Sokov opened his mouth, but did not make any sound, because he did not know in his heart whether the bomb above his head would suddenly fall and blow himself to pieces with a "bang".
"Not good!" Sidorin looked up at the bomb above his head and couldn't help but exclaimed: "The bomb seems to be shaking. Is it about to fall? Comrade division commander, it's too dangerous here. You'd better leave first."
Sokov looked up and saw that the bomb hanging at the top of the corridor was indeed shaking slightly, probably caused by the bombing outside. He was worried that the bomb would be shaken down and he would die without any body parts, so he quickly reached out to hug it to prevent it from falling.
After holding the bomb, Sokov immediately realized that he was doing something stupid. If a bomb weighing several hundred kilograms was really going to fall, let alone himself, even if there were five or six more people, he would still be overestimating his ability. . However, since he had already hugged the bomb, he did not dare to let go easily. Originally, the bomb was only shaking slightly due to the bombing outside. If he hugged it tightly and then let go, he might have tossed the bomb down.
Sokov, holding the bomb, asked Sidorin with a dumbfounded look on his face: "Chief of Staff, how long will it take for the engineers to arrive?"
"When I called the engineer company, I already told them about the situation here." Sidorin quickly replied: "The company commander, Lieutenant Vasya, said that it will take ten minutes at the fastest for his people to arrive." At this point, He raised his hand to look at his watch and added, "If the time he said is correct, the comrades from the engineer company will arrive in two minutes."
As soon as Sidorin finished speaking, he heard a rush of footsteps coming from the corner of the corridor. After a while, I saw five or six commanders and fighters appearing at the corner, trotting over. When Sidorin saw this, he was immediately shocked and shouted at those people: "Slow down, slow down, you are running so fast, do you want to knock down this bomb?"
The commanders and soldiers who were running over heard Sidorin's shout and quickly slowed down and walked over quietly. After they came to Sokov, an officer raised his hand and reported to Sokov: "Comrade division commander, Lieutenant Vasya, commander of the engineer company, is reporting to you. We have been ordered to come to defuse bombs. Please give instructions!"
Sokov urged the other party impatiently: "Okay, Comrade Lieutenant, stop saluting. You'd better find a way to deal with this bomb as soon as possible."
Lieutenant Vasya nodded, then turned around and ordered the two soldiers behind him: "You two go and help the division commander." The two soldiers who received the order quickly stepped forward, held the bomb hanging in the air, and let Soko The husband can let go and retreat.
Sokov took a few steps back. His legs could no longer support the weight of his body, and he fell directly against the wall of the corridor. Sidorin hurriedly stepped forward and knelt down to ask: "Comrade Commander, are you okay?"
"I'm fine." Sokov shook his head and replied, "It's just that my legs are a little weak. I'll just sit down and rest for a while."
Sidorin never dreamed that Sokov's legs were weak. In fact, it started from the moment he saw the bomb. He thought he was too nervous when he was holding the bomb, so he quickly comforted him and said: "Then you are well." After a short rest, the comrades of engineers and soldiers will be able to remove the bomb soon."
Vasya stared at the bomb for a moment, and then told the other two soldiers who were not holding the bomb: "Check carefully. How many fuses does this bomb have?"
When the soldiers carefully checked the fuse of the bomb, Sidorin, who was squatting next to Sokov, tried to lighten the atmosphere and said to Sokov with a forced smile: "Comrade division commander, maybe this bomb will not explode at all. We are just a false alarm." One. Maybe the anti-Faxi Temple fighters in the factory disabled it before it left the factory. I remember that some time ago, I found an unexploded bomb. There was no ammunition at all, only a note. It says in German: 'We are anti-Faxi templeists'."
Sidorin's words made Sokov feel somewhat at ease. He stared closely at Vasya, wanting to see how the engineer company commander defused the bomb. Vasya stretched out his hand to hug the bomb gently and put his ear to it, as if listening to something.
After a while, Vasya let go of the bomb, took a step back, and said to the soldiers who were investigating the fuse: "Brothers, we are lucky. There is no timer device in the bomb. In other words, as long as the bomb does not fall, we have enough time to defuse the bomb."
