The fog gradually lifted. In the observation post, I could barely see through my binoculars the cavalry warriors in black cloaks and waving sabers following closely behind the tanks, charging the enemy lines in the distance.

The phone on the desk rang, and then I heard the voice of the commander: "I'm Rokossovsky, where are you?" I looked away from my binoculars to hear if there was any good news of another victory.

"Comrade Commander, I'm Panfilov!" The anxious voice of the commander of the 316th Infantry Division came from the earpiece: "I would like to ask, what is the task of our 316th Infantry Division?" ”

"Comrade division commander," Rokossovsky said with obvious dissatisfaction, "the order is clear, the task of your division is to hold Volokramsk in order to ensure the security of the flanks of the attacking troops. ”

"But, comrade commander," the division commander Panfilov strenuously defended, "the commanders and fighters of our division can do more, not only can we launch a counterattack against the Germans on all fronts, but we can even transfer a part of our forces to support other units participating in the counterattack......

"Holding on to Volokramsk was to ensure that the flanks of the counterattack units of the army group were not attacked by the Germans. You should understand this, Comrade Division Commander. "The attitude of the commander of the army group was unusually harsh. After a pause, he said in a tone of lesson: "Comrade division commander, everything in the war is equally important—whether it is offensive or defensive. I also have to remind you of this, do you understand what will happen if the flank of my counterattacking force is attacked by the enemy? If you all leave your positions and go to the counterattack, then who will stop them? ”

"But ......" Panfilov on the other end of the phone still wanted to distinguish something, but was unceremoniously interrupted by Rokossovsky: "Comrade division commander, don't continue to talk, I will naturally let you go up when it is time for you to go in the future." At the moment your task is to hold Volokramsk, to resolutely hold the city, to ensure the security of the flanks of the army group. Do you understand? With that, he hung up.

"Comrade Commander, should we go to the front and have a look?" Seeing that the commander had finished answering the call, Chief of Staff Malinin cautiously put forward his own proposal.

"Well, that's good, let's all go and see. Comrade Malinin, you can arrange for the entire headquarters to be moved forward to Skirmanovo. ”

"Understood, Comrade Commander." Malinin replied loudly.

He first looked at Kazakov, who was sitting at the table, and said: "Let's go, comrade artillery commander, go and see what the results of those artillery under your command are?" Then he turned to me and said, "Lida, you come with us." ”

I and the command came out of the observation post, and under the protection of a dozen fighters armed with submachine guns, we walked through the wide battlefield and walked towards the newly recovered Skirmaovo.

The open battlefield was deserted, but when I looked closely, I immediately saw the corpses of soldiers in camouflage suits or black cloaks. The further you go, the more corpses of the fighters there are. Looking at the bodies of these soldiers, who were destined to no longer stand up and fall on the way to the charge, I couldn't help but burst into tears.

Rokossovsky and the others, perhaps accustomed to seeing life and death, became indifferent to all this, and they calmly continued to walk. Kazakov, who was walking in front of me, suddenly said: "Do you know what kind of person the commander of the 4th Tank Brigade is?" You see, we have been walking for so long that we have not seen a single destroyed tank, except for the fallen infantry and cavalry fighters. ”

Rokossovsky replied: "You ask the brigade commander of the 4th Tank Brigade, his name is Katukov, he is an interesting guy, I have known him for more than ten years. I remember when I was still 36 years old, I once watched one of the exercises he participated in. During that exercise, the armored unit of his side had the task of breaking through the 'enemy army', and before breaking through, it was discovered that the trench dug by the 'enemy' actually exceeded the width of the span of his own tank. When the other detachments were at a loss, he actually ordered the fighters of the T-18 tank detachment under his command to drive two of them into the trenches, and then adopted the almost barbaric method of 'burying the vehicles as a bridge', and drove the tanks through the fortified area. Afterwards, he was called a 'Kutuzov-style commander' by the People's Commissar of Defense Marshal Tukhachevsky. ”

"Yes, this Katukov is quite powerful," Deputy Chief of Staff Orel continued: "The colonel only took over the 4th Tank Brigade in early October, when the brigade had only 45 old tanks and was short of ammunition, and their task was to hold the western gate of Moscow Mtsensk and block the German Gudry installation of armor clusters. ……”

"It's 45 tanks, and it's not easy to stop Guderian." Kazakov said with emotion.

Comrade Colonel knew that hard work was not the way to go, so he urged the soldiers to dig fake bunkers day and night, and also used plywood to build a large number of fake tanks and camouflage, while the real tank positions were deployed four kilometers away. The soldiers were tossed by Katukov for several days and nights without sleeping, and behind their backs they were calling him "a German spy commander who wanted to exhaust the Russians". ”

"And what happened next?" Political Commissar Lobachev also couldn't help but ask curiously.

