Chapter 72

The sky is still half dark, and the forest is silent. The only sound we can hear is our footsteps in the snow.

The scene I saw just now had a serious impact on my mood, so that during the March, I kept silent and just mechanically moved forward following the footprints left by the soldiers in front of me.

Lukin was at the front of the line. He stopped from time to time to check whether we were going in the right direction with the North needle.

Marching in the knee deep snow was originally a tiring thing. In addition to my heavy heart and low mood, when I walked, I felt too tired to breathe. I took a few steps to catch up with Lu Jin and asked, "how long have we been walking?"

Lu Jin stopped, raised his hand to look at the watch on his wrist, and then replied, "in 40 minutes, we have walked about two or three kilometers, and the straight-line distance is about one kilometer."

"How long do we have to get to YASNAYA Poliana?"

"If you go down at this speed, it will take about two hours."

Two hours?! Hearing this time, my head is very big. Let alone two hours, I can't hold on for two minutes. Just saw in front of a fallen birch tree, quickly to the team under an order: "troops stop advancing, rest in place!" With that, I went straight to the birch tree and pulled out the snow with my hands. Then I sat on the cold trunk and gasped for breath.

At my command, everyone stopped and looked for a place to sit down. After looking around for a long time, he came up to me and asked, "can you sit down here? Comrade commander. " Seeing that I nodded my head and agreed, he also learned from me, dusted off the snow on the tree trunk and sat down. After he sat down, he put the rifle with sight on his thigh, then took out half of the flattened bread from the pocket of his uniform and chewed it.

When I saw him eating with relish, my stomach cooed with me. I remembered that I hadn't had breakfast today. I quickly opened my satchel and took out a bag of dried bread from it. As soon as I chewed the first bite, I felt that the frozen bread was too hard to swallow after chewing for a long time. I have the heart to learn from the volunteer soldiers, like them, eat a mouthful of fried noodles, eat a mouthful of snow, then bent down to grab a handful of snow from the ground, want to group into a group to swallow. The weather was too cold, I pinched for a long time, but I couldn't knead the snow powder in my hand into a snowball, so I just put it into my mouth. I didn't expect that when I entered my mouth, I choked accidentally. I coughed violently, and all the crumbs in my mouth came out. He leaned his rifle against the tree trunk, reached over and beat my back gently. Leisdayev, who was sitting opposite, handed me the kettle he was drinking.

I took the kettle and smelled its mouth to see what was inside. Seeing my little action, lesdayev said with some embarrassment: "Comrade commander, don't worry, this pot is filled with water. I never drink when I am on duty."

I was a little embarrassed when he said that. I quickly picked up the kettle and poured a few mouthfuls at the mouth. Warm water into the throat, immediately diluted the feeling of cough. After a few more drinks, he flushed the residual bagasse into his stomach, closed the lid of the kettle, handed it back to lesdayev again, and said, "thank you!"

"Comrade commander, someone is coming this way!" The voice of Lukin came from the side.

"Hidden!" Do not know who whispered a, so all the people are lying on the snow.

"In which direction?" I climbed up to Lukin and asked anxiously.

"It's southwest." We have been marching to the southwest, so as soon as he said the direction, he immediately knew what he was talking about. It seems that the place where we fell down was right. The fallen tree trunks just provided us with cover. I picked up the snow directly from the tree trunks and the ground and observed the situation in the forest through the gap with a telescope.

In winter, there is no shelter in the birch forest. The vision is wide and I can see far away. But I haven't seen any moving figures for a long time. After listening for a while, there was still silence. I can't help but complain that Lu Jin is making a fuss. Maybe he is listening to the sound of snow falling on the treetops as someone walking.

"Where is anyone? I can't see. Did you hear me wrong just now I asked Lukin discontentedly.

"I can't be wrong. I can vaguely hear someone walking in the snow." He answered me with a very positive tone, and then took the telescope in my hand, lying on the tree trunk, carefully observing the movement of the forest.

After less than ten seconds, he suddenly said excitedly, "I see four people coming in this direction." Then he handed the telescope back to me, pointed to the front and said to me, "it's at ten o'clock."

I raised my telescope, half squatted on the snow, and looked in the direction that Lu Jin said. It was true that there were several people moving fast here more than 200 meters away. I counted it. It was just four people. Because their figure is blocked by birch from time to time, I can't see whether they are their own or German.

Without waiting for my orders, agumint put his sniper gun on the tree trunk. I estimated the strength of the two sides, and felt that the four men, even the enemy, could kill them all. So I gave a low voice order to aguminte, saying, "be ready to shoot. I'll give you an order and shoot. "

I handed the telescope to Lukin, and then told the others, "get ready to fight. No one can run away."