"Comrade Company Commander," a soldier reported to Vasya after carefully inspecting the bomb body: "I found two fuses, one on the side of the bomb and one on the head of the bomb..."
As soon as the soldier finished his report, another soldier added: "Comrade company commander, I have also checked carefully. There are only two fuses, not a third."
"Okay, now that we've figured it out, let's get ready to dismantle it." Vasya said, bending down to open the toolbox the soldiers placed on the ground, and took out the bomb defusing tools.
Just as Vasya was holding a tool to prepare to dismantle the bomb fuse, a soldier holding the bomb suddenly said: "Comrade company commander, what type of fuse is used for this bomb? As far as I know, one is a mechanical fuse. Fuze; one is a chemical fuse. There is a glass tube filled with sulfuric acid inside the bomb. As soon as the glass tube breaks, the bomb will explode..."
"This bomb does not use a chemical fuse," Vasya said confidently: "The glass tube cannot withstand the vibration. The bomb dropped from a height of several hundred meters. If the glass tube had broken long ago, it would have waited until we arrived. Defuse bombs?”
Vasya placed the blade of the knife in the groove of the fuse, took a deep breath, and slowly turned it counterclockwise. When Sokov saw Vasya starting to remove the fuse, his heart rose in his throat. He knew very well that if the operation was wrong, everyone present would be reduced to ashes after a loud bang.
After Vasya turned the knife counterclockwise for half a turn, he stopped. He retracted the knife, took a step back, raised his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead, and said calmly: "Brothers, I have changed the fuse on the side from the ready state to the non-ready state. Continue. Come down, I should deal with the remaining fuse."
After saying that, Vasya squatted down, looked up at the fuse on the head of the bomb, and repeated the action just now. In only half a minute, he turned the fuse into a non-armed state again.
"Comrade Lieutenant," Sokov saw clearly that Vasya had changed the status of the two fuses from the armed state to the unarmed state, and asked tentatively: "Has the bomb been removed?"
"Comrade Commander," upon hearing Sokov's question, Vasya quickly turned around and replied, "I just adjusted the fuze's status to a non-ready state. The risk of explosion has been greatly reduced. But to completely solve the problem, we still need to Just take out the fuse inside."
Knowing that the next task was to take out the fuse of the bomb, Sokov couldn't help but secretly breathed a sigh of relief. He waved to Vasya, indicating that he should continue working, and then he said to Sidorin: "Chief of Staff, Please give me a hand, let’s not stay here and interfere with the work of the engineers, let’s go back to the headquarters first.”
With the support of Sidorin, Sokov staggered back to the headquarters. After he sat down at the table, he unexpectedly found that the microphone was still on the table. Then he remembered that he was talking to Krylov when the bomb fell. He quickly grabbed the microphone and put it to his ear. To his surprise, he found that the other party had not yet spoken. hang up the phone.
"Hello, Comrade Chief of Staff." Although he heard a voice coming from the receiver, Sokov asked specifically to be on the safe side: "Are you still there?"
A moment later, Krylov's anxious voice came from the receiver: "Colonel Sokov, what happened there? Why was it such a mess when I heard it?"
"Comrade Chief of Staff, please listen to my explanation." Seeing Krylov questioning this matter, Sokov quickly explained to him: "A bomb just penetrated the soil and fell on the corridor outside the division headquarters... ..." He gave a detailed report to Krylov about everything that happened not long ago.
After listening to Sokov's report, Krylov was stunned at first, and then became furious: "Colonel Sokov, don't forget your identity. You are the commander of a division, with thousands of commanders and combatants under you. Who gave you the right to risk your life? What will the army do if something happens to you?..."
