After seeing his behavior, Shulka waved him over and asked, "What's your name?"
"Leonev, comrade sergeant!" He stood up and took a non-standard military posture.
"Can you tell me what you're doing?"
Leonyev hesitated for a moment and then replied: "I was exchanging lighters with them for cigarettes... They told me this was allowed, Comrade Sergeant!"
This was indeed allowed, and warriors often bartered for things, for example Shulka had a mirror, a comb and a razor.
From this aspect, Leonev still did enough homework before arriving here.
Shulka did not answer, but asked while chewing bread: "Is business good?"
"Yes, Comrade Sergeant!" Hearing Shulka ask, Leonev seemed relieved. He glanced around and then lowered his voice and asked: "Comrade Sergeant, do you have any cigarettes? German cigarettes...
You know, paid from the Germans, they can be sold for a good price in Kiev!"
"What's a good price?" Shulka asked.
"A cigarette can be sold for one ruble or more!" Leonev replied: "If the whole pack is unopened, it can be sold for thirty rubles..."
"I think you don't understand how serious the problem is, private!" Shulka interrupted Leonev's business story: "The Germans are only a few miles away from us, and their tanks will appear in front of us at any time. You should use
Use this time to learn how to use your rifle or ask veterans for combat experience, instead of packing a bunch of German cigarettes in your backpack!"
The actor interjected: "Don't worry, comrade platoon leader, I will follow him!"
"Thank you!" Leonev said gratefully to the actor: "I will fight with you!"
"Do you think I'm protecting you?" The actor turned his attention to Leonev's backpack: "No, private, I'm interested in your backpack! I'm waiting for the moment you are shot dead by the Germans, and then...
It belongs to me!"
The surrounding soldiers laughed with a "coax", including the new recruits who had just entered.
"No problem!" Shulka said to the actor: "He's yours!"
The soldiers laughed again.
Later Shulka learned that Leonyev was a vegetable seller. What he usually did was buy vegetables from farmers at low prices and then transport them to Kiev to sell them to earn the price difference. It was no wonder that he would find opportunities to make money in the army.
But what Leonev doesn’t know is that making money at this time is worthless... If Kiev is surrounded soon, money will be a piece of paper that can’t buy anything.
In other words, Leonyev did not understand what war meant at all.
In fact, it’s not just Leonyev, but also other recruits, because Shulka often hears recruits asking questions like this:
"How long do you think this war will last?"
"We are almost victorious!"
"When our reinforcements arrive, it will be time for the Germans to escape!"
…
The war happened so suddenly that they had no time to adapt.
Or it can also be said that they, like the Soviet top brass, had blind confidence in the Soviet army. They believed that the German army was overestimating its capabilities when attacking the Soviet Union. They believed that the German army would win in the early stage just because the Soviet army was unprepared. As long as the Soviet army recovered quickly,
The invaders will be driven out.
Maybe that's why they chose to join the army.
This made Shulka a little crazy, because these recruits obviously knew nothing, and they had never even touched a rifle before.
So the 333rd Regiment quickly became a recruit training camp...a unit that was about to confront the enemy, but more than half of the people were still learning how to use rifles.
This is simply unimaginable to Shulka, but the fact is before our eyes.
On the other hand, Admiral Kilponos apparently accepted Shulka's suggestion.
Because that night the 333rd Regiment was ordered to retreat ten kilometers to build a defensive line.
Marching ten kilometers is nothing, but building a defensive line is a big problem for Shulka... He has never learned any fortification work.
The veteran seemed to have discovered this, so he took the initiative to come to Sulka's rescue.
"Straight ahead is the shooting direction!" The veteran said while drawing a curved line on the ground with a shovel: "Use this line as a benchmark and dig down until only the head is exposed!"
The width of the trench is about 1.2 meters and the depth is 1.1 meters. It is just enough for someone to stand at the bottom of the trench, hold a gun and aim forward. A small hole is dug in the back side wall to store ammunition, and several smaller holes are dug in the front side wall.
The larger pits on the soles of the feet... It is said that this is a characteristic of the trenches built by the Soviet army, so that they can jump up from the trenches and charge quickly during the charge.
One hundred meters in front of the trench, an engineering unit was working. They were digging a deep and wide anti-tank trench.
"What is that?" Leonev asked curiously: "Why are the trenches they dug different from ours?!"
The veteran couldn't help but laugh.
The thief explained: "That's an anti-tank trench, private. Tanks can't drive through such a deep trench!"
"Oh, this is great!" Leonyev praised: "Who invented this thing?"
"Is this great?" The veteran stopped what he was doing and looked at Leonev with an incredulous expression: "You mean it can block German tanks?"
"Can't it be possible?" Leonev was said to be confused.
“Don’t forget the Germans have planes and artillery shells!” said the actor. “They’ll blow it to the ground!”
"Blowed to the ground?" Leonev looked at the anti-tank ditch ahead in surprise, and other recruits also had horrified looks on their faces.
Shulka knew what they were thinking.
Compared with anti-tank trenches, the trenches built by the soldiers were nothing more than ditches.
The recruits are not fools. They will quickly think: If such a deep anti-tank trench will be blown up, what about the trenches they dug? More importantly, what about them in the trenches?
"Keep moving your hands!" Seeing the recruits stop, Shulka urged: "If you don't complete these trenches, the Germans won't need to use artillery shells to flatten you, bullets will just kill you.
Eliminate them all!"
The recruits suddenly stopped talking, as if they were frightened by what they just said.
After a while, Shulka listened to them discussing in a low voice:
"Don't worry, it won't be as scary as Comrade Sergeant said!"
"Yes, the sergeant just wanted to scare us into digging the ditch!"
"What if it's really like what they say?"
…
Then there was another moment of silence.
Shulka could only shake his head and smile... These new recruits didn't know that the battlefield was far more terrifying than they said.