At the headquarters of the North-Western Front, Kuznetsov looked at the telegram in his hand and felt a burning pain in his palm, as if he was holding not a telegram, but a piece of coals that had just been taken out of the furnace.

"The order given to us by the High Command is that we should deal with the enemy in the encirclement of Pustoshka within forty-eight hours. Didn't they read the war report we sent them? The German counteroffensive has begun, and now the question is not how long we will annihilate the Germans, but how to prevent not being annihilated by the Germans. The chief of staff said angrily.

Kuznetsov silently handed the telegram in his hand to the intelligence staff officer and asked them to archive it.

He was well aware of the mood of the chief of staff.

Not only the chief of staff, but even he himself has a powerful fire in his heart.

In the last telegram sent to the General Staff, he had already written about the situation he was facing.

To the south of the 22nd Army, German reconnaissance units had already been discovered, and the troops of the German Central Front could move north again at any time to launch an offensive to break the encirclement of Pustoshka.

To the north, according to aerial reconnaissance, the units of the German 1st Panzer Army had already begun to move south and were marching towards the city of Pustoska.

The situation was most critical to the west of the encirclement, when the German Sixteenth Army and a division of the Fourth Panzer Army had begun to storm the Stalin line head-on in the area of Shebezh.

The German offensive on the Stalin line was fierce, and the defenders in the Sebezh area received an hourly telegram asking for help.

With the current situation, not only will it be impossible to destroy the German troops in the encirclement, but its own troops will be counter-encircled by the German army if they are not able to do it.

In his last telegram, he repeatedly stressed the tension of the situation, in order to remind the high-ranking officials of the Supreme High Command to give the order to withdraw troops as soon as possible.

German troops in the city of Pustoska. It's not a fragrant steak, it's a diamond, and it looks so radiant that you will only break a few teeth in one bite.

But his own hints did not seem to be enough, and the order to withdraw did not wait, but instead waited for the order to storm the city of Pustoshka again.

And this order is the same as the order I gave before. It's not an exaggeration to say it's impersonal, or even rude.

Remembering the important note in the order, be sure to confirm the final fate of the Polish governor.

Capturing him alive would be a great victory, and if you can't capture him alive, you must also make sure that his body is his own, in short, you must not let this big man go.

The current situation is that the enemy's guns have been pointed at the hearts of the North-Western Front, and the bigwigs of the Supreme Command are not thinking about how to dodge the enemy's fatal shot. It's ridiculous to want to take off the medal from the enemy's chest instead.

After thinking for a while, Kuznetsov said depressedly: "The Polish governor of the Germans is really too tempting. The people of the High Command had been blinded by the Polish governor-general, and they were only thinking about capturing him alive or killing him, completely losing their calm judgment of the situation on the battlefield. ”

The Chief of Staff nodded indignantly, then said, "They are too optimistic. ”

"Our time is running out, only forty-eight hours, to give orders to the 10th and 21st Mechanized Corps at the front. There was also the 22nd Army, giving them fifteen hours to recuperate. Tomorrow at 4:30 a.m. One last attack, be sure to take the city of Pustoska. ”

"Fifteen hours of trimming, will it be too long?" The chief of staff asked.

Kuznetsov whispered to the chief of staff: "Fifteen hours is not all for them to repair, during this time, you will make another plan if the Stalin line is broken, we will fully retreat to the line of Velikiye Luki." Plans to rebuild a new line of defense. ”

Seeing the surprised gaze of the chief of staff, Kuznetsov said: "We are on the front line, we have first-hand information, we must look at the situation more calmly, and we must prepare early." ”

The chief of staff nodded.

"I see what you mean. I'll take care of it. ”

"Comrade Commander, telegram from the headquarters of the Eleventh Army." An intelligence staff officer hurried up to Kuznetsov and handed him a telegram.

"The German offensive in the Shebezh area has intensified, and the 11th Army has asked us to mobilize reinforcements as soon as possible to reinforce Shebezh." Kuznetsov said as he handed the telegram in his hand to the chief of staff.

"We don't have any extra troops there to use." said the chief of staff

"Order, let Lelyushenko's 21st Mechanized Army go to reinforce Shebezh." Kuznetsov said.

・・・・・・

Outside the city of Shebezh, the battle of the 1st Police Regiment of the Waffen-SS Police Division attacking the Stalinist line was still in full swing.

