Real stories about the war 1941 1945 read. Stories for children about the Great Patriotic War

Part 1

Nikolai Baryakin, 1945

THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR

I worked as an accountant of the Pelegovsky forestry of the Yuryevets forestry. On June 21, 1941, I arrived at my father's house in Nezhitino, and the next morning, turning on the detector receiver, I heard terrible news: we were attacked by Nazi Germany.

This terrible news quickly spread throughout the village. The war has begun.

I was born on December 30, 1922, and since I was not even 19 years old, my parents and I thought that they would not take me to the front. But already on August 11, 1941, I was drafted into the army on a special recruitment basis, and with a group of Yurievites I was sent to the Lvov military machine-gun and mortar officer school, which by that time had been relocated to the city of Kirov.

After graduating from college in May 1942, I received the rank of lieutenant and was sent to the active army on the Kalinin Front in the area of ​​the city of Rzhev in the Third Rifle Division of the 399th Rifle Regiment.

After the defeat of the Germans near Moscow, fierce defensive and offensive battles took place here from May to September 1942. The Germans on the left bank of the Volga built a multi-layered defense with the installation of long-range guns. One of the batteries, codenamed "Berta", stood in the area of ​​the Semashko rest house, and it was here at the end of May 1942 that we launched the offensive.

NINETEEN-YEAR-OLD COMPANY COMMANDER

Under my command was a platoon of 82-mm mortars, and we covered our rifle companies with fire.

One day the Germans launched an attack, throwing tanks and a large number of bombers at us. Our company occupied a firing position in close proximity to the infantry trenches and fired continuously at the Germans.

The fight was hot. One calculation was disabled; The company commander, Captain Viktorov, was seriously wounded and he ordered me to take command of the company.

So for the first time in difficult combat conditions, I became the commander of a unit in which there were 12 combat crews, a household platoon, 18 horses and 124 soldiers, sergeants and officers. For me it was a great challenge, because. at that time I was only 19 years old.

In one of the battles, I received a shrapnel wound in my right leg. Eight days I had to stay in the rank of the regiment, but the wound quickly healed, and I again accepted the company. From the explosion of the shell, I was easily shell-shocked, and my head ached for a long time, and sometimes there was an infernal ringing in my ears.

In September 1942, after reaching the banks of the Volga, our unit was withdrawn from the battle zone for reorganization.

A short rest, replenishment, preparation, and we were again thrown into battle - but on a different front. Our division was introduced into the Steppe Front and now we were advancing with battles in the Kharkov direction.

In December 1942, I was promoted ahead of schedule to the rank of senior lieutenant, and I was officially appointed deputy commander of a mortar company.

We liberated Kharkov and came close to Poltava. Here the company commander Senior Lieutenant Lukin was wounded, and I again took command of the company.

WOUNDED NURSE

In one of the battles for a small settlement, our company nurse Sasha Zaitseva was wounded in the abdomen. When we ran up to her with one platoon leader, she took out a pistol and screamed at us not to approach her. A young girl, even in moments of mortal danger, she retained a sense of girlish shame and did not want us to expose her for dressing. But having chosen the moment, we took away the gun from her, made a dressing and sent her to the medical battalion.

Three years later I met her again: she married an officer. In a friendly conversation, we recalled this incident, and she seriously said that if we had not taken away her weapons, she could have shot both of us. But then she heartily thanked me for saving her.

SHIELD OF CIVILIANS

On the outskirts of Poltava, we occupied the village of Karpovka with fighting. We dug in, installed mortars, fired with a “fan” and, in the silence of the evening, sat down to have dinner right at the command post.

Suddenly, a noise was heard from the German positions, and observers reported that a crowd of people was moving towards the village. It was already dark and a man's voice came from the darkness:

Brothers, the Germans are behind us, shoot, do not be sorry!

I immediately gave the command to the firing position by phone:

Zagrad fire No. 3.5 min, quick, fire!

A moment later, a flurry of mortar fire hit the Germans. Scream, groan; return fire shook the air. The battery made two more fire raids, and everything was quiet. All night until dawn we stood in full combat readiness.

In the morning, we learned from the surviving Russian citizens that the Germans, having gathered the inhabitants of the nearby farms, forced them to move in a crowd towards the village, and we ourselves followed them, hoping that in this way they would be able to capture Karpovka. But they miscalculated.

ATROCITY

In the winter of 1942-43. we liberated Kharkov for the first time and successfully moved further west. The Germans retreated in panic, but even retreating, they did their terrible deeds. When we occupied the Bolshiye Maidany farm, it turned out that not a single person was left in it.

The Nazis smashed heating appliances in literally every house, knocked out doors and windows, and burned down some of the houses. In the middle of the farm, they laid an old man, a woman and a child girl on top of each other and pierced all three of them with a metal crowbar.

The rest of the inhabitants were burned behind the farm in a stack of straw.

We were exhausted from a long day's march, but when we saw these terrible pictures, no one wanted to stop, and the regiment moved on. The Germans did not count on this and at night, taken by surprise, they paid for the Great Maidan.

And now, as if alive, Katina stands in front of me: in the early morning, the frozen corpses of the Nazis were stacked on carts and taken to a pit to permanently remove this evil spirits from the face of the earth.

ENVIRONMENT UNDER KHARKOV

So, fighting, freeing farm after farm, we deeply invaded the Ukrainian land in a narrow wedge and approached Poltava.

But the Nazis recovered somewhat and, having concentrated large forces in this sector of the front, went over to the counteroffensive. They cut off the rear and surrounded the Third Panzer Army, our division and a number of other formations. There was a serious environmental threat. Stalin's order was given to withdraw from the encirclement, help was sent, but the planned withdrawal did not work.

We, with a group of twelve infantrymen, were cut off from the regiment of the fascist motorized column. Hiding in a railway booth, we took up all-round defense. The Nazis, having fired a machine-gun burst at the booth, slipped further, and we orientated ourselves on the map and decided to cross the Zmiev-Kharkov highway and go out to Zmiev through the forest.

On the road, the cars of the Nazis were walking in an endless stream. When it got dark, we seized the moment and, holding hands, ran across the highway and found ourselves in the saving forest. For seven days we zigzagged through the forest, at night in search of food we went to settlements, and finally got to the city of Zmiev, where the defensive line of the 25th Rifle Guards Division was located.

Our division was stationed in Kharkov, and the next day I was in the arms of my fighting friends. My orderly Yakovlev from Yaroslavl gave me the letters that came from home and said that he sent a notice to my relatives that I had died in the battles for the Motherland in the Poltava region.

This news, as I later learned, was a heavy blow to my loved ones. Also, my mother had died shortly before. I learned about her death from the letters that Yakovlev gave me.

SOLDIER FROM ALMA-ATA

Our division was withdrawn for reorganization to the area of ​​the village of Bolshetroitsky, Belgorod region.

Again, preparation for battle, exercises and the adoption of new replenishment.

I remember an incident that later played a big role in my fate:

A soldier from Alma-Ata was sent to my company. After working out for several days in the platoon where he was assigned, this soldier asked the commander to allow him to talk to me.

And so we met. A literate, cultured man in pince-nez, dressed in a soldier's overcoat and boots with windings, he looked somehow pitiful, helpless. Apologizing for his concern, he asked to be heard.

He said that he worked in Alma-Ata as the chief physician, but had a fight with the regional military commissar, and he was sent to a marching company. The soldier swore that he would be more useful if he performed the duties of at least a medical instructor.

He did not have any documents to support what he said.

You still need to prepare for the upcoming battles, I told him. - Learn to dig in and shoot, and get used to front-line life. And I'll report you to the regimental commander.

At one of the reconnaissances, I told this story to the regiment commander, and a few days later the soldier was seconded from the company. Looking ahead, I will say that he really turned out to be a good medical specialist. He received the rank of military doctor and was appointed head of the medical battalion of our division. But I learned about all this much later.

KURSK DUGA

In July 1943, the great battle began on the Oryol-Kursk Bulge. Our division was put into action when, having exhausted the Germans on defensive lines, the entire front went on the offensive.

On the very first day, with the support of tanks, aviation and artillery, we advanced 12 kilometers and reached the Seversky Donets, immediately crossed it and broke into Belgorod.

Everything was mixed up in a pitch roar, in smoke, the grinding of tanks and the screams of the wounded. The company, having changed one firing position and fired a volley, removed, occupied a new position, fired a volley again and again moved forward. The Germans suffered heavy losses: we captured trophies, guns, tanks, prisoners.

But we also lost comrades. In one of the battles, a platoon commander from our company, Lieutenant Aleshin, was killed: we buried him with honors on Belgorod land. And for a long time, for more than two years, I corresponded with Alyoshin's sister, who loved him very much. She wanted to know everything about this good guy.

A lot of soldiers remained forever lying on this earth. Even a lot. But the living moved on.

RELEASE OF KHARKOV

On August 5, 1943, we again entered Kharkov, but now forever. In honor of this great victory, victorious salutes thundered in Moscow for the first time in the entire war.

On our sector of the front, the Germans, having hastily retreated to the area of ​​​​the city of Merefa, finally managed to organize defense and stop the offensive of the Soviet army. They occupied advantageous positions, all heights and former military barracks, dug in well, set up a large number of firing points and unleashed a flurry of fire on our units.

We also took up defensive positions. The firing positions of the company were chosen very well: the command post was located at the glass factory and was put forward directly into the trenches of the rifle company. The battery of mortars began to conduct aimed fire at the entrenched Germans. From the observation point, the entire Front edge German defenses, so that I could see at a glance every exploding mine that fell exactly along the trenches.

Over four days there were stubborn battles for Merefa. Hundreds of mines were fired at the heads of the Nazis and, finally, the enemy could not withstand our onslaught. In the morning Merefa was handed over.

In the battles for this city, twelve people died in my company. Right next to me at the observation post, my orderly Sofronov, a Penza collective farmer, was killed - a sincere man, the father of three children. As he was dying, he asked me to report his death to his wife and children. I faithfully fulfilled his request.

For participation in the battles on the Kursk Bulge, many soldiers and officers were awarded orders and medals. Soviet Union. Our division has also received many awards. For the liberation of Kharkov and for the battles on the Kursk Bulge, I was awarded the Order of the Red Star and received three personal congratulations from the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Comrade I.V. Stalin.

In August 1943, I was promoted ahead of schedule to the next rank of captain, and in the same month I was accepted into the ranks of the Communist Party. Party ticket, order and epaulettes dress uniform were handed to me by the deputy division commander at the firing position of the battery.

FAITHFUL HORSE

After the end of the Battle of Kursk, our Third Rifle Division, as part of the Second Ukrainian Front, fought for the liberation of Ukraine.

On that day, the regiment was on the march, there was a regrouping of the troops of the front. Having dispersed in company, we moved along country roads in compliance with disguise. As part of the first rifle battalion, our minrota moved last, the battalion headquarters and the economic unit followed us. And when we entered the narrow hollow of a small river, the Germans unexpectedly fired at us from armored vehicles.

I rode a beautiful gray very smart horse, which did not save me from any death. And suddenly a sharp blow! Right next to my foot at the stirrup, a bullet fired from a large-caliber machine gun pierced. Horse Mishka shuddered, then reared up and fell on his left side. I just managed to jump off the saddle and took cover behind the body of Mishka. He groaned and it was all over.

The second burst of machine-gun fire once again hit the poor animal, but Mishka was already dead - and he, dead, again saved my life.

The subdivisions adopted battle order, opened aimed fire, and the group of fascists was destroyed. Three transporters were taken as trophies, sixteen Germans were captured.

POLICEMAN

At the end of the day we occupied a small farm located in a very picturesque place. It was time for golden autumn.

They quartered people, placed mortar carts in combat readiness, set sentries, and the three of us - I, my deputy A.S. Kotov and the orderly (I don't remember his last name) went to one of the houses to rest.

The hosts, an old man with an old woman and two young women, greeted us very friendly. Having rejected our army rations, they brought us all sorts of dishes for dinner: expensive German wine, moonshine, fruit.

We started eating together with them, but at some point one of the women told Kotov that the owner's son, a policeman, was hiding in the house, and that he was armed.

Captain, let's smoke, - Kotov called me, took me by the arm and led me out into the street.

At the porch, the sentry stood calmly. Kotov hurriedly relayed to me what the young woman had told him. We warned the sentry and told him to make sure that no one left the house. They alerted a platoon, cordoned off the house, made a search and found this scoundrel in a chest, on which I sat down several times.

It was a man of 35-40 years old, healthy, well-groomed, in German uniforms, with a Parabellum pistol and a German machine gun. We arrested him and sent him under escort to the headquarters of the regiment.

It turned out that the German headquarters were quartered in the house of this family, and all of them, except for the woman who warned us, worked for the Germans. And she was the wife of the second son, who fought in parts Soviet troops. The Germans did not touch her, because. the old people passed her off as their daughter, and not as their son's daughter-in-law. And that the son is alive and fighting against the Germans, only his wife knew. His parents considered him dead, because. back in 1942 they received a "funeral". Many valuable fascist documents were confiscated in the attic and in the shed.

Without this noble woman, a tragedy might have happened to us that night.

ALEXANDER KOTOV

One evening, during a halt, a group of soldiers dragged three Germans: an officer and two soldiers. Kotov and I began to ask them what part they were from, who they were. And before they had time to come to their senses, the officer took a pistol out of his pocket and fired point-blank at Kotorva. I knocked the gun out of him with a sharp movement, but it was too late.

Alexander Semenovich got up, somehow calmly took out his inseparable "TT" and shot everyone himself. The gun fell out of his hands and Sasha was gone.

Even now he stands in front of me, as if alive - always cheerful, fit, modest, my deputy for political affairs, my comrade, with whom I walked together for more than a year through the fields of war.

One day we were on the march and, as always, we rode with him in front of the column. The people greeted us with joy. All those who survived ran out into the streets and searched among the soldiers for their relatives and friends.

One woman suddenly looked intently at Kotov, waved her arms and shouted "Sasha, Sashenka!" rushed to his horse. We stopped, dismounted, stepped aside, letting a column of soldiers pass.

She hung on his neck, kissed, hugged, cried, and he carefully pushed her away: "You must have been mistaken." The woman recoiled and sank to the ground crying.

Yes, she really was wrong. But when she saw us off, she kept repeating that he was “exactly like my Sashenka” ...

In difficult moments, in hours of rest, he was very fond of humming a cheerful old melody: “You, Semyonovna, the grass is green ...” And suddenly, because of some absurdity, this dear person died. Damn those three captured Germans!

Senior Lieutenant Oleksandr Kotov was buried on Ukrainian soil under a small grave mound - without a monument, without rituals. Who knows, maybe now bread is turning green in this place or a birch grove is growing.

psychic attack

Moving with fights almost strictly in southbound, our division went to the German fortifications in the Magdalinovka area and took up defensive positions. After the battles on the Kursk Bulge, in the battles for Karpovka and other settlements, our units were weakened, there were not enough fighters in the companies and, in general, fatigue was felt in the troops. Therefore, we perceived defensive battles as a respite.

The soldiers dug in, set up firing points and, as always, fired at the most likely approaches.

But we had only three days to rest. On the fourth day, early in the morning, when the sun rose, the German infantry moved in formation directly at our positions in an avalanche. They walked to the beat of the drum and did not shoot; they had neither tanks, nor aircraft, nor even conventional artillery preparation.

With marching steps, in green uniforms, with rifles at the ready, they walked in chains under the command of officers. It was psychic attack.

The defense of the farm was occupied by one incomplete battalion, and in the first minutes we were even somewhat confused. But the command “To fight” sounded and everyone got ready.

As soon as the first rows of Germans approached the place we had shot at, the battery opened fire from all mortars. The mines fell exactly on the attackers, but they continued to move in our direction.

But then a miracle happened that no one expected. Several of our tanks opened fire from behind the houses, which approached at dawn, and which we did not even know about.

Under mortar, artillery and machine-gun fire, the psychic attack bogged down. We shot almost all the Germans, only a few of the wounded were then picked up by our rear detachments. And we went ahead again.

FORCING THE NEPR

Moving in the second echelon of the 49th Army, our division immediately crossed the Dnieper to the west of Dnepropetrovsk. Approaching the left bank, we took up temporary defenses, let the shock groups through, and when the advanced troops entrenched themselves on the right bank, our crossing was also organized.

The Germans constantly counterattacked us and rained merciless artillery fire and aerial bombs on our heads, but nothing could hold our troops back. And although many soldiers and officers are forever buried in the Dnieper sands, we came to the pro-bank Ukraine.

Immediately after forcing the Dnieper, the division turned sharply to the west and fought in the direction of the city of Pyatikhatki. We liberated one settlement after another. Ukrainians met us with joy, tried to help.

Although many did not even believe that it was their liberators who came. The Germans convinced them that the Russian troops were defeated, that an army of foreigners in uniform was coming to destroy them all - therefore, indeed, many took us for strangers.

But those were just minutes. Soon all the nonsense dissipated, and our children were hugged, kissed, rocked and treated with whatever they could by these glorious long-suffering people.

After standing in Pyatikhatki for several days and having received the necessary reinforcements, weapons and ammunition, we again waged offensive battles. We were faced with the task of capturing the city of Kirovograd. In one of the battles, the battalion commander of the First Battalion was killed; I was at his command post and by order of the regiment commander was appointed to replace the deceased.

Calling the battalion's chief of staff to the command post, he passed through him the order to take over the minrota by Lieutenant Zverev, and gave the order to the rifle companies to move forward.

After several stubborn battles, our units liberated Zhovtiye Vody, Spasovo and Adzhashka and reached the approaches to Kirovograd.

Now the mine company was moving at the junction of the First and Second Rifle Battalions, supporting us with mortar fire.

KATYUSHA

On November 26, 1943, I ordered the battalion to conduct an offensive along the Adjamka-Kirovograd highway, placing the companies in a ledge to the right. The first and third companies advanced in the first line, and the second company followed the third company at a distance of 500 meters. At the junction between the second and our battalions, two mortar companies were moving.

By the end of the day on November 26, we occupied the dominant heights located in the cornfield, and immediately began to dig in. A telephone connection was established with the companies, the regiment commander and the neighbors. And although dusk fell, the front was restless. It was felt that the Germans were conducting some kind of regrouping and that something was being prepared on their part.

