Chapter 113:
Chapter 113
Nikolai Petrov, a distinguished soldier who had received a medal of honor and was expected to serve faithfully for the Soviet Union in the future, was now facing the battle of his life.
For the past few months, he had been visiting the medical station frequently.
“Ah… my tooth extraction site is throbbing…”
“Ugh… my stomach hurts…”
“The fascists’ shells fell near me and since then my ears have been ringing…”
Katya Pavlovna, who was in charge of the reception at the medical station, always laughed heartily at his symptoms and wrote them down.
“Hahaha! Okay. Sir!”
Her slender fingers gripped the fountain pen tightly and slid down the dark paper.
Nikolai swallowed his saliva as he saw her neat handwriting, or rather, her hand.
This time, too, he expected Katya to ask him where he had hurt himself so badly and smile cheerfully.
“Where does it hurt today?”
“Um… well… I…”
He felt more nervous than when he faced the fascists’ tanks.
The fountain pen in her hand looked scarier than a mine detonator.
As Nikolai scratched his neck and sweated profusely, Katya tilted her head.
“Do you have a fever? Or is your neck hurting? But… what should we do? The doctor is away for a while today…”
“No! No! It’s not that I’m sick…”
He startled her with his loud voice and then clamped his mouth shut.
Katya also looked surprised by his sudden outburst and then burst into laughter.
“Hahaha! Then what is it? Are you faking it?”
“No, no, um… this…”
Her round eyes curved like crescents.
He couldn’t say anything as he looked at her.
She laughed as if she was enjoying the falling leaves. She was like any other girl of her age who was happy with anything.
‘Why is this so funny?’
And Nikolai, who was a typical indifferent Russian man, couldn’t understand that at all.
Of course, she was pretty.
Her eyes curved like crescents, her short hair tied back and swaying up and down.
Her slender jawline and white neck, and even her small hand covering her mouth.
He was a heroic soldier who had received a medal of honor, but until a year ago, he was just a naive country boy.
The sweet scent of a woman that wafted over him shook his mind.
“Teach me! How to! Write!”
“What?”
His brain had stopped working, but his body felt that he had to do something.
He forgot all the words he had prepared and blurted out with a squeak.
He was stunned by his own voice and closed his mouth tightly.
Katya stopped laughing at his unexpected words and widened her eyes again.
“Ah… well… that…”
“Okay! Hahaha, I’m not so confident myself… but you should have said that earlier.”
!!!
Was it that simple? Katya nodded her head with a bright smile.
Her hair that hadn’t been tied up completely fluttered.
“Then see you tonight!”
She spoke with a cheerful voice as usual.
Just then, another soldier came in behind him and Nikolai was afraid that she might change her mind. He nodded his head vigorously.
“Yes!!! I… I’ll see you later!”
He dashed out of the medical station.
The sky was clear and the weather was sunny.
As if congratulating him on his success.
A joy that he had never felt even when he received the medal filled his chest.
“Yeehaw!!!”
The people passing by looked at him strangely as he shouted and cheered.
They wondered if something had gone wrong with him. But he didn’t have enough brain capacity to care about their gazes.
He was a young man whose blood boiled more than becoming an officer or a war hero.
He was happy enough to talk to a girl or hold her hand once.
***
“Ah, b-e, b-e, g-e, d-e…”
Under the dim light of a 30-watt bulb, Katya kept her promise and taught Nikolai how to write.
He had learned a bit in elementary school that he had dropped out of somehow, but he still struggled to read and write.
He followed the letters with his eyes slowly.
Katya wrote down the letters with her thin hand.
She read each letter aloud in a soft voice and wrote down all 33 Cyrillic letters for him.
“L, m, n, o… pe?”
“That’s right. Pe. The cursive is like this…”
He gulped as she tilted her head and her hair fell over her ears.
He didn’t know what to do as he saw her neck exposed through her hair.
“Are you watching? Hehe.”
“Y-yes… I’m watching.”
The medical station building was quiet because of the power outage.
It was not appropriate for a man and a woman to be alone, but Katya didn’t seem to care and smiled brightly.
“You said you wanted to be an officer, right? What branch do you want to join?”
“I don’t know… hahaha…”
Nikolai had never thought about that.
Being an officer didn’t look bad.
He didn’t care if he could be a good officer or not, but there were many officers who he thought he could do better than.
Cowards who were terrified whenever there was a battle.
And yet they were cruel and vicious to their subordinates like lions.