"It wasn't until the beginning of the battle that the commanders and fighters found out that following this 'slippery brigade commander' could at least save their lives. It is said that during the Battle of Mtsensk, Katukov used each soldier carefully, and stipulated that each tank should have three or four firing points, and that a few shots would be used to change places, so that our army would appear very strong. His deceptive tactics were so effective that the German side was fooled, and when they reported to their superiors, they even claimed that there was a big battle between thousands of tanks here. The 4th Tank Brigade fought fiercely for 8 days and nights in Mtsensk, and achieved brilliant results, destroying a total of 133 enemy tanks and shooting down 2 aircraft, while its own troops lost only three broken tanks, successfully completing the tasks assigned by their superiors. ”

"It is incredible that we destroyed 133 German tanks and lost only 3 of them. Just letting him be a brigade commander is a bit overkill. Rokossovsky began to sigh with emotion: "If I were the commander of the Front, I would have to let him command a mechanized army." ”

As we spoke, we unconsciously arrived in Skirmanovo. Perhaps the Germans have been on the offensive since they set foot on Soviet soil, so they are thinking about how to attack, not how to defend. So much so that there was not even a decent fortification in this village, and only on the side towards the positions of our troops were not a few skirmishers and machine-gun positions dug up. In the vicinity of these bunkers, the corpses of our soldiers and German soldiers were strewn with them, and it seems that not long ago there was a desperate battle here, and our troops paid a lot of casualties in order to capture these bunkers.

We walked through the ruins of the building and came to the middle of the village. Although most of the buildings were destroyed by the shelling of our troops, the small church in the village miraculously survived intact.

Walking to the middle of the village, everyone looked around in silence. Although the fighting here has ended, fierce fighting is still going on two or three kilometers from here, and the sound of gunfire comes from the southwest from time to time. There was a roar of motorcycles behind me, and I turned my head to see a soldier wearing goggles driving towards us on a motorcycle with a straddle. I thought that the chief of staff had sent someone to deliver some urgent information, so I hurriedly greeted Rokossovsky: "Comrade commander, you see, a motorcycle is coming, I wonder if the chief of staff sent someone to deliver the letter." ”

Before Rokossovsky could speak, the motorcycle had already driven in front of him. The driving soldier rolled over and got off the motorcycle, stepped forward and saluted Rokossovsky with a standard military salute: "Comrade commander, lunch is ready, Comrade Chief of Staff asked me to bring it to you." ”

"Well," Rokossovsky nodded, and ordered, "Divide the lunch in the car among everyone!" ”

"Yes!" The fighter said yes, walked over to the motorcycle, removed his goggles, and bent over to pick up our lunch from the straddle. When the soldier removed the goggles, I was surprised to find out that the other party turned out to be a female soldier, it seems that during this time, the headquarters has undergone a lot of personnel changes, at least I have never seen a female soldier in the headquarters before.

The female soldier walked up to Rokossovsky with several aluminum lunch boxes stacked on top of each other, and the commander casually removed the one on top, then pointed his hand at me and said: "Let's give one to Comrade Lieutenant Colonel first, she has not eaten since early in the morning, and she is probably hungry for a long time." ”

The female soldier walked up to me and said politely: "Please, Comrade Commander." ”

I also took a hot lunch box from the top, politely thanked the female soldier, and was about to lift the lid to see what was inside. The female soldier suddenly pounced on me and knocked me to the ground, spilling all the food in several lunch boxes in her hands on me. I was a little annoyed and angry, and I was about to open my mouth to scold her, but I didn't expect a series of shouts to sound around me: "Lie down, it's a sniper!" "Shoot!" "The enemy is on the roof of the church, shoot quickly!"

The soldiers who served as guards opened fire and fell down, and the heavy fire sent the roof rubble flying. I looked up at the female soldier who had fallen on top of me, her head resting on my chest, the wound on her neck bubbling out of her neck, staining my clothes red. I put my hand in front of her nose, and I couldn't feel any breathing, it seemed that the bullet was coming at me, and the young female soldier was just blocking the bullet for me.

"Comrades!" Orel, the deputy chief of staff who was lying on the ground, got up and said, "Rush forward and eliminate the enemy snipers." With that, he picked up the submachine gun from the hands of a fallen soldier and took the lead in rushing forward.

"Rush!" The fighters got up from the ground with a shout and rushed forward with the deputy chief of staff......

The German snipers were only one, and although they shot down a few more soldiers, they were quickly beaten to a bloody pulp by the soldiers who rushed forward, fell from the top of the church, and fell heavily on the snow, splashing the snow high on the ground with a huge impact.

Seeing that the fighters had eliminated the snipers, I sat up from the ground, carefully laid the remains of the female soldiers flat on the ground, then stood up and took off my hat to make her mourn in silence. Rokossovsky and several of them also gathered around, like me, took off their hats and observed a moment of silence for the female soldiers who delivered the meals.