In the next few days, accompanied by Apanashchenko, I inspected the defense areas of the 6th, 7th, and 40th Guards armies, inspected the various fortifications they had built, and put forward suggestions for rectification of some existing problems.

And Apanashchenko behaved very cooperatively throughout the escort. As long as I saw that the commanders of those group armies, as well as the subordinate division commanders, brigade commanders, and regiment commanders, were resistant to the rectification and reform proposals put forward by me, they would not hesitate to stand on my side and teach those subordinates with a straight face: "General Oshanina said to do what you do, you will do it." Don't think she's trying to make things difficult for you, she's helping you. As long as you improve the fortifications according to her suggestions, then in the next defensive battles, not only will your troops be greatly reduced in casualties, but also your chances of winning the defensive battle will be greatly increased. ”

Seeing Apanashchenko help me in this way, those commanders did not dare to complain, so they had to honestly follow my orders and direct their subordinates to complete the renovation of the fortifications.

By the time I had completed my inspection of the Voronezh Front and returned to Kursk, it was already the evening of 29 April. When I arrived at the headquarters of the Front, I found that neither Rokossovsky nor Military Commissar Terekin were in the command, and only the Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Malinin, was left to preside over the daily work.

When Malinin saw me appear, he immediately got up from his seat, greeted me and shook hands with me, and said apologetically: "Lida, I'm really sorry, the commander and the military commissar received an urgent call from Marshal Zhukov a few hours ago and have rushed back to Moscow. As for inspecting the fortifications of the defense zone. I can't go with you anymore. I'll arrange for you to rest in the guest house for the night. Someone will accompany you to the inspection tomorrow. ”

Ran for several days in a row near Prokhorovka. I was indeed tired, and when I heard Ma Linin say this, I nodded my head and said approvingly: "Okay, Comrade Chief of Staff, please arrange a place for me and my subordinates to stay." After running around outside for so long, my men are exhausted. ”

Ma Lining waited for me to finish, and without saying a word, he picked up the phone on the table. Ask his men to arrange a place for us to stay in the guest house. After putting down the phone, he said to me with a smile: "Lida, the place where you live has been arranged, only two hundred meters away from the headquarters, if there is anything, I will send someone to find you." ”

After listening to this, I smiled and stretched out my hands to him and said gratefully: "Thank you, thank you, Comrade Chief of Staff." ”

After he let go of my hand. shouted outside, "Someone." With his shout, a lieutenant trotted in. Stand straight in front of us, waiting for Malinin's orders. Malinin pointed at me and instructed: "Lieutenant, immediately send General Oshanina to the guest house." ”

The lieutenant agreed, then made a gesture to me and said politely: "Comrade General, please!" ”

The room of Yushchenko and the fighters of the guard squad was in a large room on the first floor, four people lived in one room, and four rooms were exactly full. My room, on the second floor, was a single room with a bathroom and toilet.

After eating the dinner brought by the guest house staff, I washed up briefly and lay down on the bed. During this period of inspection, I was exhausted from the inspection of the Voronezh Front's military defense area, and I did not eat and sleep well every day, and finally returned to Kursk, so I had to make up for my sleepiness.

I didn't sleep long before I was woken up by a sharp knock on the door. I raised my hand and looked at my watch, it was just one o'clock in the morning, and I was about to get angry at the person who knocked on the door, but I heard Yushchenko's anxious voice outside: "Comrade General, Comrade General, please open the door, there is something important." ”

I rolled over and got out of bed, walked to the door, took off the military coat hanging on the coat rack, buttoned it up, opened the door and asked Yushchenko, who was standing outside, angrily: "Comrade Captain, is there something wrong?" ”

"Report to Comrade General, there is an urgent call from Moscow, tell you to answer it immediately." Before Yushchenko could speak, the lieutenant who had just shown us the way appeared from behind him.

"Do you know what?" Although I knew that there was nothing of value coming out of the mouth of the lieutenant who had given the order, I asked casually.

