Prohibition of Interference. Book 1

“A schematic map, then?” The commander said thoughtfully, looking at me frowningly, “Where did you come from, Red Army man Nagulin? You're newly mobilized, right? You haven't even had basic training. In fact, you should have been sent to the reserve unit first, but that's just the way it is. But you're a good shot with a rifle, I've seen it myself, and now it turns out you can read a map, and not only read a ready-made map, but draw your own. Where did you learn?”

“My father taught me. We lived almost on the border of the USSR with the Tuvan People's Republic. He was an Old Believer, he was educated in Czarist Russia, and then his grandfather finished his schooling on our farmstead. I grew up in the taiga, so I'm a good shot and I know how to handle weapons. And I've been interested in geography since childhood. I dreamed that when I grew up, I would travel and discover new lands. I know this area from the map quite well, but I have not been here myself before.”

The First Lieutenant didn't believe me, he didn't believe me at all, but nodded and took a notebook and a chemical pencil out of his field bag.

“Draw your map, Nagulin, but watch out if you lead us to the Germans…”

“Comrade Commander,” I tensed up as I drew the railroad line from Talny to Khristinovka and a little further to show the general direction to Teplik, “I, like you, don't know where the enemy is now. I'll draw a map, but it's not for me to decide where to go.”

Fyodorov only nodded silently, showing that he had heard me, and continued to watch attentively as on a sheet of his notebook the railway line leading from Khristinovka to the southeast to Uman was appearing, and as I marked these settlements.

“What about roads, rivers, bridges, woodlands?” asked the First Lieutenant when I handed him the prepared diagram.

“My memory also has its limits, Comrade Commander,” I answered, “I depicted what I remember. According to my rough guess, we are somewhere around here, about 15 kilometers from the Khristinovka station.”

“So you're saying that all night we walked the wrong way and didn't get even a meter closer to Uman?”

“That's right, Comrade Fir…”

“Silence!” bellowed Fyodorov, “Why didn't you report at once?!”

“I tried, Comrade First Lieutenant. You wouldn't listen to me.”

The First Lieutenant was silent as he continued to glare at me. He didn't have anything to say, but he seemed to really want to grind me down. Yes, I know how to make enemies, and I need to do something about it.

“Get in formation,” he finally ordered, putting my map away in his clipboard, and turned to our thinned out team, “We continue along the railroad tracks. At the nearest station we will hand over the wounded to the medics, report back to Uman, and get further instructions. Get the stretchers! Start moving!”

The situation was worse than I thought. Fyodorov did not want to admit his mistake, or maybe he just thought his actions were right. The idea of getting help at the station would have made perfect sense if it weren't for the constant rumble of the front line coming toward us.

Satellites broadcast a bleak picture from orbit. The Germans had already captured the Khristinovka station, where our commander was so eager to go. The railroad track in several places in front of us and behind us was smashed by enemy bombs. In addition to our train, two more trains were burning out on the tracks, and under the circumstances, no one was going to repair anything or remove the burnt-out cars from the tracks, nor would they have been able to do so if they wanted to. And to the north of the railroad we were rapidly encircled by the 16th motorized division of the Wehrmacht, which had almost reached Talny, and the troops defending there were clearly unable to prevent the Germans from capturing this settlement. Behind our back in the east Novoarkhangelsk was still in the hands of the Red Army, but it was already being approached from the south by the 11th German Tank Division and the SS Division Leibstandarte.

Counterattacks organized by the Southwestern Front command struck with extreme fierceness, but they crashed against the viscous defenses intelligently built by the Germans, meanwhile, the threat of a complete encirclement was already clearly looming over the 6th and 12th Soviet Armies, as well as the remnants of the Second Mechanized Corps. The battle was simmering all around us, but by some miracle our unit had not yet been directly affected, except, of course, by the destruction of the train in which we were on our way to the front.

Something had to be done urgently, otherwise our commander, who was unreservedly devoted to the cause of Lenin-Stalin but was completely inadequate, would lead us into German captivity, which was absolutely not in my plans. Except that I didn't yet understand exactly what to do.

Our luck ran out after about 15 minutes. First, a lone I-153 Seagull fighter with red stars on its wings flew almost over us to the east, which caused great excitement in our column. The plane was going low and clearly had combat damage, but I was the only one in our squadron who saw it. The rest of the soldiers waved their hands and caps, welcoming the first representative of Soviet aviation they had seen since the defeat of our train. And then I felt the familiar unpleasant itch behind my ear.

The First Lieutenant was now walking somewhere ahead, and I was just carrying a stretcher, so there was no way to get to him. But not far away from me was the Sergeant who had made it so clear to me how discussing the commander's orders in a combat situation could end up.

“Comrade Sergeant! The enemy is ahead! I hear the sound of motorcycle engines a kilometer to the left of the road behind a wooded area!”

