I couldn't bear to look any further, so I crouched down and turned around, sat down on the ground with my back against the earthen wall, and looked up at the roof made of large logs, and my nose ached. Although I tried my best to hold back my tears, the thought of the tragic death of thousands of soldiers brought tears of anger to my eyes, and fell down my cheeks one by one on my clothes.

"Leda, don't be sad, this is war, there will always be sacrifices." Rokossovsky noticed my strangeness, bent down and patted me on the shoulder, comforting me: "Remember these brave warriors, they are all from the 17th Cavalry Division in Central Asia. ”

"Yes, although the cavalry has been sacrificed, this sacrifice is valuable, at least to boost the morale of the defenders outside and give them the courage to continue fighting." General Zakharov chimed in.

"Courage!" Hearing this word, I couldn't help but smile bitterly, and said in my heart: Those soldiers squatting in the trenches are probably frightened by the massacre just now, and there may be people who are so frightened that they pee their pants, but because of the harsh military law of the Soviet army, there is no situation of rout and escape again. Speaking from the heart, Rokossovsky was one of the few wielding members of the Soviet army, and he only cared about how to block the enemy's attack, and did not care about the heavy casualties of his subordinates.

Rokossovsky walked to the table, grabbed the phone on the table, shook the handle a few times, and then said into the microphone: "I'm the commander, pick up Major General Kazakov for me." The call was quickly connected, and I heard him ask aloud: "Comrade Kazakov, how is the situation on your side?" ”

As soon as I heard that it was the artillery commander, I immediately became interested, and in the current situation, if we can get artillery support, our defense can be twice as effective with half the effort. General Kazakov, who was only heard on the other side of the microphone, reported loudly: "Comrade commander, the cold has frozen the swamp due to the drop in temperature. At this time, the German tank and mechanized corps gained freedom of movement. These tanks bypassed the settlements of our defenses and advanced along the groves and bushes. ”

"What steps did you take?"

"I sent a mobile artillery battery, a part of the artillery and the tanks to return fire, and they intercepted the fascist tanks and fired head-on. The sappers played a good role in the fight against the enemy's "loitering" tank groups, laying mines on the roads where the enemy might be driving in their cars. This has yielded good results. Hitler's bandits paid a great price for every step they took on our land, they lost a lot of technical equipment, and their assault power was weakened. ”

"When will the 289th Anti-Tank Regiment I need get to the defense zone of the 107th Motorized Division?"

"Comrade Commander, although the enemy has suffered a head-on attack from us, their strength is still very strong, and they continue to carry out surprise attacks without interruption. The 289th Regiment is fighting and cannot be withdrawn from the fighting ...... for the time being"

"No way!" Rokossovsky interrupted him with a loud roar, and then said categorically: "Now that the German armored forces have been wedged into the joint of our army and the 30th army, we lack the necessary anti-tank forces, and it will be very difficult to repel them. I order you to immediately find a way to remove the 289th regiment of Major Yevremenko from its positions. In an hour, I hope to see him at the command post of the 107th Division. After speaking, he hung up the phone without saying anything.

As soon as Rokossovsky put down the phone, a new round of German offensive began.

There was a huge roar of engines, and the German tanks and armored vehicles that had been standing still increased their throttles, crossed the trenches, and pounced violently. The German infantry also crawled out of the trenches, lined up in skirmishers with weapons in hand, and charged after the tanks.

As the German army approached, a dense burst of gunfire rang out on our army's defensive line, and the machine guns, submachine guns, and rifles placed in the trenches opened fire together, forming a dense network of firepower. At first only a dense burst of gunfire and machine-gun fire could be heard, but soon the sound was overpowered by the sound of shells exploding, which was the opening of the guns of the tanks rushing ahead.

A tank shell exploded near the command post, sending the roof of earth down with a thud and falling all over me. I shook my head to shake off the dust from my hat and continued to look out with my binoculars, only to see that the tanks were all parked not far from the trenches, firing with artillery and machine guns, and the Germans who were lying on the ground just now all got up and slowly assembled behind the tanks.

Seeing this, I couldn't help but ask Rokossovsky, who was standing next to me, in a loud voice: "Comrade commander, what should we do now?" ”

"We must find a way to stop them," Rokossovsky said solemnly, "we have no troops behind us, and if we do not destroy these tanks, our defending forces will be completely annihilated, and then the road to Moscow will be opened, which the enemy dreams of." Saying this, he turned around and shouted to the group of staff officers standing behind him: "Go to a person, go to the trenches and direct the soldiers to destroy the enemy's tanks with anti-tank grenades and Molotov cocktails." Hearing his words, the staff officers in the command post looked at each other, and there was not even a single person who volunteered.

"I'll go!" I put down my binoculars, stooped down and grabbed the submachine gun against the earthen wall, shot the staff officers in the room with contempt, and strode outside.

"Leda, wait a minute." Rokossovsky called me from behind. I stopped and looked back, and he walked up to me, put his hands on my shoulders, patted me gently, and said in a concerned tone, "You must come back alive!" ”

I grinned and replied with a smile: "I will, Comrade Commander." After saluting, he turned around and rushed out of the command post and ran wildly in the direction of the trenches.

