red moscow

Chapter 2588 Mine Clearance (Part )

"That's right, Comrade General, you are right." Vaseligov promptly responded to Sokov's statement: "I have dealt with engineers before, and I heard them say that they would rather risk the bombing of enemy planes or artillery fire to build a pontoon bridge on the river than to participate in mine clearance work."

As soon as Vaseligov finished speaking, the fake president couldn't help but ask: "Major, why?"

"Sir," Vasherigov didn't know the identity of the fake president, but since he was asked, he naturally explained, "The materials used for mines are not just metals as you know. There are also plastic or wooden mines. The mine sweeper can't detect them at all. If you step on them carelessly, they will explode, causing considerable casualties to the mine sweepers."

After listening to Vasherigov's explanation, the fake president nodded slowly and then said, "So that's how it is. Engineers are really a dangerous profession."

"On the battlefield, any type of soldier is dangerous." Sokov interjected, "Unless you don't go to the battlefield, you may be sacrificed or injured at any time."

"Comrade General," the fake president stared at Sokov and asked with a half-smile, "Have you ever been injured on the battlefield?"

"Of course I was wounded," Sokov replied calmly, "During the Battle of Stalingrad alone, I was wounded twice. One of the times I was wounded, I lay in bed for nearly a month. In 1944, I was seriously wounded while commanding a battle near the Dnieper River. I almost died."

Vaseligov knew a little about Sokov's experience, so he was relatively calm when he heard him talk about these things. But the fake president's face was full of shock: "What, you were wounded twice in the Battle of Stalingrad? I heard that the survival time of soldiers entering Stalingrad was 24 hours, and officers were 72 hours. It's amazing that you survived!"

Sokov smiled faintly, "I'm just lucky, so I can sit opposite you today." After saying this, Sokov turned his gaze to the window again, continuing to observe the women who were clearing mines in the distance, praying silently in his heart that nothing would happen to them.

But some things happen when you are afraid of them. Just as Sokov was staring at the women who were clearing mines, a ball of fire and black smoke suddenly rose from the crowd, and human remains could be vaguely seen in the fire. Then, everyone in the box heard a loud noise, and the car windows were also rattling.

"Oh no, something's wrong." Seeing this, Sokov stood up from his berth and instinctively wanted to run out to deal with the matter. But he stopped after taking a few steps toward the door. He remembered that his duty was to look after the fake president in front of him, and he must not leave him alone before arriving in Moscow.

There was no choice but to sit down again and look into the distance anxiously.

Just as Sokov had judged, after a woman who was clearing mines was killed by a mine, the women around her were briefly stunned, then they all screamed and ran around. No matter how the leading soldiers shouted, they simply could not hear them. They were like headless flies, running around in the minefield. Maybe they would not step on a mine if they ran a few steps, but the possibility of running for 40 or 50 meters without stepping on a mine was almost zero.

In this way, fire and smoke rose from time to time in the minefield. Every time a fire appeared, it meant that one or more women were taken away by the god of death. After just a few minutes, the minefield became quiet. Only two or three leading soldiers were still standing, and the rest fell in the minefield.

"Oh my God!" The fake president crossed himself when he saw this tragic scene and muttered, "I thought they could complete the mine clearance work smoothly, but in just a few minutes, they all fell in a pool of blood."

"Comrade General," seeing what happened in the minefield, Vaseligov anxiously asked Sokov, "What should we do?"

"What else can we do?" Sokov spread his hands, shrugged his shoulders, and said helplessly: "We can only sit and watch. According to the order from our superiors, the two of us cannot leave this box before arriving in Moscow."

"Comrade General," the fake president sitting opposite Sokov said, "Are you worried that I will run away?"

Sokov didn't want Vasherigov to know the identity of the fake president, so he switched to English and said, "Yes, Marshal Zhukov arranged for me to be in charge of guarding here because he was worried that you would escape. Even if you don't run away, as long as someone sees your face, it may cause great trouble. Do you understand what I mean?"

The fake president was stunned to hear that Sokov could speak such fluent English. After a long while, he finally said, "Comrade General, I didn't expect that you can speak English so authentically."

"I learned it before, and I can speak a little bit." Sokov said this, glanced at Vaseligov next to him, and continued: "Because your identity is sensitive, even if it is a guard I trust, I can't let him know."

"Doesn't he understand English?"

"I don't understand," Sokov said, shaking his head. "I once took him to visit a US prisoner-of-war camp, and he remained silent the entire time, which means he didn't understand English at all. And you, who are pretending to be the top figure in the US, can't do without speaking English, so I think it's more convenient for us to communicate in English."

"Your suggestion is good. I agree." The fake president nodded and said, "This way, we don't have to worry about anything when we talk to each other."

When Vasherigov heard Sokov and the fake president suddenly speaking English, he couldn't understand a word and couldn't help feeling a little uneasy.

There was a knock at the door. Sokov stopped talking to the fake president and told Vaseligov, "Major, go see who it is."

Vaserigov walked to the door, opened it, and after seeing clearly that it was Zhukov's adjutant standing at the door, he asked politely: "Comrade adjutant, does Marshal Zhukov have any new instructions?"

The adjutant nodded, then said, "There has been some accident in the minefield in the distance, and the train may have to stay on this platform for a while longer. Comrade Marshal asked me to come and inform you that you must not leave this compartment under any circumstances."

"clear."

After the adjutant finished explaining what was going on, he turned and left.

Vaseligov returned to the box and told Sokov about Zhukov's new order. Sokov nodded slightly and said, "I understand." When the three of them turned their eyes to the window again, they saw a group of officers and soldiers sent by the station, about 30 people, in a scattered formation, carefully entering the minefield and starting to clean up the mess there.