The front line was continuously illuminated by rockets, and tracer bullets were fired. And from the side of the Germans, the noise of engines was heard, and sometimes the screams of people.

Intelligence soon confirmed that the Germans were preparing for a major counteroffensive. Many new units arrived with heavy tanks and self-propelled guns.

At about three in the morning, the commander of the 49th Army called me, congratulated me on the victory achieved and also warned that the Germans were preparing for battle. Having specified the coordinates of our location, the general asked us to hold fast so as not to let the Germans crush our troops. He said that on the 27th, fresh troops would be brought in by lunchtime, and in the morning, if necessary, a volley would be fired from the Katyushas.

The boss immediately got in touch. artillery regiment Captain Gasman. Since we were good friends with him, he simply asked: “Well, how many“ cucumbers ”and where do you, my friend, throw it?” I understood that it was about 120 mm mines. I gave Gasman two directions where to fire throughout the night. Which he did right.

Just before dawn, there was absolute silence along the entire front,

The morning of November 27 was cloudy, foggy and cold, but soon the sun came out and the fog began to dissipate. In the haze of dawn in front of our positions, like ghosts, appeared German tanks, self-propelled guns and figures of soldiers running across. The Germans went on the offensive.

Everything shook in an instant. The machine gun fired, guns rumbled, rifle shots clapped. We unleashed an avalanche of fire on the Fritz. Not counting on such a meeting, tanks and self-propelled guns began to retreat, and the infantry lay down.

I reported the situation to the regimental commander and asked for urgent help, because. believed that soon the Germans would attack again.

And indeed, after a few minutes, the tanks, picking up speed, opened aimed machine-gun and artillery fire along the line of shooters. The infantry again rushed after the tanks. And at that moment, from behind the edge of the forest, a long-awaited, salutary volley of Katyushas was heard, and seconds later - the roar of exploding shells.

What a miracle these "Katyushas"! I saw their first salvo back in May 1942 in the Rzhev region: there they fired with thermite shells. A whole sea of ​​solid fire on a huge area and nothing alive - that's what a "Katyusha" is.

Now the shells were shrapnel. They were torn apart in a strict checkerboard pattern, and where the blow was directed, rarely anyone remained alive.

Today, the Katyushas hit right on target. One tank caught fire, and the remaining soldiers rushed back in a panic. But at this time, on the right side, two hundred meters from the observation post, a Tiger tank appeared. Noticing us, he fired a volley from a cannon. Machine-gun fire - and the telegraph operator, my orderly and liaison were killed. My ears rang, I jumped out of my trench, reached for the handset, and, suddenly receiving a hot blow to my back, sank helplessly into my hole.

Something warm and pleasant began to spread over my body, two words flashed through my head: “That's it, the end,” and I lost consciousness.

WOUND

I woke up in a hospital bed with an elderly woman sitting next to it. The whole body ached, objects seemed vague, severe pain was felt in the left side, the left arm was lifeless. The old woman brought something warm and sweet to my lips, and with great effort I took a sip, and then again plunged into oblivion.

A few days later, I learned the following: our units, having received new reinforcements, which the general told me about, threw back the Germans, captured the outskirts of Kirovograd and entrenched themselves here.

Late in the evening, the orderlies of the regiment accidentally discovered me and, together with other wounded, were taken to the medical battalion of the division.

The head of the medical battalion (a soldier from Alma-Ata, whom I once saved from a mortar plate) recognized me and immediately sent me to his apartment. He did everything he could to save my life.

It turned out that the bullet, having passed a few millimeters from the heart and crushing the shoulder blade of the left hand, flew out. The wound was over twenty centimeters long, and I had lost over forty percent of my blood.

For about two weeks, my Alma-Ata resident and the old hostess took care of me around the clock. When I got a little stronger, they sent me to the Znamenka station and handed me over to the ambulance train, which was being formed here. The war on the Western Front was over for me.

The ambulance train I was on was heading east. We passed Kirov, Sverdlovsk, Tyumen, Novosibirsk, Kemerovo and finally arrived in the city of Stalinsk (Novokuznetsk). The train was on the road for almost a month. Many of the wounded died on the road, many underwent operations right on the move, some were cured and returned to duty.

I was taken out of the medical train on a stretcher and taken to the hospital by ambulance. Stretched painfully long months of bed life.

Shortly after arriving at the hospital, I underwent an operation (cleaning the wound), but even after that I could not turn around for a long time, much less stand up or even sit down.

But I began to get better, and five months later I was sent to a military sanatorium located near Novosibirsk on the picturesque banks of the Ob. The month spent here gave me the opportunity to completely restore my health.

I dreamed of returning to my unit, which, after the liberation of the Romanian city of Iasi, was already called Iasi-Kishinev, but everything turned out differently.

HIGHER TRAINING COURSES

After the sanatorium, I was sent to Novosibirsk, and from there to the city of Kuibyshev, Novosibirsk Region, to the training regiment of the deputy commander of the training mortar battalion, where sergeants were trained for the front.

In September 1944, the regiment moved to the area of ​​the Khobotovo station near Michurinsk, and from here in December 1944 I was seconded to the city of Tambov for the Higher Tactical Courses for Officers.

May 9, Great Victory Day, we met in Tambov. What triumph, true joy, what happiness this day brought to our people! For us, warriors, this day will remain the happiest of all the days lived.

After completing the course at the end of June, we, five people from the group of battalion commanders, were seconded to the Headquarters location and sent to Voronezh. The war ended, peaceful life began, the restoration of destroyed cities and villages began.

I did not see Voronezh before the war, but what the war did to it, I know, I saw it. And it was all the more joyful to watch this wonderful city rise from the ruins.

Andrey Platonov. little soldier

Not far from the front line, inside the surviving railway station, the Red Army men who fell asleep on the floor were sweetly snoring; the happiness of rest was imprinted on their weary faces.

On the second track, the boiler of the hot steam locomotive on duty hissed softly, as if singing a monotonous, soothing voice from a long-abandoned house. But in one corner of the station building, where a kerosene lamp burned, people occasionally whispered soothing words to each other, and then they fell into silence.

There stood two majors, similar to each other not in outward signs, but in the general goodness of their wrinkled, tanned faces; each of them held the boy's hand in his hand, and the child looked imploringly at the commanders. The child did not let go of the hand of one major, then clinging his face to it, and carefully tried to free himself from the hand of the other. The child looked about ten years old, and he was dressed like an experienced fighter - in a gray overcoat, worn and pressed against his body, in a cap and in boots, sewn, apparently, to measure for a child's foot. His small face, thin, weathered, but not emaciated, adapted and already accustomed to life, was now turned to one major; the bright eyes of the child clearly revealed his sadness, as if they were the living surface of his heart; he longed to be separated from his father or an older friend, who must have been the major to him.

The second major drew the child by the hand to him and caressed him, comforting him, but the boy, without removing his hand, remained indifferent to him. The first major was also saddened, and he whispered to the child that he would soon take him to him and they would meet again for an inseparable life, and now they parted for a short time. The boy believed him, however, the truth itself could not console his heart, attached to only one person and wanting to be with him constantly and near, and not far away. The child already knew what the distance and the time of war are - it is difficult for people from there to return to each other, so he did not want separation, and his heart could not be alone, it was afraid that, left alone, it would die. And in his last request and hope, the boy looked at the major, who should leave him with a stranger.

“Well, Seryozha, goodbye for now,” said the major whom the child loved. “You don’t really try to fight, grow up, then you will.” Do not climb on the German and take care of yourself, so that I can find you alive, whole. Well, what are you, what are you - hold on, soldier!

Sergei cried. The major lifted him into his arms and kissed his face several times. Then the major went with the child to the exit, and the second major also followed them, instructing me to guard the things left behind.

The child returned in the arms of another major; he looked strangely and timidly at the commander, although this major persuaded him gentle words and attracted him as best he could.

The major, who replaced the departed one, admonished the silent child for a long time, but he, true to one feeling and one person, remained aloof.

Not far from the station, anti-aircraft guns began to hit. The boy listened to their booming dead sounds, and excited interest appeared in his eyes.

"Their scout is coming!" he said quietly, as if to himself. - It goes high, and the anti-aircraft guns will not take it, you need to send a fighter there.

"They'll send," said the major. - They're looking at us.

The train we needed was expected only the next day, and all three of us went to the hostel for the night. There the Major fed the child from his heavily loaded sack. “How tired of him for the war, this bag,” said the major, “and how grateful I am to him!” The boy fell asleep after eating, and Major Bakhichev told me about his fate.

Sergei Labkov was the son of a colonel and a military doctor. His father and mother served in the same regiment, so they took their only son to live with them and grow up in the army. Seryozha was now in his tenth year; he took the war and his father's cause close to his heart and had already begun to truly understand what war was for. And then one day he heard his father talking in the dugout with one officer and taking care that the Germans, when retreating, would definitely blow up the ammunition of his regiment. The regiment had previously left the German coverage, well, with haste, of course, and left its ammunition depot with the Germans, and now the regiment had to go ahead and return the lost land and its property on it, and the ammunition, too, which was needed. “They’ve probably already failed the wire to our warehouse - they know that they will have to move away,” the colonel, Seryozha’s father, said then. Sergey listened attentively and realized what his father cared about. The boy knew the location of the regiment before the retreat, and here he is, small, thin, cunning, crawled at night to our warehouse, cut the explosive closing wire and remained there for another whole day, watching so that the Germans did not fix the damage, and if they did, then so that again cut the wire. Then the colonel drove the Germans out of there, and the whole warehouse passed into his possession.

Soon this little boy made his way further behind enemy lines; there he recognized by signs where the command post of the regiment or battalion was, went around three batteries at a distance, remembered everything exactly - the memory was not corrupted in any way - and when he returned home, he showed his father on the map how it is and where it is. The father thought, gave his son to the orderly for inseparable observation of him and opened fire on these points. Everything turned out right, the son gave him the right serifs. He is small, this Seryozhka, the enemy took him for a gopher in the grass: let him, they say, move. And Seryozhka, probably, did not move the grass, he walked without a sigh.

The boy also deceived the orderly, or, so to speak, seduced him: since he led him somewhere, and together they killed the German - it is not known which of them - and Sergey found the position.

So he lived in the regiment with his father, mother and soldiers. The mother, seeing such a son, could no longer endure his uncomfortable situation and decided

send him to the rear. But Sergei could no longer leave the army, his character was drawn into the war. And he told that major, father's deputy, Savelyev, who had just left, that he would not go to the rear, but rather hide in captivity to the Germans, learn from them everything that was needed, and again return to his father's unit when his mother get bored. And he would probably do so, because he has a military character.

And then grief happened, and there was no time to send the boy to the rear. His father, a colonel, was seriously wounded, although the battle, they say, was weak, and he died two days later in a field hospital. The mother also fell ill, became tired - she had previously been maimed by two shrapnel wounds, one was in the cavity - and a month after her husband she also died; maybe she still missed her husband ... Sergey was left an orphan.

Major Savelyev took command of the regiment, he took the boy to him and became him instead of his father and mother, instead of relatives - the whole person. The boy answered him, too, with all his heart.

- And I'm not from their part, I'm from another. But I know Volodya Savelyev from a long time ago. And so we met here with him at the headquarters of the front. Volodya was sent to refresher courses, and I was there on another matter, and now I'm going back to my unit. Volodya Savelyev told me to take care of the boy until he comes back ... And when else will Volodya return and where will he be sent! Well, you'll see it there...

Major Bakhichev dozed off and fell asleep. Seryozha Labkov snored in his sleep like an adult, an elderly person, and his face, now moving away from sorrow and memories, became calm and innocently happy, showing the image of a holy childhood, from where the war had taken him away. I also fell asleep, taking advantage of unnecessary time so that it would not pass in vain.

We woke up at dusk, at the very end of a long June day. Now there were two of us in three beds - Major Bakhichev and I, but Seryozha Labkov was not there. The major was worried, but then he decided that the boy had gone somewhere for a short time. Later, we went with him to the station and visited the military commandant, but no one noticed the little soldier in the rear of the war.

The next morning, Seryozha Labkov also did not return to us, and God knows where he went, tormented by the feeling of his childish heart for the man who left him - maybe after him, maybe back to his father's regiment, where the graves of his father and mother were.

Vladimir Zheleznikov. In an old tank

He was already about to leave this city, did his business and was about to leave, but on the way to the station he suddenly came across a small square.

An old tank stood in the middle of the square. He approached the tank, touched the dents from enemy shells - it was evident that it was a battle tank, and therefore he did not want to immediately leave it. I put the suitcase near the caterpillar, climbed onto the tank, tried the turret hatch to see if it opens. The hatch opened easily.

Then he climbed inside and sat in the driver's seat. It was a narrow, cramped place, he could hardly get through without getting used to it, and even when he climbed, he scratched his hand.

He pressed the gas pedal, touched the handles of the levers, looked through the viewing slot and saw a narrow strip of the street.

For the first time in his life he was sitting in a tank, and it was all so unusual for him that he did not even hear someone approach the tank, climb on it and bend over the turret. And then he raised his head, because the one above blocked the light for him.

It was a boy. His hair looked almost blue in the light. They looked at each other in silence for a full minute. For the boy, the meeting was unexpected: he thought to find one of his comrades here with whom he could play, and here you are, an adult stranger man.

The boy was about to say something sharp to him, saying that there was nothing to get into someone else's tank, but then he saw the man's eyes and saw that his fingers trembled a little when he raised the cigarette to his lips, and said nothing.

But it is impossible to remain silent forever, and the boy asked:

- Why are you here?

“Nothing,” he replied. I decided to sit. And what not?

"Yes," said the boy. - Only this tank is ours.

- Whose is yours? - he asked.

“Children of our yard,” said the boy.

They were silent again.

- How long will you stay here? the boy asked.

- I'll be leaving soon. He looked at his watch. I'm leaving your city in an hour.

“Look, it’s raining,” said the boy.

- Well, let's crawl in here and close the hatch. Let's wait out the rain and I'll go.

It's good that it started to rain, otherwise I would have to leave. And he still could not leave, something kept him in this tank.

The little boy snuggled up next to him. They sat very close to each other, and this neighborhood was somehow surprising and unexpected.

He even felt the boy's breath, and every time he looked up, he saw his neighbor turn away swiftly.

“Actually, old, front-line tanks are my weakness,” he said.

This tank is a good thing. The boy patted his armor knowingly. “They say he liberated our city.

“My father was a tanker in the war,” he said.

- And now? the boy asked.

“And now he’s gone,” he replied. — Did not return from the front. In forty-three, he went missing.

The tank was almost dark. A thin strip made its way through a narrow viewing slot, and then the sky was covered with a thundercloud, and it completely darkened.

- And how is it - "missing"? the boy asked.

- He went missing, which means he went, for example, to reconnaissance behind enemy lines and did not return. It is not known how he died.

“Is it even impossible to know? the boy was surprised. “He wasn't alone there.

“Sometimes it doesn’t work,” he said. — And the tankers are brave guys. Here, for example, some guy was sitting here during the battle: the light is nothing at all, you can see the whole world only through this gap. And enemy shells hit the armor. I saw what potholes! From the impact of these shells on the tank, the head could burst.

Somewhere in the sky thunder struck, and the tank rang dully. The boy shuddered.

— Are you afraid? - he asked.

“No,” the boy replied. - It's out of surprise.

“Recently I read in the newspaper about a tankman,” he said. - That was a man! You listen. This tanker was captured by the Nazis: maybe he was wounded or shell-shocked, or maybe he jumped out of a burning tank and they grabbed him. In short, he was captured. And suddenly one day they put him in a car and bring him to an artillery range. At first, the tanker did not understand anything: he sees a brand new T-34, and in the distance a group of German officers. They took him to the officers. And then one of them says:

“Here, they say, you have a tank, you will have to go through the entire range on it, sixteen kilometers, and our soldiers will shoot at you from cannons. If you see the tank through to the end, then you will live, and personally I will give you freedom. Well, if you don't, then you die. In general, in war as in war.

And he, our tanker, is still quite young. Well, maybe he was twenty-two. Now these guys go to college! And he stood in front of the general, an old, thin, long as a stick, fascist general, who didn’t give a damn about this tanker and didn’t give a damn that he had lived so little, that his mother was waiting for him somewhere - they didn’t give a damn about anything. It's just that this fascist really liked the game that he came up with with this Soviet one: he decided to test a new aiming device on anti-tank guns on a Soviet tank.

"Chorus?" the general asked.

The tanker didn’t answer, turned around and went to the tank... And when he got into the tank, when he climbed into this place and pulled the control levers and when they easily and freely went towards him, when he breathed in the familiar, familiar smell of engine oil, his head was spinning with happiness. And believe me, he cried. He wept with joy, he never dreamed of getting into his favorite tank again. That again he will be on a small patch, on a small island of his native, dear Soviet land.

For a moment, the tanker bowed his head and closed his eyes: he remembered the distant Volga and the high city on the Volga. But then he was given a signal: they launched a rocket. It means: go ahead. He took his time, carefully looked through the viewing slot. No one, the officers hid in the moat. He carefully pressed the gas pedal to the end, and the tank slowly moved forward. And then the first battery hit - the Nazis, of course, hit him in the back. He immediately gathered all his strength and made his famous turn: one lever forward to failure, the second back, full throttle, and suddenly the tank spun like crazy in one hundred and eighty degrees - for this maneuver he always got a five at the school - and unexpectedly quickly rushed towards the hurricane fire of this battery.

“In war as in war! he suddenly shouted to himself. "That's what your general seems to have said."

He jumped like a tank on these enemy cannons and scattered them in different directions.

Not a bad start, he thought. “Not bad at all.”

Here they are, the Nazis, very close, but he is protected by armor forged by skilled blacksmiths in the Urals. No, they can't take it now. In war as in war!

He again made his famous turn and clung to the viewing gap: the second battery fired a volley at the tank. And the tanker threw the car aside; making turns to the right and to the left, he rushed forward. And again, the entire battery was destroyed. And the tank was already rushing on, and the guns, forgetting all the order, began to whip shells at the tank. But the tank was like a mad one: it turned like a top on one or the other caterpillar, changed direction and crushed these enemy guns. It was a glorious fight, a very fair fight. And the tanker himself, when he went into the last frontal attack, opened the driver's hatch, and all the gunners saw his face, and they all saw that he was laughing and shouting something to them.