As soon as I ran out of the forest, I heard the sound of cannonballs whizzing, and I hurriedly fell to the ground, and then a cannonball exploded not far from the right, and the mud and snow fell on me. As soon as I tried to get up, I heard the sharp whistling sound of a shell, so I could only continue to lie on the ground and not move, this time the shell fell four or five meters in front of me to the left and exploded.

Seeing that the shells were quite close to me, I guessed that nine times out of ten I had been discovered by German tanks. I clearly knew that if I stood up at this time, I might become a target for artillery shells or machine gun fire; But if you continue to lie here and do not move, you may still be killed by the shells that come one after another, and you can only be safer by venturing forward and entering the trenches.

I crawled forward on my hands and feet, and as soon as I crawled near the crater, I hurriedly rolled to the left and rolled straight in. As soon as I rolled into the crater, two shells landed one after the other in the last second. I had beaten a spirit, and if I hadn't made a quick decision and crawled over decisively, I might have been blown to pieces by now.

After a while, I heard no more shells coming, so I cautiously leaned on the edge of the pit and looked out, and saw that the muzzles of the German tanks were pointed at the trenches again. I looked at the nearest trench where it was only a dozen meters, and if I ran over, it would only take about ten seconds, but I was afraid that the Germans would find it again, and if the shells and bullets came together this time, I estimated that I would die very ugly. After hesitation, I still took the way of climbing, although it was a little slower, but the safety factor was higher.

I crawled out of the crater, and every two or three meters forward, I would roll to the left or to the right, so that even if the Germans found me, the bullet would not easily hit me.

When I jumped into the trench, I felt that my vest was soaked with sweat, and although it was only a few tens of meters, if there was a slight mistake in the middle, I could have lost my life.

The soldiers in the trenches, under the command of the company platoon commander, rushed outside desperately to shoot and throw bombs, firmly blocking the attacking German troops 20 meters away.

The trenches were more than half a man deep, and if I bent over and ran, I didn't have to worry about being hit by stray bullets. I ran up to a captain who was firing with a rifle, crouched down, and told him, "Comrade Captain, I'm Lieutenant Colonel Oshanina. ”

When the captain heard my voice, he fired two more shots at the outside, and then he crouched down, grabbed the rifle in his left hand, raised his right hand and saluted me, saying, "Comrade commander, the third company is fighting, please instruct!" ”

"Boom!" A cannonball exploded at the edge of the trench, kicking up dust and scattering it all over our bodies. I shook my head, shook the dirt off my hat, and continued: "The German tanks are too much of a threat to us, you should find a way to send soldiers out to blow it up!" ”

"Yes!" The captain readily agreed. Seeing him bend over and run to the side to arrange for a manpower attack, I felt much more at ease. The reason why he was able to carry out my orders so simply was because the regulations of the Soviet army stipulated that the orders of the higher authorities should not be discussed and must be carried out to the letter. In other words, even if I give the wrong order, they will follow the rules.

Soon one of the fighters climbed out of the trench and braved the hail of enemy bullets. When he was still more than ten meters away from the tank, he actually stood up, scared me out of a cold sweat watching the battle from behind, and shouted loudly for him to lie down and drop the bomb. But my voice was completely drowned out by the sound of gunfire, and he was beaten into a honeycomb without any suspense.

"Again!" The captain continued to give orders beside me, and another soldier crawled out of the coffin.

This warrior was much more elf than the warrior just now, he climbed to a place about ten meters away from the tank and stopped, and as soon as he raised his hand sideways, an anti-tank grenade was thrown out. However, I soon regretted that he threw it too lightly, and the grenade landed two meters away from the tank and exploded. Seeing that he had missed the target, he turned sideways again and raised his hand forward, and another white-eyed grenade flew out. This time, the force was a little larger, and it flew over the top of the tank and landed in the infantry queue behind, directly blowing several German soldiers to pieces.

"Alas! Gone off track again! The captain said regretfully, "If I don't hit again, I'll have to send someone else." ”

"For what?" I wondered how the captain could suddenly say that.

"Because he only had three grenades with him."

"Oh." I realized what was going on, and continued to look at the fighter who was about to blow up the tank.

The fighters learned the lessons of the first two bomb throws, corrected the direction, and threw the grenade for the third time. The grenade made a nice arc in the air and hit the turret accurately. After the explosion, smoke billowed from the tank.

"Great!" Seeing that the tank was blown up, the captain excitedly slapped the earthen wall and applauded loudly.

The fighters who blew up the tanks were left with no grenades and no weapons on their bodies, and all they could do at this time was to withdraw to the trenches. Unexpectedly, he actually stood up and ran over here, and the German soldiers found him, and many guns opened fire on him. No matter how fast a man runs, he can't outrun a bullet. I saw him running, and suddenly his upper body leaned back, and then he fell straight down on the snow, and lay there motionless.

The rest of the trenches saw that we had blown up a tank here, and immediately understood it, and sent people to attack, although at great cost, but also blew up several tanks.

Tanks were blown up one after another, and the Germans were in a hurry. The remaining tanks and armored vehicles restarted and rushed over with great vigour. Although our army organized a lot of soldiers to go out to blow up the tanks, as soon as they came out of the trenches, they were defeated by the infantry who followed closely behind the tanks.

Seeing the German tanks getting closer and closer to us, my heart couldn't help but rise: Is it true that the position cannot be held?