After reading everything that should be read and having to explain what should be explained, Sokov did not need to stay here anymore. So he and Yakov took their own guard squad and left the Vasily building, preparing to pass through the ruined city and return to Mamayev's hill to continue commanding the battle.
But after the Vasily building disappeared from everyone's sight, Yakov suddenly said in a low voice: "Misha, you really shouldn't have left at this time."
Yakov's words surprised Sokov, and he asked in confusion: "Why?"
"You know, some of the areas we are going to pass are the focus of our army and the enemy's fight. Who knows whether we meet our army or the Germans when we pass there?" Yakov said with a worried look: "If we wait for darkness and with the help of the darkness of the night, we might be able to avoid the enemy's eyes and ears and return to Mamayev's hill smoothly."
"Yakov, I understand your mood very well." Sokov, who came from later generations, didn't know the situation in Stalingrad at this moment. Not only did the defense lines between the enemy and us intertwined, but even in some buildings, the Germans and Soviet soldiers occupied different floors and rooms respectively. When he left the city, the danger coefficient was really too high. However, in order to return to Mamayev's hill as soon as possible, he could only take a risk: "But if I stayed in Mamayev's hill, I wouldn't be able to command the troops."
Yakov knew that Sokov was telling the truth, nodded and added: "Misha, I also know that it is very risky to leave the city during the day, but as the brigade commander of the infantry brigade, you cannot leave your combat post for too long, so when you asked to leave the building, I did not dissuade you."
"Okay, Yakov, stop talking, let's continue to rush." ​​Sokov was unwilling to waste time with Yakov on this matter and urged him: "We may encounter an enemy, and we must be ready for battle at any time."
The road at the beginning was very smooth. Almost all the areas where the guards passed through were under the control of the Third Battalion or friendly forces. Apart from the gunfire and explosions coming from a distance, he could not even see the shadow of the enemy. Seeing the hills of Mamayevgang from afar, Yakov felt relaxed. He pointed to the front and said with relief: "Misha, Mamayevgang is ahead. At most ten minutes, we can return to the brigade command."
As he walked along the way, he didn't see the enemy. Sokov couldn't help but relax his vigilance. He thought to himself: "Since we have not encountered the enemy in the most intense area, we will definitely not meet the Germans at the remaining seven or eight hundred meters."
Unexpectedly, he was thinking this way, and gunfire suddenly sounded in front of him, and the two soldiers walking in front fell down. "Fight alarm, hide!" The guard squad leader saw his subordinates being shot and fell to the ground, and quickly yelled, then hid nearby behind a pile of rubble.
Sokov and Yakov hid in a crater in the middle of the road. Listening to the bullets flying over his head, Sokov was silently calculating how many enemies there were to ambush himself. Although the gunshots outside were all shot from German weapons, based on Sokov's combat experience accumulated over the past year, most of the shooting sounds were fired by the soldiers of the guard squad, and there were only five people on the German side, and the firepower was also very weak.
Not only Sokov heard the German background from the gunshots, but Yakov also heard it. He turned his head and said to Sokov: "Misha, there seems to be only five Germans. Judging from the gunshots they shot, there is an officer using a pistol, a submachine gunman and three riflemen, your subordinates are enough to kill them."
Hearing that Yakov was like his own judgment, Sokov quickly poked his head out of the edge of the crater to check the situation of the battle outside. He saw the German submachine gunman hiding behind a half-man-high broken wall, protruding his head out and shooting a few shots from time to time, and then retracting his body.
Sokov felt that among the five enemies, the enemy who used submachine guns was the most threatening and had to be killed first, so he put the assault rifle on the edge of the crater and aimed at the location of the submachine gunman. However, he did not pull the trigger casually, but waited patiently for the opportunity to wait until the submachine gunman emerged before firing.
After waiting for a few seconds, the German submachine gunman stood up again and shot at the hiding position of the soldiers. Sokov, who had already locked him, pulled the trigger without hesitation and fired a point. The bullet hit the submachine gunman, splashing three blood flowers. The huge impact force made the submachine gunman lean back and fell straight into the rubble.
After killing the German submachine gunmen, the remaining four Germans became unconcerned. The guard squad's more than a dozen submachine guns beat them to the point of being able to raise their heads. A soldier took the opportunity to throw a grenade at their hiding place. After a loud bang, there was no movement in the enemy's hiding place.
With the help of the soldiers, Sokov and Yakov climbed out of the crater and came to the pile of rubble caused by the grenades. They found that there were only three German soldiers' bodies, and the guns they used were scattered beside them. Sokov thought to himself that there were only three corpses here, and why were there only four enemies who were shot dead by him after the broken wall? Did he and Yakov both hear the mistake?
When Yakov saw that there were only three corpses here, he was quite puzzled: "It's strange. There are three corpses here, plus the submachine gunman behind the wall, there are only four enemies in total. Did I hear it wrong?"
The guard squad leader walked to Yakov and laughed and said, "Comrade Major, I have carefully looked at it. There are only four enemies fighting with us. You must know that there are sometimes errors in judging the enemy's strength based on hearing..."
"Comrade in the squad leader," said Yakov with some frustration: "Even if there are only four Germans, how did they appear here?"
The guard squad leader glanced at the corpse on the ground and said thoughtfully: "I think they should have been lost in the battle, so they came here by chance."
While Yakov was talking to the guard squad leader, Sokov's eyes were searching everywhere. He felt that when he and Yakov were hiding in the crater, he really heard the sound of five guns shooting, one of which was definitely a pistol. Just as he frowned and thought, he suddenly heard the sound of someone knocking down a brick and stone coming from beside him. The sound was covered by gunfire and explosions coming from nearby, but it was heard by Sokov, who was highly vigilant.