The answer was very brief: "yes!"

"Comrade commander!" Lukin suddenly called me softly.

"What's the matter?" I looked back at him and asked.

"It's our own people. You see, they all wear our army uniform." Then he handed me the telescope again.

"My own people?" When I connected the telescope, I asked suspiciously, "are you sure you didn't read it wrong?"

"Yes, comrade commander." It wasn't Lukin who answered me, but aguminte who was lying on one side. He turned off the safety of his sniper gun and said to me in a positive tone, "I can see clearly from the sight that it's one of my own, one of them is a second lieutenant of our 316 infantry division."

"I'll go and call them so they won't go away later." Lu Jin wanted to stand up. I pressed him on the shoulder and said in a low voice, "don't worry, wait for them to come. They are highly nervous at this time. Maybe they will shoot you when they see you suddenly come out. " Lu Jin listen to me so say, also didn't insist on, continue to maintain the original posture, lie on the tree trunk, waiting for the arrival of the four people.

With the creaking sound of stepping on the snow, you can clearly see the faces of the four people even without a telescope. They were wearing Khaki fur coats and bayonet rifles in their hands. As they walked, they looked around warily.

When they came to the place less than 20 meters away from us, suddenly a voice came: "hide!" The four men immediately dispersed and hid behind the birch. After a while, I heard another voice asking, "Comrade lieutenant, what's the matter?"

"There are footprints on the snow ahead. There must be people nearby." The second lieutenant hiding behind the tree answered the soldier who asked.

"Hello! Comrades Lukin let out a cry, but didn't get up abruptly.

Behind the tree there was a clatter of pushing the bolt, and then someone snapped, "who? Don't move

Lu Jin turned to look at me and asked for my advice in a low voice: "Comrade commander, can I get there?"

"Go ahead."

Maybe seeing that we didn't answer, the voice of the second lieutenant on the opposite side rang again and repeated what he had just said: "don't move, only one person is allowed to come."

Lu Jin stood up with both hands raised high and said in a loud voice, "Comrade lieutenant, please don't shoot. It's your own man." Then he stepped over the trunk of the tree and walked towards the birch tree hidden by each other.

"Lu Jin, is that you?" When I saw him go by, there was a surprise voice. The voice was the one who spoke first. Then I saw a man come out from behind the invisible birch tree, put his rifle on his shoulder, and quickly ran to Lu Jin. They soon hugged each other, and I heard Lukin saying in a loud voice from a distance, "isayev, my friend, I'm so glad to see you."

The gathering of the two friends immediately defused the vigilance between the two sides. First, the three men hiding behind the birch stood up and put their guns on their shoulders. Then the people on our side stood up one after another, crossed the tree trunk and walked towards them.

The second lieutenant came forward and asked us in a loud voice, "ah! I said, "where did you come from?"

Lu Jin released his friend, went forward to salute the second lieutenant, and said in a loud voice, "report to the second lieutenant, our scout of the 16th group army, who was ordered to come to the enemy's rear for reconnaissance."

"Reconnaissance?" The second lieutenant muttered, "there are no enemies here. What can I do for you?"

"What did you say?" When I heard the sentence behind him, I quickly walked a few steps to him and asked, "what did you say just now? Are you saying there are no enemies around here? "

Instead of answering me, he looked me up and down, and then asked coldly, "who are you?"

"This is commander of our reconnaissance unit, lieutenant commander oshanina." Lukin took the initiative to introduce me to the second lieutenant.

The second lieutenant blushed with shame. He immediately stood at attention in front of me and said in an apologetic tone, "Comrade commander, I'm sorry, I didn't see your rank mark. I'm the engineer platoon leader and second lieutenant of the 316 infantry division. I just led my troops out of the encirclement of the bandits. "

"What did you say?" I didn't care about the change of his attitude towards me. Instead, I continued to ask the question: "do you think there are no Germans around here?"

"Yes, comrade commander." He stood in front of me and replied respectfully, "not only around here, but also in the dozens of kilometers we have passed in the forest, we have never seen a German."

When I heard him say this, I was stunned for a moment, and then I understood what was going on. The German army's mobilization was all done by road, and the German army had no time to take care of such a inaccessible forest. After a pause, I asked, "how many people do you have?" As soon as I said this, I felt a little regretful. I felt that I was a bit like adding to the cake. They were only four people. Why should I ask more“ We have 400 people. " His answer surprised me“ Four hundred... Four hundred people?! So many people? " Not only me, but also the soldiers around me were very surprised“ Yes, they rest 300 meters away. We are here to explore the way. "