Chapter 104

Rokosovsky put down the phone, looked at me and said, "Rita, you're right. It's a time of war, and we need to adjust our thinking." He stood up and said to me, "come on, follow me to the troops of dovator, and see how they broke through the enemy lines and rescued the besieged 50th cavalry division."

The 53rd Cavalry Division is not far from the headquarters of the group army. It's only a few minutes' drive. After driving in the forest for a short time, I looked out of the window and saw that the distance was dark. All of them were cavalry soldiers riding on high horses. Almost all of them were wearing black capes. The car stopped about 20 or 30 meters away from the team. When we got off the bus, a cavalry on a white horse wearing a black leather cap immediately came to meet us. I had a close look. It turned out that it was major general dovator, the commander of the army. When he came in front of us, he stopped his horses and told rokosovsky in a loud voice: "Comrade commander, commander of the third cavalry army, dovator, reports to you that after the troops have assembled, they can attack the enemy at any time."

"Well done, dovator!" Rokosovsky praised him loudly, and then said in a commanding tone, "but you are the head of the army. You don't have to take the troops to charge yourself. Let Colonel melinick take the troops up. After the battle, I will personally promote him to the commander of the 53rd division. As for you, you'd better go to the observation post with me to command the battle! "

I very much agree with rokosovsky's view that, after all, in the case of a charge, it is more suitable to be led by the acting division commander, Colonel melinik, than by dovator. As the head of an army, dovator should stay in the office to command the troops rather than charge like a common soldier. Dovator hesitated for a moment, and then pleaded with rokosovsky: "Comrade commander, please allow me to give an account of the task to Colonel melinick."

"Go ahead, I'll wait for you in the observation center." Rokosovsky agreed very readily.

Dovator turned his horse and returned to the line, while I followed rokosovsky down the trench towards the observation post. There are many machine gun positions in the trench to provide firepower support for the charging cavalry. When we pass these fortifications, the machine gun shooters stand up one after another and stand straight on both sides of the trench to salute us. Before stepping into the observation post, I looked back at dovator and saw that he was talking loudly to the soldiers with a sabre in his right hand. Although he was too far away to hear what he was saying, according to the analysis of the soldiers shouting "Wula" from time to time, he must be doing battle mobilization.

The facilities in the observation center are very simple. There is a wooden table in the middle of the room. On the table, there is a battle map with two black telephones on it. There were two or three signalmen in the observation center. When they saw us coming in, they stood up and saluted.

When rokosovsky sat at the table looking at the map, I stood in front of the observation hole with a telescope to observe the enemy situation. The German position was at the edge of the forest four or five hundred meters away. As the occupation time was not long, it was too late to build solid fortifications. Only on the basis of the original trenches, many individual bunkers were dug. The open area between our and German positions was covered with a thick layer of snow, so that when the cavalry attacked, their movement speed would be greatly reduced. The cavalry who lost their speed would pay a heavy price if they wanted to seize the German position.

Just at this time, dovator panted and ran in from the outside, reporting to rokosovsky: "Comrade commander, I've made arrangements. Can we start?"

Rokosovsky nodded approvingly and said, "let's go!"

"Yes Dovator agreed, went to the table, picked up a phone, shook the handle a few times, then picked up the phone, and gave a loud order to the inside: "I'm dovator, I order, the military artillery immediately aim at the German position, open fire!"

The shells fell on the front and back of the German trenches, exploding, and the air waves threw mud and snow high into the air, and then scattered them like flowers. Perhaps it is because the cavalry army does not have large caliber heavy artillery. Although these artillery with little lethality are crackling noisily, I still don't see the spectacular scene of the German army's blood and flesh flying through the telescope.

As soon as the five minute gunfire was over, the heavy and heavy machine guns in the trenches began to ring, suppressing the German position. At the same time, the shouts of "Wula" began to ring, and then the rapid sound of horses came in from outside the observation post. Dovator has been standing beside me to observe the enemy situation since the shelling. At this time, rokosovsky could not sit still. He stood up and walked quickly to the observation hole to observe the situation on the battlefield with his telescope.

The soldiers hung their guns on the horses, waved their sharp sabers in their hands, yelled "Wula", and urged the horses to rush to the German position. Although the cavalry are charging, due to the limitation of terrain, their forward speed is only equivalent to the normal running speed of infantry in the environment without snow. Fifty meters, 100 meters, the German position is still quiet, as if there is no one. Seeing this situation, I became more and more worried. I saw the shelling effect just now. The German army didn't have much casualties. Why didn't they shoot? In the twinkling of an eye, the cavalry had reached a distance of 150 meters, and our machine guns stopped shooting in order to prevent accidental injuries.

"What's the matter with the German army? Why is there no movement? If it goes on like this, it won't take a minute for the cavalry to rush to their positions. " Rokosovsky also saw something wrong.

