Chapter 231
In the early morning, thick white fog rose from the vast snowfield. There was heating equipment in the car, so there was no icicles on the window glass. Looking out from the car, you could see small bags bulging on the endless snowfield outside the window.
Filia has woken up from her sleep. As a Muscovite, it is her first time to the Belarusian border where the Sozh River is located. Of course, it is also her first time to the front line. Everything here is new to her.
Lying in front of the car window, Filia used up her film without mercy. She thought everything here was beautiful and wanted to take pictures of everything.
"Comrade General Yuri Arkhipovich, can you tell me where we are?" After taking a dozen photos, Filia turned her head and glanced at Yuri, who was still sitting behind his desk with his eyes closed, and asked curiously.
Arseni, who was sitting quietly in the corner of the carriage, glared at her fiercely. Yuri had hardly slept all night and had just closed his eyes half an hour ago. This woman was really tactless.
However, Yuri did not fall asleep. He did not feel sleepy at all. The main reason was that the environment on the train was not suitable for sleeping. He liked quietness when he slept and could not tolerate any movement.
After hearing the girl's question, he opened his eyes, looked out the window, and said, "We just passed Chechersk half an hour ago. In another half a day, we will reach Serezne Station in the eastern suburbs of Rogachev. We will get off there."
"Chechersk?" Filia muttered, pointing to the snowy field outside the car window and asked, "What are those snow piles? How strange! I saw a lot of them along the way."
"Those are destroyed tanks," Yuri turned his head and looked at the wilderness outside the window, and said softly, "Some are German, and some are ours."
"Ah?!" Filia opened her mouth in shock, her eyes full of surprise.
At a glance, there are at least hundreds of those small bags on the snowfield. If those buried under the snow are tanks, how many people would have died?
Today, everyone in the Soviet Union knows that this war was brutal, but most of them do not know how great the losses of the Soviet Red Army were. After all, a lot of information was blocked, and ordinary people, not even ordinary journalists, could access it.
Especially in the past two years, after the initial defeats, the news of the Soviet Red Army's defeat on the battlefield has rarely appeared in the newspapers. What ordinary people can get access to is basically one victory after another, and the Soviet Red Army is liberating piece after piece of territory and city after city. As for how many soldiers died in the war, the newspapers will not publish it.
That simple sentence made the atmosphere in the carriage fall into silence. Yuri closed his eyes and was about to take a nap when someone knocked on the door of the carriage.
Arseni stood up, walked over, opened the door, and brought in two stewards carrying shiny silver trays.
"Eat something," Yuri said to the girl across the table, sitting up straight and smiling.
The breakfast provided on the train was not rich, but it was pretty good, after all, considering Yuri's military rank.
Filia is cheerful and outgoing, and she doesn't seem to have much awe of the powerful. This is a common problem among young people who have just left school. Only after a few years of being tempered by society will they learn to obey the rules and become sophisticated.
"Comrade General Yuri Arkhipovich," Filia obviously did not have the habit of not talking while eating or sleeping. She sat opposite Yuri and spoke while enjoying breakfast.
"Just call me Yuri," Yuri interrupted her, smiled and said.
"Well, Yuri..." Filia didn't think much about it at first. She almost subconsciously wanted to call Yuri's name directly. However, when she turned her head and saw the lieutenant colonel standing beside her glaring at her, she added, "Comrade Yuri."
Yuri didn't notice Arseni's little action. He nodded and continued to eat his breakfast.
"It's like this, Comrade Yuri," Filia glanced at Arseni cautiously. This lieutenant colonel comrade who was always serious made her feel a little afraid. It seemed that the lieutenant colonel was even more difficult to get along with than the admiral in front of her.
"I'm currently working on a series of special reports," she continued when Arseniy didn't say anything. "It's a propaganda project run by the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League. If I do well, I'll have a chance to publish a special edition in Komsomolskaya Pravda."
"Well, then what?" Yuri raised his head slightly, looked at her, and said in a gentle tone.
" When , I suddenly had an idea," Filia said excitedly, "I want to use your deeds as the subject matter. Well, to be more precise, I want to use your experience as the main line and approach this war from your perspective."