Risking detection by artillery reconnaissance aircraft of the police division, the Soviet artillery again fired a salvo at the front line, stopping the advance of the SS soldiers.

"Find them, kill them." The head of the 1st Police Regiment, Dietrich, took the phone and shouted into the microphone.

On the other end of the phone, the commander of the police artillery regiment replied: "Wolf, our reconnaissance aircraft is still operating above the heads of the Russians, and believe me, they will soon bring us good news." ”

When the SS soldiers were suppressed by Soviet artillery fire, in the southeast corner of the battlefield, the Soviet infantry took advantage of the situation to launch a counteroffensive.

Part of the Soviet infantry climbed out of the fortifications, appeared on top of the fortifications, and condescendingly opened fire on the SS soldiers who were pinned down near the fortifications.

Their bold actions drew machine gun and mortar fire in return, but the Soviet infantry gained the upper hand in the firefight.

Suppressing the SS soldiers near the fortifications, some Soviet infantry even had the audacity to run to the edge of the fortifications and throw grenades at the Germans clinging to the walls of the fortifications.

The SS suffered heavy casualties in the sound of grenade explosions, and the dead and wounded lay down under the fortifications.

The surviving soldiers could no longer endure the grenade and had to spread out to safety around them to avoid the asymmetrical blow.

After the SS soldiers left the fortifications, the firing holes of some of the fortifications once again flashed the figures of Soviet infantry.

Without German soldiers, without the threat of flamethrowers, the Soviet troops in the fortifications were again active, and the huge fortifications were resurrected again, showing their fangs to the surrounding SS soldiers.

Moments of crisis. It's a golden moment for heroes to show themselves.

In the strip between fortifications No. 17 and 18, a dozen sappers and more than twenty infantry were suppressed here by Soviet fire.

A section of the Soviet trench occupied by them became their best hideout.

"Who will use mortars? Who will use mortars? ”

A sapper with a sergeant's epaulette, shouted loudly to the surroundings.

Soon, in the trench ten meters away, an infantry corporal ran over.

"I'll use mortars."

Pointing to a circular position protruding from the west side of the trench. The engineer sergeant shouted: "See if there is a mortar dropped by the Russians, you go and see if it can be used?" ”

The corporal lowered his body, bent over and ran to the circular position, lifted the corpse of the Soviet gunner pressed against the mortar, and fiddled with the mortar.

The corporal was taken aback by the volume of the mortar, which had a large caliber, certainly above 100 mm. Even the volume of shells scattered next to the mortar. It was also a round larger than the 81-mm mortar shells commonly used by the German army.

Confirming that there was no problem with the oversized mortar, the corporal summoned two infantrymen, and the three of them worked together to turn the muzzle of the mortar to the east, pointing at fortification No. 18, which the engineer sergeant was referring to.

At the top of fortification No. 18, four or five Soviet infantrymen were firing at the SS soldiers clinging to the concrete walls of the fortifications.

Soon, the muzzles of the mortars roared. Oversized shells arced through the air and landed on top of the fortifications. Smoke and death instantly covered the top of the fortifications.

The Soviet infantry on top of the fortifications howled and flew out of the fortifications, fell to a height of thirty or forty meters, and were then beaten into a honeycomb by the SS soldiers there.

Two shells were fired again, and the Soviet infantry above fortifications No. 17 was solved, and the infantry corporal excitedly shouted: "This caliber mortar is so enjoyable, I think I have fallen in love with it." ”

It's a pity that the engineer sergeant can't hear his admiration anymore. With four sappers, he lay on the edge of the trench.

After cautiously poking his head out to observe the situation ahead, the engineer sergeant shouted: "Suppress the enemy's machine guns, I'm going to do it." ”

The battle sappers in front of them, clinging to the side of the fortifications, jumped off the walls of the fortifications. The flamethrower in his hand shot at the machine gun that had just been resurrected, and spewed scorching fire.

The screams of Soviet machine gunners were heard again from the shooting hole.

Not satisfied with the screams of the Soviet infantry, another engineer picked up the G42 semi-automatic rifle in his hand, dug the muzzle into the machine gun hole in the fortification, and fired a burst of blind fire, until he ran out of bullets in the magazine, and then jumped to the side to reload contentedly.

