Major Yeltsin saw the intelligence officer bundle the German and his briefcase into a BTR-40 and head off. Then, he swung himself into his command vehicle, a BTR-60K.
“Right, move out. Su-76s in the lead. Don't stop for anything or anybody. If something gets in the way, crash through it and keep going.”
Krasny Kut, Southern Russia. Primary Headquarters, First Byelorussian Front
Although Colonel-General Andrei Mikhailovich Taffkowski was unaware of the fact, he'd made several key decisions and issued a string of orders while his vehicle and its escort were returning from the main headquarters meeting. The situation had cracked wide open, First Ukrainian, Second Ukrainian and First Byelorussian Fronts had broken through the German defenses and were pursuing the broken remnants of the German army south. The news from the Sadovoye Ridge had been even more satisfying. The 18th Guards Tank Division had broken SS-Wiking and were mopping up its fragments. First Khazak Front was wandering off somewhere down towards Astrakhan. All in all, it had been a good meeting.
It was when he got into his command compound that he realized how hard he had been working in his absence. The place was a bustle of activity, people running around, messages being carried. More, there was the suppressed air of excitement that spoke of something major going down. By the time he got to his command caravan, he knew it was important. His staff were working frantically to get something up on running.
“What is it?” he asked testily. He was feeling happy after a good meeting and he didn't want it ruined.
“Colonel-General SIR!” His chief of staff was sagging with relief. “Thank God you're here. Sir, earlier today, a German officer surrendered to a Major Yeltsin, the commander of the 64th Reconnaissance Battalion. He was carrying a series of orders from Field Marshal Model to a number of special engineering units that were stationed in Proletarsk. We were aware of the position of the units but had them designated as motorized infantry and assigned them a relatively low priority. These orders made it clear that the units were those responsible for handling and deploying war-gasses. They had a stockpile of many tonnes of such weapons, mostly Sarin and Tabun but also something called Soman and a lot of old-fashioned mustard gas. The German officer was carrying orders for the engineers to release all that gas then retreat to a port on the Black Sea for evacuation by sea.”
“Borgemoi!” Taffkowski was horrified. The thought of the carnage a cloud of gas would cause as it floated over the densely-populated Donbass was a nightmare to contemplate.
“Major Yeltsin's words, Sir. Exactly. The Major decided that there was no time to waste. Apparently The German courier knew the contents of the orders and decided that his conscience couldn't allow such an atrocity so he defected to our troops. The Major got off his ass and, on his own authority I may add, decided to try and take Proletarsk by coup-de-main before Model realized that something had gone wrong and issued replacement orders.
“Yeltsin did some sort of cavalry charge down the road from his forward positions to Proletarsk. He got through without much of a fight, but there was a brawl in the city where he lost heavily. Major Yeltsin was wounded but he and his men broke through. They found all the war-gasses had been loaded into trucks, apparently the engineers were expecting orders to move the stockpile to the south. Long column of trucks. The Germans didn't get a chance to do anything critical, Yeltsin's men seized the trucks and their cargoes intact. The survivors of the garrison in Proletarsk are their prisoners.”
“What happened to that German Officer? We need to speak with him urgently.”
“Major Yeltsin ordered his field intelligence officer to bring him here. In your absence, Sir, you ordered that their progress be accelerated as much as possible, that they be given every possible assistance and that the intelligence officer, a Senior Lieutenant Putin, be made personally responsible for the safety of the German officer. Your exact words Sir were 'he dies, you die'.
“Anyway, Major Yeltsin is asking for reinforcements and assistance. You have diverted a mechanized regiment of the Fifth Guards Cavalry Corps to Proletarsk. Until it arrives, you have contacted our Frontal Aviation and ordered massive air cover over the city. Several regiments of Su-7s and MiG-17s. You have also ordered the ready regiment of the 7th Guards Airborne Division to drop on Proletarsk and attach themselves to Major Yeltsin's command. The paratroopers won't have arrived as an organized unit but they'll give Yeltsin the troops he needs to hold off any counterattacks until the rest of the reinforcements get there. Oh, one last thing Sir, you also sent an urgent message to President Cherniakhovskii advising him of the capture of the gas. This may be of vital political importance and you got the message out without delay.”
Taffkowski looked at his assembled staff. Suddenly he crashed his fist onto the situation table, sending the counters jumping.
“Incompetence, rank incompetence! I should have expected no better than idiocy from you motherless cretins,” He roared, his face reddened. “All this work, all these orders issued, a critical situation skillfully handled and not one of you saw fit to write yourselves a commendation. Negligence! Criminal Negligence! You will all write yourselves full commendations and have them on my desk within the hour or you will all be shot!”
He let the pretence of rage fade away, his staff were grinning broadly, familiar with their General's idea of humor. With one carefully-rehearsed gesture, they each reached into their breast pockets and pulled out the recommendations Taffkowski had just demanded. The General, looked at his staff, smiling.
“First Byelorussian has always had a reputation for excellent staffwork. I see, in your hands, that reputation is safe. With your help, I continue to surprise even me.”
Taffkowski left the staff room into his private office, and closed the door behind him. From a drawer in his desk, he got out two pictures. One was a normal icon but the other was much more unusual. A battle-scarred, war-torn T-34 towing a plough. Many, many years before, Taffkowski had commanded a tank company. Passing through a recaptured village, they'd seen a group of women trying to plant a field, pulling the plough themselves. The Germans had destroyed the crops and killed the farm animals. He'd stopped his tanks and used them to pull the ploughs. They'd stayed in the village that night and many of his men had promised to return when the war was over. But, none ever would, they were all dead now, some buried in mass graves, others singly. Taffkowski was the only survivor of the day a T-34 had pulled a plough.
He dropped to his knees in front of the pictures and started to pray. It was a miracle and he knew it, a militarily impossible miracle. Model had picked the one courier in his army with a conscience, that courier had defected to the one unit in the Russian Army commanded by an officer with the initiative to react fast. That unit had somehow driven through the German lines without running into one of the scratch defenses the Germans were so good at forming. A lightly-armed recon battalion had won a firefight in a major town and captured a deadly threat that only needed one man to press one button to turn into a catastrophe.
It was a miracle and it was not the only one. At his meeting, Taffkowski had been told the story of the Miracle of Sadovoye Ridge. The Germans had counter-attacked and their heavy armor had broken through the center of the Russian line. Only a single T-10 stood between the Germans and Victory. Instead of firing, the tank commander had stood on his turret and held up an Icon, praying to God for help. And God had filled the battlefield with His light and His arm had struck terror into the hearts of the Germans. Above the battlefield, standing on the clouds were the great heroes of Russian history, Zhukov, Stalin, Peter the Great, Ivan, Prince Vladimir, the Saint Prince Aleksandre Nevski. They'd lead the Russian Army forward with prayers and blessings and singing hymns. The Germans had fled and everywhere they had fled to, the yellow light had found them and driven them out to be killed by the Frontniki.