stone
"Span of land. G

"Span of land. G

The last summer of World War II. Its outcome is already predetermined. The fascists put up desperate resistance to the Soviet troops in a strategically important direction - the right bank of the Dniester. A bridgehead one and a half square kilometers above the river, held by entrenched infantry, is fired upon day and night by a German mortar battery from closed positions on a commanding height.

The number one task for our artillery reconnaissance, which was literally entrenched in a gap in the slope in the open space, is to establish the location of this very battery.

With the help of a stereo tube, Lieutenant Motovilov with two privates maintain vigilant control over the area and report the situation on the other side to the division commander Yatsenko to correct the actions of heavy artillery. It is not known whether there will be an offensive from this bridgehead. It begins where it is easier to break through the defenses and where there is operational space for tanks. But there is no doubt that much depends on their intelligence. No wonder the Germans tried twice during the summer to force the bridgehead.

At night, Motovilov is suddenly relieved. Having crossed to the location of Yatsenko, he learns about the promotion - he was a platoon commander, became a battery commander. This is the third military year in the track record of the lieutenant. Immediately from the school bench - to the front, then - the Leningrad Artillery School, at the end - the front, a wound near Zaporozhye, a hospital and again the front.

A short vacation is full of surprises. Formation ordered to present awards to several subordinates. Acquaintance with medical instructor Rita Timashova inspires confidence in the inexperienced commander in the further development of hazing with her.

From the bridgehead comes a continuous roar. The impression is that the Germans went on the offensive. Communication with the other bank is interrupted, artillery hits "in the white light." Motovilov, anticipating trouble, volunteers to make contact himself, although Yatsenko offers to send another. He takes Private Mezentsev as a signalman. The lieutenant is aware that he has an insurmountable hatred for his subordinate and wants to force him to complete the entire "course of science" at the forefront. The fact is that Mezentsev, despite his military age and the ability to evacuate, remained under the Germans in Dnepropetrovsk, played the horn in the orchestra. The occupation did not prevent him from marrying and having two children. And he was released already in Odessa. He is from that breed of people, Motovilov believes, for whom others do everything difficult and dangerous in life. And so far others have fought for him, and others have died for him, and he is even sure of this right of his.

On the bridgehead, all signs of retreat. Several surviving wounded infantrymen talk about a powerful enemy pressure. Mezentsev has a cowardly desire to return while the crossing is intact ... Military experience tells Motovilov that this is just a panic after mutual skirmishes.

NP is also abandoned. Motovilov's replacement was killed, and two soldiers ran away. Motovilov restores communication. He begins to have an attack of malaria, which most here suffer from due to dampness and mosquitoes. Rita suddenly appears and treats him in the trench.

For the next three days there was silence on the bridgehead. It turns out that infantry battalion commander Babin from the front line, "a calm, stubborn man", is connected with Rita by long-standing strong ties. Motovilov has to suppress the feeling of jealousy in himself: “After all, there is something in him that is not in me.”

A distant artillery rumble upstream heralds a possible battle. The nearest hundred-kilometer bridgehead is already occupied by German tanks. Connections are being redeployed. Motovilov sends Mezentsev to lay a connection through the swamp for greater security.

Before a tank and infantry attack, the Germans carried out massive artillery preparation. When checking the connection, Shumilin, a widower with three children, dies, managing only to report that Mezentsev did not make a connection. The situation is much more complicated.

Our defense withstood the first tank attack. Motovilov managed to arrange an NP in a padded German tank. From here, the lieutenant and his partner fire at enemy tanks. The entire bridgehead is on fire. Already at twilight, ours are undertaking a counterattack. Hand-to-hand is tied.

From behind, Motovilov loses consciousness. Coming to himself, he sees retreating fellow soldiers. He spends the next night in the field, where the Germans finish off the wounded. Fortunately, an orderly is looking for Motovilov and they go to their own.

The situation is critical. There are so few people left of our two regiments that they all fit under the cliff on the shore, in holes in the slope. There is no crossing. Babin takes command of the last battle. There is only one way out - to escape from the fire, mix with the Germans, drive without stopping and take the heights!

Motovilov was entrusted with the command of the company. At the cost of incredible losses, ours are victorious. There is information that the offensive was carried out on several fronts, the war moved west and spread to Romania.

In the midst of general rejoicing on the conquered heights, a stray shell kills Babin in front of Rita. Motovilov is acutely worried about both Babin's death and Rita's grief.

And the road leads back to the front. A new combat mission has been received. By the way, on the way we meet the regimental trumpeter Mezentsev, proudly sitting on a horse. If Motovilov lives to win, he will have something to tell his son, whom he already dreams of.

My mother's

Ide Grigorievna Kantor

The day will come when the present will become the past, when they will talk about the great time and the nameless heroes who made history. I would like everyone to know that there were no nameless heroes, but there were people who had their own name, their appearance, their aspirations and hopes, and therefore the torment of the most inconspicuous of them was no less than the torment of the one whose name will enter into history. May these people always be close to you as friends, as relatives, as you yourself!