“Column, halt!” I have to hand it to him, the Sergeant reacted seriously to my warning. He ran off to find the commander and soon the two of them were back together.

“Quiet, everybody!” The First Lieutenant commanded and listened intensely to the silence, which was very relative, for there was a good deal of rumbling all around us.

“There's nothing there!” After ten seconds, the Sergeant said, catching the commander's questioning look on his face, “I don't hear any suspicious sounds.”

Of course he couldn't hear! At this distance, the woods reliably muffled the sounds of the engines, but there was nothing else I could explain my knowledge of the approaching German motorcyclists. And they were not the only ones…

“There are at least three motorcycles and something else, heavier, but not tanks. Maybe a truck, maybe an armored personnel carrier – something is clanking there,” I reported, stubbornly looking into Fyodorov's eyes, “Over there, see? There's a road along the rails. Then it goes to the left and turns behind the forest. That's where they're coming from.”

The First Lieutenant hesitated, but action was needed immediately, and he made up his mind.

“Zhurkov, Blokhin, move forward and carefully check around the corner. The rest of you, take cover behind the embankment. Quickly! Not this side! The opposite side of the road! Sergeant Pluzhnikov!”

“That's me!”

“Keep an eye on Red Army man Nagulin!

“Copy that!”

As expected, Fyodorov's men did not make it to the road's bend. What could they, tired from the long march, do to compete with the BMW engines?

Two motorcycles with strollers jumped out from behind the woods almost simultaneously. Five seconds before Blokhin and Zhurkov heard the sound of their engines and rushed to the side of the road, simultaneously waving their hands at us. Instead of hiding behind some cover, the two NKVD fighters raised their rifles and opened fire on the Germans. It couldn't be helped – they've been taught that way, and they've learned their lesson well.

BMW motorcycle, with an MG-34 machine gun on the side trailer. Various models of such motorcycles were widely used by the Wehrmacht during World War II.

The motorcycle in front swerved to the side. The driver may have been injured, but did not lose control of his vehicle. Apparently, this was not the first time these Germans had encountered the enemy, and they were largely prepared for such a situation. In any case, the machine gun on the second motorcycle fired a long burst just five seconds after the NKVD fighters' first shot.

Blokhin fired from full height and was the first victim of return fire, catching several bullets with his chest at once. Zhurkov, apparently, had some combat experience and behaved more intelligently. He rolled into a shallow ditch and tried to shoot the motorcyclists from there, but the forces were too unequal. The soldier was simply destroyed by the fire of two machine guns.

I lay behind a low embankment and thought, with an inner shudder, that now our First Lieutenant would rise to his full height and try to raise us to attack – with a dozen rifles for his men and bare hands for the rest of us. However, it did not happen.

“Sergeant, distribute weapons to the Red Army men!” Fyodorov ordered softly, but clearly.

“There aren't enough rifles for everyone, Comrade First Lieutenant. Who do you want to give them to?”

“Give one to Nagulin. To the others, as you can.”

“Yes.”

The Germans, meanwhile, had stopped. One of them was helping a wounded man at the motorcycle closest to us. The driver of the third motorcycle, which appeared from around the corner, immediately turned his vehicle around and drove back. Apparently, he was going to report the incident to his superior. Another German was moving slowly toward Fyodorov's position, trying not to block the range of fire of the machine gunner protecting him.

I finally got my hands on a gun and three cartridge magazines. Five rounds in the rifle and another 15 in the ammo bag. Not much, but thanks for that, too.

The enemy motorcyclists made sure that none of the attackers remained alive and settled back into their vehicles, taking the weapons of the dead. The wounded man was taken to the rear, while the remaining Germans waited for their comrades, who had gone to report to the commander, and once again rolled leisurely down the road toward us.

“Squad, to battle!” Our First Lieutenant, who knew no doubt, gave the order. The enemy must be destroyed wherever you meet him, and by all the means at your disposal. Such was the paradigm of this cruel time. Red Army soldiers and commanders were taught this in army manuals, and it was drummed into them in numerous classes by teachers and political officers until it became an integral part of their consciousness. The good thing, at least, was that Fedorov was aware of the importance of the effect of surprise, and gave the order quietly enough.

I decided to try to prevent this madness after all.

“Comrade First Lieutenant, there, just around the corner, are two armored personnel carriers with infantry and several more trucks!”

“You know too much, Nagulin!” hissed the First Lieutenant, “Maybe I shouldn't have given you that rifle. Why don't you tell me where they came from? And where are our units?”

“You know what I mean, Comrade First Lieutenant,” I answered softly, fearing greatly that I might be told to be silent again. But apparently the advance warning of the enemy had given me some credit in the eyes of my commander, and he preferred to hear me out after all.

“If the Germans are already here, it means that the Khristinovka station has long been captured by them, and the front is broken through. Our units apparently withdrew to the south and north. No cannonade can be heard in front, but on the right and especially behind, the rumbling grows stronger and stronger.”