When Vaserigov saw the officers and soldiers who were there to deal with the incident, he couldn't help but mutter, "I wonder how many of those women will survive?"

"It's hard to say." Sokov stared out the window and said without looking back, "If everyone had laid down on the ground instead of running around when the first mine exploded, the casualties could have been minimized. But the scene at that time, as I analyzed, the women had no actual experience in mine clearance. When they saw a mine explode and their companions were killed, their minds went blank and they only wanted to escape from this death zone as soon as possible. But they didn't expect that running around aimlessly like them would speed up their death."

The fake president also interjected at this moment: "According to my observation, none of the people who fell because of the explosion have stood up so far. This shows that they were either killed in the explosion or seriously injured, so that they can't even do a simple action like standing up."

"I think we should give a suggestion to our superiors," Vaserigov said, "Let the German prisoners of war clear the mines. In this way, even if a mine is accidentally detonated, it will only kill our enemies."

But the fake president disagreed with Vaseligov's statement: "Comrade Major, now that the war is over, we cannot risk the lives of German prisoners of war."

"Sir, I don't agree with your statement," Vaseligov retorted, "The enemies who surrendered voluntarily are called prisoners of war, and the prisoners of war now are just a group of enemies who have temporarily laid down their weapons. Do we still need to be kind to the enemies?"

When Sokov heard what Vasherigov said, he was shocked and thought to himself that these words sounded very familiar, as if they were said by some important person. He didn't expect that Vasherigov had the same opinion as that person.

"I once heard someone say that German prisoners of war held in Soviet-controlled areas were living in hell." The fake president argued unconvincedly, "I'm afraid there are too many camp leaders who have the same idea as you."

"Sir, you didn't say much." Sokov felt that the fake president's words were biased, so he took the initiative to say: "What the major just said should have been said by a certain American general, and he was just relaying it. As for what you said about the German prisoners of war held in our army's prisoner-of-war camps living in hell, I cannot agree with this."

"Am I wrong?"

"Mr. Fake President," Sokov said to the fake president again in English, "After our army entered Berlin, the German army saw that defeat was inevitable, and many troops withdrew to the Allied combat zone and chose to surrender to the Allies. The main reason was just as you said, they were worried that they would live in hell after being imprisoned in a POW camp. But they never dreamed that after surrendering to the Allies, the treatment they enjoyed was almost the same as ours."

"I heard that many prisoners of war die every day in our prisoner-of-war camps." The fake president said unconvincedly, "I'm afraid this won't happen in the Allied prisoner-of-war camps, right?"

"Soon after I arrived in Poland, I participated in the Red Cross inspection team as a representative of Marshal Zhukov to visit the POW camps controlled by the US military to check the conditions of German prisoners of war." Sokov said: "Although every scene we saw was very harmonious, I could sense that these were all what the US wanted us to see, and the truth in the POW camps was concealed by them."

"Comrade General, perhaps your judgment is wrong."

"Let me put it this way, Mr. Fake President." Sokov continued, "When I was inspecting, a German major asked me to rescue him from the American prisoner-of-war camp. For this, he planned to pay me two kilograms of gold as a reward."

When he learned that a German prisoner of war was even planning to pay Sokov two kilograms of gold as a reward in order to leave the American prisoner-of-war camp, he couldn't help but widen his eyes in surprise: "Comrade General, is what you said true?"

"You and I are not familiar with each other, and we have no vested interests. Do you think I would lie to you about this?"

"That won't happen." The fake president shook his head and said, "So everything you said is true."

"Yes."

The fake president was silent for a while, then asked a question that concerned him: "Comrade General, do you know how the superiors plan to deal with me?"

"I don't know." Although Sokov was ordered to look after the fake president, he didn't know how his superiors would deal with him. However, he also felt that since Zhukov was willing to take this man back to Moscow, it meant that his superiors had no intention of letting him disappear from the face of the earth, but instead locked him up in an isolated place. Thinking of this, he said to the fake president, "If your superiors intend to silence you, I'm afraid you can't leave Berlin at all. Now that you have successfully arrived in Poland, your safety is guaranteed before you return to Moscow. As for how you will be dealt with after you arrive in Moscow, it is not something I can ask."

The box then fell into silence. No one spoke, and no one was in the mood to speak. Instead, they all looked out the window at the same time, watching the group of soldiers in the distance dealing with the aftermath of the minefield.

When he saw the soldiers carrying out bodies, some intact and some incomplete, from the minefield on stretchers, Sokov silently counted in his heart. The stretcher team entered the minefield twice and carried out 34 bodies, indicating that the women's team responsible for mine clearance had been completely wiped out.

"What a pity." Vaserigov sighed and said, "The person who arranged for these women to clear mines should be sent to the military court. The mines in the minefield exploded, and he was fine, but he sent these future mothers to death."

Sokov turned his head and looked at Vaserigov, but he didn't say anything. He felt that the person who could issue such an order must be at least a senior general of Zhukov's level. For them, as long as they could clear the mines left over from the war, the number of casualties was nothing more than a cold number.

After the bodies and wounded were removed from the minefield, a new group of women entered the minefield to continue the mine-clearing task that the previous team had not completed. Perhaps because they were worried about the recurrence of the previous situation, there were many more soldiers leading the team this time. Even if a similar incident occurred again, these soldiers would be able to control the situation in a short time.

The train finally departed, heading towards Belarus. Looking at the moving scenery outside the window, Sokov couldn't help but get excited. In one day at most, he would be able to return to Moscow and reunite with Asia. Then he would stay at home peacefully, quietly waiting for the day when his child would be born.

(End of this chapter)