Julius Fucik

Life on the bridgehead begins at night. At night, we crawl out of the cracks and dugouts, stretch, knead our joints with a crunch. We walk the earth at full height, as people walked the earth before the war, as they will walk after the war. We lie down on the ground and breathe with all our chest. The dew has already fallen, and the night air smells of wet herbs. Probably, only in war, herbs smell so peacefully.

Above us is a black sky and large southern stars. When I fought in the north, the stars there were bluish, small, but here they are all bright, as if from here closer to the stars. The wind blows and the stars twinkle, their light trembles. Or maybe there really is life on some of these stars?

The moon hasn't risen yet. It now rises late, on the flank of the Germans, and then everything is illuminated with us: both the dewy meadow and the forest above the Dniester, quiet and smoky in the moonlight. But the slope of the height on which the Germans are sitting is still in the shade for a long time. The moon will illuminate it before morning.

During this interval before moonrise, scouts cross the Dniester to us every night. They bring hot mutton in earthenware bowls and cold, ink-dark Moldavian wine in flasks. Bread, often barley, bluish, surprisingly tasty on the first day. On the second day, it becomes stale and crumbles. But sometimes they bring corn. Its amber-yellow bricks remain lying on the parapets of the trenches. And already someone started a joke:

- The Germans will knock us out of here, they will say: the Russians live well - what they feed the horses with! ..

We eat lamb, drink ice wine, which breaks our teeth, and at the first moment we cannot catch our breath: the palate, throat, tongue - everything burns with fire. This was prepared by Partsvania. He cooks with soul, and his soul is hot. She does not recognize food without pepper. It's pointless to convince him. He only looks reproachfully with his kind, oily and black, like a Greek, round eyes: “Ay, comrade lieutenant! Tomato, young lamb - how is it possible without pepper? The lamb loves pepper."

While we are eating, Partsvania sits right there on the ground, tucking his full legs under him in an oriental way. He's cut like a typewriter. Beads of sweat glisten through the regrown crew cut of hair on his round, tanned head. And all of it is small, pleasantly full - an almost unthinkable case at the front. Even in peacetime, it was believed: whoever came into the army thin - will get better, if he came full - he will lose weight. But Partsvania did not lose weight at the front either. The fighters call him “Batono Partsvania”: few people know that in Georgian “Batono” means master.

Before the war, Partsvania was the director of a department store somewhere in Sukhumi, Poti or Zugdidi. Now he is a signalman, the most diligent. When he makes a connection, he takes on three coils at once and only sweats under them and goggles his round eyes. But he sleeps on duty. He falls asleep imperceptibly for himself, then snores, shuddering, wakes up. Frightened, he looks around with a cloudy look, but before the other signalman has time to roll up his cigarette, Partsvania is already asleep again.

We eat lamb and praise. Partsvania is pleasantly embarrassed, directly melting from our praises. It is impossible not to praise: you will offend. He is just as pleasantly embarrassed when he talks about women. From his delicate stories, in general, one can understand that in their Zugdidi women did not recognize his wife's monopoly right to Partsvania.

For a long time today there is neither Partsvania nor scouts. We lie on the ground and look at the stars: Saenko, Vasin and me. Vasin's hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes are burnt out from the sun, like a country boy's. Saenko calls him "Baby" and acts patronizingly. He is the laziest of all my scouts. He has a round face, thick lips, thick calves.

Now next to me he lazily stretches on the ground with all his big body. I look at the stars. I wonder if I understood before the war what a pleasure it is to lie like this thoughtlessly and look at the stars?

The Germans were hit by a mortar. We can hear a mine passing over us in the dark. Break in the side of the coast. We are just between the battery and the shore. If we mentally draw a trajectory, we will find ourselves under its highest point. It's surprisingly good to stretch after a day of sitting in a trench. Every muscle aches sweetly.

Saenko raises his hand above his eyes, looks at his watch. They are large, with many green luminous hands and numbers, so that I can see the time from the side.

“They don’t go for a long time, devils,” he says in his drawling voice. - Eat hunting, already sick! And Saenko spits into the dusty grass.

The moon will soon rise: the Germans are already noticeably brighter behind the crest. And the mortar still hits, and the mines lay down along the road along which the scouts and Partsvania should now go towards us. In my mind I see it all. It begins near the shore, in the place where we first landed on this bridgehead from the boats. And it begins with the grave of Lieutenant Mane. I remember how, hoarse from screaming, with a light machine gun in his hands, he ran up the slope, bogged down in the crumbling sand with his boots. At the very top, under the pine tree, where he was killed by a mine, is now a grave. From here, the sandy road turns into the forest, and there is a safe area. The road winds among the craters, but this is not aimed fire, the German hits blindly, over the square, even during the day without seeing his breaks.

In one place on the ground lies an unexploded rocket of our "Andryusha", long, as tall as a man, with a huge round head. It fell here when we were still across the Dniester, and now it has already begun to rust and overgrow with grass, but every time you walk past it, it becomes creepy and fun.