He looked in the direction of the sound, and saw a pistol slowly stretching out behind a pile of gravel not far away, aiming at Yakov's location. "Yakov, be careful." Seeing this, Sokov instinctively rushed to Yakov's side, blocking him with his body, and pulling the trigger at the location of the pistol. The bullets fired by the assault rifle immediately hit the location of the pistol and splashed the dirt.
The guards standing around saw Sokov shooting at the side, and were stunned at first, then turned the guns and fired wildly there. But after the soldiers had all the bullets in the magazines, the hand holding the pistol had already fallen to the ground, and the pistol fell to the side.
After the guard squad leader ran to the gravel himself, he glanced at Sokov and shouted: "Comrade Brigade Commander, a German lieutenant, has been shot to death by us."
When Sokov heard the guard squad leader say this, he couldn't help but feel a little proud. He felt that his hearing was still very good. He heard five enemies shooting, and it turned out to be five enemies. At this moment, Yakov, who was next to him, suddenly screamed: "Misha, are you injured?"
Sokov looked at Yakov in a daze and asked in confusion: "Yakov, where am I injured?"
Yakov held Sokov and said anxiously: "Misha, you were shot in the abdomen. Can't you feel it?"
When Sokov heard Yakov say this, he quickly looked down and saw that there was a dark wet mark on the military uniform on his abdomen, and it was constantly expanding the area. The danger just now made Sokov at the moment when the adrenal glands were most intense, so he didn't feel any pain after being shot. At this moment, when his thoughts relaxed, he suddenly felt a heart-wrenching pain. He felt that his strength seemed to have been taken away, and his whole body immediately fell down softly.
Yakov tried his best to support him, but he did not. He just made him go from falling directly to sitting slowly on the ground. Seeing Sokov's face turned pale, Yakov quickly placed him flat on the ground and shouted at the soldiers surrounding him: "Who has a first aid belt? Give me a first aid kit."
As he shouted, the soldiers hurriedly took off their backpacks, took out their first aid kit from it, and handed them to Yakov. Yakov grabbed a first aid kit, took out a bandage from it, and pressed it on Sokov's abdomen, trying to prevent his blood from gushing out of the wound.
When the guard squad leader saw Sokov being injured, he was a little panicked at first, and then calmed down. He first collected the first aid kits from the soldiers' hands one by one, then ordered a soldier to return to Mamayev's post to report the news immediately, and ordered several soldiers to lay a stretcher. After all, he squatted down and assisted Yakov in helping Sokov treat the wound together.
After the soldiers tied up the simple stretcher, Yakov had already bandaged Sokov with the help of the guard squad leader. He grabbed Sokov's hand and said with red eyes: "Misha, if you hadn't helped me block this shot, I would probably be the one lying here now."
Sokov looked at Yakov in front of him and thought to himself: If something happened to Yakov, it would definitely cause Stalin's thunderous anger. Not to mention himself, even Cuikov and the others might be implicated. Now that he blocked a shot for Yakov, he would suffer some injuries, but it was not a bad thing for him. Instead, it would make the friendship between him and Yakov reliable.
He forced a smile and said, "Yakov, you and I are friends. It is appropriate to block bullets for friends on the battlefield." As soon as he finished speaking, he suddenly felt his throat itchy and couldn't help coughing twice. The coughing involved the wound on his abdomen, which made him grin.
"Misha, from now on, you are my brother, brother. As long as I am still alive, I will not treat you badly." After expressing his opinion, Yakov said to the guard squad leader: "Comrade Squad Leader, hurry up and send your brigade commander back to Mamayev's post and let the military doctor treat him as soon as possible."
The soldiers of the guard squad were in groups of four, lifted Sokov's stretcher and rushed towards Mamayev's hill at a speed of 100 meters. The first group was tired of running, so they immediately changed to the second group. It was originally a ten-minute walk, but they only took three minutes to run.
When the soldiers carried Sokov to Mamayev hill panting, they found that there had been a group of people waiting in front of them. It turned out that the soldiers who reported the news ran to the duty post outside the hill and reported Sokov's injury to Sidolin and Belkin by phone. When Belkin heard that Sokov was injured, he could not stay there. He asked Sidolin to stay and continue commanding, and he called the people from the health team to come out to greet him immediately.
Seeing Sokov's stretcher coming, Belkin quickly met and asked the stretcher soldiers from the health team to replace the angry soldiers. He followed the stretcher at the entrance to trot, and asked Sokov lying on the stretcher with concern: "Comrade Brigade Commander, how do you feel?"
"Comrade Political Commissar," Sokov replied weakly: "I may not be able to command the troops for a while, so I will ask you and the Chief of Staff for everything..."
"Comrade Brigade Commander, don't worry." Belkin couldn't help but feel sore when he saw Sokov's appearance. He quickly expressed his opinion: "If I have me and Lieutenant Colonel Cidolin in the brigade, you can recover from your injuries."
When the stretcher came to the health team, Asia, who had not rested for several days, heard that Sokov was injured again, and suddenly felt dark before her eyes. When she woke up and saw herself lying on a stretcher, she quickly sat up and asked the health care worker beside her: "Misha, where is my Misha?"
"Asia, don't worry." The health officer quickly grabbed her and comforted her and said, "Don't worry, the brigade commander was just injured in the abdomen and had been sent to the operating room. It was a military doctor who personally had an automatic surgery, so there should be no life danger."
However, Asia, who cared about Sokov's comfort, couldn't sit still. She struggled to stand up, walked out with a staggering footsteps, and said, "No, I want to see him."
When he arrived at the door of the operating room, Asia found that there were many people standing here, including the political commissar. Asia came to Belkin a few steps, grabbed his arm, and asked nervously: "Comrade Political Commissar, what happened? How could Misha be injured for no reason?"
Chapter completed!