Chapter 45: Recuperation
Yuri woke up from his sleep with a startled shudder.
The light in front of my eyes was a bit dazzling, and everything was white. The sunlight was shining in through the open window of the tent, and was reflected by the white curtain, making the light in this tent very strong.
The tent was a marching tent used in temporary military hospitals. It was very spacious inside, but Yuri was the only one living there. A steel-blade electric fan was placed not far from the bed. The fan was still on, and the wind was quite strong.
The weather was hot and the air in the tent was a bit stuffy. The presence of an electric fan did not help much, but it was better than nothing at all - to be honest, it was the first time Yuri had seen this thing after coming to the Soviet Union of this era for so long. It was a Rostov brand electric fan, hehe, produced by the Rostov aircraft manufacturing plant.
Turning slightly to avoid the wound on his right shoulder, Yuri struggled to get up from the bed, and looked After making sure that there was no one there, he stretched out his right hand and took out an iron box with a sickle and hammer logo on the lid from under the pillow.
The box lid was opened, and inside was a box of unfiltered cigarettes. There was no mark on the cigarettes, just a white paper tube. These were cigarettes supplied to the troops by the Kiev Special Military District. To be honest, Yuri couldn't get used to this kind of Mahe cigarettes at first. It felt like smoking rotten wood. The smoke was pungent and choking, and it felt like a fire in the throat.
However, during the more than half a month of recuperation, he gradually got used to and became addicted to this thing. Although the medical soldiers in the field hospital were very strict, they could not stop him from smoking secretly.
He took a cigarette out of the cigarette box, put it in his mouth, and fumbled to take out a lighter that looked like a bullet shell - this lighter was looted from Lieutenant Antip, and the original owner was a German officer who was killed.
Yuri lit the cigarette in his mouth, took a deep breath, then stepped down from the bed, walked to the window of the tent and peeked outside.
Outside the window, less than seven or eight meters away, is a wide river. This is the Teterev River, a tributary of the Dnieper River. The location of this field hospital is Peskovka, 60 kilometers northwest of Kiev. The railway line from Korosten to Kiev passes through here. And six kilometers west of here is the Peskovka section of the Kiev fortified area.
In early July, Yuri retreated to the east of the Sluch River with the remnants of the 209th Battalion, and was first placed in a collective farm clinic. At that time, the people sent by Lieutenant Antip first contacted a Soviet army stationed in the Rokitnoye area. When they learned that they were the remnants of the 209th Battalion and that Yuri was seriously injured, the commander of this unit did not dare to neglect it and contacted the military district as soon as possible. Subsequently, Yuri was quickly transferred to Olevsk, where he received emergency treatment. When his injuries had just stabilized, he was transferred to Kiev.
It was not until then that the members of the 209th Battalion realized that they had become heroes known to everyone. Moscow not only awarded the title of hero to their entire battalion, but also awarded the title of "Hero of the Soviet Union" to a number of commanders in the battalion, including Yuri.
Afterwards, while Yuri was still recuperating in Kiev, the military district sent a condolence group to visit the officers and soldiers of the 209th Battalion. By mid-July, the reconstruction of the 209th Battalion officially began, and Lieutenant Antip was promoted to battalion commander of the 209th Battalion, and his rank was also promoted to captain.
As for Yuri, the former commander of the 209th Battalion, he was officially promoted to major. His new appointment was personally notified by Military Commissar Nikita Khrushchev. After recovering from his injury, he will officially serve as the commander of a brigade-level combat unit under the 147th Infantry Division of the 37th Army.
However, the entire 37th Army does not exist yet. The headquarters is mobilizing reserves to the fortified areas of Kiev. This army will be formally formed on the basis of these reserves. The first army commander has been determined to be Anton Ivanovich Lopatin, the commander of the 6th Infantry Army under the former 26th Army.
It is a bit sensational that he went directly from a battalion-level commander to a regimental-level commander and officially became a brigade-level commander. However, in the current Soviet army, such appointments are countless. The most fundamental reason is the serious shortage of middle and low-level commanders.
Well, being able to get a promotion in military rank and official position is always a good thing, but Yuri still feels that the price he paid is a bit too high.
The injury to his left rear shoulder was quite serious. Although the previous surgery had removed the shrapnel embedded in the bone, the trauma to his shoulder blade could not be completely healed. The doctor told him that from now on, he could not use too much force with his left arm, and that he might experience neuralgic pain in his shoulder on cloudy and rainy days.