In the forest, they usually smoke before moving on, the last six hundred meters in an open area. Probably, the scouts are now sitting and smoking, and Partsvania is rushing them. He is afraid that the mutton in the earthenware casseroles will get cold, and therefore he wraps the casseroles in blankets and ties them with ropes. Actually, he could not go here, but he does not trust any of the scouts and escorts the mutton himself every time. In addition, he must see how it will be eaten.

The moon appeared at one edge already because of the crest. In the forest now there are black shadows of trees and smoky streaks Moonlight. Drops of dew ignite in it, and it smells of moistened forest flowers and mist; it will soon begin to rise from the bushes. It's good to walk through the woods now, crossing shadows and streaks of moonlight...

Saenko rises on his elbow. Some three are walking towards us. Maybe scouts? They are a hundred meters away, but we do not call them: on the bridgehead, at night, no one is called from a distance. The three reach a turn in the road, and at once a scattered flock of red bullets rushes low, low over their heads. We can see it clearly from the ground.

Saenko lies down on his back again.

- Infantry...

The day before yesterday, this very place in the afternoon, an infantry driver tried to slip through the Jeep. Under fire, he sharply spun at the turn of the road and dumped the colonel. The infantrymen rushed to him, the Germans fired mortars, our divisional artillery answered, and the shelling lasted for half an hour, so that in the end everything was mixed up, and there was a rumor across the Dniester that the Germans were advancing. Of course, it was not possible to pull out the "jeep" during the day, and until night the Germans trained on it from machine guns, as if on a target, planting burst after burst, until they finally set it on fire. Afterwards, we wondered: would they send a driver to the penal company or not?

The moon is rising even higher, is about to break away from the crest, but there are still no scouts. Unclear. Finally, Panchenko appears, my orderly. From a distance I see that he is walking alone and carrying something strange in his hand. Comes closer. sad face, right hand on a rope - the neck of a clay cake.

Grigory Yakovlevich Baklanov

"Span of the Earth"

The number one task for our artillery reconnaissance, which was literally entrenched in a gap in the slope in the open space, is to establish the location of this very battery.

A short vacation is full of surprises. Formation ordered to present awards to several subordinates. Acquaintance with medical instructor Rita Timashova instills confidence in the inexperienced commander in the further development of hazing with her.

From the bridgehead comes a continuous roar. The impression is that the Germans went on the offensive. Communication with the other side is interrupted, artillery hits "into the white light." Motovilov, anticipating trouble, volunteers to make contact himself, although Yatsenko offers to send another. He takes Private Mezentsev as a signalman. The lieutenant is aware that he has an insurmountable hatred for his subordinate and wants to force him to complete the entire “course of science” at the forefront. The fact is that Mezentsev, despite his military age and the ability to evacuate, remained under the Germans in Dnepropetrovsk, played the horn in the orchestra. The occupation did not prevent him from marrying and having two children. And he was released already in Odessa. He is from that breed of people, Motovilov believes, for whom others do everything difficult and dangerous in life. And so far others have fought for him, and others have died for him, and he is even sure of this right of his.

Our defense withstood the first tank attack. Motovilov managed to arrange an OP in a wrecked German tank. From here, the lieutenant and his partner fire at enemy tanks. The entire bridgehead is on fire. Already at twilight, ours are undertaking a counterattack. Hand-to-hand is tied.

The situation is critical. There are so few people left of our two regiments that they all fit under the cliff on the shore, in holes in the slope. There is no crossing. Babin takes command of the last battle. There is only one way out - to break out from under the fire, mix with the Germans, drive without stopping and take the heights!

In the midst of general rejoicing on the conquered heights, a stray shell kills Babin in front of Rita. Motovilov is acutely worried about both Babin's death and Rita's grief.

In the summer of 1944, the outcome of the war was already clear. The advancing troops stumbled upon the stubborn resistance of the Nazis in an important direction. The Germans made the right bank of the Dniester a fortified defensive area. But our infantry clung to a piece of land, which was subjected to round-the-clock mortar fire from well-hidden positions on high ground. The task for artillery scouts is to find the exact location of the German mortar battery.

Lieutenant Motovilov with two fighters are adjusting heavy artillery fire, constantly reporting to the division commander Yatsenko on our shore. The place of the future offensive is unknown. It will be where there is more room for tank formations, but their reports are also important. During the summer, the Nazis had already twice tried to force this small bridgehead.

Having crossed over on a call to Yatsenko, the platoon commander Motovilov learns that he has become a battery commander. Lieutenant three years in the war. He graduated from school - immediately the front, studying at the Leningrad Artillery School, again the front, wounded near Zaporozhye, hospital, front. Here is his battle path.

A little respite brings a surprise. During the formation for the presentation of awards, the lieutenant meets Rita Timashova, a medical instructor. The young officer has plans for a future relationship with her.

German attack on the bridgehead. Communication lost. Artillery strikes randomly. Motovilov is eager to establish contact. He takes with him private Mezentsev, whom he hates with all his heart because he remained in the occupation in Dnepropetrovsk, refusing to be evacuated and performed there in the orchestra, got married and had two children. Already in Odessa he was released.