Seeing that the cavalry had rushed less than 200 meters away from the German position, the silent German position opened fire. Heavy and heavy weapons shot out of the bullets formed a dense fire net, stormed into the charging line. The horses in the first few rows fell to the ground, whining sadly, and threw the knight out of his back. Some of the soldiers who were thrown out were shot and killed before they fell to the ground, and their bodies rolled forward for a certain distance before they stopped; Fortunately, the soldier, who was not injured or killed, just struggled to get up from the ground and was knocked down by the intensive German fire before he could shoot.

The following platoons found that the situation was not right, and they could not help slowing down the speed of the horse, but it was too late. They had already entered the German fire range. They all stood up, then fell back together, sat on their hips, fell on all fours and threw the Knights off their backs. The cavalry in the rear could not stop because of inertia, so they directly stepped on them, rushed into the German firepower circle, and soon followed these comrades in arms. In just a few minutes, hundreds of cavalry soldiers fell in front of the German position.

Seeing all this, rokosovsky and I haven't made any response yet. Dovator has already dropped his telescope, rushed to the table, grabbed the phone, and then issued a loud order to the artillery: "aim at the German position, open fire!"

As the shells exploded again in the German position, the firepower of the blocking cavalry became sparse. The attack battle formation of the cavalry division quickly separated to the left and right, made a big circle more than 100 meters away from the German flanks, and then came back.

Seeing the retreat of the cavalry division, I could not help but frown. They were not far away from the German position. Under the cover of artillery fire, they could continue to rush forward under the barrage of bullets. Maybe it only took a few seconds to rush into the enemy position. But this time suddenly pulled down, all previous achievements were wasted.

"Comrade commander, I'll take people to charge this time! Please approve! " Dovator stood in front of rokosovsky and pleaded. Although I don't agree with the commander to charge in person, it's very inappropriate to raise objection rashly under such circumstances. So I kept silent and looked at rokosovsky to see what kind of decision he would make.

"I used to be a cavalry soldier, and I have a lot of feelings for this branch." Rokosovsky put down his telescope and did not reply directly to his request. Instead, he said to himself, "but the cavalry has lost its role in the first World War. With the emergence of a large number of troops equipped with automatic weapons, rapid fire artillery, tanks and airplanes on the battlefield, and the emergence of troops extending in the front, hidden in the bunker and protected by barbed wire, the cavalry can not move smoothly. The cavalry, which was once brilliant for a time, is no longer in the spotlight. " At this point, he turned his head, looked at dovator and said, "my commander, if you want to win the German position, you don't have to rely on courage. You need to use your brain."

Dovator didn't seem to think that he would say this. He asked curiously, "is there any good way for the commander?"

Rokosovsky pointed to the open field in the distance and said to dovator: "you see, the German army has deployed very strong firepower in the front, which can be seen from the casualties of cavalry just now. But if you look at it again, the organizational structure of the retreating troops is still very complete. That is to say, the German forces are relatively weak on both wings. When you lead the charge, you can take it as the main breakthrough. In addition, you should remember that after approaching the enemy's position, you can no longer charge in the form of cavalry. You should immediately order the soldiers to dismount and turn into infantry, crawl forward and get a little closer to the enemy's position. Do you understand? "

"I understand! Comrade commander. " After saluting rokosovsky, dovator turned and ran out of the observation post.

What rokosovsky said just now immediately benefited me a lot. It is those who have been fighting for more than ten years who have rich combat experience. If you look at the problem thoroughly, you can find the weak links in the German defense line.

A new round of attack soon began. In this charge, the soldiers did not wave their sabres any more, but held the guns that had just been slanted on the horses in their hands. After all, this is the era of hot weapons. If you can't rush in front of the enemy, it's almost the same with a saber and bare hands. When the troops rushed to the position where they were frustrated last time, the soldiers jumped down from their horses one after another, fell down on the ground, crawled forward, and stopped from time to time to shoot at the enemy in front of them with the dead bodies of their comrades in arms and horses as bunkers.

This change of cavalry to infantry only reduced some casualties. Seeing that the machine gun fire did not work, the German army used mortars to bombard the attacking troops. The cannonball fell into the line with a roar. As the soldiers crawled forward, many of them were pulled up from the ground by the blast, thrown high into the air, and then fell down heavily. Fortunately, the soldier who was not hit by the shell was still crawling forward desperately.

"Comrade commander," seeing the heavy casualties of the attacking soldiers, I couldn't help saying to rokosovsky standing beside me, "we can't fight like this any more. You see, the casualties of the soldiers are too great. If there is not enough artillery to suppress the German army, even if we attack this position, our people will die. "

"Even if it's dead, we should continue to fight." Rokosovsky replied to me without expression: "this German line of defense separates us from the 50th division. If we don't occupy this position as soon as possible, the encircled troops will be all over."

When I heard what rokosovsky said, I had nothing to say, so I had to shut my mouth and put up my telescope to look for dovator on the battlefield. But I looked for him several times, but I still didn't see his shadow. This is because the cavalry, whether soldiers or commanders, are wearing black cloaks. It's really not easy to find one person from thousands of people.