And then the tank jumped out onto the highway and went east at high speed. He was followed by German rockets, demanding to stop. The tanker didn't notice anything. Only to the east, his path lay to the east. Only to the east, at least a few meters, at least a few tens of meters towards the distant, dear, dear land ...

"And he wasn't caught?" the boy asked.

The man looked at the boy and wanted to lie, suddenly he really wanted to lie that everything ended well and he, this glorious, heroic tanker, was not caught. And the boy will then be so happy about it! But he did not lie, he simply decided that in such cases it was impossible to lie for anything.

“Caught,” the man said. The tank ran out of fuel and was caught. And then they brought me to the general who came up with this whole game. He was led along the training ground to a group of officers by two submachine gunners. The gymnast on him was torn. He walked along the green grass of the landfill and saw a field chamomile under his feet. He bent down and tore it off. And that's when all the fear really went away. He suddenly became himself: a simple Volga boy, small in stature, well, like our astronauts. The general shouted something in German, and a single shot rang out.

“Maybe it was your father?” the boy asked.

“Who knows, it would be nice,” the man replied. But my father is missing.

They got out of the tank. The rain is over.

“Goodbye, friend,” the man said.

- Bye...

The boy wanted to add that he would now make every effort to find out who this tanker was, and maybe it really would be his father. He will raise his whole yard for this cause, and what’s the yard - his entire class, and what’s the class - his entire school!

They parted in different directions.

The boy ran to the children. I ran and thought about this tanker and thought that he would find out everything and everything about him, and then he would write to this man ...

And then the boy remembered that he did not know either the name or the address of this person, and he almost burst into tears from resentment. Well, what can you do...

And the man walked with a wide step, waving his suitcase as he went. He did not notice anyone and nothing, he walked and thought about his father and about the words of the boy. Now, when he remembers his father, he will always think about this tanker. Now for him it will be the story of his father.

So good, so infinitely good that he finally had this story. He will often remember her: at night, when he does not sleep well, or when it rains, and he becomes sad, or when he will be very, very fun.

It's so good that he got this story, and this old tank, and this boy...

Vladimir Zheleznikov. girl in the military

Almost a whole week went well for me, but on Saturday I got two deuces at once: in Russian and in arithmetic.

When I came home, my mother asked:

- Well, did they call you today?

“No, they didn’t,” I lied. “Lately, I haven’t been called at all.

And on Sunday morning everything opened. Mom climbed into my briefcase, took the diary and saw deuces.

"Yuri," she said. - What does it mean?

"That's by accident," I replied. - The teacher called me at the last lesson, when Sunday had almost begun ...

- You're just a liar! Mom said angrily.

And then dad went to his friend and did not return for a long time. And my mother was waiting for him, and her mood was very bad. I sat in my room and didn't know what to do. Suddenly my mother came in, dressed in a festive way, and said:

- When dad comes, feed him lunch.

- Will you be back soon?

- I do not know.

Mom left, and I sighed heavily and took out my arithmetic book. But before I could open it, someone called.

I thought my dad had finally arrived. But on the threshold stood a tall, broad-shouldered unfamiliar man.

Does Nina Vasilievna live here? - he asked.

“Here,” I replied. “Mom isn’t at home.”

- May I wait? - He held out his hand to me: - Sukhov, your mother's friend.

Sukhov went into the room, leaning heavily on his right leg.

"It's a pity Nina is gone," said Sukhov. - How she looks like? Is everything the same?

It was unusual for me that a stranger called my mother Nina and asked if she was the same or not. What else could she be?

We were silent.

And I brought her a photograph. Promised for a long time, but brought just now. Sukhov reached into his pocket.

In the photo there was a girl in a military suit: in soldier's boots, in a tunic and skirt, but without a weapon.

“Sergeant Major,” I said.

- Yes. Senior Sergeant of the Medical Service. Didn't have to meet?

- Not. First time I see.

— Is that how? Sukhov was surprised. “And this, my brother, is not an ordinary person. If not for her, I would not be sitting with you now ...

We had been silent for ten minutes now, and I felt uncomfortable. I noticed that adults always offer tea when they have nothing to say. I said:

- Do you want tea?

- Tea? No. I'd rather tell you a story. It's good for you to know.

- About this girl? I guessed.

- Yes. About this girl. - And Sukhov began to tell: - It was in the war. I was severely wounded in the leg and stomach. When you get hurt in the stomach, it hurts especially. It's scary to even move. I was dragged from the battlefield and taken to the hospital in a bus.

And then the enemy began to bomb the road. The driver in the front car was wounded, and all the cars stopped. When the fascist planes left, this very girl got on the bus, - Sukhov pointed to the photograph, - and said: "Comrades, get out of the car."

All the wounded rose to their feet and began to leave, helping each other, in a hurry, because somewhere not far away the roar of returning bombers was already heard.

Alone, I was left lying on the lower hanging bunk.

“What are you doing lying down? Get up now! - she said. “Listen, the enemy bombers are returning!”

“Don't you see? I am badly wounded and cannot get up,” I replied. "Get out of here as fast as you can."

And then the bombing started again. They bombed with special bombs, with a siren. I closed my eyes and pulled a blanket over my head so that the windows of the bus, which were shattered by explosions, would not be hurt. In the end, the blast wave overturned the bus on its side and something heavy hit me on the shoulder. At the same moment, the howl of falling bombs and explosions stopped.

"Are you in a lot of pain?" I heard and opened my eyes.

A girl was squatting in front of me.

“Our driver was killed,” she said. - We need to get out. They say the Nazis broke through the front. Everyone has already left on foot. We are the only ones left."

She pulled me out of the car and laid me on the grass. She got up and looked around.

"No one?" I asked.

“No one,” she replied. Then she lay down next to her, face down. “Now try turning on your side.”

I turned around and felt very sick from the pain in my stomach.

"Lie down on your back again," the girl said.

I turned, and my back lay firmly on her back. It seemed to me that she would not even be able to move, but she slowly crawled forward, carrying me on her.

“Tired,” she said. The girl stood up and looked back. “No one, like in the desert.”

At this time, a plane emerged from behind the forest, flew low over us and fired a burst.

I saw a gray stream of dust from bullets ten meters away from us. She went over my head.

"Run! I shouted. "He's about to turn around."

The plane was coming towards us again. The girl fell. Phew, whew, whistle whistled again next to us. The girl raised her head, but I said:

“Don't move! Let him think he killed us."

The fascist flew right over me. I closed my eyes. I was afraid that he would see that my eyes were open. Only left a small slit in one eye.

The fascist turned on one wing. He gave another burst, missed again and flew away.

“Flew,” I said. - Mazila.

“Here, brother, what girls are like,” said Sukhov. “One wounded man took a picture of her for me as a keepsake. And we parted ways. I go to the rear, she goes back to the front.

I took a photo and began to look. And suddenly I recognized in this girl in a military suit my mother: mother's eyes, mother's nose. Only my mother was not the same as now, but just a girl.

- Is that mom? I asked. “Did my mother save you?”

"Exactly," replied Sukhov. - Your mother.

Dad came back and interrupted our conversation.

— Nina! Nina! Dad shouted from the hallway. He loved when his mother met him.

“Mom is not at home,” I said.

“Where is she?”

I don't know, she's gone somewhere.

“Strange,” Dad said. “Looks like I was in a hurry.

“And a front-line comrade is waiting for my mother,” I said.

Dad walked into the room. Sukhov rose heavily to meet him.

They looked at each other carefully and shook hands.

Sit down, be quiet.

- And Comrade Sukhov told me how he and his mother were at the front.

- Yes? Papa looked at Sukhov. “Sorry, Nina is gone. Now I would feed you lunch.

"Dinner is nonsense," answered Sukhov. - And that Nina is not there, it's a pity.

For some reason, dad's conversation with Sukhov did not work out. Sukhov soon got up and left, promising to come back another time.

- Are you going to have lunch? I asked dad. Mom said to have dinner, she will not come soon.

“I won’t dine without my mother,” my father got angry. — I could sit at home on Sunday!

I turned and went into another room. Ten minutes later, my father came to me.

- I do not know. Dressed up for the holidays and left. Maybe go to the theatre, I said, or get a job. She said for a long time that she was tired of sitting at home and taking care of us. We still don't appreciate it.

“Nonsense,” said Dad. - Firstly, there are no performances in the theater at this time. And secondly, they don't get a job on Sunday. And then, she would have warned me.

“But I didn’t warn you,” I replied.

After that, I took from the table my mother's photograph, which Sukhov had left, and began to look at it.

“So, so, in a festive way,” dad repeated sadly. - What is your photo? - he asked. - Yes, it's mom!

“That's right, mom. This Comrade Sukhov left. Mom pulled him out from under the bombing.

— Sukhova? Our mother? Dad shrugged. “But he is twice as tall as his mother and three times as heavy.

Sukhov himself told me. “And I repeated to my father the story of this mother’s photograph.

— Yes, Yurka, we have a wonderful mother. And we don't appreciate it.

“I appreciate it,” I said. It just happens to me sometimes...

- So I don't appreciate it? Dad asked.

“No, you appreciate it too,” I said. “But sometimes you too…”

Dad walked around the rooms, opened the front door several times and listened to see if mom was coming back.

Then he took the photograph again, turned it over and read aloud:

“To the dear Medical Sergeant on her birthday. From fellow soldier Andrei Sukhov. Wait, wait, said dad. - What is the date today?

- Twenty first!

- Twenty first! Mom's birthday. This was not enough! Dad clutched his head. How did I forget? She, of course, got offended and left. And you're good - I forgot too!

I got two deuces. She doesn't talk to me.

- Nice present! You and I are just pigs,” said dad. You know what, go to the store and buy your mom a cake.

But on the way to the store, running past our square, I saw my mother. She was sitting on a bench under a linden tree and talking to some old woman.

I immediately guessed that my mother had not gone anywhere.

She just got offended with dad and me for her birthday and left.

I ran home and shouted:

- Dad, I saw mom! She sits in our park and talks to an unfamiliar old woman.

— Aren't you wrong? Dad said. - Quickly pull the razor, I'll shave. Get out my new suit and clean my boots. No matter how she left, dad was worried.

“Of course,” I replied. - And you sat down to shave.

"What do you think I should go unshaven?" Dad waved his hand. - You do not understand anything.

I also took and put on a new jacket, which my mother did not allow me to wear yet.

- Yurka! dad shouted. Have you seen that they don't sell flowers on the street?

"I didn't see it," I replied.

“It's amazing,” said Dad, “you never notice anything.

It’s strange for dad: I found mom and I don’t notice anything. Finally we got out. Dad walked so fast that I had to run. So we walked all the way to the park. But when dad saw mom, he immediately slowed down.

“You know, Yurka,” said dad, “for some reason I get worried and feel guilty.

“Why worry?” I replied. “Let’s ask mom for forgiveness, that’s all.

- How easy it is for you. - Dad took a deep breath, as if he was about to lift some kind of weight, and said: - Well, go ahead!

We entered the square, stepping toe to toe. We approached our mother.

She looked up and said:

- Well, finally.

The old woman who was sitting with mother looked at us, and mother added:

These are my men.

Vasil Bykov "Katyusha"

The shelling lasted all night - then weakening, as if even stopping for a few minutes, then suddenly flaring up with renewed vigor. Mostly mortars fired. Their mines cut the air at the very zenith of the sky with a piercing squeal, the screeching gaining maximum strength and breaking off with a sharp, deafening explosion in the distance. Bili for the most part to the rear, in the nearest village, it was precisely there that the screech of mines rushed in the sky, and there the reflections of explosions flared up every now and then. Right there, on the grassy hillock, where machine gunners had dug in since the evening, it was a little quieter. But this is probably because, thought the platoon commander Matyukhin, that the machine gunners occupied this hillock, consider it at dusk, and the Germans had not yet found them here. However, they will find out that their eyes are keen, the optics too. Until midnight, Matyukhin went from one submachine gunner to another, forcing them to dig in. The submachine gunners, however, did not put much effort on their shoulder blades - they had run in during the day and now, having adjusted the collars of their overcoats, they were preparing to camouflage. But it looks like they've run away. The offensive seemed to be fizzling out, yesterday they took only a smashed, burned village to the ground and sat down on this hillock. The authorities also stopped urging them on: no one visited them at night - neither from the headquarters, nor from the political department - during the week of the offensive, they were also probably exhausted. But the main thing is that the artillery fell silent: either they transferred it somewhere, or the ammunition ran out. Yesterday the regimental mortars fired for a short time and fell silent. In the autumn field and the sky covered with dense clouds, only squealing in all voices, with a crackling gasp, German mines, from a distance, from the fishing line, their machine guns fired. From the site of the neighboring battalion, our "maxims" sometimes answered them. The machine gunners were silent. Firstly, it was far away, and secondly, they took care of the cartridges, which God knows how many also remained. The hottest ones have one disk per machine. The platoon commander hoped that they would bring him up at night, but they didn’t, probably they fell behind, lost their way or got drunk on the rear, so now all hope remained on themselves. And what will happen tomorrow - only God knows. Suddenly the German will trample - what to do then? Suvorov-style to fight back with a bayonet and butt? But where is the bayonet of machine gunners, and the butt is too short.

Overcoming the autumn cold, in the morning, Matyukhin, the assistant platoon commander, kimarnul in his hole-trench. I didn't want to, but I couldn't resist. After Lieutenant Klimovsky was taken to the rear, he commanded a platoon. The lieutenant was very unlucky in last fight: a fragment of a German mine did a good job of shredding him across his stomach; the intestines fell out, it is not known whether the lieutenant will be saved in the hospital. Last summer, Matyukhin was also wounded in the stomach, but not by shrapnel, but by a bullet. He also suffered pain and fear, but somehow dodged the koschava. In general, then he was lucky, because he was wounded next to the road along which empty cars were going, he was thrown into the body, and an hour later he was already in the medical battalion. And if like this, with guts falling out, dragged across the field, now and then falling under the gaps ... The poor lieutenant had not lived even twenty years.

That is why Matyukhin is so restless, he has to inspect everything himself, command a platoon and run on calls to his superiors, report and justify himself, listen to his obscene swearing. Nevertheless, fatigue overcame anxiety and all worries, the senior sergeant dozed off under the screech and explosions of mines. It’s good that the young energetic submachine gunner Kozyra managed to dig in nearby, to whom the platoon commander ordered to observe and listen, to sleep - in no case, otherwise it’s a disaster. The Germans are also nimble not only during the day, but also at night. During the two years of the war, Matyukhin had seen enough of everyone.

Falling asleep imperceptibly, Matyukhin saw himself as if at home, as if he had dozed off on a mound from some strange fatigue, and as if the neighbor's pig was poking his shoulder with its cold snout - if he intended to grab him with his teeth. I woke up from the unpleasant sensation of the platoon commander and immediately felt that someone was really shaking him by the shoulder, probably waking him up.

- What's happened?

- Look, comrade of the platoon commander!

In the gray dawn sky, Kozyra's narrow-shouldered silhouette leaned over the trench. The submachine gunner looked, however, not in the direction of the Germans, but in the rear, obviously interested in something there. Habitually shaking off the morning sleepy chill, Matyukhin got up on his knees. On a hillock nearby, the bulky silhouette of a car with an obliquely set top was dark, near which people were silently fussing.

- "Katyusha"?

Matyukhin understood everything and cursed silently to himself: it was the Katyusha preparing for a salvo. And where did it come from? To his machine gunners?

“From now on they’ll give you a dumbass!” From ask! Kozyra rejoiced like a child.

Other fighters from the nearby trenches, also, apparently, interested in an unexpected neighborhood, crawled to the surface. Everyone watched with interest as gunners fussed near the car, it seemed, setting up their famous volley. "Damn them, with their volley!" - the platoon commander became nervous, already knowing well the price of these volleys. Who knows what’s the use, you won’t see much beyond the field in the forest, but, look, alarms will set in ... Meanwhile, over the field and the forest that darkened ahead, it gradually began to get light. The gloomy sky above cleared up; autumn wind, apparently, was going to rain. The platoon commander knew that if the Katyushas worked, it would definitely rain. Finally, there, near the car, the fuss seemed to subside, everyone seemed to freeze; several people ran away, behind the car, and heard the muffled words of the artillery team. And suddenly, in the air overhead, there was a sharp screech, a buzz, a grunt, fiery tails crackled behind the car into the ground, rockets jumped over the heads of submachine gunners and disappeared into the distance. Clouds of dust and smoke, swirling in a tight white whirlwind, enveloped the Katyusha, part of the nearby trenches, and began to spread along the slope of the hillock. The buzzing in my ears had not yet subsided, as they had already commanded - this time loudly, without hiding, with an evil military determination. People rushed to the car, metal clinked, some jumped on its steps, and through the rest of the dust that had not yet settled, it crawled down from the hillock towards the village. At the same time ahead, beyond the field and the woods, there was a menacing roar—a series of rolling, drawn-out echoes shook the space for a minute. Puffs of black smoke slowly rose into the sky above the forest.

- Oh, give, oh give the damned nemchure! Kozyr's submachine gunner beamed with his young snub-nosed face. Others, too, having climbed to the surface or stood up in the trenches, watched with admiration the unprecedented spectacle beyond the field. Only the platoon commander Matyukhin, as if petrified, was on his knees in a shallow trench, and as soon as the rumble behind the field broke off, he shouted with all his might:

- In cover! In hiding, your mother! Kozyra, what are you...

He even jumped to his feet to get out of the trench, but did not have time. It was heard how a single explosion or shot clicked somewhere behind the forest, and a discordant howl, crackle in the sky ... Sensing danger, machine gunners, like peas from the table, poured into their trenches. The sky howled, shook, rumbled. The first volley of German six-barreled mortars fell with a flight, closer to the village, the other - closer to the hillock. And then everything around was mixed up in a continuous dusty mess of gaps. Some of the mines were torn closer, others further, in front, behind and between the trenches. The whole hillock turned into a fiery-smoky volcano, which was diligently pushed, dug, shoveled German mines. Stunned, covered with earth, Matyukhin writhed in his trench, fearfully waiting for when ... When, when? But this was when everything did not come, and the explosions gouged, shook the earth, which seemed to be about to split to the full depth, collapsing itself and dragging everything else with it.