On the bridgehead, the lieutenant learns about a strong enemy onslaught. Only a few soldiers remained. Contrary to the cowardly proposal of Mezentsev to return to his own shore, Motovilov decides to stand to the end. Motovilov establishes contact, but an attack of illness knocks him down. Rita arrives and treats him.

The third day is quiet. Motovilov learns that infantry commander Babin has been in a relationship with Rita for a long time, but suppresses jealousy. The rumble of German tanks is heard. Mezentsev was sent by Motovilov to establish communications. The Germans are conducting artillery preparation. Shumilin dies, whose wife died at home, leaving three children. He manages to tell Motovilov that Mezentsev never extended the connection.

The German attack was repulsed. Motovilov made an NP on a burned-out German tank, from where he and another fighter fire at the Germans. Foothold on fire. Our counterattack goes hand to hand. Motovilov loses consciousness from a blow from behind. Our retreated. When he came to himself, he saw how the Nazis were finishing off the wounded. An orderly finds him, and they get to their own. Of the two regiments, only a miserable handful of fighters remained. Combat Babin decides to attack the Germans and take the height.

Motovilov - commanders. With heavy losses, ours win and go to Romania. At the height captured by our fighters, the battalion commander Babin died from a shell explosion. The military road leads Motovilov further. He meets Mezentsev, who has already become a regimental trumpeter. Motovilov dreams of a son who will have something to tell after the victory.

Grigory Yakovlevich Baklanov (Friedman) (1923).
Source: Grigory Baklanov, Selected works in 2 volumes, volume 1,
publishing house " Fiction", Moscow, 1979.
OCR and proofreading: Alexander Belousenko ( [email protected]), March 18
2002.

A SPAN OF EARTH

Tale

My mother's
Ide Grigorievna Kantor

The day will come when the present will become the past, when they will talk about
great time and nameless heroes who made history. I would like
everyone knew that there were no nameless heroes, but there were people who had their own
name, his appearance, his aspirations and hopes, and therefore the torment of the most inconspicuous of
they were no less than the agony of the one whose name will go down in history. Let these
people will always be close to you as friends, as relatives, as you yourself!
Julius Fucik

