By the time the engineers finished clearing the mines laid by the Germans, it was already dawn. The soldiers, who had been exposed to the cold wind all night on the road, got on the truck again and continued to move towards their destination.
The convoy arrived at its destination, and while the team was reorganizing, a captain walked up to Ivan and asked expressionlessly: "Is this Major Ivan?"
Ivan guessed that the other party might be sent by the headquarters to pick him up, and quickly replied: "Yes, I am Ivan."
"I am the staff officer of the 765th Infantry Regiment. On the orders of the regiment commander, I am here to pick you up." The captain shook his head at Ivan and said: "Please come with me, comrade major, and take your company commander."
Take it with you too, I will take you to see the group leader."
Ivan led his three company commanders and followed the captain's staff through the busy crowd and came to a wooden house. The captain asked Ivan and the others to wait outside the door while he went in to report.
After a while, the captain walked out of the room and said to Ivan: "Please come in, comrade major, the regiment leader is waiting for you inside."
Lin Hua followed Ivan and strode into the command post. Because the light in the room was very dark, Lin Hua could barely see several commanders sitting next to the wooden table in the middle of the room. Ivan was the same as Lin Hua
, before he could adapt to the light in the room, he couldn’t see clearly who the group leader he wanted to see was.
Fortunately, the commander sitting in the room noticed Ivan and the others' embarrassment, stood up and said to his adoptive father: "I am Lieutenant Colonel Batrakov, commander of the 765th Regiment of the 5th Guards Division, and you are Major Ivan.
Right?"
When Ivan learned that the commander in front of him was Lieutenant Colonel Batrakov, he quickly raised his hand and saluted and said: "Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, Colonel Ivan, commander of the second battalion of the 1077th Regiment of the 8th Guards Division, is here to tell you
Report, our battalion has been ordered to come, I am waiting for your orders, please give instructions!"
"Comrade Major, according to the order, you should arrive here at two o'clock this morning." Lieutenant Colonel Batrakov said, raised his hand and looked at his watch with the help of candlelight, and then said in a stern tone:
"And you are six hours late. You must know that every minute is precious on the battlefield. If you do this, you will waste the opportunity."
Ivan, who was criticized by the lieutenant colonel, suddenly blushed with embarrassment. After waiting for the other party to finish speaking, he replied with some embarrassment: "Comrade lieutenant colonel, please listen to my explanation. Our convoy encountered a road laid by the Germans."
Minefield. The engineering troops barely cleared the mines on the road an hour ago."
"Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, don't blame Major Ivan." A commander stood up from the table and said to Batrakov: "Everything is clear. The reason why they did not arrive here on time was because they were attacked by the Germans.
The human minefield is blocked. Fortunately, things have not been delayed yet. You can assign combat missions to them now."
Ivan saw clearly the commander who spoke for him, with the rank of colonel on his collar badge. He thought to himself: "Who is he? Why does Lieutenant Colonel Batrakov treat him so respectfully? Is he the commander of the 5th Guards Division?"
Really? No, division commander Mironov’s military rank is general, but this one is colonel.”
Batrakov noticed that Ivan's eyes had been fixed on the colonel, and quickly introduced him: "This is Colonel Malinin, the chief of staff of the group army. Major, you are lucky, there is a comrade, the chief of staff, who can say good things to you. Here we go.
Come here with the map and I will assign you some combat missions."
"Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, I am ready to carry out any combat mission assigned by you." Seeing that he had passed the test so easily, Ivan couldn't help but secretly breathed a sigh of relief, and then added: "All the soldiers in our battalion are confident that we can complete the task well."
The tasks assigned to us by our superiors."
Batrakov, who was standing in front of the map, sneered and said, "Comrade Major, I hope you can do what you say." He picked up an explanation stick, pointed at the map and said, "According to the orders of the superiors, the Guards No.
The mission of the Fifth Division is to take back the Istria Reservoir from the hands of the Germans. The mission of our regiment is to seize the high ground here and open the passage to the Istria Reservoir for the entire division." p>
As soon as Batrakov finished speaking, Ivan immediately replied: "I understand, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel."
"Understood?!" Batrakov sneered and said: "Comrade Major, I don't think you understand anything. Even though this is just a small high ground, the German army's defense is extremely tenacious. The four attacks launched by our regiment
They attacked more than ten times and were repelled without exception."
Lin Hua, who was standing behind Ivan, couldn't help but feel his heart sink when he heard Batrakov say this. He thought that on a small high ground, the 765th Regiment launched more than ten attacks in a row, but none of them succeeded.
Lieutenant Colonel Batrakov will hand over the task of seizing the high ground to the Second Battalion.
"Understood, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel." After listening to the mission assigned by Batrakov, Ivan immediately replied simply: "The mission of our battalion is to seize the high ground and eliminate or drive away the Germans above." "Wait a minute, Major Ivan." Just after Ivan was about to say goodbye and leave, Ma Lining suddenly stopped him and asked: "How many people are there in your battalion?"
Ivan quickly turned to Malinin and replied: "There are still 228 people in the whole battalion, Comrade Chief of Staff."
"There are only more than two hundred people left?!" Hearing that there were only such a small number of troops, Ma Lining seemed very disappointed, because he remembered that the full strength of the 8th Guards Division was 15,000 people, even if the number had been reduced in the past few months of fighting
Serious, but each battalion can still guarantee at least four hundred people. He was silent for a moment, and then asked: "Where are your weapons and equipment?"
"There is one heavy machine gun and a dozen light machine guns. Except for a few soldiers equipped with submachine guns, the rest are Mosin-Nagant rifles."
After learning about the strength and equipment of the Second Battalion, Malinin pondered for a moment, then turned to Batrakov: "Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, send a mortar platoon to them."
"Comrade Chief of Staff," Batrakov said with some embarrassment in response to Malinin's order: "Currently there are less than twenty mortars left in the regiment. If a company is transferred to them, they will not be able to serve other areas.
attack, providing artillery cover."
"Comrade Lieutenant Colonel," Malinin said impatiently when he saw Batrakov pushing back and forth: "Are you going to let the soldiers of the Second Battalion charge against the enemy entrenched on the high ground without artillery cover?
”
"Okay, Comrade Chief of Staff." Seeing Malinin's tone being so stern, Batrakov could only bite the bullet and reply: "I will give an order to the commander of the mortar company and ask him to detach a platoon to support the close range.
Comrades of the 8th Guards Division."
"Who is Lieutenant Sokov?" Just when Ivan and the others accepted the combat order and were about to leave the regiment command post, Malinin suddenly asked again: "I want to talk to him."