He didn’t want to be like them.
Of course, he couldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t become the same kind of person.
The political commissar of his previous unit, who was either dead or missing, had told him.
‘Maybe those who committed this massacre are also sensitive and compassionate young men like you, Nikolai, when they go home.’
If he reversed his words?
It meant that anyone could become a murderer. Nikolai had never seen such cruel people in his life.
But were they different? Were all the Germans monsters? Were the vicious officers and non-commissioned officers born with infinite malice towards humanity and the world?
Nikolai shook his head vigorously. Katya chuckled.
“Are you giving up already? Come on, you can memorize them all now, right?”
“Huh? No, no, that’s not it.”
“Okay! What is this?”
Katya pointed at each letter. A, b-e, b-e, ch-e…
***
“Comrade Secretary-General, here is the report.”
“Hmm, let me see.”
Even if it was less than the actual history, losing over 3 million soldiers was not something to be taken lightly.
The population of the Soviet Union was about 200 million at this point, four times that of modern South Korea.
If he applied the same ratio and said 750 thousand…
‘It’s like losing all the active-duty soldiers and officers…’
The report dealt with that issue.
Of course, it wasn’t that all the active-duty units had disappeared in sequence, but there were also losses from the reserve units that had been hastily recruited after the outbreak of the war.
So the quality of the officer corps hadn’t dropped drastically.
One lion-like commander could do less than expected, but also more than expected.
“Haha, one out of eighteen officers dies and two or three survive and get promoted to become officers… what a clear summary, huh?”
But the losses of junior officers were tremendous.
He could see the reasons as he flipped through the report carefully.
“To boost the morale of the soldiers, junior officers or lower political instructors take the lead. Therefore, the casualty rate is higher among junior officers than among recruits. Hmm… is there any problem with the command of small units?”
“No, not yet. There is no noticeable situation where problems have arisen. Many experienced non-commissioned officers or soldiers are able to handle squad-level commands adequately, so the loss of platoon-level junior officers is not leading to immediate collapse.”
“I see…”
But it wasn’t a problem that could be easily dismissed.
In the long run, it was a huge loss for the nation to have so many officers killed.
Patriotic and cooperative young college students, intellectuals who had volunteered to serve after pondering their role in society had died countless times.
In the 1940s, when the level of education was relatively low, it was obvious that losing such high-level human resources in battle would have a serious negative impact on the national competitiveness in the future.
“The British bastards sent their useless nobles to die in the last war, but we are killing our precious college students like this?”
“Of course not, Comrade Secretary-General. It’s just that the quality of new officers depends on them.”
“That’s true. Hmm… but if experienced non-commissioned officers and veteran soldiers can do well at squad-level commands, why not more?”
There was a reason why most countries required officers to have a college degree or higher. But what could he do?
He had to make do with his gums if he had no teeth.
The Soviet army boasted a size of over 5 million. If he simply calculated that there was one lieutenant for every 40 infantry platoons…
He needed more than 100 thousand officers just to lead platoons.
Of course, there were more senior officers above them, so he had to send hundreds of thousands of college graduates to the battlefield…
“Can we maintain our industry by taking out more than 100 thousand core technicians from each sector of industry?”
“No… no. I think that’s impossible.”
“Right. And every time one of them dies, the Soviet Union suffers a huge loss.”
“Then…”
The head of the department in charge of military personnel and mobilization asked me cautiously about my intentions.
Well, what intentions did I have?
The answer was simple.
He had to increase the proportion of non-commissioned officers and soldiers who became officers by any means possible.
The value of life was not different between college students and others, but he had to think about who could do more for the nation and the people.
After all, I was now a wartime leader.
“Expand the local commissioning system. Experience is as important as basic skills, isn’t it? Just make sure to mix appropriately between officers who don’t meet the recommended level of education and those who do when assigning personnel to units… I think that will mitigate some of the side effects…”
If something happens, you guys deal with it.
“Yes! I understand, Comrade Secretary-General.”
“Also, announce that the opportunity to become an officer has increased for the sake of the soldiers’ morale. It wouldn’t hurt to give them a short grace period and some study time for the officer selection exam…”
“That’s a good idea!”
People make their positions, right? Maybe if he tried, it would work out.
He could use what had been verified in history without hesitation, but he hesitated a bit about what he had never tried. But come on… what could go wrong?
He didn’t know. Maybe someone would prove their ability and rise surprisingly.
“Then proceed as planned.”
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