Chapter 2258: something is wrong

  When the convoy passed the pontoon bridge and came to the west bank of the West Oder River, Koshkin, who was sitting in the co-pilot's seat, turned his head and asked, "Comrade commander, which unit are we going to?"

   "Yes, Misha, we have reached the west bank now, which army should we go to?"

  Sokov thought for a while, and then replied: "Go to Major Sukharev's 109th Infantry Brigade. They are responsible for protecting the right wing of the landing field. The task is not light."

   Lunev heard Sukov's voice. Now the right-wing Fejuninsky's 2nd Assault Army is not fully in place. It is unrealistic to expect them to protect their own right wing. Therefore, they must rely on existing forces to ensure the safety of the right wing. He nodded and said in agreement: "Okay then, let's go to the 109th Infantry Brigade."

  When I came to the 109th Infantry Brigade, a small battle had just ended here. When the brigade commander Sukharev saw the arrival of Sokov and Lunev, his face was full of surprise. After he raised his hand and saluted, he reported to the two: "Comrade Commander, Comrade Military Commissar, our brigade just ended a battle and killed hundreds of enemies."

   "Good job, Major Sukharev." Sokov shook his hand and said, "Take me to the observation station to see the situation on the battlefield."

  Sukharev brought Sokov and Lunev to his observation post, stood in front of the lookout, pointed outside and said: "Comrade Commander, Comrade Military Commissar, from here you can clearly see the situation on the entire battlefield."

  Sokov walked to the lookout, picked up the binoculars placed next to him and looked into the distance, and saw that the front of the Soviet position had become pitch black, one bomb crater connected to another, and the surroundings of the bomb crater were full of German corpses.

  "Misha," Lunev said with joy on his face when he saw this scene, he put down his binoculars, turned to Sokov and said, "The soldiers of the infantry brigade fought well. There must be at least three hundred German corpses in front of this position. In other words, they have wiped out at least two companies of enemies."

   But what Lunev didn't expect was that after he finished speaking, Sokov didn't respond at all, just holding up the binoculars and watching non-stop. Seeing that Sokov ignored him, Lunev put his hand on the other's arm and said, "Misha, did you hear what I said?"

  Sokov put down the binoculars in his hand, turned his head to look at Lunev, and asked in a daze, "Comrade Military Commissioner, what did you just say?"

   Lunev hurriedly repeated what he said to Sokov, and then asked with some surprise: "Misha, I see that you have been looking through the binoculars, did you find something wrong?"

  Sokov nodded, but he didn't explain what he saw. Instead, he turned and rushed to follow Rednikova and said, "Comrade Second Lieutenant, since you are a member of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, you must be very observant. Come and see, what's wrong with this battlefield?"

  Rednikova took the binoculars in Sokov's hand, stood at the lookout and looked at the distant battlefield, quickly looking for something wrong. But after looking at it for a long time, she didn't find anything wrong, so she could only return the telescope to Sokov, and said apologetically, "I'm sorry, Comrade General, I really don't see anything wrong."

   "What about you." Sokov handed the telescope to Koshkin again: "Koshkin, come and see, there is something wrong."

  When Koshkin raised his binoculars to observe the battlefield, Sukharev, who was standing next to him, felt uneasy and thought to himself: I have observed carefully and found nothing wrong on the battlefield. What does Comrade Commander mean by saying this?

   After putting down the binoculars, Koshkin also shook his head and said, "I'm sorry, Comrade Commander, I didn't find anything wrong."

   "What about you." Sokov looked at Sukharev again and asked, "Have you found the problem?"

  Sukharev thought about the battlefield he had observed for so long, but he didn't find anything unusual. At this moment, even if Sokov asked himself to read it again, he might not be able to see the trick. Thinking of this, he quickly shook his head and said, "I'm sorry, Comrade Commander, I don't know."

   Lunev smoothed things over and said, "Okay, Misha, don't be tricky, tell us quickly what went wrong."

   "Major Sukharev, if I'm not mistaken, after you repelled the enemy, you didn't send anyone to clean up the battlefield." Sokov continued to look at Sukharev and asked, "How, am I right?"