But somehow everything gradually calmed down ...

Matyukhin peeped out apprehensively—first forward, into the field—are they coming? No, it looks like they haven't gone there yet. Then he looked to the side, at the recent line of his platoon of submachine gunners, and did not see him. The whole hillock gaped with funnel holes between a heap of clay blocks, clods of earth; sand and earth covered the grass around, as if it had never been here. Not far away, the long body of Kozyra sprawled, which, apparently, did not have time to reach his saving trench. The head and upper part of his torso were covered with earth, his legs as well, only polished metal joints shone on the heels of his shoes that had not yet been trampled down ...

- Well, she helped, they say, - said Matyukhin and did not hear his voice. A trickle of blood trickled down his dirty cheek from his right ear.

Stories about the war 1941-1945.

Military fate of people

Grigory Mikhailovich Ryzhov

Photographer Grigory Mikhailovich Ryzhov

© Grigory Mikhailovich Ryzhov, 2017

© Grigory Mikhailovich Ryzhov, photographs, 2017

ISBN 978-5-4483-8055-6

Created with the intelligent publishing system Ridero

Grigory Ryzhov

Stories about the war 1941-1945

The stories of a tankman and a front-line scout ...

... August 1954. Village of Krasilniki, Spassky District Ryazan region. At that time, my family and I lived here, where we came from Molotovsk, now this sea city is called Severodvinsk, where warships and submarines are built at shipyards. We got there by recruitment from Sverdlovsk, where my family lived.

The family consisted of five people. My father, his name was Mikhail, got a job as a mechanic at the Isakovo station. Mother, her name was Irina, worked on the collective farm for sticks, that is, for workdays. I, Grigory, was then 9 years old, my sister Vera was 8 years old and the youngest sister Nadia was only 1 year old. She was born in Molotovsk. We lived with Katya's grandmother, my father's mother, she was 62 at the time. In total, our family consisted of six people.

The collective farm was not from the rich, 260 yards. Grains, corn and vegetables were sown in the fields. Cucumbers and tomatoes grew right on the beds in the open air. The collective farm herd of cows was up to 600 heads, there were also pigs up to 100 heads. There was a chicken coop and a duck house, a goose house. The collective farm had a herd of horses up to 50 heads, mostly workers. All products were handed over to the state.

Under N. S. Khrushchev, the collective farmers lived mainly on their own farms. The principle is that one member of the family works on the collective farm, and the rest work on their own farm. They had land up to 30 acres, where apple and pear trees grew up to 25 trees, in addition, plums, cherries and berry bushes grew. Early cucumbers were planted in greenhouses, and then in open-air ridges. The climate in Ryazan is mild and sunny. Three to four days later, 10 to 20 sacks of cucumbers were transported on American trucks to Moscow to sell, to which the distance was 250 kilometers. And so all summer the collective farmers worked on their farm.

I must say that in each house they had one or two cows, a calf, several pigs, up to ten rams, geese, ducks and chickens. As a teenager, I was already thinking. Where are so many cattle and birds? There is no one to sell it to, which means that those who have a large family ate it during the winter. Perhaps they handed over the surplus to the state ...

In 1962, N. S. Khrushchev introduced a high tax on livestock, and it became unprofitable to keep it. In the villages, they began to cut cattle for meat or sell it. It became difficult to live in the village. Passports were introduced in the countryside, and young people began to leave en masse for the city. Villages in the central European part began to grow poor and wither, or even disappear altogether. Only old men and women remained ...

I had village friends, some older by 2 or more years. We often disappeared into free time from the housework of the grooms on the "Navel", the so-called hill on a large meadow, where a herd of horses, a herd of collective farm cows and livestock were grazed under the supervision of shepherds.

One of my friends was called Minya, which is equivalent to Misha. He was older than me by two years. Kolya, nicknamed "Karas", who lived opposite my house, is also two years older than me. Kolka, nicknamed "Kolyaska", a year younger than me, and other guys. Our family had a nickname "Fox". In the village, every family had nicknames. This is how it happened in Russia.

Near the village, electric freight and passenger trains rolled along the railway tracks. They rolled along a high embankment, which reached a height of up to 12 meters. A reinforced concrete bridge was built to drive horses and herds of cows from the village to the meadows after work.

We guys, who are braver, walked along the railing of this bridge. The width of the railing was no more than 90 millimeters, and the height above the ground was 12 meters. I was one of those daredevils. Few dared to walk along the railing of the bridge, as well as ride horses, and even drive them in a herd ...

To the south of the railway, two kilometers away, lay a lake three kilometers long and 200 meters wide. The navigable Oka River flowed behind the lake, which overflowed in spring and flooded almost the entire meadow, except for the island, which was nicknamed the “navel”.

During the day, they grazed horses that were on vacation or there was no work for them, there were no more than two dozen of them, adult guys of 18-19 years old. Usually in the fall they went to serve in the Soviet Army. To them, we were several guys, went to them almost every day to graze horses. They drove them more closely so that they would not go to other people's pastures.

They kindled a fire from mullein in the form of cakes that burn well. They baked potatoes, and smoked samosad tobacco in the form of rolled cigarettes from newspapers. In every house, tobacco grew in the garden, it grew like a weed ...

A hut was built on the "Navel" to shelter from the rain and coolness at night. Three people could easily fit in it. They slept on bunks, the bed was made of straw and old jerseys.

They just rode horses at full speed through the meadows for overtaking, so much so that it was breathtaking. In the evening at 20 o'clock we drove the horses into a herd and drove them to the lake to the camp, where they were entangled with fetters by the front legs. To confuse horses is not to be afraid to be under their feet and under their belly. Not many did it. The horses knew and did not touch us. They were wary and even aggressive towards strangers. They could kick, bite, etc. This was done so that they would not wander far at night. It’s a pity for the horses, their legs were rubbed to bloody wounds ...

However, dozens of times we, boys, fell from them, but God mercifully saved us from injuries and major injuries. Like this.

In the evening at 21 o'clock the young grooms were replaced by older grooms. They worked two people. We guys often stayed late, and even spent the night here on the spot by the fire or in a hut. We were interested in how adults told all sorts of interesting stories and incidents in life. They often talked about miracles, witches and evil spirits. You listen, and it becomes scary, goosebumps run down your skin. All around is darkness, dead silence and the fire is burning, illuminating our flushed faces.

When we return home to the village at midnight and it seems that an evil spirit surrounds you and follows you ...

One evening in mid-August, after we had driven the horses into a herd to the lake, we tangled the front legs of the horses with fetters, letting them graze in a meadow where green, juicy grass grew.

Having finished with the horses, my friends and I went to the grooms to the hut on the Navel. Evening, the sun was already leaning towards sunset, turning purple over the horizon. In August, the days become noticeably shorter and cooler, but not that much. Nine p.m. There were three of us, I, Mitka, nicknamed "Pockmarked", his father had been ill with smallpox and, on his face, there were ripples. This is how the nickname came to their family. There was another boy with us, Kolka "Karas".

After 30 minutes, we were at the "Navel" near the hut, where the groom was talking animatedly. They talked about the news in the countryside, on the collective farm, and so on. We talked about horses. We told the grooms that the horses were mixed up and released to graze in the meadows, that everything was fine.

At the navel they always kept the two best horses, which ran fast. With such horses, you can quickly gather horses into a herd and drive them to the camp on the lake.

Front-line soldier Pyotr Smolov - tanker

Two grooms came to replace, one was over 30 years old, still a young man in strength. His name was Peter Ivanovich, nicknamed "Fighter". He received this name from his youth, when he fought with his fists and beat everyone. He was rude and brash. His surname was Smolov. Perhaps his ancestors extracted resin from pine trees. And so the nickname “Resin” stuck to their family. In our village Krasilnikovo he had no equal in fisticuffs. He was taller than average, up to 175 centimeters, weighing up to 85 kilograms.

Peter at the age of 20 he went to the front as a tanker, being a tractor driver working on a collective farm. Completed four classes rural school and then helped with housework. Growing up, he began to work on a collective farm. This happened in 1942. After training in courses for tankers, the cadets were sent to the Stalingrad Front in September 1942. There were then fierce battles for the city of Stalingrad. He was seriously wounded in the chest, and was treated in a hospital near Moscow for several months.

I visited the house on my way and again to the front in June 1943 near Kursk, where decisive events were unfolding in the battle with the Nazi-German invaders. Participated in the Battle of Kursk. He was seriously injured with burns to his face and hands. Again a hospital in the city of Ryazan, almost at home. He was treated for four months with rest at home in the village.

Nikolai Bogdanov "Honey Tank"

Alien planes in the sky. Explosions of bombs on the ground. Shooting along the border. Fires. This is war. I could not believe that this is how it will begin one fine morning.

Did the German fascists dare to attack such a mighty power as our country? You've gone crazy, haven't you?

Here is the dusty motorcycle. On it are two neat Germans in military uniform. They go, look around, as if admiring nature. We rolled up to the village. Suddenly one - fuck! - from a machine gun on a thatched roof with incendiary bullets. Busy, the hut is on fire.

And after them, armored cars, transporters full of soldiers in mouse-colored uniforms, in horned helmets, trucks with guns on trailers came in large numbers on the smoke of the fire. Filled the village.

The soldiers briskly, dexterously jumped from the cars in all directions. Some to catch chickens, some to grab pigs. The inhabitants fled, and all living creatures and property - here it is, in the huts. The soldiers are dragging packing, smashing chests on the porch. One rejoices in a silk cut, the other in an embroidered towel. Summer day, stuffy. They get water from wells. Washing, splashing, laughing. And a hut is burning hot nearby, others are catching fire from it.

Here they are, the enemies. So, that's what they're supposed to do. Burn, rob. For the first time in their lives, our tankers saw such a picture - tank commander Lieutenant Frolov, tower shooter Ali Madaliev and driver Vasil Perepechko. With wide-open eyes, Frolov looked into the narrow viewing slot and reported on the radio to the regiment commander everything he saw.

The tankers deftly camouflaged their fine, fast “thirty-four” among the old stacks of straw on the edge of the village, near the bee-keeper, and, not noticed by the Nazis, could count all their cars and guns.

Motorcyclists were ordered to let through... And what to do with these?

So far, they are not fighting, but robbing. Yeah, here they started something military. They run to the beekeeper. In the hands of sapper shovels, gas masks are put on on the go. Do they really want to use poison gases?

Ours are worried. It's a serious matter.

And suddenly soldiers in gas masks attacked the beehives. Breaking, overturning. They take out the frames with honey, fill the pots. The bees rose up in a black cloud.

- Fire would be for them, not honey!

The most common type of Soviet tank.

Madaliev's fingers lay on the trigger of a rapid-fire cannon.

“Stop,” Frolov whispered, shaking off drops of sweat from his eyebrows (it was hot in the steel box of the tank). - Mission accomplished. Ordered to break through to their own. Let's break through!

“Yes,” said Perepechko, grasping the levers.

He gave gas, the engine roared, and the tank took off, shaking off a pile of sheaves, went through the bee-keeper like an elephant.

The Germans, who were robbing the bees, rushed in all directions. Ali Madaliev slammed shell after shell into armored personnel carriers, into trucks with shells. And Vasil Perepechko crushed with caterpillars anti-tank guns. The fascist artillerymen and foot soldiers, who had been in trouble more than once, did not lose their heads.

But with strange gestures they accompanied their preparation for an unexpected battle. Every now and then they grabbed their eyes, cheeks, noses, waved their arms. It was like they were gasping for air...

Something prevented them from throwing grenades, shooting.

Yes, a million bees got up from the devastated apiary and buzzed around like a storm, stinging the oncoming-cross indiscriminately. All people became their enemies.

- Fire! Fire! Frolov commanded. - Give it up!

The shutter clicked, but the shot did not follow.

“The ammo supply is over,” said Ali, who fired all the shells in excitement.

Then Vasil Perepechko threw the tank forward, and the car rolled down the village street.

With its steel chest, the car rammed the walls of armored cars, split the sides of trucks, crushed cannons, so that the wheels ran in different directions. It reared like a mountain, then settled, and the tankers inside the car were thrown, as in a boat during a storm.

They bumped their heads against some objects, almost fell off their seats. Frolov felt a piercing pain in his eye. Perepechko scorched his lips like a flame. Madaliev was bitten in the nose.

Ignoring the aching pain, Lieutenant Frolov shouted:

- Crush, come on!

Perepechko perfectly mastered all the abilities of the combat mobile “thirty-four”.

Escaping from a mad tank, the Nazis jumped into the windows of houses, climbed trees; one, grabbing the crane's rope, darted down the well with the bucket. And some two dexterous Fritz, on which the tank was rushing, contrived, jumped up and jumped on his armor, and that was how they escaped. But before they had time to come to their senses, the tank, having walked along the Street, turned off the road and rushed away at such a speed that it was impossible to jump off.

After him, they beat him from heavy machine guns, fired from the surviving cannons. The unwitting passengers had to hide behind the tower.

Famously dodging shells, the tank rolled off the road into the forest, breaking bushes, and went through a ravine, spraying a shallow stream. Finally ran out to his. And stopped. Hot, steamed, dirty, wet. And sticky - from honey.

The hatches opened slowly. Lieutenant Frolov and turret gunner Madaliev climbed out of the upper one. And the driver Perepechko crawled out of the bottom. They got out and fell on the dusty grass. Comrade tankers rushed towards them from all sides.

- Paramedics! someone shouted.

The heroes were unrecognizable, on each, as they say, there was no face. Frolov's right eye was completely swollen. Madaliev's neat, thin nose was swollen and reddened like a tomato. Perepechko's thin lips, familiar to everyone by a mocking smile, looked like rustic donuts piping hot.

The lieutenant stretched out with difficulty in front of the regimental commander.

- What's wrong with you? Are you injured? asked the commander, saluting in response to the strangely prolonged greeting of the lieutenant, who with difficulty raised his plump hand to his helmet. And then he slapped his forehead: - Oh, hell, who bites?

The nurses who arrived in time screamed and jumped away - from all the viewing slots of the tank, as if from a beehive, bees crawled and flew out.

Seeing this, Lieutenant Frolov realized who had wounded him in the right eye, and, shaking off several more winged “warriors” from the helmet, finally reported:

- They gave a fight in the bee-keeper ... They returned without losses ... Sorry, they swelled up a little!

This extraordinary report was later remembered by Frolov throughout the war.

No matter how formidable the situation was, everyone who heard it at that hour laughed.

Suddenly someone took a closer look and saw two Germans huddled in the shadow of the tower.

Did you also take prisoners? the commander asked.

- No, - Perepechko marveled, - they stuck it themselves. - And then he shouted in a businesslike way: - Well, get down, we've arrived! Chi you my honey tank?

After his shout, the Germans rolled down from the tank with their hands up, with machine guns on their chests, not quite realizing how they got so ridiculously caught that even with weapons they could not stand up either for themselves or for the honor of the fascist army. Their hands are swollen from bee stings.

And the tank of Lieutenant Frolov has since been nicknamed the honey one, although the Germans have had quite a hard time from him many times.

After the first successful skirmish with the enemies, his team acquired some special audacity. Legends told about the deeds of the Frolovites.

Once the glorious "thirty-four" joined the German tank column, using the night march, crept up to the headquarters and shot at close range the generals and colonels who had gathered at the military council. Another time, she caught up with a column of residents who were driven to Germany, and, having dispersed the convoy, led Soviet people to their forest roads, impassable for fascist heavy tanks.

A lot and still gave this tank to the Germans "light" ...

Nikolai Bogdanov "Good proverb"

In peaceful life, Athanasius Zhnivin worked as a carpenter and hunter. He built huts. He knew how to make stools and tables. When he sawed, planed, nailed, he liked to sentence. If the nail was bent, he corrected it, hit it harder with a hammer and added:

Don't be stubborn, be straight!

And on the hunt he liked to talk to himself. It happened that he would miss the black grouse and say:

- Not the shooter who shoots, but the one who hits!

In the war, Athanasius became a scout. At first his company cook noticed.

Zhnivin comes up to the camp kitchen - and always with some kind of joke. He substitutes a bowler hat for an additional portion of porridge and says:

- For some reason, in the war I want to eat doubly!

The commanders also noted his cheerfulness. A brisk soldier means that he will not be confused anywhere. And when they found out that he was a hunter, they began to send him to reconnaissance.

The fighting took place in the Karelian forests, among the rocks and dense fir trees covered with snow.

The forest war is insidious: not a single step without reconnaissance.

And several times Afanasy Zhnivin unraveled enemy tricks.

Once they noticed a lone footprint in the snow. Someone passed from our rear through the front line. Well, he passed, and all right, where to look for him now - for a long time with his own. Scout, probably. Slipped in at night - and was like that.

But Zhnivin fell on the trail and said:

“He’s here, behind somewhere. Yes, not one, but several of them. They followed each other, like wolves, in one track.

- With socks, the trace is directed to the front. What, they went backwards?

“Well, they went on like that, for deception,” Zhnivin answers and shows: “Look, the heels in the tracks are deeper than the socks. So, they went forward with their heels.

And it's good that ours checked. They followed the tracks with a raid and found seven saboteurs. They hid under the steep bank of the river - they wanted to blow up the bridge.

After this incident, they began to trust Zhnivin with the most responsible intelligence services.

And then one day Athanasius got into a mess, and how, almost ruined the whole company.

It was necessary to check one narrow road among the dense forest. The trees stood around giant. Pine peaks lifted to heaven. Spruce branches lowered to the ground. Snow is piled on them - whole snowdrifts. And the road winds along a narrow clearing, as if through a gorge.

And the depth of snow in the forest is such that narrow skis sink, you can’t turn aside.

The company walked along the road, taking skis on its shoulders. Zhnivin was sent ahead with an excellent skier, Sushkov.

Sushkov walked along the road and with a flag gave our signals: calmly ahead, you can go in a column.

And Zhnivin, on wide hunting skis, went off the road, went deeper into the forest, now to the right, then to the left. He carefully examined whether the enemy was hiding somewhere. And, returning to Sushkov, he kept saying:

- There are no traces - and there are no enemies!

