USSR 1941

  Chapter 76 Line of Defense

   It was a recruit named Leonyev.

  After seeing his behavior, Shulka beckoned to him and asked, "What's your name?"

   "Leonyev, Comrade Sergeant!" He stood up and took a non-standard military posture.

   "Can you tell me what you're doing?"

  Leonyev hesitated for a moment, then replied: "I'm exchanging cigarettes with them with a lighter... They told me it's allowed, Comrade Sergeant!"

   This is indeed allowed, and fighters often barter, such as Shulka has mirrors, hair combs and razors.

  In this respect, Leonyev still did his homework before coming here.

  Shuerka did not answer, but asked while gnawing on the bread: "How is the business?"

"Yes, Comrade Sergeant!" Hearing Shulka ask, Leonyev seemed relieved. He glanced around and asked in a low voice, "Comrade Sergeant, do you have any cigarettes? German cigarettes... you You know, from the Germans, they can fetch a good price in Kyiv!"

   "What a good price?" Shulka asked.

   "A cigarette can be sold for one ruble or more!" Leonyev replied: "If the whole pack is unopened, it can be sold for thirty rubles..."

"I don't think you understand how serious the problem is, Private!" Shulka interrupted Leonyev's business: "The Germans are only a few miles away from us, and their tanks will appear in front of us at any time. You should use Time to learn how to use your rifle or ask veterans for combat lessons, not a load of German smoke in your backpack!"

  The actor interjected: "Don't worry, comrade platoon leader, I will follow him!"

   "Thank you!" Leonyev said gratefully to the actor: "I will fight with you!"

"Do you think I'm protecting you?" The actor cast his eyes on Leonyev's backpack: "No, private, I'm looking at your backpack! I'm waiting for the moment when you are shot dead by the Germans, and then...it It belongs to me!"

  The soldiers around laughed with a "coax", including the recruits who just came in.

   "No problem!" Shulka said to the actor: "He's yours!"

  The soldiers laughed again.

  It was later that Shulka learned that Leonyev was a vegetable dealer. What he usually did was to buy vegetables at low prices from vegetable farmers and then transport them to Kyiv to sell them to earn the difference. No wonder he found opportunities to make money in the army.

   It's just that what Leonyev doesn't know is that making money at this time is worthless at all... If Kyiv is surrounded soon, money is a piece of paper that can't buy anything.

   In other words, Leonyev did not realize what war meant at all.

  In fact, not only Leonyev, but other recruits are similar, because Shulka often hears recruits asking such questions:

   "You say, how long will this war last?"

   "We're almost on the verge of victory!"

   "When our reinforcements arrive, it's time for the Germans to flee!"

  …

  The war happened so suddenly that they didn't have time to adapt.

Or it can also be said that they have a kind of blind confidence in the Soviet army like the Soviet high-level, thinking that the German army attacked the Soviet Union is beyond its control, and that the German army will win in the early stage only because the Soviet army is not prepared, as long as the Soviet army recovers quickly The invaders will be driven out.

  Maybe, they chose to join the army because of this.

   This made Shulka a little crazy, because these recruits obviously knew nothing, and they hadn't even touched a rifle before.

  So the 333rd regiment quickly became a boot camp...a ​​unit that was about to face the enemy, but more than half of the people were still learning how to use a rifle.

  This is unimaginable for Shulka, but the facts are in front of us.

   On the other hand, Admiral Kirponos apparently accepted Shulka's suggestion.

  Because the 333rd regiment was ordered to retreat ten kilometers to build a line of defense that night.

  Marching ten kilometers is nothing, but building a defense line will be difficult for Shulka... He has never learned any fortification work.

  The veteran seemed to have noticed this, so he took the initiative to stand up and rescue Shulka.

   "The front is the shooting direction!" The veteran said while drawing a curved line on the ground with a shovel: "Use this line as a benchmark to dig down until only the head is exposed!"

The width of the trench is about 1.2 meters, and the depth is 1.1 meters. It is just right for people to stand on the bottom of the trench, holding a gun and aiming at the front. The pits on the soles of the feet are larger... It is said that this is a feature of the Soviet army's trenches, so that they can jump out of the trenches and charge quickly when charging.

  A hundred meters in front of the trench, there is an engineer unit working. They are digging a deep and wide anti-tank trench.

   "What is that?" Leonyev asked curiously: "Why are the trenches they dug different from ours?!"

  The veteran couldn't help laughing.

  The thief explained: "That's an anti-tank trench, private, tanks can't drive through such a deep trench!"

   "Oh, this is great!" Leonyev praised: "Who invented this thing?"

   "It's great?" The veteran stopped what he was doing, and looked at Leonyev with an incredulous expression: "You mean it can stop German tanks?"

   "Isn't it possible?" Leonyev was said to be confused.

   "Don't forget the Germans have planes and shells!" says the actor, "They'll blow it to the ground!"

   "Blown to the ground?" Leonyev looked at the anti-tank trench ahead in surprise, and the faces of other recruits also showed horror.

   Shulka knew what they were thinking.

   Compared with the anti-tank trenches, the trenches built by the soldiers are nothing more than a ditch.

   The recruits are not fools, they will soon think: If such a deep anti-tank trench will be flattened, then what about the trenches they dug? More importantly, what about them in the trenches?

"Keep moving your hands!" Seeing the recruits stop, Shulka urged: "If you don't finish these trenches, the Germans don't need to bomb you, the bullets will kill you." Wipe it out!"

  The recruits suddenly stopped talking, as if they were frightened by what they said just now.

   After a while, Shulka heard them discuss in low voices:

   "Don't worry, it won't be as scary as Comrade Sergeant Said!"

   "Yes, the sergeant is just trying to scare us so we can dig the ditch!"

   "What if it's what they say?"

  …

   Then there was another silence.

  Shuerka could only shake his head and smile... These recruits didn't know that the battlefield was far more terrifying than what they said.