   "Yes, Comrade Commander, you are right." Sukharev affirmed Sokov's statement and made a further explanation: "Because there are snipers in the enemy's position, and the entire battlefield is within the range of their mortar strikes, after repelling the enemy's attack, I did not send people to clean up the battlefield."

   "Major Sukharev, if you send someone to clean up the battlefield, you will be able to find out what's wrong." After Sokov finished speaking, he didn't keep it secret, but called everyone to the lookout, pointed to the distant battlefield and said to them: "Do you think there are any characteristics about the distribution of German corpses?"

  Rednikova looked outside and said casually: "Their bodies are basically scattered around the crater, which proves that most of them were killed by shells."

   But Sokov did not express his opinion after hearing this, but asked others with a smile: "Do you have any other opinions?"

   Koshkin stared in the direction of the battlefield, and began to think quickly in his mind, recalling whether he had missed any important clues just now when he was observing the battlefield. Hearing Sokov's question at this moment, he said what he observed without hesitation: "Comrade Commander, I found that there are fewer corpses on the battlefield and more in the middle."

   After hearing this, Sokov showed a satisfied smile on his face. Unexpectedly, Koshkin could see this. However, he was not in a hurry to reveal the answer, but continued to ask Sukharev: "Major, how many times did the enemy attack your position?"

  Sukharev replied without hesitation: "A total of five attacks were launched, all of which were infantry attacks without tanks."

   "How many troops are dispatched each time?"

   "One company at a time." The standard configuration of an infantry company in the German army is 215 people, which is much higher than the 120 people in the Soviet army. Sukharev replied: "I can be sure that the number of people involved in each attack is about one company."

   "Commanders, commanders," Seeing that he had finished asking all the questions that should be asked, Sokov announced the answer to everyone: "Don't you want to know, did I find something wrong on the battlefield? I will tell you the correct answer right now. It is the distribution of corpses that is not right."

   "The distribution of the corpses is not right?" Lunev asked with some surprise: "What's wrong?"

  Sokov saw the same problem as Lunev in the eyes of everyone, so he explained: "As a commander, you should be very clear that after the enemies attacking our position are repulsed, their corpses will be distributed the most near the starting position, and the closer to our army's position, the fewer positions. This is because under the dense firepower of our army, the number of enemies who can rush to our position is far less than when they left the starting position.

   Let me use an analogy, we repelled an enemy attack and wiped out more than a hundred of them. As for the distribution of their corpses, there should be the most places far away from the position, with sixty or seventy people; while the closer to the position, the fewer, twenty or thirty people would be good. "

   "Misha, your statement is very interesting." Lunev interrupted and asked, "But why do we see that the distribution of corpses is less at the two ends and more in the middle?"

   "Comrade Military Commissar, this is exactly the problem." Sokov said: "I suspect that there are a large number of German soldiers pretending to be dead among the corpses in the middle section."

   "What?" Hearing Sokov say this, everyone was stunned: "Among the corpses in front of the position, are there German soldiers pretending to be dead?"

   "Yes, I think this possibility is very high." After confirming his own statement, Sokov made further explanations to everyone: "Everyone has been on the battlefield. It should be very clear that when a person is hit by a bullet during a charge, he will definitely fall to the ground on his back under the impact of huge inertia. But take a closer look at those corpses, especially the ones in the middle, they are basically face down."

   Hearing what Sokov said, Lunev quickly grabbed the binoculars and looked towards the distant battlefield. After looking at it for a while, he nodded vigorously, affirming Sokov's statement: "Misha, you are right, the corpses in the middle section are basically with their backs facing the sky."

   "Comrade Commander, what is going on?" Sukharev asked in surprise, "How can you be sure that those corpses are Germans pretending to be dead?"

   "Comrade Military Commissioner, take a closer look. Are most of the corpses lying on their backs lying on top of those lying on their backs?"

   "Yes, it is true."

  Lunev’s words once again proved the correctness of Sokov’s analysis, but Sukharev still asked in puzzlement: “Comrade Commander, I don’t understand. Where did so many Germans pretending to be dead come from?”

