Red Moscow

  Chapter 686 Intercession

When Sidolin waited for Sokov to put down the microphone, he kindly reminded him: "Comrade commander, you asked the factory to produce hand grenades for us without asking for instructions. If your superiors find out, I'm afraid they will blame you. You See if you report this matter to Commander Chuikov, so as not to cause unnecessary trouble in the future."

   Sokov raised his hand and looked at the time. Seeing that it was early in the morning, he shook his head and said, "It's too late. I think we should wait until dawn."

   Next, the three of them conducted a careful study on the defense issues of Mamayev Gang and its surrounding areas. Just as everyone saw that there was nothing to do and was about to go to rest, the phone on the table rang. Sidolin glanced at the phone that was ringing non-stop, and said to Sokov with a half-smile, "Comrade Commander, it's not the commander who called you to question you, right?"

Sokov stared at the phone, and said to Sidolin with some guilt: "Chief of Staff, you answer the phone. If the commander calls and curses, you can explain a few words for me first." The reason why Sokov said Sidolin pushed it out because he considered that he had a good personal relationship with Chuikov, and it was better for him to come forward than himself.

2.0 Sidolin guessed what was on Sokov's mind, but did not expose him. Instead, he picked up the microphone and said to his ear: "I am Chief of Staff Sidolin, where are you? ... Ah, it is you, Comrade Colonel! Hello...you are looking for the commander, he is here, please wait a moment, I will let him answer the phone immediately." Sidolin covered the receiver with his hand, and whispered to Sokov, "It is Colonel Bely, he Say I have something important to see you."

   "Colonel Bely looking for me?" Sokov thought to himself, since Bely went to the Red October factory, he had almost no contact with him. If he called himself at this time, what would happen? He took the microphone suspiciously, "Hello, Colonel Bely, I'm Sokov."

   "Hello, Misha!" Bely asked with a smile on the phone, "I didn't disturb your rest, did I?"

   Sokov quickly glanced at the watch on his wrist, and saw that it was already three o'clock in the morning, "No, I haven't slept yet. Colonel Bely, you call me at this time, do you know what happened?"

   "Misha, you may not know that my troops are no longer in the Red October factory..."

"What, not at the Red October factory?" Although Sokov passed by the Red October factory during the day, he didn't have time to find out where the tank troops were stationed. At this moment, he heard that Bely said that the deployment had been made, so he asked curiously: "Colonel Bely, where did your superiors transfer you?"

"At the Dzerzhinsky Tractor Plant, judging from the daytime situation, it is the focus of the German offensive." Bely said in a serious tone: "Because the troops defending there lack effective anti-tank weapons, the commander put Our entire brigade was transferred there to deal with the enemy's tanks."

"Colonel Bely, according to your statement, there will be no tank units of our army in the Red October factory?" Considering that Bely was no longer under his command, the organizational system of the tank units was restored from the battalion to the brigade. Kefu asked with a hint of luck: "Is there no one left?"

   "No more." Bely replied with a wry smile: "Our entire brigade now has less than forty tanks, and it is not enough to deploy them all at the Dzerzhinsky Tractor Factory. Where are the extra tanks left elsewhere."

   "The Dzerzhinsky Tractor Plant is now the largest tank production plant in our country," Sokov asked a little strangely: "Can't they provide you with the tanks you need?"

"If it was a few days ago, there would be such a possibility." Bely complained to Sokov: "Now the enemy has rushed to the vicinity of the factory, and the shells fired by their tanks may fall in the production workshop and explode at any time. As for the production in the factory, all production had to be stopped."

  Sokov squeezed his chin with his hands, thinking to himself: Beley called himself in the middle of the night, there must be something important, and talking to himself so much now is just to pave the way for the next thing. Thinking of this, he yawned and said into the microphone: "Colonel Bely, do you have any other important matters? If not, I want to go to rest. I have been seriously deprived of sleep in the past few days, and the sum is less than Ten hours."