CHAPTER I

Life on the bridgehead begins at night. At night we crawl out of the cracks and
dugouts, stretching, kneading the joints with a crunch. We walk the earth in
all growth, how people walked the earth before the war, how they will walk after
war. We lie down on the ground and breathe with all our chest. The dew has already fallen, and the night
the air smells of damp herbs. Probably only in war so peacefully
herbs smell.
Above us is a black sky and large southern stars. When I fought in the north
the stars there were hoarse, small, but here they are bright, as if from here
closer to the stars. The wind blows and the stars twinkle, their light trembles. Maybe,
Is there really life on any of these stars?
The moon hasn't risen yet. She is now coming out late, on the flank of the Germans, and
then everything is illuminated with us: both the dewy meadow and the forest over the Dniester, quiet and
smoky in the moonlight. But the slope of the height on which the Germans are sitting is still a long
shadows. The moon will illuminate it before morning.
Here in this interval before the moon rises to us from behind the Dniester every night
scouts are moving. They bring in clay pots hot
lamb and in flasks - cold, dark, like ink, Moldavian wine. Bread,
more often barley, bluish, surprisingly tasty on the first day. On the second day
he sours and crumbles. But sometimes they bring corn. Amber yellow
its bricks remain lying on the parapets of the trenches. And already someone
made a joke:
- The Germans will knock us out of here, they will say: the Russians live well - than
feed the horses!
We eat mutton, drink ice wine that hurts our teeth, and in
the first moment we can’t catch our breath: the sky, throat, tongue - everything burns with fire. it
prepared Partsvania. He cooks with soul, and his soul is hot. She doesn't
recognizes dishes without pepper. It's pointless to convince him. He only reproachfully
looks with his kind, oily and black, like a Greek, round eyes:
"Ay, comrade lieutenant! Tomato, young lamb - how is it possible without pepper?
The lamb loves pepper."
While we are eating, Partsvania sits right there on the ground, tucked under
full legs. He's cut like a typewriter. Through regrown hedgehog hair on his
Beads of sweat glisten on his round, tanned head. And it's all small
pleasantly complete - an almost unthinkable occurrence at the front. Even in peacetime
it was believed: whoever came into the army thin - will get better, who came full - will lose weight.
But Partsvania did not lose weight at the front either. The fighters call him "Batono Partsvania":
few people know that in translation from Georgian "batono" means master.
Before the war, Partsvania was the director of a department store somewhere in Sukhumi, Poti or
Zugdidi. Now he is a signalman, the most diligent. When making a connection
takes on three coils at once and only sweats under them and goggles
their round eyes. But he sleeps on duty. He falls asleep unnoticed by himself
himself, then snores, shuddering, wakes up. looks around frightened
around with a cloudy look, but before the other signalman had time to roll up his cigarette,
how Partsvania is already sleeping again.
We eat lamb and praise. Partsvania is pleasantly embarrassed, directly melts away from
our praises. It is impossible not to praise: you will offend. Just as pleasantly he is embarrassed,
when talking about women. From his delicate stories, in general, one can
to understand that women in Zugdidi did not recognize his wife as a monopoly
rights to Partsvania.
For a long time today there is neither Partsvania nor scouts. We lie on
earth and look at the stars: Saenko, Vasin and me. Vasin's hair is protected from the sun, and
eyebrows and eyelashes burnt out like a country boy's. Saenko calls him
"Baby" and is patronizing. He is the laziest of all
scouts. He has a round face, thick lips, thick calves.
Now next to me he is lazily stretching on the ground with all his big
body. I look at the stars. I wonder if I understood before the war what
the pleasure of lying like this mindlessly and looking at the stars?
The Germans were hit by a mortar. We can hear a mine passing over us in the dark.
Break in the side of the coast. We are just between the battery and the shore. If a
mentally draw a trajectory, we will find ourselves under its highest point.
It's surprisingly good to stretch after a day of sitting in a trench. Each
muscle aches sweetly.
Saenko raises his hand above his eyes, looks at his watch. He has them big
with many green luminous arrows and numbers, so that I
you can see the time.
“They don’t go for a long time, devils,” he says in his drawling voice.
I want to, I'm sick of it! - And Saenko spits into the dusty grass.
The moon will soon rise: the Germans are already noticeably brighter behind the crest. A mortar
everything beats, and mines lay down on the road along which they should now go to us
scouts and Partsvania. In my mind I see it all. It starts at the coast
the place where we first landed on this bridgehead from the boats. And it starts
it is the grave of Lieutenant Mane. I remember how he, hoarse from screaming, with a manual
with a machine gun in his hands, ran up the slope, bogged down with his boots in the crumbling
sand. At the very top, under the pine tree, where he was killed by a mine, is now a grave.
From here, the sandy road turns into the forest, and there is a safe area. Road
meanders among the craters, but this is not aimed fire, the German hits blindly, on
squares, even during the day without seeing their breaks.
In one place on the ground lies an unexploded rocket of our
"andryusha", long, the height of a man, with a huge round head. He fell
here, when we were still beyond the Dniester, and now it began to rust and overgrow
grass, but every time you walk past it, it becomes creepy and fun.
In the forest, they usually smoke before they go on, the last six hundred
meters in an open area. Probably, the scouts are sitting now and smoking, and
Partsvania hurries them. He is afraid that the mutton in clay pots will get cold,
and therefore wraps the korchazhki with blankets, ties them with ropes. Actually, he
could not come here, but he does not trust any of the scouts and each
once escorts lamb. In addition, he must see how it will be eaten.