   "It goes without saying. Naturally, they stayed there when they attacked you." Sokov was worried that Sukharev didn't understand what he meant, so he explained to him specifically: "For example, when the enemy attacked you, when they reached the middle area, some of them fell down and pretended to be dead. There were not many people at a time, so they lay down a dozen or twenty people so as not to be noticed by you. They charged you five times, and each time they lay down a dozen or twenty people. Five times, there are nearly a hundred people."

  After listening to Sokov's words, Sukharev suddenly realized: "Comrade Commander, I understand that the Germans deliberately pretended to be dead in front of our positions, just to wait until after dark to launch a surprise attack on our positions."

   "Hmm, I think it should be like this." Sokov nodded slightly, affirming Sukharev's guess: "Hundreds of German soldiers pretended to be dead in front of your position, just to wait until the dead of night, and then quietly lurked in front of your position, launched an attack by surprise, and seized your position in one fell swoop."

  Sokov’s words startled Sukharev into a cold sweat, and he thought to himself: It’s so dangerous, if Comrade Commander didn’t come just in time and found the enemy pretending to be dead on the battlefield, maybe his defense zone would be attacked by the enemy tonight. He raised his hand to wipe the cold sweat off his brow, then asked tremblingly, "Comrade Commander, what shall we do?"

   "Prepare a few mortars." Sokov said to Sukharev: "Aim at the shelling of the Germans pretending to be dead. I want to see if they can continue to lie there and pretend to be corpses in the face of the artillery fire."

  Sukharev picked up the phone on the table, connected to the brigade headquarters, and ordered the chief of staff to say: "Chief of staff, immediately order the artillery company to fire at the area where the corpses are most dense in front of the position!"

   After receiving this inexplicable order, the chief of staff of the brigade asked in puzzlement: "Comrade brigade commander, the enemies are dead, why should we bombard their bodies?"

   "Comrade Chief of Staff," hearing his chief of staff say this, Sukharev said a little dumbfounded: "We were all deceived by the Germans. The area with the most densely packed corpses was not all German corpses, but a considerable number of them were enemies pretending to be dead. I ordered you to fire to drive the enemies pretending to be dead away from our position."

   After figuring out what was going on, although the brigade chief of staff felt a little weird, he quickly contacted the company commander of the mortar company and ordered him to fire at the pile of corpses in front of the position. Originally, the artillery company commander resisted this order, but when he heard that there were many German soldiers pretending to be dead among the corpses, he immediately changed his mind and asked his artillerymen to fire at the pile of corpses.

   A few minutes later, nine mortars fired at the pile of corpses in front of the position. When the shells landed on the pile of corpses and exploded, flying blood and flesh, everyone in the observation station held back their whistling and stared intently at the pile of corpses to see if there were any living enemies escaping from it. But unfortunately, the mortar fired two rounds in a row, blasting countless corpses into pieces flying all over the sky, but still no one was seen getting up and running away.

  Seeing this scene, Sokov couldn't help muttering in his heart: "Could it be that my judgment was wrong, there are no enemies pretending to be dead in the pile of corpses?"

   Just when he began to hesitate, whether he should cancel the shelling order, Koshkin who was standing beside him suddenly exclaimed: "Look quickly, there are really German soldiers pretending to be dead."

  Sokov ignored the binoculars and looked in the direction of the battlefield. Sure enough, he saw many figures swaying near the blast point.

   "Misha, you are right. There are indeed many enemies pretending to be dead among the corpses in the middle area." Lunev said with emotion, "Look, they were beaten by our artillery and fled in panic."

  Seeing this situation, Sukharev felt ashamed. He blushed and admitted his mistake to Sokov: "Comrade Commander, I was wrong. My vigilance was so poor that I didn't even notice that the enemy was hiding in front of my position and pretending to be dead. Please punish me."

   "Comrade Major," Sokov was in a great mood at the moment, how could he punish Sukharev for such a trivial matter. He put his hands on the opponent's shoulders and said earnestly, "Remember the lesson from this time. Next time you encounter such a situation, even if you can't send people out to clean up the battlefield, you can still order the artillery to fire a few shots to scare away those German soldiers who are pretending to be dead."