Just as Rokossovsky and the dean were about to turn away, they suddenly heard a cough coming from the bed. The two of them looked at the female military doctor lying on the bed at the same time, only to see that she opened her eyes, held her forehead with her hand, and asked weakly, "Kaja, why am I here?" ”

Kaja, the female hygienist who sat on the edge of the bed and took care of her, heard Carinna's voice and couldn't help but say in surprise: "Comrade military doctor, thank God, you are finally awake." You are so tired that you faint on the operating table. I and the other paramedics sent you here to rest. ”

"No, I can't rest." Carina pressed her forehead with both hands and said, "There are still a lot of wounded people waiting for surgery, I'll rest for a while and go." ”

Hearing that Carinna was unwilling to rest and wanted to rush to the operating room immediately, the dean just wanted to say a few words, but Rokossovsky stopped him. Rokossovsky walked to the side of the bed, bent down and said to Carina who was lying on the bed: "Comrade military doctor, you are too tired, it is better to lie down and sleep for a while." ”

When Canina heard Rokossovsky's voice, she was taken aback, she didn't expect that there was someone else in the room besides Kaja. When she looked up at Rokossovsky's epaulettes, she tried to sit up straight and salute the other party, but as soon as she looked up, she felt a wave of vertigo and fell back on the pillow.

"Comrade military doctor," Rokossovsky said solemnly, reining in the smile on his face, "as your superior, I admire this professionalism of yours; But I still want to tell you that your task now is to rest, and when you are recuperate, you can go back to the operating table and operate on the wounded. Do you understand? ”

After listening to Rokossovsky's words, Carenina's face turned slightly red, and she replied in a low voice: "Understood." ”

Rokossovsky had the opportunity to look at the female military doctor lying on the bed up close, only to see that she had a goose egg face, delicate facial features, and short blond hair that reached her ears, and she was actually a beautiful military doctor.

Perhaps noticing that Rokossovsky had been staring at her intently, Carina looked a little embarrassed, and she blushed and said to Rokossovsky: "Comrade commander, I want to rest......" At this point, she did not continue, but looked at the handsome general in front of her with affection.

"Oooh, you're going to rest." When Rokossovsky heard Canina say this, he realized that he was a little out of shape, and hurriedly muttered: "Then I'll come to see you another day, you can have a good rest." With that, he called the dean and left the lounge.

The political commissar of the hospital and the two military commissars who were standing outside chatting saw Rokossovsky and the dean coming out of it and hurriedly greeted them.

The dean asked Rokossovsky for instructions: "Comrade commander, should we continue the visit, or should we go back to the dean's office?" ”

Rokossovsky felt that when he arrived at this hospital today, he had seen almost everything he needed to see, so he simply said: "Go to your director's office and sit down, and then we will go back to the headquarters." ”

Just as the group was walking towards the hospital building, they suddenly saw an officer with a pistol, carrying a stretcher along the two stretchers, walking quickly in the direction of the operating room. Seeing this, Rokossovsky frowned and asked unhappily: "What's going on?" What unit did this officer belong to, and why was he holding a stretcher man at gunpoint? ”

Terekin was afraid that Rokossovsky would run over recklessly, so he waved to the guard who was following in the distance, and immediately a second lieutenant ran over and asked Terekin: "Comrade Military Commissar, what are your instructions?" ”

Terekin pointed at the officer who was carrying the stretcher and instructed: "Go and ask him why he is pointing a gun at our stretcherman." ”

The second lieutenant agreed, and ran over with two guards soldiers. They quickly caught up with the stretcher, but a heated argument ensued, and the officer even pointed his pistol at the second lieutenant, but two other guards rushed up and snatched his pistol and cut his hand behind his back.

