Soviet border guard soldier Dimitry. Kononlovich. Lovell, crawling over snowdrifts, struggled into a farmland drainage ditch.

Lying on his back at the bottom of a ditch filled with snow, the private gasped and exhaled a puff of white mist, then sat up and called out to his comrades in the platoon: "I see the footprints outside, are they you, Dania, or Yegrev." ”。

"Shut up, you idiot." A voice not far away responded, and Raffl recognized it as the platoon commander, Sergeant Yevrem.

"Our Lady bless, it turned out to be your comrade platoon commander, and I am Dimitri,." Raffle replied aloud in surprise, then picked up the Mosin Nagant rifle that had been thrown aside.

"Don't be so loud, come over here." The platoon commander lowered his voice and shouted quietly.

"Yes, Comrade Platoon Commander." Ralph endured the pain from the wound in his leg and slowly crawled in the direction of the platoon commander.

The sound of gunfire in the distance was still ringing, indicating that Ralph's comrades were still fighting and that the Red Army soldiers felt a pang of self-reproach and shame for not having the courage to fight with them.

Climbing over a spill well, the Red Army soldier saw his sergeant platoon commander at a glance.

In June 40, the Soviet Red Army began to use new ranks, no longer using the title of platoon, company, battalion, and regimental commander, but replacing it with a rank corresponding to the position.

Initially, the platoon commander of the Red Army had to be at least a second lieutenant, but with the continuous expansion of the Red Army's troops, the number of middle and low-level junior officers became seriously insufficient, so the ranks of the squeezed command were lowered to sergeant and sergeant, especially after the beginning of the Great Purge, the situation of low rank and high rank became more common.

Sergeant Yevrem looked rather unfortunate at the moment, he sat leaning against the wall of the ditch, his clean uniform stained with wet mud, his green tweed hat missing, and the sergeant was now bareheaded, his whole face tinged a terrible blue-gray.

"Are you hurt, comrade platoon commander." Ralph struggled to crawl in front of the other man.

"Yes, Mija (Dimitri's nickname)." Yevrem tried to sit up straight, but after two struggles, he gave up the futile effort.

"Come help me, Mija." The sergeant requested.

"Wait a minute, Comrade Platoon Commander." Ralph secured his rifle against the wall of the ditch and stepped forward to hold the sergeant.

"How's the second squad doing now? Is Comrade Andreev in command? I heard the gunshots intensely. ”

"Sergeant Andreev has already died, me and the others have been scattered, comrade platoon commander." Ralph never dared to lie to an officer, but now he was seriously injured...

"yes, I was led by Andreev." Yevrem shook his head with a wry smile.

"You're hurt, Mija, too." The sergeant saw the bandage on Ralph's leg.

"I got a bullet in the thigh, but I was able to hold on." Ralph replied.

The z29 rifle, which is actually the Polish version of the German Mauser K98az carbine, is only slightly different from the 98K used by the German Wehrmacht, and is also loaded with the German Mauser 7.9mm rifle cartridge.

After the end of World War I, Poland, with the support of Britain and France, embezzled the Pru soldier factory set up in Danzig by the Second Reich, and thus had the ability to produce Mauser rifles, the letters KB in the model number are Carbines, and the prototype of the z29 is the famous K98az rifle.

After the fall of Poland, both the Soviet Union and Germany captured a large number of Z rifles, because they were not much different from the 98K, and the Wehrmacht simply kept them for themselves.

The Soviets sealed up the rifles and handed over only a small part to the Polish police in the occupied territories, which the Germans had seized from a police outpost.

Ralph was lucky that the Mauser bullet did not hit the bone in the thigh, in which case the steel-core armor warhead would split into pieces along with the bone, tearing the surrounding tendons, nerves, and blood vessels at the same time, which is usually difficult to deal with, and if gangrene is caused by infection, the only way to await the wounded is amputation.

The Germans have been equipped with new antibiotics that can effectively inhibit wound infection and deterioration. The Soviet Red Army only had regular sulfonamide powder in its hands, and it was certain that no country would provide it with penicillin this time, so if the war broke out on the Eastern Front, the death rate of the Soviet wounded would be worse than in history.