  Hearing that Sokov said that he was going to rest, Bely stopped talking in circles and got down to business: "Misha, I am calling you to plead for Lieutenant Agafon!"

  "Lieutenant Agafon?" Sokov couldn't help frowning when he heard this strange name: "Colonel Bely, who is he? I've never heard of this name."

   "Misha, don't be joking." Sokov's answer surprised Bely, and he quickly reminded: "You sent someone to **** him to the army headquarters, how could you not know who he is?"

Bely's words reminded Sokov of a person. He quickly covered the microphone with his hand, and asked Sidolin and Ivanov who were sitting opposite him: "The tank lieutenant I sent to the headquarters?" ,What is your name?"

   "Agafon!" Sidolin and Ivanov said in unison: "Lieutenant Agafon."

   After figuring out the name of the tank lieutenant, Sokov immediately understood what the purpose of Bely calling him in the middle of the night was. He released his hand covering the receiver and asked: "Colonel Bely, do you want to intercede for him?"

"That's right, Misha, I really want to intercede for him." Seeing that Sokov saw through his intentions, Bely no longer concealed his intentions, but nodded and said, "He is a person I value more. Sir, I don't want him to be court-martialed."

   "Comrade Colonel," Sokov said with a stern face: "I think you should already know what he did. It was because he was greedy for life and afraid of death. As a result, more than ten or twenty of our commanders and fighters were captured by the German army..."

"Misha, you are quite right. Lieutenant Agafon did make mistakes before." Bely tried his best to defend his subordinates and said, "It was his first time participating in combat and he had no combat experience. Normal..."

   "Colonel Bely..."

"Misha, don't talk yet, just listen to me." Sokov was about to refute, but Bely interrupted him: "Even if Lieutenant Agafon did something wrong, it was because of the past. For more than a year, he has made countless feats under my hands. It is precisely because of his outstanding military exploits that I will send him to be responsible for the security work of the headquarters. The German tank you captured drove to a safe place, and out of the sixteen soldiers he took with him, only seven survived.”

   In all fairness, Sokov was really angry when he heard Guchakov accuse Agafon of what he had done. But as time went by, he felt that under the conditions at that time, it was probably the first time for Agafon to participate in a battle, and he was frightened by the strength of the enemy, so he fled in a hurry.

   Regarding the process of capturing the Tiger tank, Sokov heard from Sidolin that it takes a lot of courage to brave the enemy's shelling and bombing and bravely rush to the tank near the bombing point. It would be inappropriate to send Agafon to a court-martial just because of some mistakes he has made in the past.

   "Colonel Bely." Sokov was not in a hurry to express his opinion, but asked instead: "How do you think he should be dealt with?"

"There are not many tank commanders as good as him in my brigade now." Bely said in a conferring tone, "Misha, can you tell the commander to let him go and let him go?" Stay and continue to command the troops."

  If someone else mentioned this matter, Sokov might refuse, but Bely is a comrade in arms who once fought side by side. He finally made a request to himself, and even if he wanted to refuse, he didn't know how to say it. After a long time, he finally said: "Colonel Bely, I have sent someone to take him to the headquarters of the army group. Is it too late to say hello to the commander?"

   "No, it won't be too late." Belei heard that Sokov planned to lenient the situation, and said a little excitedly, "As long as you don't pursue it, I will personally negotiate with the commander."

"Okay." Sokov decided to give Lieutenant Agafon a way out because of Bely's face, and he said straightforwardly: "I will express my opinion on behalf of the division, and we will not pursue this matter any more. As for the Army Group Command How to deal with it over there is up to you to negotiate."

  The conversation between Sokov and Bely was heard by Sidolin and Ivanov sitting on the side. As soon as Sokov put down the phone, Sidolin couldn't wait to ask: "Mr. Comrade, are you really not going to pursue this matter?"

"Don't pursue it." Sokov waved his hand and said, "Since Colonel Bely called us to plead for mercy, we must give him some face. As for Guchakov, we will keep it from him for the time being. After a long time, he will naturally forget about it."

