little, and he went on to say to the rest of his men: "The Russians will surely think that after we attack, they will retreat westward, so they will encircle and intercept us in this direction, and if we retreat south, we can easily get rid of their pursuit." After some distance to the south, we turned around and headed west to return to our troops. Do you understand? ”

"Understood," replied the seven German soldiers in the room in a neat whisper.

Hearing everyone's reply, Mark nodded with satisfaction, and then ordered, "Okay, it's still early before dark, everyone hurry up and rest." After all, during this time, we pretended to be Russians and walked in the forest for several days, so we took advantage of this rare opportunity to take a good rest. ”

……

In a church made of logs in the center of the village, a group of horseless cavalry warriors gathered. If a staff officer of the headquarters walked in, he would immediately recognize these fighters, all of whom were soldiers of the cavalry company of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The soldiers were in the hall of the church, while the company commander, Captain Gosha, and a soldier were lying on the roof of the second floor, holding up binoculars and looking towards the east of the village. After a moment of careful observation, a smile appeared on Gosha's face.

The soldier next to him asked curiously: "Comrade Company Commander, what are you laughing at?" ”

"I found what we were looking for." As he spoke, he handed the telescope to the soldier next to him.

The soldier took the binoculars, looked at the private house in the east of the city for a long time, and said suspiciously: "Comrade company commander, we haven't seen anything different?" ”

"You idiot, you haven't observed carefully enough." Guo Sha scolded with a smile and said, "Look, in the dozen or so houses full of soldiers, as long as there is a sentry at the door of one of the houses, haven't you seen the problem?" ”

The soldier handed the binoculars back to Guo Sha and said confusedly: "Comrade Company Commander, it is normal for soldiers to stand guard outside the room, which proves that their vigilance is high." ”

Gosha raised her hand and slapped the warrior's steel helmet and said, "I said you used to be smart, but now you are confused." You take a good look at the room with the sentry, obviously close to the edge of the village, if the sentry is on duty, the direction should be outside the village, not inside the village, understand? ”

When the soldier heard Gosha say this, he suddenly realized, "Oh, I understand, this sentry was specially released by the enemy to spy on us, so the direction of his vigilance is inside the village and not outside the village." Shall we take someone to arrest them now? ”

"Don't be in a hurry." After listening to the soldier's advice, Gosha shook her head and said, "We don't know yet what kind of troops the Germans have and what kind of deployment they have. If you rush through like this, it is easy to cause confusion in the event of an exchange of fire, and the enemy may take advantage of the chaos to slip away. ”

"So what are we going to do?" The warrior asked.

"Call them up and keep a close watch over them here," Gosha instructed the soldiers, "and as soon as we find them out of the houses, we can immediately go out and hunt them out." (To be continued.) )