Looking back, this is really not a historical stage suitable for human survival. However, it has only been more than a year since I traveled back, and not only have I nearly lost my life several times, but now I have become a disabled person. And this war will continue. God knows whether I can live to see the end of the war.
Unlike the last time he made contributions on the Soviet-Finnish battlefield, this time, although his contributions seemed to be greater, and he was awarded the legendary title of "Hero of the Soviet Union", a Gold Star Medal, and his deeds were spread everywhere, but the superiors did not arrange for him to give speeches everywhere, but ordered him to return to the battlefield immediately after his injury healed. There was no other way. The war was tense everywhere, and an officer like him who had battlefield command experience could not sit idle.
However, heroes can still enjoy some special treatments, such as cigarettes, vodka, fresh fruits and fine food, which are things that a battalion commander could not enjoy in the past.
In addition, Yuri was also very clear that if he officially became the commander of a brigade-level combat unit, as long as he did not make any mistakes and was not killed by the Germans, he would be promoted to lieutenant colonel in less than half a year. This was inevitable because according to the rank, only a lieutenant colonel could be the head of a brigade. In other words, the current rank of major was just a transition to a higher rank.
Perhaps it was because the battle in Bredev was too brutal, or perhaps it was because of another close encounter with death, Yuri was no longer so afraid of the concept of death. At least, he was no longer too afraid of fighting against the Germans.
The field hospital in Peskovka was huge. In order to avoid German aircraft , it was set up in the forest along the river. Most of the lightly wounded soldiers retreating from the front line and the wounded soldiers who were about to recover and transferred from the Kiev hospital rested here.
In the past week, the German offensive in the direction of Kiev seemed to have slowed down a bit. After capturing Zhitomir, they only made several tentative attacks in the direction of Kiev. After encountering a counterattack from the Soviet army, the momentum of the offensive suddenly moved southward and turned to launch an offensive in the direction of Uman.
The German army's offensive shift to the south eased the tense atmosphere in the Peskovka area. During the past two days, even the German planes that occasionally appeared in the sky could not be seen.
Compared to the optimism of those ordinary soldiers in the field hospital, Yuri was very clear about what would happen next. Needless to say, the Battle of Uman that he knew in his previous life had already begun. The Germans did not give up their attack on Kiev. On the contrary, they were implementing a deep siege of Kiev with the aim of destroying the entire Southwestern Front of the Soviet Army.
According to the course of history, after capturing Uman, a highland along the Dnieper River, the German army will begin to outflanking Kiev from behind. At the same time, Guderian's German army, which has advanced to the Moscow area, will suddenly turn around and launch an offensive to the south, encircling most of the Southwestern Front .
Fortunately, it was only late July, and there were still more than two months until the end of the historic Battle of Kiev. Without control of his new troops, Yuri had no way of making any proper plans for his short future.
Perhaps because there had been no German planes for two consecutive days, the atmosphere in the field hospital was very relaxed. Through the window, one could see many soldiers swimming in the Teterev River, and some soldiers gathered on the river bank, whispering to each other and exchanging things from time to time.
As an officer, Yuri was very clear about the tacit rules reached between the soldiers, such as the rules of exchanging things. If a soldier's things were liked by another soldier and he asked for an exchange, the soldier could not refuse and could only ask for the things he wanted to exchange. However, most of the time, the items that the soldiers exchanged were spoils of war, such as lighters and cigarettes picked up from German corpses.
Yuri even knew that by the time of the Battle of Stalingrad, this custom of exchanging items between soldiers would reach its peak, because due to the cruelty of war and the high mortality rate, soldiers would exchange almost everything with each other, because no one knew whether they could survive until the evening of the next day.
In fact, Yuri likes this kind of game very much. He feels that every exchange seems to be full of humanity. Two soldiers who don’t know each other come together and become familiar with each other because of the exchange process. The communication between the two individuals makes each other feel that they are two living people, not a war machine, or a piece of meat that is about to become a corpse.
Unfortunately, officers like Yuri cannot participate in this kind of game, because as soon as they appear, the gathered soldiers will scatter.
I really miss Lieutenant Antip and the soldiers of the 209th Battalion. Unfortunately, they have returned to the front line and I don’t know if I will have the chance to see them again in the future.