Red Army fighters like Ralph were usually given only a bandage bag made of green linen stuffed with a roll of gauze bandage with a hemostatic pad. As for drugs to stop bleeding or relieve pain, they can only be obtained from military doctors and medical personnel, and once a military doctor or medical soldier dies, the wounded can only rely on firm faith to survive.

Sergeant Yevrem was indeed a staunch Bolshevik, but apparently he was not loyal enough, so he was on the verge of death.

A bullet hit him in the abdomen, and he must have suffered damage to his organs, most likely an artery, and the internal bleeding was quite severe, as could be seen from his face. If he hadn't met Ralph, the sergeant would have sat here like this, silently waiting for his blood to drain.

"I can drag you along, as long as we get into the woods, the bandits won't find us." Ralph proposed.

"No, Mija. I know my situation and time is running out. Now I only need you to do one thing, and this is the last order I give as a platoon commander. Yevrem was already very weak, but he still tried his best to make a majestic look, and with his face as white as a dead man, it frightened the little private's heart to the pound.

"Yes, Comrade Platoon Commander." Ralph nodded in agreement.

"You have to find a way to survive and report what happened to us to your superiors. These people are not armed bandits at all, but highly trained professional soldiers. They are Germans, Ralph! Evrem didn't know where a burst of strength came from, and he grabbed the private's shoulder.

"These people are regular troops, this is a long-planned military operation, I don't know why the Germans crossed the border, but it is clear that the Soviets are already at war."

"They are not Polish bandits ?! But weren't the Germans our allies? Comrade Sergeant. ”

"You don't need to understand the reason for this, just report it to your superiors." Yevrem let go of Ralph's shoulder.

"Why did the gunfire stop? Is the battle over? The sergeant struggled to keep his eyes open.

"Wait a minute, platoon commander, I'll go up and have a look." The private helped the platoon commander to sit down again against the ditch wall, and then lifted the rifle that had been set aside.

He dragged his wounded leg slowly to the edge of the ditch, leaning his rifle and poking his head out to look out. All I saw was a pile of corpses in gray coats lying on the snow-covered slopes of the road, all of which were border guard soldiers who had been killed at the beginning of the battle.

His infantry platoon had set up blocking positions on both sides of the road, preparing to ambush a Polish partisan group fleeing to the border.

Because the above information was given to them, some Polish bandits who hated the Soviets suddenly attacked a checkpoint near the border. As for the number of these bandits, the armament they were equipped with, and the means of transport they used, there was no mention of them in the enemy briefing.

How could they have known that these bandits were wearing the uniforms of the internal affairs forces and were arrogantly driving a truck with a red flag and a DP machine gun on the front of the car.

At least half of the people here were killed by the DP machine gun, these people were called up by the internal affairs troops to line up on the side of the road, and when the border guards were defenseless, these internal affairs troops suddenly opened fire on the queue, more than a dozen people were killed on the spot, and the others scattered and fled in panic, and then they were killed in the snow one by one like rabbit hunting by the other party, which was simply a cold execution, a bloody massacre.

The platoon commander had been shot at the beginning of the battle and then lost his mark in the confusion, leaving the platoon with two infantry squads fortified on the western side of the road, commanded by Sergeant Andreev, of which Ralph was one of the riflemen.

Sergeant Andreev immediately led his troops into an exchange of fire with the opposing side, and even personally led an infantry squad to charge the enemy, but bravery did not always lead to victory, at least this time Andreev did not succeed.

The opposing side had rare ferocious firepower, and this infantry squad, including Andreev himself, was almost all killed in the charge.

Pretty much here, because it doesn't include the lucky Ralph, the sergeant who miraculously stormed the highway unscathed.

But he didn't continue to charge at the enemy, and the automatic fire had already scared him out of half his life, so he directly crossed the road and ran for his life towards the wilderness on the other side.

The Germans had no intention of sparing him, and the infantryman was then knocked to the ground by a single shot, perhaps thinking that he had been killed by a single blow, and the Germans who fired at him turned around and engaged the border guards on the other side, saving Ralph's life.

"They're getting on that truck, and it looks like these guys aren't going to clean up the battlefield, platoon commander." Ralph retracted his head and whispered to the platoon commander.

"Platoon commander? .... Platoon leader! Facing Yevrem, who had stopped breathing, Ralph bowed his head and fell to his knees in the mud at the bottom of the ditch.