Here the road made a turn, dived down. Here is the bridge over the forest river. Giant fir trees are so densely surrounded around that only a piece of the sky is visible above. A dangerous place, suitable for an ambush.

Zhnivin carefully examined him and did not notice anything suspicious.

The snow around was clean, clean, not trampled by anyone. The silence was such that a branch crunches - and you can hear it from a kilometer away.

- All right, - Zhnivin said to his comrade, - run and report to the commander that there is a place for a halt, otherwise your signals are not visible because of the turn to ours. Something they hesitated. And here the water is nearby, and there is where to sit.

So he sent a report, while he himself remained and began to carefully look around the unfamiliar forest. Something troubled his heart. It was somehow uncomfortable. It felt like he was not alone, but someone was spying on him.

What a parable: but there is no one! And the beast does not sneak, and the bird does not fly ...

And yet someone is watching.

Even Athanasius shivered. Hurry up, ours would come up, one is scared of something. And on the world and death is red ...

And then he looked at a large spruce, whose branches were bent under the weight of snow, and saw such that frost went down his back. From the branches, two eyes looked at him. And these were not the yellow eyes of a lynx and not the round eyes of an owl, but two human eyes!

But here's the worst thing - the person was not visible! No arms, no legs, no head. Only eyes! And they look intently, evil.

When Athanasius met their gaze, he even closed his eyes: “This is my death!” And I realized: if he made a mistake now, he would die ...

In such cases, the old soldier knows one rule: the main thing is not to be frightened, not to rush ... Athanasius slowly leaned his rifle against the railing of the bridge, took out a pouch of tobacco from his pocket, and began to twirl a cigarette. And he does not show that he noticed something unkind.

Athanasius lights a cigarette, puts his nose into the handful, to the flame of a match, clutched in his palms, and through his fingers he once again looked at those terrible eyes.

There is! Follow him! Neither an animal nor a bird looks like that - you cannot confuse human eyes with any. But how did they get there, on the Christmas tree? Not Santa Claus climbed up there!

Zhnivin narrowed his eyes, looked more closely and distinguished, as in a mysterious picture, hands in white mittens, a head under a white hood and a human figure in all white. And from the white pile, hidden among the snow-covered branches, boots stick out. Not our cut - with squiggles on the noses, which are worn by fascist skiers.

First of all, he wanted to grab a rifle and throw a well-aimed bullet at this "Santa Claus", but refrained. I noticed on another tree among the branches still the soles of boots. So there are a lot of enemies here. Ambush. On the eve of the blizzard, they climbed onto the Christmas trees, and therefore there are no traces. Settled nicely! What to do now? Open fire, warn ours? But in the same second, they will kill themselves. And what's the use of him, of the dead? He must fight to win! No, so, in vain, it's not good to die ...

These thoughts flashed through the mind of a soldier like a whirlwind, and he began to act in a way that the enemies did not expect.

I left the rifle on the bridge, went under the tree on which the Finn was sitting, and, as if he hadn't noticed anything, let's trample the snow under the tree.

Then he took out a penknife and, well, cut out some kind of sign on the bark.

The fascists are watching him. Hidden in the trees, do not give themselves away. For them, one soldier is not prey. They guard the whole company. This is how the Russians approach, not expecting an attack, and they will strike from above with machine guns. Yes, they will put everyone on the spot. The main thing is that this Russian intelligence officer does not notice anything.

And he can be taken prisoner. He left his rifle on the bridge, he is cutting out some kind of road sign.

And so the fascist submachine gunner began to carefully descend from branch to branch. Yes, suddenly how to jump! And, shaking piles of snow from the branches, it fell on Zhnivin like an avalanche.

But Zhnivin was waiting for that. He grabbed his hands, slipped himself under him and with his back to the tree and pressed him. And the fascist found himself on his back, helpless, like a sack of flour. And he won’t pull out his hands, and he can’t get off ...

Zhnivin in his village overcame not such strong men! Holds it like in iron!

From the tree he - to the road, and along the road - to run to his own. Runs and drags the enemy on his back.

Shooting something and betrayed themselves.

Ours both hit the trees with machine guns - from hand and easel, and the “herringbone trees” flew upside down.

And when the battle was over, the commander called Zhnivin to him and asked:

“Well, what do you say, spy?” “There are no traces - and there are no enemies” ... Your bad proverb!

The old hunter was confused:

- Yes, this proverb is not suitable for war. We’ll have to replace it with another: “If you are in intelligence, look at the branches!”

The commander smiled and said:

- This proverb is good!

Nikolai Bogdanov "Together with a little brother"

Our troops were on the offensive. Signalers pulled telephone wires behind them. These wires tell the gunners where to shoot; headquarters - how there is an attack where to send reinforcements. It's hard to fight without a phone.

And suddenly, in the midst of the battle, the wires broke, and the connection stopped.

Signalers were immediately sent to the line. Fighter Afanasy Zhnivin and his comrade Kremensky ran on skis along one wire.

The wire was stretched along the surviving telegraph poles.

The soldiers are watching: one end of the wire is lying on the snow, and the other sticks out on a pole.

“Probably, a stray bullet shot off or burst from the frost,” the fighters decided. - Silence around. Who could cut it off?"

Kremensky climbed onto the pole. And as soon as he reached for the wire, a soft shot from a sniper rifle rang out, and the soldier fell. The snow was stained with blood. The enemy bullet hit the fighter right in the heart.

Zhnivin dived into the snow and hid under a large old stump.

Silently there are thick fir trees, covered with snow. Not a single branch trembled. Where is the fascist sniper sitting? Zhnivin did not have time to see him from the first shot. And after the second it will be too late: a well-aimed bullet will close its eyes. An experienced fascist sniper hid somewhere in a tree and hits without a miss.

Zhnivin waited for a long time to see if the sniper would move, if he would climb down from the tree to take the weapon from the dead man. But he didn't wait. Only late at night, under cover of darkness, did he crawl out of dangerous place and brought a rifle and Kremensky's papers.

And he said with a frown:

“Give me time, for my friend I will avenge them hard.”

That same night, he sat down by a burning fire, took out a clean white footcloth, a needle, and thread, and, having cut out a bag with a process in the middle, began to sew.

When he sewed it, he stuffed the bag with straw - and the result was a head with a long nose, the size of a human. Instead of eyes, I sewed on black buttons.

The young soldiers marveled:

- That's the miracle! What is it, Zhnivin is going to play with dolls in the war?

They wanted to laugh at him, and the commander looked at his art and said to the foreman:

- Give Zhnivin an old overcoat and a worthless helmet for his doll.

Athanasius sewed his head to the collar of his overcoat, attached a helmet to his head, stuffed the overcoat with straw, girded it tighter - and it turned out to be a stuffed soldier.

He even attached a broken rifle to his back and planted it next to him by the fire.

When supper was brought, he moved the bowler hat closer and said to the straw soldier:

— Refresh yourself, Vanyusha! Whoever ate little porridge has little strength, he is not good for war.

And the scarecrow's eyes were wide, and when pushed, bowed and made the soldiers laugh.

Not everyone understood then that Zhnivin got himself such a big doll not for toys.

At dawn, when the cannons rumbled again, Zhnivin and his Vanyusha disappeared into the forest.

He himself, in a white coat, crept crawling, and pushed the straw soldier in front of him on skis, without any disguise. The fight was strong. From the blows of the cannons, the earth trembled; from explosions of shells, the snow crumbled with firs and powdered, as during a snowstorm. The fascist sniper who killed Kremensky was sitting on the same tree without getting down, so as not to give himself away. He looked around intently and suddenly saw: a Russian soldier in a gray overcoat was walking along the line. He walks, walks and stops, as if thinking. Here he is at the pole. He got up, jerked up as if he had been pushed, and stopped again.

“It’s a coward, you see,” the fascist grinned. He took the Russian "Ivan" into sight, waited and, when the signalman got up again, fired.

The Russian soldier sat down, evidently in fright, then again climbed onto the pole.

"How did I miss?" - the fascist was annoyed. He aimed better - and missed again: the soldier did not fall.

Out of anger, the sniper forgot his caution and fired a third time.

And at the same moment he received a blow to the forehead, as if his own bullet had returned to him. The fascist waved his arms and fell down, killed on the spot.

Afanasy Zhnivin got up from under the doll, almost invisible in a white coat, and said:

- He took you, Vanyusha, at gunpoint, but he disappeared for nothing!

I looked, and his “friend” in his overcoat had three bullet holes in different places.

The fascist shooter was well-aimed, but he got caught in the straw.

While he was shooting at the effigy, Zhnivin spotted him and took aim at the tree, like a capercaillie on a current.

Having outwitted one sniper, Zhnivin also caught the second one. And many times he hunted enemy snipers, luring them to a straw doll. And it always worked out successfully.

He got the praise of the fighters and commanders, and his Vanyusha - only fascist bullets. But the straw soldier did not have to go to the hospital - Zhnivin himself sewed up his wounds with harsh threads and said:

- Our straw is not broken!

And when the fighters asked him: “How do you beat the Nazis so cleverly?” - he answered: "I'm not alone, but together with my brother."

Nikolai Bogdanov "Laika is not an empty laika"

When the Nazis retreated under the onslaught of our army, they blew up bridges, damaged roads, burned houses and villages. And the inhabitants were all stolen. All living things were destroyed: both cattle and poultry ...

We passed many villages and never once heard a cock crow.

Only occasionally we came across feral dogs. They run around, but they are afraid to approach us.

Scout Stepan Sibiryakov spotted one of these.

A light gray fluffy dog ​​stands on the edge of the forest, like a toy. The ears are upright, the tail is a bud, and the eyes are smart, lively.

“But it’s a husky,” says Stepan. — Valuable dog!

He beckons her with a piece of bread:

- Doggy, doggy, come here. Don't be afraid, silly, I don't bite.

Laika wags its tail, but does not dare to approach. He to her, and she away from him.

- That's what the Nazis brought the dog to - he's afraid of a man! Stepan laments. - The main thing is, you won’t guess what to call her, otherwise she would have come up right away.

And starts calling out all the dog names. And Sharik, and Zhuchka, and Tuzik ... - he went through all the nicknames, but there was no sense.

Finally, he whistled, hit his top with his palm, and commanded:

- Well, to the leg!

And then the dog suddenly jumped up and stood next to me.

- Hey, - Stepan was delighted, - yes, you are a scientist, a hunter! Well done, now I found my owner!

He led the dog to the camp kitchen and said to the cook:

- Treat my friend with porridge with meat. And the cook sits with his cheek bandaged by the cold kitchen and complains:

- Well, what kind of misfortune is this - you can’t even cook porridge with these damned snipers! As soon as I go out into the open - bam! Either into a horse, or into a cauldron, otherwise here it is on my cheek. Probably, they were given a task - to leave our soldiers without hot food. When simple fighters go, they sit quietly, and as soon as a truck, a staff car or my kitchen leaves, they will immediately cuckoo!

After grumbling to his heart's content, the cook gave the dog a piece of undercooked meat and a good big bone.

Stepan treats his four-legged friend and says:

- I'm sorry, doggy, I don't know what to call you - to magnify. You'll have to get used to the new name... What name would you give her?

"Call her Holly," the cook joked.

- No, - Stepan answered, - a laika is not an empty one! - and even offended.

Before the war, Sibiryakov was a hunter and knew this breed well.

- Do you know what kind of dogs these are - huskies? - he said. - Without them, can you get a squirrel! The squirrel will hide on a tree, and that's it. The forest is large, there are many trees. On what she hid, go and find out. And the husky can hear. He will run up, stand in front of a tree and bark, giving a sign to the hunter. You go up to the tree, and she points up with her muzzle. You look at the branches - a squirrel sits there and gets angry: "Hork, hork!" Why, they say, are you betraying me to a man? And like her own: "Tyav, yap!" Enough, they say, vilified her fur coat, give it to people.

- Will she find a hazel grouse? one soldier asks.

- At one moment!

- And the grouse? another asks.

- Find it.

— And the fascist cuckoo on the tree? the cook asked.

Here everyone even laughed, and Stepan frowned:

“Wait, comrades, this is an interesting hint. Need to try.

He approached the commander and said:

- Allow me to test my husky on the hunt?

The commander approved.

Sibiryakov got on his skis, put on a white coat, took a rifle, whistled. The fed dog ran after him as if he were a master.

They entered the forest, Stepan stroked the dog and whispered:

- Well, husky, who is hiding in the trees there? Forward! Search!

Laika realized that she was taken on a hunt, and joyfully rushed into the thicket of the forest.

I rushed there, rushed here - not a single squirrel, not a single black grouse.

A husky is running around, and there is no one to bark at her. There aren't even any tits in the forest. All the birds have scattered from the war, all the animals have fled. The dog was embarrassed, ashamed in front of the hunter. Suddenly he smells - there is someone on one tree. She ran up, looked up, and there a man was sitting. What does it mean? Amazing dog. It's not human business to live in trees!

She yelped slowly, and the man pressed closer to the tree. Hiding, habit, like a game. She yelped louder. Then the fascist threatened her. Here the husky and flooded into the whole forest.

- Shh! .. - the fascist hisses.

And your like: “Tyav, yap, yap!” Why, they say, you climbed a tree?

Driving away the annoying dog, the sniper did not notice that our fighter was stealing up to him, invisible in a white coat. Stepan slowly took aim and pulled the trigger. There was a shot. The enemy fell down, breaking branches. Stepan hit a squirrel in the eye while hunting so as not to spoil the skin, and in the war he shot without a miss. The dog jumped back, tail between its legs and squealing in fright.

“What, brother,” Stepan said seriously, “did a big bird fall down?” Well, you know: this is a fascist cuckoo. Get used to the new hunt. We will catch them all with you so that they do not hunt people!

Sibiryakov removed the weapon from the enemy and went back, Laika runs ahead, jumps.

“Well done,” Stepan nods to her, “a quick-witted dog!” The enemy of a fascist is a friend of man.

So Stepan Sibiryakov became a famous fighter of fascist snipers. He tirelessly cleared the forest of these robbers, and after each successful campaign, stroking the fluffy coat of a smart dog, he said:

- Laika is not a hollow laika!

And he called the dog an affectionate name - Druzhok.

Nikolai Bogdanov "The Bravest"

The front was quiet. A new offensive was being prepared. At night there were searches for scouts. Having heard about one platoon, which was especially distinguished in catching tongues, I appeared to the commander and asked:

Who among your brave men is the bravest?

“There will be one,” said the officer cheerfully; he was in a good mood after another good luck. He built his glorious platoon and commanded: - The bravest - two steps forward!

A murmur ran through the ranks, a whisper, and before I had time to look around, a brave man was pushed out of the ranks, pushed towards me. And what! Just looking at him made me want to laugh. Some guy with a fingernail. The overcoat of the smallest size was great for him. Undersized boots devoured a lot of footcloths so as not to dangle on their feet. The steel helmet, which slid down over the nose, gave it such a comical look that at first I took it all for a rude front-line joke. The soldier was as embarrassed as I was.

At the command “at ease”, Sanatov and I sat down on the logs prepared for the dugout, and the scouts settled around.

- May I take off my helmet? Sanatov said in an unexpectedly thick bass voice. “We thought we were being called on a combat mission.

He began to unfasten the strap from his chin, which was not touched by a razor, and I carefully examined an extraordinary brave man who looked like a shy teenage girl dressed in a soldier's overcoat. How could he be different, this kid?

“Come on, come on, tell me,” the fighters encouraged him. - Share your experience - this is for common good. Most importantly, tell us how you captured the hero.

Are you a volunteer at the front? I asked first.

Yes, I am for my father. My father was a famous scout here. The Nazis were terribly afraid of him. They even scared the soldiers: “Don’t sleep, they say, Fritz, at the post, Sanatov will take it.” He was really good at dragging their languages. Even from staff dugouts. The Nazis were so angry that they threatened him on the radio: “Don’t come to us, Sanatov, we’ll catch it - we’ll skin it alive.”

Well, they couldn't! one of the scouts exclaimed.

- But they still wounded me, - said young Sanatov, - my father ended up in the hospital. The fascists were delighted and began to chat, as if Sanatov was frightened of them, does not show his nose, does not give a voice. And my father’s voice, I must say, is special, like that of a herdsman,” Sanatov smiled, and the mock severity disappeared from his face. - Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers were engaged in horses, well, they probably developed such voices ... inspiring fear. Even the wolves were afraid of their father's voice. And so, as he did not begin to be heard at night, the Nazis became insolent. I arrived together with a collective farm delegation: we brought gifts from the grain Altai ... And I heard how the fascist loudspeakers would shame my father from the other side.

“It was, it was,” the scouts confirmed. - Shamed.

“The commander doubted at first, looking at his height,” the soldiers chuckled.

- Well, I see such a thing as I suddenly bark: "Hyundai hoch!" - And Sanatov barked so that a rumble went through the forest, as if it was not a boy who was wearing a large soldier's helmet, but some kind of giant hiding behind the trees.

I involuntarily recoiled.

“So is the commander. “Hey,” he says, “Sanatov, your voice is hereditary. Stay." And I stayed. This is how I scream when I first open the door of the Nazi dugout.

- Why are you the first?

Because I am the smallest. But it is known that when a soldier shoots out of fright, he hits without an aim, at chest level standing man. Like this.

Sanatov got up and tried on me. His head was lower than my chest.

“You would have been hit in the chest, but I wouldn’t have been hurt. It's been verified. That is why I am instructed to open the doors in the dugout, because for me it is safer than for others. Bullets fly past me over my head. And so we work without loss.

Not without surprise, I looked at the soldier, who so skillfully used his small stature.

“Come on, tell me how you are,” the soldiers cheered.

“Here it was up to the hero,” Sanatov thought, “I suffered with these fools. After all, you save their lives, and they ... One sentry almost stabbed me to death ...

“Are you the first to rush on sentries too?”

- Yes, because I am very tenacious ... It was from childhood that I developed the habit of holding on to the horse's neck. After all, we, Altai boys, are all on bareback and wild. You cling to it like a tick, and no matter how he, neuk, neither spins nor jumps, no matter what candles he gives, our Altai boy will not be thrown off by any means.

"But what's up with that..."

