The First Guards Heavy Tank Breakthrough Regiment still has more than a month of food left. This is not the result of the priority of supply given by the title of Guards.
The people who were supposed to swallow this food were either beaten to pieces or turned into corpses and lay in the pits of hundreds or thousands of people. A semi-invalid tank regiment could be consumed in three days by going back and forth.
The food has now become enough to feed the "whole group" for more than a month.
In Malashenko's view, this situation is unavoidable no matter how hard it is to transport the food that was already transported across the river with great difficulty and great cost, and then put it on a boat a second time and take it across the river.
It smells like taking off your pants, farting, and carrying rocks up the mountain.
Now, Malashenko has found a good home for the food that is no longer needed by the First Guards Heavy Tank Breakthrough Regiment, a home that can make the best use of the food and achieve its best meaning.
"Go tell Karamov that all the trucks with food should be driven to the entrance of the air-raid shelter! We have no use for these things. There is no need to take them to the other side of the river. They should all be left for the civilians taking refuge in the air-raid shelter."
Blinking, Lavrinenko thought he had heard it wrong, and basically couldn't figure out which song Malashenko was singing.
"You...you're not joking? I can understand what you mean by doing this, but are we really not leaving any at all?"
Malashenko, who did not look directly into Lavrinenko's eyes, rolled up his sleeves and glanced at the watch on his wrist. Seventeen minutes had passed since he led his team to arrive at the pier. Counting the time that still needs to be consumed, it was almost already.
At the end of the critical point.
"I am the regiment leader, and all orders are subject to me at critical moments. Even if you bring Comrade Political Commissar here, it will not work."
"...."
Lavrinenko, who was thinking of asking Malashenko for the specific reason, suddenly bumped into the muzzle of the gun.
Lavrinenko, who was muttering in his heart whether Malashenko had taken the gunshot, stopped talking. Instead, he responded softly and wasted no time before asking Karamov, who was directing the unloading of the truck.
He waved in the direction and ran away.
"Don't unload it yet, stop! Karamov, pause first..."
Enough food for more than a hundred people for a month is still a drop in the bucket for civilians in an entire air raid shelter.
Seeing only a dozen men in the crowd of joyful refugees carrying boxes of food away from the car, Lavrinenko, who didn't think there was anything wrong with doing so but always felt something was wrong, tensed up.
Then he stepped forward and asked Malashenko questions next to the truck.
"I think we should leave these to the combat troops. Maybe that way they can be more useful. This way... Hey, I'm not saying that this is not a good thing, but I always feel that something is not quite right."
Lavrinenko's expression seemed a little tangled, while Malashenko, who was leaning against the back of the car and lighting a cigarette, looked calm.
"What are we fighting for?"
Lavrinenko looked surprised.
"What?"
"I ask you what are we fighting for?"
"...."
"Why do you suddenly ask this? Of course it is to defend our motherland, Comrade Stalin and the Soviet Union. Is this worth emphasizing again?"
Malashenko reached out to take off the cigarette from his mouth and talked about the ashes. As the smoke came out of his mouth, he gave a slightly different result.
"You are right, we fight to defend our motherland, Comrade Stalin and the Soviets, but what else is behind all this? What is the most essential thing? What we defend and protect with our lives is also what is behind us.
The people are the people who are starving to death in the air-raid shelters!"
"All the men who could participate in the battle went to the front line. The only ones left in that smelly cave were some old, weak, women, children and young children. But in those children I could see the country, surrounded by
The red flag is the hope for the future of all nations. After our generation dies fighting to defend the motherland, the flowing blood will nourish these new shoots and become the most dazzling golden hope for tomorrow."
"If we can't protect these children and the hope of this country's future, what's the point of our fighting? What exactly are we trying to protect? Tell me, Lavery, my old classmate."
Many times the words coming out of Malashenko's mouth, even those of the political commissar with the most experience and knowledge in the entire regiment, would be unable to respond for a while due to reasons he had never heard before.
Now it was Lavrinenko's turn to experience the same feeling firsthand.
I was sure that what Malashenko said was correct, but for a while I didn't know what words to use to answer it. This was Lavrinenko's truest state of mind right now.
"The future will be better, Lavry, but it does not belong to us... It belongs to the hope of tomorrow that our generation will fight to protect with all their lives."
The process of unloading the truck with everyone gathering firewood was not long. In the final analysis, it was because the First Guards Heavy Tank Breakthrough Regiment itself did not have much food left. More than a hundred people were dispatched to carry it on their hands and shoulders.
Clean it up.
All the planned things have entered the final stage, but now Malashenko still has one most important thing left to complete. He wants to leave a direction for the future hope of this country.
.
"I have asked the Red Army uncles on the dock to take good care of you and your mother. If you have any difficulties or problems, you can go to them at any time. Just say that it was left by Captain Malashenko. If you encounter villains who rob you and your mother,
You must tell your mother in time about food rations, and the bad guys will definitely be caught. Those uncles are the best Red Army soldiers like your trusted Captain Malashenko!"
The little Yegor looked at the big hero Malashenko squatting in front of him and nodded. A decision that could affect the life of a young child had already been sown in his heart.
"Okay, the great hero you admire, Captain Malashenko, is leaving, but before that I have a gift for you, a great gift!"
The somewhat unfamiliar word "gift" did exist in Yegor's childhood, but the moment when the sound of gunfire came from the border of the motherland and his father put on his military uniform again, picked up a gun and rushed to the battlefield, this moment was once full of beautiful memories and
Words symbolizing parental care were completely deleted from Yegor's childhood.
But now, Malashenko wants to rewrite this deleted word in Yegor's childhood novel, now.
"Ha, I didn't expect it to be so much bigger! But you must keep it, Yegor. When you become a man and can really hold it up in the future, you can wear it and come to me in the army at any time. When you get there
Then I will personally teach you how to drive a tank."