The moon appeared at one edge already because of the crest. There are black shadows in the forest now
trees and streaks of smoky moonlight. Dewdrops light up in it, and
smells of moist forest flowers and mist; it will start rising soon
from the bushes. It's good now to walk through the forest, crossing the shadows and streaks of the moon
Sveta...
Saenko rises on his elbow. Some three are walking towards us.
Maybe scouts? They are a hundred meters away, but we do not call out to them:
bridgehead at night no one is hailed from afar. Three come to a turn in the road,
and now a scattered flock of red bullets rush low over their
heads. We can see it clearly from the ground.
Saenko lies down on his back again.
- Infantry...
The day before yesterday, this is the very place in the afternoon, I tried to slip through the Jeep
infantry driver. Under fire, he sharply spun at the turn of the road and dumped
colonel. The infantrymen rushed to him, the Germans fired mortars, our
divisional artillery answered, and shelling lasted for half an hour, so that in the end
everything was mixed up, and a rumor spread across the Dniester that the Germans were advancing. pull out
"Willis" during the day, of course, failed, and until night the Germans trained on it from
machine guns, as if on a target, planting burst after burst, until they set fire to
finally. Afterwards, we wondered: would they send a driver to the penal company or not?
The moon is rising even higher, is about to come off the crest, and the scouts
everything is not. Unclear. Finally, Panchenko appears, my orderly. From a distance I see
that he walks alone and carries something strange in his hand. Comes closer. dull
face, in the right hand on a rope - the neck of an earthenware cake.
Panchenko stands sullenly in front of us, and we sit on the ground, all three of us, and
we are silent. It suddenly becomes so insulting that I don’t even say anything, but only
I look at Panchenko, at this shard in his hands - the only thing that
survived from the crust. The scouts are also silent.
We lived dry all day, and until the next night we have no one
will bring nothing: we eat really once a day. And tomorrow again
shelling day, blinding sun in the glasses of the stereo tube, heat, and smoke, smoke in
his crack to the point of stupefaction, dispersing the smoke with his hand, because there is a German in the bridgehead and
hitting the smoke.
- What fool came up with the idea of wearing meat in crusts? I ask.
Panchenko looks at me reproachfully:
- Partsvaniya ordered, why are you swearing? He spoke, in earthenware
not so cold. I also wrapped them in blankets ...
- And where is he?
- Killed Partsvania...
Panchenko puts a round barley bread in front of us, unhooks it from his belt
flasks of wine, he sits aside, alone, chewing on a blade of grass.
Because we have lived a day dry, the wine immediately gently fogs the head.
We chew bread and think about Partsvania. He was killed when he brought us his
korchazhki tied in blankets, so that - God forbid! - they did not get cold for
road. He used to sit right here, tucking his full legs in the Eastern way, and while
we ate, looked at us with his kind, oily and black, like a Greek,
with round eyes, every now and then wiping her tanned
head. He was waiting for us to start praising.
- You weren't hurt? I ask Panchenko. He moves happily
to us.
- Here! - he shows the trouser leg, pierced right through the pocket by a fragment, and
for persuasiveness, he puts his finger through two holes. And suddenly, suddenly,
hurriedly pulls out of his pocket a yellow sheet of tobacco wrapped in a rag. -
Almost completely forgot.
We crush dry, weightless leaves in our palms, trying not to wake up.
tobacco. Suddenly I notice blood on my palm and tobacco sticking to it.
dust. Where is she from? I'm not injured, I was only cutting bread. On the bottom crust of bread
also blood. Everyone is looking at her. This is the blood of Partsvania.
- Where did you get caught? Saenko asks. Together with the words tobacco smoke
comes out of his mouth: he always inhales deeply.
- In the woods. Just where the "andryusha" shell lies. That's how we went, that's how
he lies. - Panchenko draws all this on the ground. - Here the mine fell. BUT
Partsvania was coming from that direction.
This is the same mortar battery that we can't detect in any way.
At night Vasin and I lie in the same crack. Saenko I sent along with
Panchenko. It is necessary to bring Partsvania to the boat, it is necessary to transfer it to that
side.
The gap is narrow, but at the bottom, at the very bottom, we undermined it from the sides, so that
it is quite possible to sleep together. The nights are still cold, and together even under
cape warm. It's hard to roll over to the other side. While alone
rolls over, the second is on all fours. But you can't dig anymore
otherwise, the projectile can bring down the gap.
A heavy German battery strikes at regular intervals, ours answer
because of the Dniester through us. Somehow underground the gaps always seem
close ones. This is the so-called disturbing fire, all night, until morning. Interesting,
before the war, people suffered from insomnia, complained: "I could not sleep the whole night:
we have a mouse scratching under the floor. "And the cricket, so that was a disaster. We
every night we sleep under artillery fire and wake up from a sudden
silence.
I am lying now and thinking about Partsvania, about the bread on which his
blood. Just before the war, when I was in the tenth grade, we had an evening
and we were handed out buns with sausage for free. They were fresh, round,
cut obliquely through the upper crust, and inserted there along a thick
pink piece of amateur sausage. While they were handing them out to us, the principal of the school
stood next to the barmaid, proud: it was his initiative.
We ate the sausage, and then the buns were lying in all corners, behind the urns,
under the stairs. I remember it now as a crime.
Vassin sleeps, snoring. I want to smoke, but I have tobacco in my right
pocket, and we lie on the right side. Every time a German pops up
a rocket, I see Vasin's overgrown neck and a small ear flushed in a dream.
It's strange, for some reason I have an almost paternal feeling for him.