- And here's the thing - you get up, and I will suddenly throw myself on your neck and hug you with all my might ... What will you do?

I dodged the test. Seeing my embarrassment, one of the scouts explained:

- Others fall down in fear.

- Others are trying to stay on their feet and unstick this unknown creature from themselves. Forget about weapons. They even forget to shout.

“It’s all at night, after all. In the darkness. On position. It's incomprehensible and therefore scary.

- Well, until the German comes to his senses, we put a bag on his head - and dragged him.

This is how the scouts explained this technique to me, while Sanatov was in thought.

- But one fascist was not even scared at all when I threw myself on his neck. Healthy such as a stump. Just wobbled a little. Then he leaned against the wall of the trench and did not unstick me, but, on the contrary, pressed me tighter with his left hand, and with his right he calmly took out a knife from his top. He took it out, felt where my shoulder blades were. Yes, and hit. His eyes blurred. I thought it was death... And then it turned out that he forgot to take off the sheath from the dagger... He was a neat, fascist bandit, he kept a sharp dagger behind the shaft in the sheath so as not to cut his trousers. That alone saved me. Sanatov even shuddered at the terrible memory.

Well, did they take him?

- And how, ours did not miss. In a bag. He either forgot to shout, or didn’t want to, he relied on his strength and dexterity.

“Well, yes, our dexterity turned out to be more dexterous,” the scout grinned, wiry, tall, and well-armed.

"And one more fool almost knocked my liver out," Sanatov recalled with a sad smile. - He was fat as a barrel. From beer, or something. German sergeant major. Mustaches are wet, as if they had just been soaked in beer. I threw myself on his neck, squeezed him in an embrace, I don’t let him utter a word. He tried to unhook. Well, where is it - I grabbed like a tick, I hang like a horse on the neck. And what did he realize: he began to sway in the trench, like an oak, and beat me with his back against the parapet. And the reel turned out to be wooden. Bang, bang me with a hunchback - only the ribs are cracking ... It's good that I was not taken aback. He took in more air, well, nothing, the air sprung. And that would have crushed, you bastard. After all, my backbone is not yet strong, like my father's. He, too, is small in stature, but broad in the shoulders and bone-steel... So it's more difficult for me in these matters...

What about the giant?

- Well, it turned out to be a pleasure with this ... I got it after I had suffered enough ... I began to think more about how to have a better approach.

- Yes, there was an approach! A chuckle ran among the comrades of the little brave man.

- We crept up to the trench, as always, in a plastunsky way, silently, silently, silently, inaudibly ... The rocket will take off - we will hide, we lie as quiet as the earth. The rocket will go out - we will move again. And here is the trench. And I see, standing at the machine gun, holding on to the triggers, not a soldier, but a giant. A very big man. And the face is tired, kind of thoughtful. Or so it seemed to me in the blue light of the rocket.

At first I was shy. How can I throw myself at such a hero? I can neither get up nor gain strength for the jump ... And ours are waiting. They signal me. They pull on the heel: "Come on, come on, Ivan, we will miss the deadlines, the change will come."

And then it seemed to dawn on me: “Look, what an old man he is! After all, according to my years, my grandfather. And I thought, probably, about grandchildren. This thought prompted me - I threw myself on his neck fearlessly, like granddaughters to grandfather. I hugged, my soul in my arms, and I myself whisper: “Mein Grossfather! Mein Liebe Grosvater!” - and so, you know, he was so confused that he took his fingers away from the triggers of the machine gun, but he doesn’t hit me and doesn’t unhook me, but waves his arms like a madman, completely in vain ...

“He is still here now, not far away, at the headquarters of the regiment, waving his arms,” said the wiry scout. - You will talk to him, as he remembers Vanya. “All my life, they say, I will be grateful to him, he, he says, saved me from fear of the Russians!” The Nazis intimidated him, as if we were torturing prisoners and all that ...

- He imposed a watch on Vanya as a gift for his salvation. He would have been at the forefront in the very first hour of our kaput offensive, he understood this.

— I need his watch, Fritz's. The commander gave me his for this case. Here they are, our Soviet ones.

And the little scout, rolling up the sleeve of his overcoat, showed me a beautiful gold watch and, putting it to his ear, began to listen to their ringing movement, smiling contentedly. This is how I remember him, this brave man of the brave.

So, in search of the bravest, I met the kindest soldier in the world - Vanya Sanatov.

Others were famous for counting their enemies killed, and the boy soldier was famous for counting the living. He pulled out many other people's fathers from the hell of war, under the whistle of bullets, in the light of patrol rockets, risking his life.

Nikolai Bogdanov "Commissioner Lukashin"

Seven of our skiers were running along the snowy valley, fleeing the enemy chase. Tyurin, the commander of a small detachment, walked in front.

This big, strong man was breathing noisily; Steam billowed from his broad back, and sweat streamed down his cheeks despite the bitter cold. The first to go is the most difficult of all; following is easier. Therefore, laying the ski track put the strongest.

Many fighters were wounded, others were exhausted and could hardly stand on their feet. They walked day and night for more than a day. Bonfires were not lit. On the go, they ate crackers and ate snow.

Enemy skiers were chasing after them.

Commissar of the detachment Lukashin walked at the rear behind everyone.

Noticing the pressing enemies, he fell behind a stone or a tree and waited with a light machine gun at the ready.

And when enemy skiers ran in like a pack of wolves, Lukashin let them get closer and put many on the spot with a well-aimed burst.

The front ones fell into the snow, the rear ones shied away in different directions and started firing indiscriminately, and he jumped on his skis and caught up with his own.

The commissar not only fought remarkably himself, but also helped others.

Sometimes an exhausted fighter fell into the snow and said:

“Comrade Commissar, I have no more strength.

Lukashin held out his hand to him:

“You don’t know your own strengths... Just like that, raise your head!” You are a communist!

And he got up tired.

One wounded skier took out a pistol warmed in his bosom and said:

“Comrade Commissar, let me die from my own bullet so as not to detain others ... I won back my own ...”

Lukashin snatched the weapon from him:

- Be ashamed! You are hero!..

Yes, they were heroes.

IN polar night they parachuted out of the plane at the very borders of Norway and found the fascist secret radio station, which notified enemy airfields about the sorties of our aircraft.

Our heroes exterminated radio operators, and many devices and devices, as well as a secret code, which was an important military secret, took with them and headed back in the darkness of the polar night.

Among the forests and rocks, our planes could not descend to them, and the paratroopers had to rely on the speed of their skis.

The Nazis were infuriated by this daring raid. And so selected skiers from the Austrian Tyroleans and German climbers rushed in pursuit.

They competed with Finnish skiers who consider themselves the best in the world.

But defeating Russian skiers is not so easy: it was a tight-knit team, where one for all, all for one.

There came a moment when it seemed that everyone would die. Sheer cliffs stood before our heroes. Climbing up them, they had to take off their skis and lift behind them the precious cargo that they carried on the sled.

It was a slow climb.

Weakened people with difficulty climbed the icy stone cliffs. The Nazis could shoot everyone one by one.

They moved swiftly down the valley like white shadows.

And then the commissioner decided to sacrifice himself in order to save the others.

There was no time to think. He waved his hand, indicating the detachment "forward", and he turned his skis sharply and rushed back, towards the oncoming enemies.

These were Finnish skiers ahead of the Germans.

They wanted to curry favor with the fascist masters. Seeing our fighters, who stood out brightly in their white coats on brown rocks, the pursuers were delighted - they could shoot at their choice, as if they were living targets.

The Finns sped up the run.

But then he hit them light machine gun commissioner.

The skiers scattered, fell into the snow and began to surround Lukashin.

Finns can crawl through the snow like snakes through the sand.

And before the commissar had time to look around, he was surrounded on all sides.

Russ, give up! He heard other people's hoarse voices.

Lukashin looked at the rocks and shuddered. He was not afraid of the enemies, he was agitated by something else: all our soldiers, even the wounded, went down to help him.

"Back!" he wanted to shout, but they wouldn't listen to him anyway.

“Good,” Lukashin decided. “Now you won’t have to go…” He jumped up to his full height and raised his hands.

Seeing this, the whole squad stopped. And Tyurin even rubbed his eyes. What's happened? After all, Commissar Lukashin always taught the fighters that a Soviet soldier never surrenders. He wanted to shout: "Lukashin, come to your senses!"

But then the fascists surrounded the commissar in a tight crowd, and he was not visible.

Tyurin sat down on a rock ledge and covered his face with his hands:

- Shame!..

And at this time two explosions thundered in the night, sharply echoing in the rocks.

What's happened? The crowd of enemies was thrown away from the commissar. The dead fell. The wounded screamed. He fell on his face and didn't get up...

It turns out that Lukashin hid two grenades in his sleeves. With his raised hands, he deliberately lured the enemies closer. And when they ran up, surrounded him, he lowered his arms with force and, hitting the grenades against the stones, blew himself up and his pursuers. The fighters understood all this at that very moment.

They rose at once, without any command, and flew down as if on wings.

New, powerful forces suddenly revived in tired, exhausted people.

Like a feather, they picked up their wounded commissar and carried him to the top of the rock, behind which they were met by our advanced patrols.

The late German fascists were left with only their unlucky rivals - the beaten and crippled Finnish fascists.

Tyurin, handing over the commissar to the orderlies, said:

“Hurry to his doctors, to the very best!” Such a person must be saved at all costs!

And, shaking Lukashin's chilling hand, he whispered to him:

“I thought bad things about you. Forgive me, commissioner. You showed everyone how a Soviet soldier does not surrender!

And when he turned away, frost shone on his weather-beaten cheeks. The frost was fierce, with the wind, such that the tears froze before they had time to roll off their faces.

Nikolai Bogdanov "Fighting friend"

We had two inseparable lieutenants - Vorontsov and Savushkin. Vorontsov is tall, white-faced, black-haired, handsome, with a loud voice, sparkling eyes. But Savushkin did not stand out either in height or in voice.

“Maybe I could grow up with you,” he said to Vorontsov, “but I didn’t have enough vitamins in my childhood.

Vorontsov embraced him and, looking into his merry gray eyes, answered:

- To my strength and your skill, Savushka.

Vorontsov flew boldly, but rudely. From an excess of strength, he got a little excited, jerked the car, and in the performance of aerobatics he did not have the subtlety, polishing of movements, which makes them truly beautiful.

And Savushkin flew so skillfully that no effort was felt in his flight. The machine seemed to enjoy itself, performing aerobatics cascades, effortlessly flipping over the wing, easily and naturally exiting a chaotic spin and rising upward.

Vorontsov admired the flights of his friend and said to him:

- I am an ordinary pilot, and you, Sergey, are a man of art.

“Skill is a gain, Volodya,” Savushkin answered, “but you yourself are a work of art.”

Savushkin long and hopelessly loved one capricious girl, for whom he wanted to be the most beautiful young man in the world, or at least in Borisoglebsk, where she lived. The girl was Vorontsov's sister.

When they flew off to the war, she shook Savushkin's hand warmly and said:

- Seryozha, take care of Volodya, you know how hot and addicted he is; because if something happens to him, mom will not survive.

Savushkin promised to take care of Vorontsov and really did not part with him day or night.

It happened that he would enter the dining room:

- Where is Volodya?

And he won't sit down to dinner until he sees a friend.

They flew in one flight, wing to wing.

And it just so happened that it was on this day that they parted.

Savushkin's car was put in for repairs: on the eve of an enemy bullet pierced the gas tank, military technicians hastily changed it right there on the ice of the lake, covering the plane with a white tarpaulin.

Savushkin wrote letters to all his relatives and friends, then he went skiing. The day was gray and did not portend anything special.

Suddenly, a red rocket hit over the airfield. Behind her, the commander's plane soared like a candle, followed by another, and now, having made a circle, the whole squadron rushed to the west.

Savushkin's heart could not stand it, he jumped on his skis and rushed along the invisible trail of those who were flying away. A wooded hill sloped down to the west. The skis accelerated faster and faster, Savushkin urged them on with poles.

Suddenly, in the haze of heaven, there was an indistinct flicker of aircraft. “Air battle,” Savushkin thought, and rushed forward until he found himself right at the trenches.

An enemy sniper could have knocked him out, but at that moment they did not think about him.

As soon as the air battle began, the infantrymen's eyes were on the sky, their helmets were on their backs, and the firing on the ground ceased. Above the trampled snows, above the splintered forests, only the low-pitched roar of engines gaining altitude, the whistle of diving aircraft, and the scream of machine-guns could be heard.

Our biplanes, white as seagulls, snub-nosed monoplanes with wide tails, motley enemy fighters chased each other, rushed towards each other, made unexpected coups, replacing the attack with a figured way out from under fire, competing in courage, cunning and skill.

And our shooters and enemy snipers watched this exciting sight with bated breath. Until now, Finnish fighters have been running away from ours without taking a fight, but now there were much more of them, and they decided to fight.

An extraordinary merry-go-round of aerial combat rolled across the sky closer and closer to our location, as if driven by a light breeze blowing from the Gulf of Bothnia.

— Lure, guys, lure! Savushkin shouted. “Drag to your side so that no one leaves!” Oh, I'm not with you...

His eyes shone, his helmet fell off, his blond hair was covered with frost.

"You're chasing your own, Petya!" What are you, blind? This is Vitya, you see, a green tail! Watch out, fokker under the tail! Vanya, help out Volodya, two people have settled on him!

There were many planes in the air. Multi-colored tails and identification marks quickly flashed in a huge celestial kaleidoscope. And yet Savushkin guessed his comrades by their habits, calling them by name.

He never thought that he would be so excited watching a dogfight from the ground. It's simply unbearable - you see everything, you understand everything and you can't help in any way!

And such a fight must begin when his plane was put in for repairs.

He was so worried about the fate of his comrades that he sweated and became exhausted, as if he had fought more than anyone else.

- Look, look, two bite one! shouted an enthusiastic infantryman in his ear.

- Yes, they don’t bite, but they took it in ticks ...

- One is ready - smoke from the belly!

- The engine is on fire - what a belly! Savushkin was indignant.

- Oh, brothers, yes, this is ours! - the infantryman did not let up.

Savushkin grabbed an empty cartridge case and hit him on the helmet. It turned out as if a take-off bullet hit. The infantryman dived into the trench in fright.

Having pacified the fan, Savushkin looked up and captured a rare moment: the plane shattered into pieces, like a butterfly from a whip. Wings cut off by dagger machine-gun fire fluttered in the sky, and the fuselage fell separately. At first, it went down like a shuttle, but suddenly a parachute dome appeared behind it, and the fuselage began to rotate, dangling the pilot caught by the tail like a doll.

Laughter passed through the trenches.

The enemy died.

Ours is falling, ours! alarmed cries rang out.

Drawing a black line across the clear sky, a plane engulfed in flames raced. A blue tail with the number seven protruded from the smoky, shapeless mass.

- It's Volodya! Savushkin shouted.

Was dropping it best friend... Vorontsov!

Savushkin did not believe his eyes and was numb

watched as the comrade's plane approached the ground. Now a blow... and it's all over. Savushkin wanted to close his eyes, but at that moment the canopy of the parachute opened like a white flower, hovered for several seconds and gently lay down on his side.

“Well done,” Savushkin said blissfully, “it was a long walk!”

And the dexterous Volodya, who was distinguished by quick wit in all cases of life, acted decisively and quickly. Unfastening his straps, he ducked and rushed into the nearest trench. Only instead of ours - into the enemy!

- Come back, where are you? Savushkin shouted.

And all over the trench it spread:

- Here! Here!

And Vorontsov only accelerated his run; it seemed to him that the enemies were noisy, from whom he deftly escaped ... Long, strong legs carried him with record speed to the trenches, where the white helmets of Finnish soldiers were moving. Vorontsov did not even know what a laughingstock he represented to them at that moment. There was very little left before the trench. Hillock, ravine and clearing. Volodya briskly jumped over shell craters...

Forgetting about the air battle, the fighters looked in bewilderment at the pilot's insane run towards death ...

Everyone knew that the Nazis would not kill him simply if he was caught alive, but at first they mocked him enough ... Savushkin also knew this.

"What to do? Do not give Volodya to them for reproach!

Savushkin looked at the tense faces of the fighters, clenched and unclenched his fists, took a breath of air and suddenly grabbed a light machine gun from a neighbor. Before the fighters had time to look back, Savushkin crouched against the parapet, took aim, a short burst cracked, and snow began to smoke under Vorontsov's feet ... The pilot jumped high and fell into a funnel from a shell ...

Savushkin passed his hand over his eyes and, seeing nothing on the horizon but trampled snow and splintered trees, moved away from the machine gun.

There was an extraordinary silence. The dogfight moved far to the north, and the sky became quiet and deserted.

A hard hand shook Savushkin's hand. He woke up, saw in front of him the face of an unfamiliar infantry commander.

- You did the right thing.

- What is right? Who is right? Savushkin threw himself at the infantryman. - What do you think - I killed my friend, or what? I was aiming at the legs ... He must be rescued!

Savushkin climbed onto the parapet, but he was dragged away.

"It's none of your business to crawl," grumbled the infantry commander. - Now we will give a barrage, then we will send hunters after him, be patient a little.

Above the trenches, a mine sang nastily and burst with a rattling sound. Fired up a machine gun. He was answered by another. Enemies seemed to come to their senses and began to catch up. There was a frenzied gunfire all around.

The commander forced Savushkin to descend into a deep dugout.

Here Savushkin lay down on someone's short fur coat and lay in oblivion for a long time. The earth fell on him. Some people came and went, the wounded man moaned. Everything was like a bad dream.

Suddenly the door of the dugout opened wide, and a chill rushed in.

The light of a pocket flashlight fell on Savushkin's face, then on Vorontsov's face.

From the light, Savushkin closed his eyes, and Vorontsov opened his eyes.

- Sergei?

— Volodya!

They held hands and were silent.

"It's nothing," said Vorontsov, "only the legs... They'll pass."

- I hit it with a machine gun ...

The electric light went out and the door closed. The infantrymen crawled back, rustling with frozen robes. The lieutenants were left alone.

“So it was you who hit me with the machine gun?” asked Vorontsov.

