Oryel and I rushed out of the church and saw that there was a mess outside.

Several German planes circled in the air, occasionally diving down to drop bombs or strafe them. In the thick smoke and firelight, the anti-aircraft machine gun company that had formed an anti-aircraft position yesterday was firing fiercely into the air, groups of soldiers with bare hands or weapons were running around in panic, and several female soldiers from the cooking squad were also running blindly behind the crowd with utensils.

"Hidden! Hide! I took a few steps forward and shouted at the female soldiers, but the sound of explosions and anti-aircraft machine gun fire silenced my voice.

"Be careful!" A man swooped up from behind and crushed me to the snow, and almost at the same time, a bullet fired from a swooping enemy plane passed through where I had been standing.

"You hurry up and find a place to hide, I'll evacuate the people from the headquarters." As soon as the man pressed on me spoke, I immediately heard that it was Deputy Chief of Staff Orel who had just saved my life. I quickly loosened my back, and Orel had already gotten up and ran towards the church, shouting in his loud voice as he ran: "All the people in the headquarters have left their positions and gone outside to hide!" ……”

In the midst of his shouting, I also heard a series of screams, and when I turned my head, it turned out that it was the soldier standing guard at the door who had been cut in two by a machine gun bullet. Because he died in no one fell swoop, his upper body dragged his blood-red intestines, and he was rolling in a scream of extreme pain. ……

Seeing the tragic scene in front of me and smelling the strong bloody smell, I only felt that the river and the sea were tumbling between my chest and abdomen, and something was surging upwards one after another, and I couldn't bear it anymore, so I lay there and vomited.

The bombs dropped by the plane exploded everywhere in the village, and I was thinking about where to hide, although I had been shouting for everyone to hide just now, it was just an instinctive reaction, and I didn't know where to hide if I wanted to hide, maybe lying on the ground was the safest.

From time to time, bombs fell on the crowd, and the blast of the explosion lifted the soldiers high into the air, and then threw them down again. In the incessant explosion, my hands and feet trembled involuntarily, and my body lay in the snow and did not dare to move, for fear of being hit by shrapnel flying everywhere.

A bloody arm suddenly fell in front of me, startling me unprepared. After a little calming down and taking a closer look, I found that the skin of that arm was delicate and fair, which should belong to women. The residents of the village have already been evacuated, could it be that a female soldier in the cooking class has suffered misfortune?

Looking around, I saw Damana, who had helped me change my clothes a few days ago, lying covered in blood in the snow not far away, rolling on the spot while muttering something from her mouth that kept gushing out of the blood. I hurriedly crawled to her side with my hands and feet, hugged her body, and asked loudly, "Damana, how are you?" ”

Damana looked at me with silent eyes, opened her mouth a few times, and said a few words in a very weak voice. I couldn't hear what she was saying because of the explosions around me, and I tried to put my ear to her mouth to listen, but she tilted her head and stopped breathing.

When I saw Damana who had died in my arms, a wave of sadness welled up in my heart, and my eyes began to moisten. Death! It turns out that it is so simple, on a battlefield full of war, it may only take a few seconds for a living life to turn into a cold corpse. My tears swirled in my red eyes for a long time, but I couldn't help but flow out and fall on Damana's face one by one.

"Boom!" A bomb exploded not far away, and the snow and mud fell on me.

Looking up, it turned out that another enemy plane had swooped down and dropped bombs on the village. Seeing the enemy planes raging in the air, I suddenly felt an irrepressible urge in my heart to take revenge and take down the damned enemy planes! Looking around, I saw that the anti-aircraft machine guns in the anti-aircraft positions of the village were desperately firing into the air. I wiped away a handful of tears, put down Damana's body, stood up and rushed to the nearest anti-aircraft position.

I was terrified of the explosion of this bomb just now, but now I didn't even do the instinctive neck shrinking movement, but just bent down and ran towards the anti-aircraft machine gun. Seeing that there were still about twenty paces to run, a bomb fell next to the anti-aircraft machine gun, and the blast of the explosion burst the breastwork wall made of sandbags, and the soldier who was shooting covered his head and planted himself from his seat, and the machine gun suddenly fell silent.

I quickened my pace, stepped over the collapsed sandbag, jumped onto the machine gun seat, and with a quick turn of the handle, I aimed at the enemy plane in the air through the scope. A soldier next to me shouted at me: "Comrade commander, is there anything you need my help with?" ”

"Help me with ammo." I said lightly, and then put my foot on the gun button, increasing my strength a little bit......

"Yes!" The warrior quickly inserted two magazines into the body of the gun.

The target of the enemy plane in the scope grew larger and clearer. "Maybe the soldier standing guard was split in two just now, and it was this plane that killed Damana." Thinking so, I pressed the gun button hard, and a string of bullets burst out of the muzzle and fired at the enemy plane.

The two magazines were quickly gone, but they weren't even next to each other. At this time, I suddenly remembered that when I was in the Pulkovo Heights, I heard those female soldiers say the trick of fighting enemy planes: it is better to meet than to chase! That is, when an enemy plane dives, it shoots head-on at a higher rate than when it is chasing an enemy plane's butt. So I changed my strategy and continued to focus on the enemy planes in the air, while slowing down the rotation of the gun

The enemy planes were again ready to dive at high altitude and screeched towards the position. When the scope was once again lassoed by the enemy plane, I did not hesitate to press the gun button, and a series of bullets were fired at the enemy plane.