CHAPTER II

Hot. Against the sun, everything is in smoke. Hot air trembles over the neighbors
heights, they are deserted, as if extinct. There is a German cutting edge.
The infantrymen sleep off during the night, crouching at the bottom of the trenches, putting their hands in
overcoat sleeves. Every night they, like moles, dig passages of communication, connect
trenches into trenches, and when a solid defense is built, everything will have to
quit and move to a new place. This has already been verified.
The Germans are sleeping too. Only observers on both sides look out where
moving alive. Rarely a machine gun will knock - its dry flashes are almost invisible
against the sun - and again silence. The smoke of the gap floats for a long time over the front line in
sultry air.
Behind us behind the forest is the Dniester, all flooded with sun. It would be nice now
swim in the Dniester. But in war another time you sit by the water and not only
swim - you can’t get drunk until night. On the white sandbanks of the Dniester
you will not find now a trace of a bare heel. Only footprints, wheel marks,
going into the water, and funnel breaks. And up along the shore, among the vineyards,
pouring warm juice, Moldovan farms are basking in the sun, in the afternoon
deserted. Above them is heat and silence. All this is behind us.
I look at the gentle heights in a stereo tube, I look every day until
nausea. Oh, how we need them! If we took them, here at once
whole life would change. Vassin, meanwhile, is preparing breakfast. cut with a knife
bank pork stew, put on the parapet, the blade wipes on his pants. We eat
her spoons, spreading on bread. We eat slowly: there is a whole day ahead, and a jar
last. And we don't like to leave either.
Voices are heard somewhere nearby. I turn the stereo tube. Two foot soldiers
walk across the field with rifles over their shoulders and talk. That's just how they go
to themselves and talk as if there were no Germans, no war in the world. Of course,
recently mobilized, because of the Dniester. These have an amazing feature: where
no danger - run across, hide from every projectile flying past,
fall to the ground - here it is, death! And where all living things will not stick their nose out - they go to
full height. I once saw how this one, just sent to the front
a soldier, brave through stupidity, walked through the minefield in the rear of us and picked daisies.
An experienced infantryman who fought wisely will not go there, but this one put his foot, not
choosing places, and not a single mine exploded under him. Two meters left to
the edge of a minefield when they called out to him. And he, realizing where he is, more
I couldn't take a step. I had to take it out of there.
- Few of them, fools, teaches! - angry Vasin.
Both of us, having stopped eating, follow the foot soldiers. Someone called out to them from their
trenches. They completely stood in the open, in the heat, look around: they don’t understand
where the voice came from. And for some reason the German does not shoot. From us to them - meters
thirty; a little more, and the morning long shadows of both heads
reach our parapet. So without understanding who called them, they went.
- Hey, godfather, run! - Unable to stand it, shouts Vasin.
They became again. Both heads turned towards the voice in our direction. By changing
direction, they're coming towards us now. Vasin even leaned out:
- Run, your mother! ..
I can barely get it off the belt. Bolt! From above is crumbling down on us
Earth. Shutting our eyes, we sit at the bottom of the trench. Gap! Shrink. Another break! Above
smoke blows us. Alive, it seems! .. At the first moment, we can not catch our breath,
we just look at each other and smile like boys: we are alive!
- That's the bastard! I say.
Vassin wipes his face with a dirty handkerchief, it is all in the ground. Looks
on my knee, my eyes become frightened. Looks at my boot, at the ground
and picks up an overturned can of stew. Everything was mixed with sand. On the
white fat melts on my knee, a piece of
meat, leaving a greasy trail. Take care... Ate slowly...
- They should be killed! - Vasin threw the jar angrily. - They don’t know how to fight,
only others are unmasked.
And then we hear a groan. Such a pitiful one, as if not an adult is moaning, but
child. We lean out cautiously. One infantryman lies motionless, prone,
on an awkwardly bent arm, shoulder buried in the ground. It's all up to the waist
whole, and below - black and blood, and boots with windings. on white split
butt of a rifle, too, blood. And the shadow from him on the ground became short, all
next to him.
Another infantryman moves, crawls. This is him moaning. We shout to him, but he
creeps to the other side.
“It will disappear, you fool,” Vasin says quickly and for some reason starts filming
boots, pressing the toe on the back. Barefoot, throwing off the belt, got ready
crawl for the wounded.
But a hand sticks out from another trench and pulls the wounded man underground.
From there, the moans are heard more muffled. His rifle remains on the field.
And again silence and heat. The smoke of explosions melted away. Grease stain on me
knee became huge and dirty. I looked at the dead man through the stereo tube. Fresh
blood glistens in the sun, and flies are already clinging to it, swarming over it. Here on
foothold, a great many flies.
From chagrin that he could not have breakfast, Vasin takes on a trophy
telephone set, repairing something in it. He sits at the bottom of the trench, tucked under
bare feet. The head is tilted, the neck is muscular, tanned. eyelashes
his ears are long, burnt at the ends, and his ears are protruding in a boyish way and
heavy from the rush of blood. Sweaty hair combed under the cap - grew
forelock under my soft hand.
I love watching him when he works. He's out of age
large, skillful hands. They are rarely idle. If they tell a joke
Vassin, raising his eyes from his work, listens intently; on his clean forehead
one single wrinkle between the eyebrows is indicated. And when the joke is over
he is still waiting, hoping to learn something instructive that could be
apply to life.
- Who were you before the war, Vasin?
- I? - he asks again and raises brown, gilded
sunlit eyes with bluish whites. - Tinsmith.
Then he brings his hands up to his face and sniffs them:
- They don’t smell anymore, otherwise everything used to smell like tin.
And he smiles sadly and wisely: war. Ripping off the insulation with your teeth
wires says:
- How much good is lost in a war, so get used to it
impossible.
Again the German mortar battery strikes, the same one, but now there are gaps
lay down to the left. It was she who had been beating since the evening. I rummage, rummage with a stereo tube - no flash,
no dust over the firing positions - everything is hidden by the crest of the heights. It seems like a hand
gave it up just to destroy it. I roughly feel the place where she stands, and
already several times tried to destroy her, but she changes positions. Here if