After Sokov finished speaking, he raised his hand and looked at his watch, yawned again, and said to the two of them: "It's getting late, you should hurry up and sleep for a while. Otherwise, when it dawns, you just want to sleep, and you don't have time to sleep." Here's the chance."

   As soon as Sokov lay down on the camp bed by the corner, he heard the harsh ringing of the phone again, startling his drowsiness into nothingness. Just when he was secretly considering whether to change the room and continue to sleep, he heard Sidolin who had just picked up the phone and said to him: "Comrade commander, your call is from the commander."

"The commander is calling?" Sokov heard Sidolin say this, and immediately jumped up from the bed. He didn't even bother to put on his boots, and ran over barefoot: "Hello, Comrade Commander, I It's Sokov, what instructions do you have?"

"Colonel Sokov, I think you have received a call from Bely, right?" Chuikov said hesitantly on the phone: "The lieutenant Agafon you sent to the headquarters has been carefully checked by General Orel. We have cross-examined. After repeated research, we feel that under the circumstances at that time, he abandoned his friendly troops and fled for his life without permission. It was extremely wrong and should be severely criticized. We feel that it is inappropriate for a commander who has repeatedly made military exploits and has rich combat experience to be sent to a court-martial."

  Hearing this, Sokov secretly rejoiced in his heart, but fortunately, he decided to take Lieutenant Agafon a step further for Bely's sake. Otherwise, even if he rejected Bere, he would not be able to reject Cuikov, and he would offend Bere instead. He hastily and cautiously asked: "Comrade Commander, I wonder how you plan to deal with him?"

   "Under the current situation, I think it's enough to lock him up for two days." Cuikov said: "After all, we need a large number of commanders with combat experience now."

"Comrade Commander," Sokov waited for Chuikov to finish speaking, and immediately expressed his attitude to him: "Colonel Bely called me just now, and he also mentioned this Lieutenant Agafon. He was probably the first He participated in the battle for the first time and was frightened by a powerful enemy, so he made the mistake of abandoning his allies. I believe that he has probably felt bad for such a long time, and he must have been blaming himself in his heart. Since this is the case, we might as well Give him a chance to turn himself around..."

  Listening to Sokov's eloquent talk, Chuikov found that he couldn't use a single word of the series of speeches he had prepared. After finally waiting for Sokov to finish speaking, he changed the subject in time: "Colonel Sokov, a few hours ago, Factory Manager Peter called me and said that you asked him to produce a batch of grenades for you. something?"

"Yes, Comrade Commander." Sokov had planned to report to Chuikov after asking Peter to produce grenades for himself. Since he asked, he took the opportunity to say, "I think the grenades we use today are Without the help of the Germans, we asked the factory manager Peter to make a batch for us so that we can better fight the enemy.”

Regarding the fact that Sokov stepped over him and directly asked the factory to produce grenades, Chuikov was not angry in his heart, he was just curious why Sokov wanted to imitate the German grenade: "Colonel Sokov, can you tell me why you let Peter What about the factory manager imitating the German grenades?"

"Comrade Commander, don't you think the wooden-handled grenades used by the Germans are more effective than the grenades used by our army?" Some scenes from movies emerged in Sokov's mind. Countless Soviet commanders and fighters shot at the enemy Because of the lack of weapons, many people held a huge grenade in their hands. Many times they did not throw it out to blow up the enemy, but prepared to smash the enemy to death with the grenade in close-range hand-to-hand combat. "And our army's grenades need special training to ensure that they don't blow themselves up when they are thrown."

"Colonel Sokov, what you said is very reasonable." Cuikov knew very well that the grenades used by the Soviet army were not as good as the wooden-handled grenades used by the Germans, so he said approvingly: "After the grenades are produced, you first If it works for a period of time, I will ask Factory Manager Peter to increase production so that all commanders and fighters of the entire army can be replaced with new grenades."

  (end of this chapter)