What happened next, as I expected, the lieutenant shook his head and replied: "I'm sorry, Comrade General, I don't know. I have only come to inform you to answer the phone on the orders of Comrade Comrade Chief of Staff of the Front. ”

I turned around and took my military cap off the coat rack and put it on my head, then shook my head at the lieutenant and said, "Let's go, comrade lieutenant." ”

"Comrade General," I was just about to lift my feet to leave, when Yushchenko asked next to me, "do you need to call all the fighters of the guard squad?" ”

"No need," I thought it was just to answer a phone call, and I couldn't make a move, so I waved my hand to reject Yushchenko's kindness, "I'll be back soon, you and the other fighters can sleep first, don't wait for me." ”

In a hurry, the lieutenant parked a three-wheeled motorcycle at the door of the guest house. As soon as I sat down in the sidecar, he slammed into the throttle and rushed down the wide street towards the headquarters.

A few minutes later, I was again at Malinin's headquarters. He pointed to a microphone resting on the table and said, "Hurry up, it's an urgent call from Moscow, so you can answer it as soon as possible." ”

I picked up the microphone, put it to my ear and said loudly, "Hey, I'm Lieutenant General Oshanina." ”

Before I could ask who was calling, an unfamiliar voice came from the receiver: "General Oshanina, I'm Sokolovsky, come back to Moscow immediately, move quickly!" With that, he cut off the phone.

I held the silent microphone in a daze, thinking to myself who this General Sokolovsky was, I didn't seem to be familiar with it. Seeing my absent-minded appearance, Ma Lining couldn't help but ask, "Lida, who called just now?" ”

"It was a general named Sokolovsky who called," I said to Malinin, as I struggled to recall in my head who the commander was called, "and he told me to return to Moscow at once." ”

"It turned out to be General Sokolovsky, who used to be Marshal Zhukov's chief of staff." Malinen apparently knew the leader who called me, and he gave me a briefing. Then he said to himself: "Didn't he transfer to the Western Front as a commander?" Why is it in Moscow at this time? ”

I heard clearly that Sokolovsky was once Zhukov's chief of staff. I knew that this temporary call to call me back to Moscow. It must have been Zhukov who asked him to call. It seems that something big must be going to happen in Moscow, and I must rush back overnight, otherwise I will make a mistake.

Thinking of this, I made a request to Malinin: "Comrade Chief of Staff, my superiors ordered me to rush back to Moscow as soon as possible, I guess there must be something important. The truck in my guard squad is a bit out of order, and it keeps breaking down on the road, can you help us get a new one? ”

"No problem." Ma Lining readily agreed to this matter. Then he instructed the lieutenant who had just accompanied me, "Lieutenant, please make another trip, and call up all General Oshanina's men and prepare them for departure." ”

After the lieutenant left, Malinin said to me thoughtfully: "Lida, I think something important must happen, otherwise the commander and the military commissar would not have been recruited back to Moscow today, and now you are urgently recruited back, there must be something big going on." ”

Analysis of Malinin. I couldn't agree more. I nodded and added, "It was Sokolovsky who called me just now." And you also said that he is now the commander of the Western Front, there is nothing important, he will definitely not leave his troops and return to Moscow casually. After saying this, I thought that Ma Linin was of a higher rank than me, and asked tentatively, "Comrade Chief of Staff, don't you even know what is going on?" ”

Ma Lining shook his head and said with a wry smile: "Lida, you are also a senior commander, you should know the secrecy discipline in the army. What we shouldn't ask, we can't ask. Besides, if it's something I can know, the commander must have told me a long time ago. But when he and the military commissar left, they only said that they had urgent matters to go to Moscow and asked me to take charge of the daily affairs of the front army, and said nothing else. ”

We talked for a while, and the lieutenant walked in with a heavily armed Yushchenko. When I saw Yushchenko here, I knew that the outside was ready, so I stood up and shook Malinin's hand and said goodbye.