Seeing that the crisis was temporarily resolved, the engineer sergeant first shouted to the infantry corporal behind him: "Watch out for the enemy above the fortifications and cover us." ”

After receiving the promise of the infantry corporal, the engineer sergeant and four of his subordinates worked together to remove a Goliath RC tank from the trench, and after letting go of the coiled wires, the Goliath RC tank made a slight buzzing sound, turned two tracks, and stumbled along the undulating ground to a high and steep dirt slope between the two fortifications.

The Goliath remote-controlled bomb had just been fired more than 20 meters away when a strong wind suddenly rushed down from the sky.

The engineer sergeant took the soldiers who operated the Goliath remote-controlled tank and hid in the trenches

The sound of earth-shaking explosions continued, and countless loess splashed into the trenches along with broken green grass.

Slapping the dust on his body, the engineer sergeant kept muttering.

"Don't blow up, don't blow up."

He was well aware of the shortcomings of the Goliath remote-controlled tank, one was that the slender wires were easy to break, and the other was that the armor of the remote-controlled tank itself was very weak and could easily be destroyed under heavy artillery fire.

After a short and fierce shelling, the engineer sergeant looked up at the outside of the trench and urged his men to activate the remote-controlled tanks that had survived the shelling.

However, under the anxious gaze of the engineer sergeant, the remote-controlled tank stopped in place and did not move.

"Damn, it must be the wire is broken, this tank is scrapped." The sapper who controlled the tank cursed.

"This is the only remote-controlled tank we have left, and we can't just give it up." The engineer sergeant said as he jumped out of the trench and crawled quickly towards the remote-controlled tank in the direction of the wire.

After climbing about ten meters or so, the engineer sergeant saw that the rightmost of the three wires was broken.

Picking up both ends of the port, he pulled out another bayonet, peeled off the plastic skin of the wire, revealing the metal wire inside, and the sergeant connected the metal wires together, and then shouted to his subordinates behind him, "Try again." ”

As soon as his voice died down, the Goliath RC tank hummed again with an exhilarating hum and quickly rushed towards its destination, the cliff between the two fortifications.

Pulling out the sapper shovel stuck in his waist, the sapper sergeant bent over and trotted all the way down the serpentine course, rushing straight to the bottom of the dirt slope, but arrived one step ahead of the remote-controlled bomb.

At the signal of the engineer sergeant, two more sappers jumped out of the trench and followed the Goliath remote-controlled tank to the bottom of the cliff.

The three men wielded sapper shovels, dug a hole in the earth under the cliff, stuffed the belated Goliath remote-controlled bomb into it, and then ran to the eighteenth fortification on the right with a profuse sweat.

"Hidden, hidden," shouted the engineer sergeant as he ran.

Hearing the warning, the surrounding sappers and infantry looked for more suitable shelters.

After confirming that the surrounding comrades had found a hidden location, the sapper holding the remote control retracted into the trench and pressed the detonation button fiercely.

As a result, nothing happened in plain sight.

I pressed the detonation button again, and the cliff was still unharmed, and there was no imaginary explosion.

The engineer sergeant quickly sensed something unusual on the battlefield and quickly ran out of the shelter.

Following the line of defense extended by the wire, the engineer sergeant checked the wire again, and sure enough, about seventy meters away from the Goliath remote-controlled tank, he saw that the wire in the middle of the three wires had broken in two for some unknown reason.

"Damn, you have to give advice to the people in the Ordnance Bureau to install artificial ignition devices for remote-controlled tanks."

The engineer sergeant took on the role of operator again, reconnecting the wires as he had done last time, and the engineer sergeant then signaled the detonation to his men.

This detonation did not disappoint.

With an unprecedented loud bang at the bottom of the cliff, black earth fountains flew out of the sky more than 200 meters high, and powerful waves of air turned into a hurricane and swept across the bottom of the cliff.

Under the blasting of the 100-kilogram "top-of-the-line" Goliath remote-controlled tank, the cliff between the two fortifications suddenly collapsed, and countless earth and gravel fell to the bottom of the cliff, piling up a dirt slope that could be climbed by infantry on foot.

The SS soldiers, who had endured it for a long time, rushed through the choking smoke and along the dirt slope to the top of the cliff.

Two minutes later, SS soldiers appeared on the top of fortifications No. 17 and No. 18. (To be continued.) )