The enemy plane was hit, dragging out a puff of black smoke and sliding to the side. Although the enemy plane had already been damaged, I had no intention of letting it go, and continued to lock it with the scope, and constantly pressed the gun button, and the machine gun bullets were intensively sprayed at the enemy plane. In an instant, a loud noise was faintly heard, and the enemy plane exploded and disintegrated in the air, turning into pieces of fragments and drifting down.

Having destroyed an enemy plane, my nervous body and mind suddenly relaxed, my right foot released the gun button, and I sat down weakly in my seat.

"Hide!" The fighter who loaded me with ammunition suddenly shouted and pushed me.

I didn't figure out what was going on, but I instinctively jumped off the anti-aircraft machine gun and ran to the side.

After a few steps of running, I was thrown down from behind, and then I heard an earth-shattering explosion from behind, and then a cloud of mud and snow fell from the sky and buried me in one fell swoop.

After a long while, the person who was pressing on me moved, and asked me in a low voice: "Comrade commander, are you okay?" ”

"I'm fine, what's going on?"

"The Germans saw that one of their planes was shot down, and the few remaining planes all turned around and swooped down viciously towards us, so I let you hide." The warrior stood up as he spoke.

I felt a lightness on my back, and I immediately rolled over and sat up. I saw that the place where the anti-aircraft machine gun had been placed just now had been blown into a large crater, and wisps of green smoke were still emitting. I got up from the ground with a palpit, walked to the pit, looked at the wreckage of the anti-aircraft machine gun, and thought to myself that it was a fluke, if it wasn't for the soldier's quick reaction, I guess there would be no bones left.

The enemy planes circled over the village for a while, presumably having dropped all their bombs, before they all turned around and flew away.

"Everyone, come and help!" In the distance, someone shouted, "The commanders are buried in the church!" ”

Hearing this, I couldn't help but shudder, turned my head to look at the location of the church, and was surprised to find that the bombing had turned the church into a smoke-filled ruin, and the large dome covered with gold leaf had also broken into several pieces and scattered all around. Around the church were a number of warriors who were nervously searching for survivors.

"Orel just went into the church to take charge of the evacuation, he'll be fine." I thought so as I kept running towards the original headquarters.

When I came to the ruins, I desperately tried to squeeze into the crowd, but I was pulled by someone from behind, and when I looked back, it was Orel. His head was bandaged, and blood oozed from his forehead.

"You're all right, are you?" You're all right, are you? We both asked each other in unison.

"It's fine, it's good! What about you? We both answered each other's questions at the same time.

"Comrade Deputy Chief of Staff, what happened?" This time I asked him first.

He pointed to the ruins of the church with his hand and said emotionally: "At least five bombs hit the church just now, and then it collapsed." ”

"How's the casualty?" I asked with concern.

He shook his head and said: "Although I commanded the evacuation of the personnel just now, it was still a step too slow, and most of the commanders of the Intelligence Department and the Operations Department did not have time to withdraw, and the church collapsed and buried them inside, and I am organizing people to rescue them." ”

I looked at the soldiers busy in the rubble, and I knew in my heart that the chances of surviving were very slim if people were buried in such ruins. After a pause, I asked again, "Is there an update on the situation of the battle?" ”

"Yes. This is the last document ever received by the Intelligence Service. Orel took out a folded piece of paper from his pocket, opened it and read to me: "This morning's partial counter-assault on the orders of the Front has had little effect. At the beginning, as a result of our sudden attack, our troops even managed to penetrate about 3 kilometers into the enemy's garrison, but at this time the enemy began to launch an offensive on all fronts of our army. Our advancing units were forced to return in a hurry. The cavalry corps led by Dovator was in a particularly difficult situation, as the enemy attacked them from all sides, but thanks to the clever commanders, the maneuverable cavalry were able to escape and avoid being completely surrounded. ”

"The commander is back!" A soldier next to him shouted excitedly.

Oryel and I looked in the direction of the village, where a black sedan was waddling along the potholes. As the car approached, I was shocked to see that the front windshield was completely gone, and there were bullet holes all over the body. As soon as the car came to a stop, Commander Rokossovsky jumped out of the car, and his image also startled me, his long military coat covered with mud, as if he had just rolled on the mud.

Orel greeted him and said with concern: "Comrade commander, why did you come back alone, commissar?" ”

"As soon as the commissar Comrade Lobachev and I came out of the 316th Division, we went directly to the cadet regiment, where fierce battles were also taking place. I rushed back to the command post here to find out the situation of the troops in each zone. Unexpectedly, on the way back, the car was strafed by German planes twice in a row. "After listening to Rokossovsky's story, I understood why he looked so embarrassed, because there was an air raid on the way. He walked briskly to the church, pointed to the ruins and asked Orel, "What is going on?" ”

Orel lowered his head and replied sadly: "Just now enemy planes carried out a frenzied bombing of our place, the church where the headquarters was located was hit by five bombs, and most of the comrades from the intelligence and operations departments were killed. ”

Looking at the mutilated corpses on the ground, Rokossovsky's face became heavy. His hands trembled incessantly, obviously with great excitement.