Since there was only one truck, Yushchenko and I both sat in the cab, and I sat in the middle of the two. When the car started, I deliberately instructed Yushchenko: "Captain, wait until you get to Moscow and wake me up." After saying that, he closed his eyes and leaned back against the back of the chair and began to close his eyes to recuperate.

I don't know how long I slept, but I was woken up by Yushchenko next to me, and I could still hear his voice before I opened my eyes: "General, general, we are in Moscow." Where do we go next? ”

"Where else can I go?" I thought that with my current status, I would definitely not be able to enter the Kremlin, and the only place I could go was Zhukov's headquarters, so I ordered the driver: "Go to Marshal Zhukov's headquarters." ”

The driver of the car was originally drawn from Zhukov's command, and he naturally knew how to take the route. After listening to my instructions, he agreed to continue driving the car forward.

As I drove on, I suddenly heard Yushchenko next to me shout in surprise: "General, look, there are a lot of tanks parked on the side of the road." He looked at it and said with emotion, "It's really strange, how can these tanks be a little unnecessary compared to the tanks we usually see." ”

Hearing him say this, I also looked out the window curiously, and saw a tank column parked on the side of the wide road, and although each tank was covered with camouflage nets, I still recognized at a glance that this was not our common T-34 tank, but it should be a new T-54/55 tank that transcended this time and space.

Seeing that there were heavily loaded infantry guarding each tank next to it, I couldn't help but arouse my curiosity, and hurriedly ordered the driver: "Driver, pull over, I want to see these tanks." ”

As soon as our car stopped, and before Yushchenko could push the door, two soldiers with submachine guns came over, raised their hands to stop Yushchenko, who wanted to get out of the car, and said politely: "Comrade commander, parking is not allowed here, please leave immediately." ”

Yushchenko saw that it was only two ordinary fighters who prevented him from getting out of the car, so he didn't take their words to heart, pushed the car door and jumped in. As soon as he stood up straight, the muzzles of the two submachine guns were aimed at his head, and the two fighters also said loudly: "Go back to the car immediately, or we will shoot!" ”

Seeing this, I quickly pulled out my pistol, and at the same time, the soldiers in the carriage also saw this situation, and also lifted the tarpaulin, raised their guns one after another, and condescendingly aimed at these two daring warriors.

And the soldiers on duty nearby discovered the abnormality here and rushed over one after another. Dozens or hundreds of people surrounded our trucks and turned their weapons at us.

Seeing a steady stream of commanders and fighters coming from afar, I secretly screamed in my heart that it was not good, we were now surrounded by several times as many people, and if any commander and fighter misfired because of nervousness, it would cause a firefight.

In order to calm the situation as quickly as possible, I stood on the pedal outside the car door and shouted to everyone: "I am Lieutenant General Oshanina, and I order you to lay down your weapons." ”

After shouting, I saw that no one followed my orders, and the weapons in their hands were still pointed at each other. I turned my head and shouted to the soldiers of the guard squad in the carriage: "Guard squad, all of them, listen to my orders, put down their guns." ”

Although the soldiers in the carriage were dissatisfied, they honestly lowered their guns when they heard my order. I turned to the commanders and fighters who were surrounding the truck and shouted: "Comrades, our weapons are for the enemy, not for our own men. Now I command you to lay down all your weapons! ”

Hearing this order from me, the fighters, who were aiming at us with their weapons in their hands, looked at each other, but none of them gave up their muzzles. Seeing this, my heart became more and more anxious, and just as I was about to give orders to these commanders and fighters again, I heard a loud voice sound: "All of them, listen to my command, put down your guns!" ”

With this command, the muzzles of the guns in the hands of all the warriors were pointed towards the ground. Then a few people squeezed out from among the commanders and soldiers and came to me. The major who took the lead raised his hand to salute me and said politely: "Hello, General Oshanina, I'm sorry that my men have disturbed you, and I apologize to you on their behalf!" ”

I looked down at the major in front of me, feeling a little familiar, but I couldn't remember where I had seen it, so I asked tentatively, "Major, I see that you are very familiar, have we met before?" (To be continued.) )