the heights were ours! But we are sitting in the ditch of the road, putting above us
stereotube, and our entire view - up to the crest.
We dug this trench when the ground was still soft. Now the road
torn apart by caterpillars, with footprints, wheels on fresh mud, petrified
and cracked. Not only a mine - a light projectile leaves almost no
funnels: so the sun burned it.
When we landed on this bridgehead, we did not have the strength to take
height. Under fire, the infantry lay down at the foot and hastily began to dig in.
There was a defense. It arose like this: an infantryman fell, pressed by a machine-gun
jet, and first of all undermined the earth under the heart, poured a mound in front
head, protecting it from bullets. By morning, at this place, he was already walking to his full height.
in his trench, buried in the ground - it's not so easy to pull him out of here.
From these trenches we went on the attack several times, but the Germans again
they laid us down with machine gun fire, heavy mortar and artillery fire.
We can't even suppress their mortars because we can't see them. And the Germans
heights look through the entire bridgehead, and the crossing, and that shore. We're holding on
clinging to the foot, we have already taken root, and yet it is strange that they are up to
so far they have not thrown us into the Dniester. It seems to me that if we were at those heights, and they
here, we would have already bathed them.
Even looking up from the stereo tube and closing my eyes, even in a dream I see these
heights, an uneven ridge with all landmarks, crooked trees, funnels,
white stones emerging from the earth, as if it were being washed out by a downpour
height skeleton.
When the war is over and people will remember it, they will probably remember
great battles in which the outcome of the war was decided, the fate of
humanity. Wars are always remembered as great battles. And among
there will be no place for our foothold. His fate is like the fate of one
of a person when the fate of millions is being decided. But, by the way, often fate
and the tragedies of millions begin with the fate of one person. Only about it
forget for some reason.
Since we began to advance, hundreds of such bridgeheads have captured
we are on all rivers. And the Germans immediately tried to throw us off, but we held on,
teeth, hands clinging to the shore. Sometimes the Germans succeeded in this. Then, don't
sparing our strength, we seized a new foothold. And then they attacked him.
I don't know if we will attack from this bridgehead. And none of us
may know this. The offensive begins where it is easier to break through the defense,
where there is operational space for tanks. But the mere fact that we are sitting here
Germans feel both day and night. No wonder they tried twice to throw us into
Dniester. And they will try again.
Now everyone, even the Germans, knows that the war will soon end. And how does she
end, they know too. Perhaps that is why the desire to survive is so strong in us.
In the most difficult months of the forty-first year, surrounded, for one thing, to
to stop the Germans in front of Moscow, everyone, without hesitation, would give their lives. But
now the whole war is over, most of us will see victory, and it's so insulting
die in recent months.
Great things are happening in the world. Italy left the war. landed
finally the allies in France share the victory. All summer long as we sit on
bridgehead, one by one the fronts are advancing to the north of us. So, soon
something starts here.
Vasin has finished repairing the apparatus, admiring his work. In the trench - oblique
sun and shadow. Having laid out footcloths on the tops, stretching out his bare feet, Vasin
wiggles his fingers under the sun, looks at them.
- Let's be on duty, comrade lieutenant.
- Wait...
It seemed to me that a yellow haze arose over the German trenches. AT
stereotube, zoomed in with magnifying glasses, grassy
front elevation slope, yellow winding trench dumps.
Again, in the same place, a flying yellow smoke appears above the parapet.
Dig! Some German is digging in broad daylight. The shovel flashed. They have shovels
wonderful, they go into the ground. Level with the parapet moved gray
mouse cap. It's good for him to dig. He took off his helmet from the heat.
- Call the second!
- Shall we shoot? - Vasin perks up and, sitting in front of the phone on his
bare heels, calls.
The second is the division commander. He is now on the other side of the Dniester, in
farm. The voice is hoarse in the morning. And - strict. Slept, probably. Window
hung with blankets, from an earthen floor sprinkled with water, cool in
room, the orderly kicked out the flies - you can sleep in the heat. And shells, of course, not
will give. I'm going for the trick:
- Comrade Second, discovered a German artillery NP!
Simply say: "Found an observer" - for sure they will not allow you to shoot.
- How do you know that this is an artillery NP? - doubts Yatsenko. And
the tone is already gloomy, annoyed because some decision must be made.
- Spotted the stereo tube by the shine of the glasses! - I'm lying in an honest voice. Or maybe
be, I'm not lying. Maybe he will finish digging and install a stereo tube.
- So NP, you say?
Yatsenko hesitates.
It's better not to hope. And then it's completely embarrassing. What a life, really
deed! You are sitting on the bridgehead - you can’t stick your head out, but you found the target, and you
shells are not given. If a German had discovered me, he would not have asked
permissions. Another platoon leader would have been sent here that night.
“Three shells, Comrade Second,” I hurry, before he has changed his mind, and
My voice is disgusting to me at this moment.
- Boasted! Do you want to shake the air or shoot? - suddenly angry
Yatsenko.
And the devil pulled me to jump out with these three shells. All in the shelf
know that Yatsenko does not shoot well. And competent, and knows the preparation of data,
but, as they say, if there is no talent, it is for a long time. Once he shot
target, used up eight shells, but never saw his gap. Ever since
Since then, Yatsenko always keeps one of the battalion commanders on his NP in case
will have to shoot. It’s always like this with him: you want to do better, but you step on
sick corn.
- So you won't give me more, Comrade Divisional Commander! I make excuses hastily.
This is a trick, incomprehensible to a civilian. Division Commander and Commander
artillery battalion is abbreviated the same way: "commander", although
a division is commanded by a colonel, or even a general, and a division - at best
major. Yatsenko loves to be called abbreviated and sonorous: "Comrade
Divisional Commander." And I go for this trick, as if forgetting that the phone is not allowed
no title, no position - there are only call signs.
- You don't know my callsign? - interrupts Yatsenko. But heard from
voice satisfied. This is the main thing.
Whatever you want to say, as long as you give shells. I'm starting to feel...