Faced with Krylov's series of questions, Sokov did not say a word, but waited for the other party to finish speaking before he said slowly: "Comrade Chief of Staff, seeing such a big bomb hanging at the top of the corridor, It may fall down at any time, which makes an individual afraid. If I evacuate first in this situation, the remaining staff officers and communications soldiers may fall into chaos when they see that the commander is not around. If they are scrambling to escape, they will If the bomb hits, it will cause huge casualties in the tunnel. It was with this in mind that I made the temporary decision to stay so that other members of the command would not panic when they evacuated."
When Sokov reported to Krylov, Chuikov stood beside Krylov and listened. After listening to Sokov's explanation, he took the microphone from Krylov's hand and said into the microphone: "Colonel Sokov, the matter is already clear to me. This is a special situation. In order not to arouse the comrades, It is commendable to take the initiative to stay and calm people's panic. But let me remind you again, you are the division commander now, not the company commander or battalion commander. It is enough for this kind of thing once, and it will not be repeated next time. Do you understand? "
"Understood!" Seeing Chuikov unwilling to pursue the matter, Sokov quickly agreed loudly.
He had just put the receiver on the base of the telephone when Vasya walked through the door holding a cup-shaped object in one hand. Vasya came to Sokov, stretched out his hand holding something in front of Sokov, and reported to him: "Comrade division commander, the fuse of the bomb has been successfully removed."
Sokov had never seen what a bomb's fuse looked like. At this moment, when Vasya said that the thing in his hand was the fuse, he couldn't help but look at it curiously. I saw that the bomb's fuse was in the shape of a cup. The upper part was threaded for fixation, while the lower part was completely smooth.
Sidorin picked up a fuse and looked at it carefully for a long time. Then he raised his head and asked Vasya: "Comrade Lieutenant, is there no danger of the bomb exploding?"
"Yes, Comrade Chief of Staff." Vasya nodded vigorously and said in a positive tone: "The fuse has been removed and the bomb will not explode again. The only danger now is that when the bomb falls, it may injure people passing by. people."
"Thank you, Comrade Lieutenant." After Sidorin returned the fuse in his hand to Vasya, he said to him in a grateful tone: "Please express my gratitude to your soldiers on my behalf, thank them for eliminating the biggest threat for us. .”
After Vasya left, Sokov was thinking about how to notify those who left to return to their posts, but saw Ivanov coming in from outside. As soon as he saw Sokov and Sidorin sitting at the table, he reached out and crossed himself on his chest and said loudly: "Thank God, it's great to see you two okay."
"What can we do? The bomb disposal was completed by the comrades of the engineering company. We were just watching from the side." After Sokov said this, he suddenly realized that he had not sent anyone to call Ivanov. He actually ran back and asked quickly: "Comrade Deputy Division Commander, where were you just now and why are you back so soon?"
"Don't worry, comrade division commander, I resolutely obeyed your order and took the comrades from the headquarters to Beigang." Ivanov was afraid that Sokov would misunderstand him, so he quickly explained to him: "But I sent someone Observe nearby and if there is any new situation, he will call me in time to inform me. But after I learned that the engineers had successfully removed the fuse, I knew that the danger had been eliminated, so I returned from Beigang with my comrades."
As soon as he finished speaking, the staff officers and communications soldiers who had just left all walked in from the door. They formed a neat queue not far from Sokov and Sidorin. Someone in the queue shouted: "Salute!" Everyone raised their hands to Sokov and Sidorin according to the command. A solemn military salute was given.
After Sokov and Sidorin raised their hands to salute them in return, Sidorin said with a smile: "Comrades, the danger has been eliminated. You can all go back to your respective posts."
After everyone returned to their jobs, Sokov picked up the phone and made a call to the guard camp, asking Seryosha to bring a squad of soldiers over and stay in the corridor to observe the bomb with the fuse removed. Once the bomb falls from the sky above the corridor, people are immediately organized to remove the bomb.
Seryosha and others waited in the corridor for two or three hours, and the bomb hanging over the corridor finally fell with a "dong" sound. Since the fuse had long been removed, the falling bomb did not pose any danger other than kicking up a cloud of dust. Seeing that the bomb had fallen, Seryosha and the soldiers immediately tied the bomb with a rope and dragged it away from the door of the headquarters.