Just when I was about to give up searching for dovator, I was surprised to see a white war horse and a knight in a black cape lying in the snow seven or eight meters away from the observation post. I remember when I came here just now, I saw dovator riding a tall white horse. Is it him? I turned my attention to that side.

After a while, I knew what was going on. The horse must have fallen down after being injured by shrapnel when charging. After falling down, it pressed one of the knight's legs on its back under it. The knight was lying on his back in the snow, trying to pull his leg out of the horse. The horse twitched a few times on the ground, leaped up and fell down again. The knight took advantage of the short time when the horse jumped up and quickly moved his leg out. The knight seemed to be injured and lay still in the snow after pulling out his leg.

Of course, my mind suddenly became hot. I put down my telescope and rushed out of the observation post. After climbing out of the trench, I bent over and ran quickly towards the knight. He went to the knight and saw that it was dovator. See me appear in front of him, his face squeeze out a smile, said: "leg in shrapnel, can't move." Without saying a word, I grabbed his clothes with both hands and dragged him backward to the observation station.

From time to time, shells exploded near me, and the mud and snow fell on me. Although it was extremely dangerous at that time, I didn't even do any evasive action. I just tried to drag dovator back. I was so tired that I gasped for breath after only dragging more than 20 meters. Fortunately, several soldiers rushed out of the trench and took over their commander from my hands. At the same time, two soldiers carried me back to the trench.

"Rita," when I was sitting in the observation center panting, rokosovsky was furious with me: "you have to make it clear that you are a commander, not a health worker. It's not your turn to rescue the wounded."

"Comrade commander, I'm sorry, I'm wrong." I don't want to explain anything. I was a little too impulsive just now. Seeing that dovator was injured, I rushed out regardless of the consequences. Fortunately, I was lucky and came back intact. However, people are not so lucky every time. I can't say that they will lose their lives because of their own impulse that day, so they quickly bow down and admit their mistakes.

The battle was not going well. After the cavalry was changed to infantry, the attack was still defeated by the German army. Because it was late and commander dovator was injured, no new attack was organized. Although we did not launch any more attacks, rokosovsky and I did not return to the headquarters of the group army, and we still stayed in the 53rd cavalry division.

On the 14th, the fighting lasted a day. In the morning, Colonel melinick had just led the troops to take the position. At noon, the German army, under the cover of artillery and air force, took the position back again. The two armies are engaged in repeated tug of war in this position. I can clearly see from the observation post that the trenches are filled with the bodies of the dead on both sides. Katukov's first guard tank brigade, which was supplemented in the afternoon, was put into combat. With such a military genius as the commander, the victorious sky will inevitably incline to our side. In the evening, the 50th cavalry division, which had been besieged for two days, finally stood out and joined us.

I stayed in the cavalry camp with rokosovsky that night because he had too many things to deal with. In addition to the 50th cavalry division, other places also achieved ideal results: first, the Cadet regiment and the 289th anti tank regiment broke the German siege, and the subsequent two cavalry divisions joined forces successfully; Then the 79th infantry division smashed two invading German infantry divisions and held the line firmly.

Rokosovsky and I stayed in the cavalry camp until the afternoon of the 15th. This is because rokosovsky is going back to the headquarters to set up tomorrow's counter offensive. Otherwise, he does not know when he will leave.

Before I got to the headquarters, I heard a dog barking outside, so I rolled down the window and looked out. I saw a strange line in the open space near the church. Everyone in the line was holding a military dog.

"This should be the anti tank army dog company sent by Comrade Zhukov." Rokosovsky looked at this strange team with great interest, then turned to me and said, "I hope they can become the enemy of German tanks as the legend says."

The car stopped not far from the line because it saw chief of staff malining standing in front of the line, talking to a captain. Knowing that the chief of staff would bring the captain into the headquarters to meet him, rokosovsky and I got off the bus and didn't stop any longer. We just rushed to the saluting soldiers and went straight to the headquarters.

As I passed by this unit, I couldn't help looking at it curiously again. Unexpectedly, I found that the captain standing beside the chief of staff was staring at me. The captain was tall and thin, looking very young. He was only twenty-five or twenty-six years old. Although there was a long scar on his right face, it didn't affect his handsome appearance at all. I don't know why. As soon as I saw him, I felt a sense of deja vu. But I went through the young opposite sex in my mind, and I couldn't remember where I had met the captain. I stopped and stood looking at the captain. When I saw a smile on his face, my heart beat faster inexplicably, and I felt a fever on my face“ Rita Rokosovsky may have seen me stop and urged me impatiently in front: "hurry up, we still have a lot of work to do when we go back." I promised, covering my beating heart with my hand, to follow rokosovsky and continue to walk towards the headquarters. Just walk a few steps, I heard behind the sound of a rush to run, and then there is a person from behind to hold me up. Before I could make any response, a magnetic voice sounded in my ear: "Rita CHICKA, honey! Is that you? "