Rokossovsky saw that there was almost a fight in front of him, his face suddenly turned pale, he shook his head at the person behind him, and said: "Let's go over and see what is going on." ”

Standing in front of the officer, whose hands had been cut behind his back, Rokossovsky looked at him carefully, and saw that the lieutenant officer's face was full of murder and seemed to be very emotional. He turned his head and asked the two stretcher bearers standing nearby, "What the hell is going on, why is this lieutenant forcing you to carry the stretcher with a pistol?" ”

A stretcher bearer stepped forward and replied: "Comrade General, we had just taken the wounded out of the hospital, and who knew that we met this officer on the way and said that he wanted us to save a wounded. But when we arrived at the place, we saw that the wounded that the lieutenant had spoken of had turned into a cold corpse. We told him that the man was dead and that he should go to the person who collected the body, not the person who treated the wounded. When he heard this, he was furious with us, pointed a gun at us, and ordered us to carry the girl on a stretcher. ”

When the dean heard this, he hurriedly walked to the stretcher placed aside and examined the body on the stretcher. Having done all this, he returned to Rokossovsky and reported: "Comrade commander, I have checked, the deceased was a female serviceman, and judging by the sleeves she was wearing, she should have been in the vicinity directing traffic. She was hit by several shrapnel in the chest, which had been blown up, and she must have been sacrificed for a long time. ”

"Let him go." After listening to what the dean had said, Rokossovsky immediately ordered the two fighters to let the officer go, and then asked: "Tell me, what the hell is going on?" ”

The lieutenant officer's mood had calmed down a lot at this moment, especially when he recognized that the person standing in front of him was the commander of the front, he immediately straightened up and replied respectfully: "Report to Comrade Commander, it is my wife who has died, she is a traffic controller. Today my troops were withdrawn from the front line to recuperate, just as they were passing by the intersection where she was on duty. I asked the captain for leave to see her.

Who knew that our convoy was shelled by the Germans, and the intersection where she was on duty was also the area of the shelling. I watched as a shell exploded in front of her, and she clutched her chest and collapsed. I asked the two stretchers to save her, but they said my wife was dead and wouldn't put her on the stretcher. So as soon as my mind was hot, I ......" At this point, the lieutenant could no longer control his emotions, and squatted on the ground with his hands over his face and sobbed.

No one laughed at his weakness, everyone stood aside and looked sympathetically at his comrade-in-arms, who had just lost his wife. When Rokossovsky waited for him to cry almost, he took the pistol from the guard's hand, handed it to him, and said to him: "Comrade lieutenant, remember this hatred, sooner or later we will one day take revenge on the Germans." ”

The lieutenant wiped tears from his face with his sleeve, stood up and saluted Rokossovsky, threw a wistful glance at his wife's body, and then turned and strode away.

"Comrade Dean." Seeing the officer's distant back, Terekin instructed the dean: "Find someone to bury the female soldier at once, in this case, the lieutenant's heart may be better." ”

After saying goodbye to the dean and the commissar, Rokossovsky and the three of them returned to the headquarters in a car. Seeing them walk into the headquarters, Ma Lining immediately greeted them and asked with concern: "How is it, how many wounded can we get from the hospital?" ”

"Very little, Comrade Chief of Staff." Terekin said with a wry smile: "After the results of our field investigation, there are probably only more than 300 wounded who can return to the team in a short time. ”

"What, only more than three hundred?" When Ma Lining heard this number, his face was full of disappointment: "The strength of less than one battalion, even if it is put into the battlefield, it will not be of any use." ”

"The hospitals directly under the front army are basically seriously wounded." Terekin explained to Malinin: "They do not care about the length of their hospitalization, and many of the wounded are left with lifelong disabilities, and even if they are discharged from the hospital, they will not be able to return to the battlefield." ”

"So what do we do?" Malinen asked with some disappointment: "Where are we going to find so many lost soldiers?" ”

"There are two ways," Rokossovsky said slowly: "One is to rely on those wounded who have recovered and been discharged from the hospital, and I am not referring to the hospitals directly under the front army, but the hospitals of the group army or division, where there are more soldiers; Secondly, it is those prisoner of war camps that we have liberated, and the prisoners of war inside have been screened and incorporated into combat units. ”