The friends were silent again. Above them, the earth shook muffledly from explosions, indistinct cries could be heard. The war continued. Vorontsov, closing his eyes, recalled how it all happened. Yes, he was shot down in a dogfight. Then he fell without opening his parachute. Ten times the earth and sky turned over in his eyes, he lost his bearings and rushed in the wrong direction. This happens.

What did Savushkin survive when he had to shoot his own? Not everyone can... And if he had not made up his mind?.. Vorontsov clearly imagined how he would have jumped into an enemy trench to shame and torment. He opened his eyes and gritted his teeth, but when he saw Savushkin, he squeezed his hand tightly.

Thank you, you are a real fighting friend!

Nikolay Bogdanov "The Flying Pilot"

Anything can happen in war... But when the young soldiers sent to guard the airfield saw that instead of bombs, pig carcasses were hung face-first under the wings of the aircraft, others rubbed their eyes. Didn't it seem? Or is it the bombs of the new system? No, real pigs with patches on their noses.

A truck pulled up.

“Comrade Flying, take sausage, bread, canned food,” said the driver.

The pilot appeared from the cockpit:

- Load more. Let's drop everything on our heads!

“This is how war is here, in the north, just like in a fairy tale: flying pilots drop from the sky not what is more terrible, but what is tastier. It's fun to fight when you're being bombarded with sausages!"

Anyone who did not know how difficult it is to fight in the forest would think so. Here everyone surrounded and themselves fell into the environment. Our skiers went to the rear of the Nazis, the Nazis climbed into the rear of us. “Not the front line,” as they said at the headquarters, “but a layer cake.”

And the snow in the forest is chest-deep, waist-deep.

Many of our units, which had gone far ahead, were cut off from their bases. The squadron of Captain Letuchy performed a combat mission - he fed several ski squadrons from the air.

On small transport aircraft, our pilots searched for skiers and parachuted food for them.

The forest here grew among the rocks and gorges, forest clearings were littered with boulders. It was dangerous to sit on lakes covered with snow: water appeared on top of the ice.

And it was not so easy to drop food: the skiers disguised themselves in such a way that you would not find it right away. Every day they moved, fought. And often the positions of the enemies are so intertwined that you leave your own, and the wind carries you closer to strangers. The Nazis were hungrier than wolves. And, it used to be, they rushed after a bag of sausage so greedily that ours would mow down a dozen from machine guns, but still two or three brave men would reach the bag and drag off the sausage.

"The job," as the Flying pilots said, was not easy for them. You had to fly low to look out for your own. And on the trees, among the rocks, enemy aircraft hunters sat in ambush.

Sometimes our cars came back so riddled that they had to repair their engines all night, put patches on the wings so that they could fly again in the morning.

Several pilots and navigators were wounded.

“Heroes!” they were said with respect at the front.

This time the flight proceeded as usual. At first, our pilots climbed into the clouds and, not noticed by either enemy fighters or anti-aircraft gunners, went behind enemy lines.

Then, with the engines turned off, they glided closer to the ground and went so low over the forest stream that the tops of the huge fir trees that grew along its banks turned out to be higher than the planes. The river meandered, it was dangerous to fly; that and look, you will touch a tree with a wing. Here you need to be a skilled pilot.

But the pilots did not choose this secret air path for nothing: there was not a single anti-aircraft ambush here, and besides, it was a noticeable path to the positions of our skiers.

It snowed the day before. Not a single trace in the forest: no wolf, no elk, no ski. And as if not a soul. But as soon as they made circles over the forest clearing, human figures appeared on it, black sheets were laid on the white snow and began to accept gifts on them.

The figures popped up as if from under the ground: it was our skiers who spent the night under the snow, like black grouse.

Everything went well. The pilots fed one detachment and flew to another. In one place, the fascist soldiers tried to outwit the pilots: when they saw the planes, they did not shoot, but quickly laid out black panels and let's launch rockets: "To us, to us, pour food here."

Yes, they overdid it. Our rockets did not have an agreement to launch. They fired at them for warning from our machine guns. Fascists - who is where from such a hot snack ...

The flight was already coming to an end. It remained to feed the last detachment. There was a battle for the railway bridge. Our skiers are advancing. The Nazis fought back. The bridge was very important to them. All the anti-aircraft guns that guarded the bridge from air attack hit our soldiers. Rapid-firing cannons bombarded the skiers with shells. It was hard for the heroes... Many lay motionless in the snow.

The pilots looked at this picture and thought: they need to help their own. And their commander immediately decided:

- Let's attack!

And now a squadron of planes loaded with food rushes at the enemy. Engines roar, machine guns crackle. You can’t immediately make out what is under their wings: either bombs or rockets.

Fascist anti-aircraft gunners - away from the guns, into shelters. And our skiers are right there!

Went in the trenches, hand-to-hand in dugouts. They took the bridge. It even became fun for the pilots: well, how not to laugh at the deceived enemy! Our heroes began to make a circle in order to drop food to the winners, and suddenly the planes were thrown up by exploding shells. What is it, where is the shooting from?

Only now, from the flashes of shots, they noticed another battery of enemy anti-aircraft guns, lurking among the rocks.

— Anti-aircraft maneuver! Captain Flying ordered.

And now one plane glides to the left, another to the right, the third up, the fourth down, behind the trees. Try to get in!

The pilots did not lose their heads and dodged the fire. And the Flying One laughed again after the endured danger. He looked around and shuddered. One plane fell behind. He pulled low over the forest, in a straight line. But his screw did not rotate: it hung motionless, like a stick ...

"Why, it's Topaller's plane!" Deputy Squadron Leader.

All pilots noticed misfortune. And if they were swans, they would support the downed comrade with their wings, would not let them fall.

But you can't support an airplane in the air with an airplane. And before everyone's eyes, Topaller's car went down. The fascist shell did its job ...

Flying sent his plane to the crash site of a comrade. And I saw how the red-star machine smoothly descended onto some kind of lake.

- Here is happiness!

But then the commander bit his lip: happiness turned out to be misfortune. Before the car touched the snow, enemy soldiers appeared from under the trees. There were huts all around the lake. It was a camp of some fascist military unit.

Here is death ... And what a terrible one!

There is nothing worse than falling alive into the hands of enemies.

“Well, Topaller is not like that: he won’t fall into his hands alive,” thought Flying.

It was not only his deputy, but also a friend. Flying knew him as himself. Calm, brave, devoted to the Motherland. Not only did they themselves become friends during military service - even their children became friends. The Flying son was friends with Topaller's daughter... This hero used to put a boy on one palm, a girl on the other and raised it above his head: “Well, who wants to be a pilot? ..”

The flying one closed his eyes for a second: “Is it really all real? Is there no salvation? My best comrade will die before my eyes!”

He tore off his misted goggles and peered out of the cab.

Fascist soldiers, brandishing their weapons, for some reason did not shoot and did not run to the plane. They called the pilot to them. There was so much water under the snow on the lake that it was impossible to approach the car. The water appeared on the tracks from the wide skis of the aircraft in dark stripes.

This lake is a trap. Sit on it and you will immediately get bogged down. Water will come out from under the snow, quickly freeze in the cold, touching the metal rims of the skis, and you're done. You will freeze so that they won’t pull it out with a tractor.

All these thoughts flashed through the Flying Man as he drove his car after Topaller.

Not a single shot was still heard from the ground. The Nazi soldiers decided that the second plane would also fall into the ice trap. Yes, this was seen by all the other pilots of the squadron: their commander went to land. What does it mean? Why should one more perish if the other cannot be saved?

At first, Flying thought so too, when he closed his eyes from grief, and then came to his senses and rushed to the rescue. It had already happened to him - once he almost fell into the same ice trap. It’s good that he didn’t turn off the engine when landing, and when he saw that water was splashing from under the snow, he gave gas and managed to break away.

If you steer on the lake without stopping your runs, the water will show up behind you on the tracks, and your skis will not have time to get wet. So he did and, touching the lush snow that covered the whole lake like a duvet, he taxied the plane directly to Topaller's wrecked car. And when he caught up, he leaned out of the cab and, waving his right hand, shouted with all his might:

— Anatoly! Get in, let's go!

Topaller did not wait for a second invitation. Although he did not hear these words, he understood everything. After all, transferring to the Flying plane was the only way to escape.

But, jumping out of the plane, Topaller and his navigator Bliznyuk immediately fell into loose snow and got water with boots. What to do?

Fortunately, the frost was strong and immediately grabbed water, as soon as it appeared from under the snow. A dense crust immediately formed on the tracks of the aircraft: the crumpled snow turned into ice.

Having got out on the tracks from the skis, they began to slide along them, as if along ice paths. And Flying, having made a semicircle, caught up with them and slowed down the run so that the plane almost crawled through the snow.

At this point, Topaller and Bliznyuk exerted all their strength and, grabbing the braces, climbed onto the lower planes of the car running past them. Sensing passengers on the wings, Flying shouted:

- Hold on, let's go!

And took off...

How did the Nazis miss them, why didn’t they shoot them with machine guns and machine guns?

At first, they really missed when they thought that not one plane with ham, sausage and canned food was falling into their camp, but two whole ...

And then our pilots, who remained in the air, realized before them what to do when they saw the fearless maneuver of their commander.

Lieutenant Braginets was the first to put the car into a sharp turn, followed by the rest, and went circling over the lake. And the navigators fell to the turret machine guns and let's pour lead on the Nazis.

Who opened his mouth - got a bullet; who hid behind a stone, behind a tree - he remained alive.

The plane took off at the same time.

But the worst was yet to come. The flyer, glancing at his passengers, suddenly noticed that Topaller was beginning to slide off the wing. In order to grab onto the brace of the plane, he threw off his fur gloves there, on the lake, and now in the cold he could not hold on to the metal with his bare hands.

— Anatoly! Be patient... a little more! - Looking out of the cab, Flying shouted to his friend and tried to drive the car quietly so that oncoming air currents would not throw Topaller off the wing.

Bliznyuk managed to grab the braces with the crooks of his elbows, and he held on more securely.

The airfield is already close. Here you can see familiar tents, cars. Without making a circle, Flying landed the plane, and from the push Topaller fell off the wing.

But in soft overalls, he didn’t even hurt himself. The orderlies who ran up took care of his hands.

Letuchy also ended up in the hospital. He got so frostbite on his cheeks that they swelled up like two pillows, and completely closed his eyes.

So they lay side by side: one with a bandaged head, the other with bandaged hands. And they talked. About what? Probably, Topaller thanked the Flying One for his salvation, and the Flying One accepted his gratitude.

No, not a word was said about it. When a friend saves a friend in a war, it goes without saying. Topaller would have done the same if there had been trouble with the Volatile.

- It was a good plane! If it weren’t for a stray fragment in the engine, the whole war would have flown by,” Topaller said.

Yes, sorry for the car.

- But I feel sorry for the sausage, and the ham ... I didn’t have time to throw off all of ours, I relieved myself over the Finns, dumped all the burden on them.

— What are you talking about? That's what I see, the Nazis do not shoot at you, but dance around the lake for joy. So they took you for a Christmas grandfather. With a bag of gifts. It was New Year's Eve!

And they both laughed.

These were the cases with pilots on the Northern Front!

The government awarded the brave men with high titles of Heroes of the Soviet Union. Gold stars were presented to them by Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin in the Kremlin. He knew the whole story and, shaking hands with the Flying One, asked:

- And where did you get such an aviation surname from?

“Guys figured it out,” he replied. - I was an orphan, a homeless child, I did not remember either my father or mother. I was brought up in an orphanage and kept dreaming of flying ... So they called me Flying.

- You have a good name! Mikhail Ivanovich said. - Children and grandchildren will be proud of her ... - How many guys do you have?

“Bring them up to be good replacements.

- There is! - the Hero answered shortly in a military way.

Lev Kassil "The Story of the Absent"

When in the large hall of the front headquarters the adjutant of the commander, looking at the list of awardees, called the next name, a short man stood up in one of the back rows. The skin on his sharpened cheekbones was yellowish and transparent, which is usually observed in people who have lain in bed for a long time. Leaning on his left leg, he walked to the table. The commander took a short step towards him, handed him the order, shook hands firmly with the recipient, congratulated him and held out the order box.

The recipient, straightening up, carefully accepted the order and the box in his hands. He thanked him curtly, turned sharply, as if in formation, although his wounded leg prevented him. For a second he stood in indecision, glancing first at the order lying in his palm, then at his comrades in glory gathered here. Then he straightened up again.

- May I apply?

- Please.

“Comrade commander... And here you are, comrades,” the decorated man spoke in a broken voice, and everyone felt that the man was very excited. - Let me say a word. At this moment in my life, when I accepted a great award, I want to tell you about who should be standing here, next to me, who, perhaps, deserved this great award more than me and did not spare his young life for the sake of our military victory.

He stretched out his hand to those sitting in the hall, on the palm of which the golden rim of the order gleamed, and looked around the hall with pleading eyes.

“Allow me, comrades, to fulfill my duty to those who are not here with me now.

"Speak," said the commander.

— Please! - responded in the hall.

And then he told.

“You must have heard, comrades,” he began, “what a situation we had in the R region. We then had to withdraw, and our unit covered the withdrawal. And then the Germans cut us off from their own. Wherever we go, everywhere we run into fire. The Germans are hitting us with mortars, hollowing out the woods where we took refuge with howitzers, and combing the edge of the forest with machine guns. Time has run out, according to the clock, it turns out that ours have already entrenched themselves on a new frontier, we have pulled enough enemy forces on ourselves, it would be time to go home, the time to join was delayed. And we see that it is impossible to break through into any. And there is no way to stay here longer. A German groped us, squeezed us in the forest, felt that there were only a handful of ours left here, and takes us by the throat with his pincers. The conclusion is clear - it is necessary to break through in a roundabout way.

And where is this detour? Where to choose direction? And our commander, Lieutenant Butorin Andrey Petrovich, said: “Nothing will come of it without preliminary reconnaissance. It is necessary to search and feel where they have a crack. If we find it, we'll get through." I volunteered right away. “Allow me, I say, should I try, Comrade Lieutenant?” He looked at me carefully. Here it is no longer in the order of the story, but, so to speak, from the side I must explain that Andrei and I are from the same village - buddies. How many times have we gone fishing on the Iset! Then both worked together at the copper smelter in Revda. In a word, friends and comrades. He looked at me carefully, frowning. “All right,” says Comrade Zadokhtin, go. Is the mission clear to you?"

He led me to the road, looked around, grabbed my hand. “Well, Kolya,” he says, “let’s say goodbye to you just in case. It's deadly, you know. But since I volunteered, I don’t dare to refuse you. Help me out, Kolya... We won't last more than two hours here. The losses are too great ... "-" Okay, I say, Andrey, it's not the first time you and I have fallen into such a turn. Wait for me in an hour. I'll see what I need there. Well, if I don’t return, bow to our people there, in the Urals ... "

And so I crawled, burying myself behind the trees. I tried in one direction - no, I couldn’t break through: the Germans were covering that area with thick fire. Crawled in the opposite direction. There, on the edge of the woods, there was a ravine, such a gully, quite deeply washed out. And on the other side, near the gully, there is a bush, and behind it is a road, an open field. I went down into the ravine, decided to get close to the bushes and look through them to see what was happening in the field. I began to climb up the clay, suddenly I noticed that two bare heels were sticking out just above my head. I took a closer look, I see: the feet are small, the dirt has dried up on the soles and falls off like plaster, the fingers are also dirty, scratched, and the little finger on the left leg is tied with a blue cloth - it’s obvious that it was hurt somewhere ... For a long time I looked at these heels, at the fingers that moved restlessly over my head. And suddenly, I don’t know why, I was drawn to tickle those heels ... I can’t even explain to you. But it washes and washes ... I took a prickly blade of grass and lightly scratched one of my heels with it. Both legs disappeared at once in the bushes, and in the place where the heels stuck out of the branches, a head appeared. So funny, her eyes are frightened, without eyebrows, her hair is shaggy, burnt out, and her nose is covered in freckles.

- What are you doing here? I say.

“I,” he says, “I'm looking for a cow. Have you seen uncle? It's called Marisha. Itself is white, and on the side is black. One horn sticks down, but the other is not at all ... Only you, uncle, don't believe it ... I'm lying all the time, I try it like that. Uncle, - he says, - have you fought off ours?

- And who are yours? I ask.

- It's clear who the Red Army is... Only ours went across the river yesterday. And you, uncle, why are you here? The Germans will grab you.

“Well, come here,” I say, “Tell me what is happening here in your area.”

The head disappeared, the leg reappeared, and a boy of about thirteen years old slid down to me along the clay slope to the bottom of the ravine, as if on a sleigh, heels forward.

“Uncle,” he whispered, “you better get out of here somewhere.” The Germans are here. They have four cannons by that forest, and here on the side their mortars are installed. There is no way across the road.

“And how,” I say, “do you know all this?”

“How,” he says, “from where?” For nothing, or what, have I been watching in the morning?

- Why are you watching?

- Useful in life, you never know ...

I began to question him, and the kid told me about the whole situation. I found out that the ravine goes far through the forest and along its bottom it will be possible to lead our people out of the fire zone. The boy volunteered to accompany us. As soon as we began to get out of the ravine, into the forest, when suddenly there was a whistling in the air, a howl and such a crack was heard, as if half the trees around were split at once into thousands of dry chips. This German mine landed right in the ravine and tore the ground around us. It became dark in my eyes. Then I freed my head from under the earth that was pouring on me, looked around: where, I think, is my little comrade? I see that he slowly raises his shaggy head from the ground, begins to pick out the clay from his ears, from his mouth, from his nose with his finger.

- That's how it worked! - He speaks. - We got it, uncle, with you, like rich ... Oh, uncle, - he says, - wait a minute! Yes, you are injured.

I wanted to get up, but I couldn't feel my legs. And I see - from a torn boot blood floats. And the boy suddenly listened, climbed up to the bushes, looked out at the road, rolled down again and whispered.

“Uncle,” he says, “the Germans are coming here. Officer ahead. Honestly! Let's get out of here soon. Oh you, how strong you are ...

I tried to move, but it was as if ten pounds were tied to my legs. Do not get me out of the ravine. Pulls me down, back...

“Oh, uncle, uncle,” says my friend, almost crying himself, “well, then lie here, uncle, so as not to hear you, not to see you. And I’ll take my eyes off them now, and then I’ll be back, after ...