As if she was a little excited, Filia licked her lips and fixed her eyes on Yuri's face: "You see, you are a hero of the Soviet Red Army. I think you must have seen many heroes in the past three years of war. I want to organize this report based on your memories. Well, this is more like a war memoir of yours."
"Hero?" The knife and fork in Yuri's hand stopped in mid-air, and the expression on his face froze in an instant.
"Why, is it not possible?" Seeing the expression on his face suddenly become serious, Filia said a little disappointedly.
"You're right. I have indeed met many heroes," Yuri put down the knife and fork in his hand. He seemed to have lost his appetite in an instant.
Pushing the plate in front of him aside, he felt in his pocket , pulled out a pack of wrinkled cigarettes, took one out, and asked, "Can I have a cigarette?"
"Oh, of course, I don't mind," Filia said quickly, shaking her hands.
"You have a good idea." Yuri lit the cigarette with the lighter Arseni brought over. He looked at the snowfield rapidly receding outside the car window and was silent for nearly three or four minutes. When he had smoked half of the cigarette, he turned his head to look at the girl opposite and said, "But this article cannot be finished in a short time."
"I have plenty of time," Filia said excitedly, "Of course, I will never disturb you while you are working."
"Well then," Yuri held a cigarette between his fingers, leaned back in his chair, and after thinking for a moment, he said, "My story is a bit long. If I choose a normal beginning, it should start from January 1940..."
Hearing that he had already started telling the story, Filia hurriedly took out a notebook and a pen from her body. She pushed the plate in front of her aside, straightened it, and began to take notes in her own way.
"However, I don't plan to use this normal beginning. I want to start from seven days ago," Yuri looked across the carriage, but his gaze was unfocused, and it was obvious that he was immersed in memories.
"Just seven days ago," he raised his hand holding a cigarette, pointed to the west outside the carriage, and said, "In that direction, less than 30 kilometers from here , at the edge of the jungle in the village of Rudnya in Zhilobin, a reconnaissance company of the 48th Army discovered a simple cemetery. The mound of the cemetery has been buried by snow and dead grass, with only a dilapidated wooden tombstone lying on the edge of the woods. Our soldiers found German words on it, so they specially found a teacher who knew German to identify it. Finally, they learned that the tombstone reads 'The person buried here is a Russian commander. Although he was an enemy, he performed very bravely. May his soul rest in peace.'"
"Our soldiers cleaned up the cemetery and confirmed that the person buried there was Comrade Leonid Grigorievich Petrovsky, the commander of the 63rd Infantry Army who had been missing for three years." Yuri said in a soothing tone, "My story begins here. In the winter of January 1940, I went to the military school in Zagorsk for training. My instructor was Comrade Leonid Grigorievich Petrovsky..."
The train was moving northwest amid the noise of rattling. In the carriage, Yuri was completely immersed in his memories. He began to recount his experiences and the people he had come into contact with bit by bit since January 1940.
As the Chief of the Operations Department of the General Staff, he had an exceptionally good memory. In his four-year military career, he had encountered countless , most of whom he could not name, since he was a commander after all. As for some of the people he could name, he did not know how they were doing, but he still knew the current situation of a small number of them. Of course, even among those he knew, most of them were no longer alive.
Life is like a winding stream. In the process of flowing, it will always wade through many stones. Some stones are very tenacious and will still exist even if the stream dries up, but some are eventually buried by mud and sand. War is like dumping countless mud and sand into the stream. The only effect it has is to speed up the speed of burying the stones.
For half a day, Yuri was dictating in the carriage and Filia was taking notes.
Yuri not only has a good memory, but also has good language skills. He can describe the people in his memory in a very specific and vivid way, making them not just symbols, but living people. However, these living people eventually became symbols in his narration, symbols that may be engraved on monuments in the future.
Filia is still very young, having just left school and started working not long ago. Her willpower is still relatively weak, and she almost took the statement with red eyes.
Listening to the stories told by the parties involved is completely different from reading newspapers or listening to the news. There is no passion and excitement here, only an inexplicable sadness - only by getting close to the war can you understand its cruelty. Only the part of the monument that is exposed above the ground is called merit, and the part underground is called corpses.