Hearing that Rokossovsky was preparing to integrate prisoners of war into the troops, Malinin did not have anything, after all, in the great counteroffensive under Moscow, he used to replenish his troops in this way. But Ponomarenko's reaction was more violent: "What, to replenish prisoners of war to our troops? No, this is absolutely not possible. Comrade Rokossovsky, I remind you that Comrade Stalin once said: we have no prisoners of war, only traitors to the Motherland. If you really want to integrate prisoners of war into the army, you will make a mistake. As the military commissar of the Front, I felt compelled to report this to the base camp. ”

"Comrade Ponomarenko," Rokossovsky waited for Ponomarenko to finish, neither getting angry nor refuting, but asked lightly: "Do you have a better way to replenish the lost soldiers for the troops?" ”

"No, resolutely not." Ponomarenko stubbornly said: "I will immediately report this to the High Command and let them stop your mistakes." ”

Rokossovsky simply stretched out his hand and pointed at the high-frequency phone, signaling that Ponomarenko could immediately call and report to the Supreme High Command. Ponomarenko came over and grabbed the phone, dialed it, and said into the microphone: "Please pick me up from Comrade Stalin's office in the Kremlin, my communication password is..."

A few minutes later, Stalin received a call from Ponomarenko. When he heard Ponomarenko's voice, he thought it was quite strange, so he asked curiously: "Comrade Ponomarenko, you called me so late, is there anything important?" ”

"Yes, Comrade Stalin." Ponomarenko said with a serious expression: "When we were discussing how to replenish the troops, the commander of the Front, Rokossovsky, put forward a very erroneous point of view, that is, to recruit those prisoners of war from the prisoner camps liberated by our troops to replenish the troops......"

"Comrade Ponomarenko," before Ponomarenko could finish speaking, Stalin interrupted him and asked lightly: "Besides, can you find a better way to replenish the losses of the troops in battle?" ”

Stalin's question made Ponomarenko dumbfounded for a long time, and finally he muttered: "I'm sorry, Comrade Stalin, I can't find a better way to replenish the lost soldiers of our army for the time being, but I think Comrade Rokossovsky's approach is wrong, and it will be wrong." ”

"What if I allowed it?" Stalin asked expressionlessly: "Do you still think that what Rokossovsky did would make a mistake?" ”

Stalin's words left Ponomarenko speechless, and he only heard Stalin continue: "Comrade Ponomarenko, I sent you to the Central Front to cooperate with Rokossovsky, and not to trouble him. I remind you of this, military matters, Rokossovsky has the final say, he says what he does, understand? ”

"Understood." Ponomarenko replied stiffly.

"Very well, since you understand, let's cooperate with Rokossovsky with all your might." After Stalin finished speaking, he didn't give Ponomarenko a chance to speak again, and hung up the phone directly.

Ponomarenko held the microphone for a long time, and finally put down the microphone and said apologetically to Rokossovsky: "I'm sorry, Comrade Commander, you are the No. 1 commander of the Front, and you have the final say in everything in the Central Front." I assure you that I will be your deputy in the future. ”

Rokossovsky smiled when he saw that the matter was satisfactorily resolved, and was about to stand up and shake hands with Ponomarenko, and by the way comfort the other party, but as soon as he stood up, a pinprick-like pain came from his back. He snorted in pain and stumbled forward, but fortunately he held on to the table in time to avoid falling.

"Comrade Commander, what's wrong with you?" Rokossovsky's actions startled Malinin, he hurriedly supported Rokossovsky and asked with concern: "What's wrong with you, doesn't it matter?" ”

Rokossovsky endured the pain in his back, tried to squeeze a smile on his face, and said to everyone: "I used too much force when I got up just now, and I may have involved the wound, and now it hurts very badly. But it's okay, it'll be fine in a while. Let's all rest assured. ”