He has turned so pale that he has even more freckles, and his own eyes are shining. "What was he up to?" I think. I wanted to hold him, grabbed him by the heel, but where is there! Only his legs flashed above my head with splayed grubby fingers - a blue rag on his little finger, as I see now .. I lie and listen. Suddenly I hear: “Stop! .. Stop! Don't go any further!"

Heavy boots creaked over my head, I heard the German ask:

- What were you doing here?

- I, uncle, am looking for a cow, - the voice of my friend reached me, - such a good cow, white herself, and black on the side, one horn sticks down, and the other does not exist at all. It's called Marisha. You did not see?

- What kind of cow? You, I see, want to talk nonsense to me. Come close here. What are you climbing here for a very long time, I saw you climbing.

“Uncle, I’m looking for a cow,” my little boy began to whine again. And suddenly, along the road, his light bare heels clearly pounded.

- To stand! Where dare you? Back! I will shoot! the German shouted.

Heavy forged boots swelled over my head. Then a shot rang out. I understood: my friend deliberately rushed to run away from the ravine in order to distract the Germans from me. I listened, breathless. The shot fired again. And I heard a distant, faint cry. Then it became very quiet ... I fought like a seizure. I gnawed the ground with my teeth so as not to scream, I leaned on my hands with all my chest so as not to let them grab their weapons and not hit the Nazis. But I couldn't find myself. You must complete the task to the end. Ours will die without me. They won't get out.

Leaning on my elbows, clinging to the branches, I crawled ... After that I don’t remember anything. I only remember - when I opened my eyes, I saw Andrei's face very close above me ...

Well, that's how we got out of the forest through that ravine.

He stopped, took a breath, and slowly looked around the room.

“Here, comrades, to whom I owe my life, who helped rescue our unit from trouble. It is clear that he should stand here, at this table. But it didn’t work out ... And I have one more request to you ... Comrades, let us honor the memory of my unknown friend - the nameless hero ... I didn’t even have time to ask what his name was ...

And in the great hall, pilots, tankers, sailors, generals, guardsmen quietly rose - people of glorious battles, heroes of fierce battles, rose to honor the memory of a small, unknown hero, whose name no one knew. The downcast people in the hall stood in silence, and each in his own way saw in front of him a shaggy little boy, freckled and bare-footed, with a blue stained rag on his bare foot ...

Radiy Pogodin "Post-war soup"

The tankers retreated from the front to the village, which only yesterday became the rear. They took off their boots, dipped their feet in the grass as if in water, and jumped up and down, deceived by the grass, and groaned and laughed - the grass tickled and burned their feet, which were soaked in winter footcloths.

There are thirty-four tanks - on the armor there are bowlers and upper uniforms, on the trunks of guns - underwear. Tankers hobble to the well - their skin itches, it needs soap. The tankers hit themselves on the sides and cackle: from the nails and from the resounding blows on the white skin, red flashes.

The tankers stuck around the well - the buckets could not be pulled out. They shave with German razors from the famous Solingen company, look into round girlish mirrors.

One tanker became unbearable to wait for his turn to wash, and besides, his bucket was full of holes, he girded himself with a waffle towel and went to look for a stream.

Sand flows in streams into the trenches left by the Germans, it rings wonderfully, and there are grass seeds in it: black, gray, red, with tails, with parachutes, with hooks. And just like that, in a glossy peel. Funnels on his body the earth flooded with water. And from the damp side of the earth, something has already been separated that will come to life on its own and give life to rapidly changing generations.

The boy was sitting by the stream. Two dry-breasted hens swarm the ground near him. A tailless rooster was feeding nearby. He lost his tail in a recent battle, therefore, his eyes sparkled angrily, and immediately, saddened and embarrassed, shyly squatted in front of the hens, proving something and promising.

“Great, warrior,” the tanker said to the boy.

The boy stood up, serious and wrinkled.

He swayed on thin legs. He was thin, thin clothes on him, patched and still with holes. To strengthen his adult position over this thin-legged shket, the tanker generously waved his hand and said in a kind bass:

- And you walk, little one, walk. Now it is not dangerous to walk.

- I don't walk. I pass chickens.

The tanker fought for the first year. Therefore, everything non-military seemed insignificant to him, but then it caught him, as if he had been scratched by something invisible and incredible.

“There is nothing for you to do. The chicken eats worms. Why feed them? Let them eat and peck what they find.

The boy drove the hens away from the stream with a vine and walked away himself.

“Are you afraid of me?” the tankman asked.

- I'm not shy. And all sorts of people walk around the village.

The rooster squinted at the tanker with a robber black eye - you see, he was once dashing; he hissed and threatened, and turned away his wretched tail, ready, at the very least, to carry off his meat both in flight, and lope, and at trots.

- Guys - they can eat everything, even if they eat a crow. And our Maruska and Tatyana's Seryozhka had cramped legs from rickets. They need to eat chicken eggs ... Tamark Suchalkin is coughing - she would have milk ...

The little boy was seven or eight years old, but it suddenly seemed to the tanker that in front of him was either a very old man, or a giant who had not risen to his full

growth, not resounding by the shoulders into a sazhen, not having accumulated a loud voice from hungry empty grubs and diseases.

The tankman thought: "Damn war."

“Do you want me to feed you?” I have ration sand in my tank - sugar.

The boy nodded: treat, they say, if you don’t mind. When the tanker ran across the meadow to his car, the boy called out to him:

- You rake me a piece of paper. It will be easier for me to endure, otherwise I will lick it all off the palm of my hand and others will not get it.

The tanker brought the boy granulated sugar in a newspaper bag. I sat down next to him to breathe the earth and tender spring herbs.

— Where is the father? - he asked.

- At war. Where else?

- And in the field. She plows under the rye with the women. Even before the dawn of the year, when the fascist was advancing, they elected its chairman. Other women have weak children - they hold them by the skirt. And we have me and Maruska. Maruska is small, but I'm not capricious, it's free with me. Grandfather Savelyev's mother was given as an assistant. He is quite tired of walking. He feels the weather with his bones. He says when to plow, when to sow, when to plant potatoes. But there aren't enough seeds...

The tanker sucked in the thick morning air, already saturated with the smell of tanks.

- Let's swim. I will wash you with soap.

- I'm not dirty. We make lye from ashes - it also washes. Do you have perfume soap?

- Why? I have a soldier's soap, gray, it is better than perfumed rub.

The boy sighed and smiled.

- The baked one has a delicious color. Once I stole a whole signet from one here, from a German. Not deployed yet.

He opened the paper and even licked it. Suddenly sweet. Maruska, so she immediately put it in her mouth. Still small, stupid.

The tanker undressed and entered the cold stream.

"Take off your clothes," he ordered. "Don't go into the stream - you'll freeze." I will water you.

- I won't freeze. I'm used to it, - The boy took off his shirt and pants, climbed into the stream backwards - fragile-chested, legs straight from the dorsal bones without round boyish buttocks, widely spaced, and his hands are the same - cyanotic, brittle and red in the fingers.

The tanker landed him back on the shore.

- Absolutely in you, boy, there is no weight. Not fat. Cold water will chill you through and through. - He splashed a handful of water on the boy, scooped up water a second time and let it out - the boy's sunken stomach was tightened with scabs.

- Don't be afraid. It's not contagious for me, - The boy's eyes sparkled with resentment, in the close depth of these eyes something cooled and sank, dimming, - I burned my stomach with potatoes ...

The tanker breathed, as if coughing, as if he wanted to clear his lungs of bitter smoke. He began carefully lathering the boy's shoulders.

- Did you drop a potato?

"Why drop her?" I'm hollow, right? I won't drop a potato... The front is still where it was, over that hillock. There is the village of Zasekino. You probably know from the map. And in our Malyavin there was a breakthrough of theirs, and cars, and horses with carts. And the Germans themselves! The road from them was green - they fled densely. There, where the tank is now hiding under a tree, two Germans were cooking potatoes on a fire. Someone called them. They parted ways. I am a potato from a pot in my bosom ...

— Are you crazy?! shouted the tanker, bewildered. "The potatoes are hot!"

- And if it is with oil? She has such a spirit to die ... Splash in my eyes, your soap stings a lot, - The boy looked at the tanker calmly and patiently, - I was sitting under a bush with a goal - maybe they will forget something, maybe they will not eat enough and throw away the rest ... I then I walked almost the whole village on foot. You can't run. From them, as you run, it means you stole.

The tanker kneaded soap in his hands.

- All soap in vain you will doubt. Let me rub your back, - The boy leaned over, scooped up water, washed his eyes, - I stole a lot of things from the Germans. I even stole an orange once.

- Did you get caught?

- Caught.

— But how. I was beaten many times... I only stole food. The children are small: our Maruska, and Seryozhka Tatyanin, and Nikolai. They are like jackdaws: their mouths are open all day long. And Volodya was wounded - all sick. And I'm in charge of them. Now grandfather Savelyev is sitting with them. I was assigned to another case - smoke a pass.

The boy fell silent, tired of rubbing his muscular, broad tanker's back, coughed, and when he moved away, he whispered:

"Now I'm probably going to die."

The tanker was confused again.

- What are you talking about? For such words - on the ears.

The boy looked up at him, and there was a quiet, unobtrusive forgiveness in his eyes.

- And there is no food. And steal from no one. You will not steal from your own. You can't steal from your own.

The tanker crumpled the soap in his fist, crumpled for a long time until it crawled between his fingers - he tried to come up with words suitable for the occasion. It was probably only at that moment that the tanker realized that he had not lived yet, that he did not know life as such, and where he, precocious, could explain life to others.

“They are driving cows and bringing you grain,” he said at last. “The front will move further away—cows and grain will arrive here.

- And if the front is for a long time? .. Grandfather Savelyev says - you can eat burdock root. He himself ate in captivity, even in that war.

The tanker wiped the boy off with a waffle towel.

- It's not human business to eat burdock. I'll think it over, talk with the foreman - maybe we will support you from our ration.

The little boy shook his head in haste.

- Nope... You can't get skinny. You need to fight. And we somehow. Grandmother Vera - she is quite old, almost lifeless already - she says that malt grass grows in the swamps - cakes can be baked from it, she puffs, as if with sourdough. You only need to fight faster so that those cows and that bread will have time for us,” Now hope shone in the boy’s eyes, darkened from long anguish.

"We'll try," said the tanker. He suddenly laughed with a sad, strained laugh, "What's your name?"

- Senka.

On that they parted. The tanker gave the boy a remnant of soap so that he could wash his team: Maruska, and Seryozhka, and Nikolai. The tanker called the boy to eat cabbage soup from the soldiers' kitchen - the boy did not go.

“I’m on business right now, I can’t leave.

The hens were pulling worms from the damp still ground.

The tailless rooster, frightened by the tanker's step, completely lost his head and, instead of running, rushed right under the tanker's feet.

"Where are you going, you damn fool?" the tanker shouted at him.

The rooster finally went wild, kicked the tanker in his boot, fell down and screamed with a wild cry, lying on the wing - this cry was either a frenzied sob, or the rooster threatened someone, or promised.

Near the tanks - maybe the smell of the kitchen was to blame, maybe the cock crow - the tanker dreamed of a hearty house with lace curtains, a cheerful red-cheeked girl and a post-war rich soup with chicken.

Radiy Pogodin "Horses"

In the first spring of the war, Grandfather Savelyev appointed a field for plowing - a wide wedge between the hills, near the lake.

- Plow this land. This land is stable. In all my life, this wedge has never given a pass. In a drought, the water does not dry up here - here the springs beat. During rains, excess water will drain from this land, because the field is sloping towards the lake. And the sun warms it well thanks to the slope. And the wind bypasses it - it is blocked by a hill.

From this wedge lived the second winter under the Germans. That winter was long. Blizzard was also desperate. News from the front does not reach a small village. And if some are achieved, the Germans will decorate them in their own way - it’s bad ...

It's bad when the stove is not heated.

It’s bad when there is nothing to eat, there is nothing to feed the guys with.

It's bad at all when the unknown.

But the heart does not believe in death. Even in the weakest chest it hurries time to the hour of victory.

Spring came early. Hearing her, the women got ready to plow. Four pull, the fifth leads the plow. Others are resting. They plow in turns so as not to overstrain. Seeds were collected in a handful, who saved how much.

Senka also became a team - he came with his strap to help. Pulling - ringing in the head from the effort, red circles in the eyes.

- Hey, horse! Well, stallion! Do not rage, do not be fierce - you will trample the whole field. Look how much strength you have - even the earth is cracking.

Senka pays no attention to these ridicule. Let them laugh for the good of the cause.

Steam comes from the ground. And from the plowmen steam. The sky was tilted sideways. The ground slipped out from under my feet. Senka falls with his nose into the furrow.

- Hey, horse! the women say.

After a respite, Senka again attached his strap to the plow, and no one dared to drive him away.

Already plowed more than half, when they came across a bomb. Let's go to grandfather. It is a pity for them to work, it is a pity for the wasted strength, but there is nothing to be done: you move a bomb - and instead of bread, orphans will grow up.

Grandfather sat for a long time, looking out the window at the spring, which - and you will not notice - will turn into a red-hot summer.

“We need to continue plowing,” said the grandfather. “You will be fed from this field. On the other hand, not sure. If there were many of those fields, as before: on one it will dry up - on the other it will be born, on one it will rot - on the other it will stand. And here is one thing, but it is true.

— Grandfather, the bomb is on him. Maybe you didn't understand or misheard? the woman chairman told him.

“I can handle the bomb,” grandfather replied. He bent down to the window, leaned his head against the binding. “If I knew where to hit it, then it would be quite simple for me. For one moment business.

Grandmother Vera, the oldest old woman in the village, who, as they said, once saddled the devil and has been riding it since then, otherwise how can you explain such agility at her ancient age, pushed the women aside, stood in front of the old man, akimbo:

“What, you gray stump, don’t you know?” How many times did you fight in the war and you don't know?

- Don't make noise, Vera. Every war has a different system. You, if anything, take my cat, Martha, to your place.

Grandma Vera waved her hands—her hands are like skinny pecking birds.

- Well, varnak! About the soul would have thought, and he about the cat.

The women looked at them with fear.

“You don’t come to the field tomorrow morning,” grandfather Savelyev said calmly, “sit at home. You, Vera, stay at home too. Don't you dare... In such a case, one needs it.

- You are still young to command me! - Grandma Vera went, went along the hut.

The cat hissed and darted against the stove.

Grandfather sighed, turned to the window. He looked at the sky, at the flying wedge of a crane.

“Ps-sss…” Grandma whispered. Marta the cat jumped into her arms, "Come on," Grandma said to her affectionately, "you'll stay with me."

The women left quietly. Grandma, shuffling across the floor with her patched tarpaulin boots, carried the cat away. Senka stayed - huddled on the stove for the old people's sheepskin coats.

The old man was sitting by the window. The sunset sky painted his head in a fiery color.

Senka woke up from the old man's step. The old man looked at the spade and grumbled something to himself, not angrily, but sternly.

Senka decided: “He doesn’t take an ax, which means he thought better of slapping a bomb on the stigma.” A sudden sound sleep overtook him at the end of this thought, which is why Senka was late in the field. And when he came and hid in a ravine, along which a stream ran along the field, he heard: his grandfather was hitting a bomb with the butt of an ax. The bomb hums as hard as an anvil—the sound of impacts seems to bounce off it.

- I took the ax all the same! shouted Senka, and his grandfather's heart died, and the salty wet earth crunched on his teeth.

When the women came to the ravine, they could not resist, the old man had already dug a trench along the bomb - a narrow gap. Now he was digging steps - a smooth descent into this crack. And when he dug it out, he went down there and carefully rolled the bomb over his shoulder.

The women in the ravine froze. Where is the old so heavy? But, you see, there is in a person, although he is old and weak, such an ability that helps him to use up all the strength left for life in a short time.

Grandfather climbed up the stairs. Climb one step, take a breather. Rising higher. He rests his hand on the edge of the gap so that the weight of the bomb puts pressure not only on his legs. And when he got out of the ground, he went along the furrow to the lake. Finely goes - not firmly. His shirt is clean. White hair combed.

The women climbed out of the ravine. Grandma Vera is ahead of everyone. Without a scarf.

Senka's fear receded before the grandfather's slow step, before his bent back, which was bending lower and lower. Senka crawled along the ravine after his grandfather.

Grandpa's neck was swollen. The knees were breaking.

He did make it to the lake. Standing on the edge of a cliff. He threw the bomb off his shoulder into the water and fell himself. The bomb exploded. The steep bank moved into the lake along with the fallen grandfather.

When the women ran up, a sandy gentle scree formed at the place of the cliff. Below, near the water, lay the grandfather, powdered with white sand. Grandfather still lived.

He was uninjured. Only deaf and motionless. The women picked him up and carried him in their arms to the hut. There he slowly came to his senses.

The village children, led by Senka, came to him every day, played near him, or simply sat.

The front passed through the village, singed it, but not much - my grandfather lived to see our army.

Senka was dressed up to feed chickens, because he overlooked his grandfather's death Tamarka Suchalkin, after Senka the eldest, was sitting that day in the old man's hut at the head of the children.

Grandfather called her and ordered:

— Take the children away, Tamarka. I will die. Tell the people not to rush to go to me, to wait. Let them come tomorrow.

Tamarka was frightened and argued:

- What are you, grandfather? You are probably asleep - you are spinning such words.

Grandfather also told her:

- You go, Tamarka, take the children away. I need to be alone right now. Now my time is precious. I need to forgive people for insults and ask for forgiveness from them myself. Everyone has. And those that died, and those that live. Go, Tamarka, go. I'm talking to myself now...

Tamarka did not believe her grandfather's words so much as his eyes, dark, looking from the depths, as if through her - as if she were muslin. Tamarka pursed her lips, wiped her nose, and took the children behind a clearing in the forest to see how the strawberries were blooming.

When Senka found out that the old man had died, he fell on the grass and wept. All thoughts left his head, all insults and joys - everything is gone, except short word- grandfather.

Four soldiers - four wagon trains, elderly and wrinkled, carried grandfather's coffin to high hill. This place was an ancient churchyard. Still preserved here are ancient stone crosses, worn down by rain, cold and wind. The Germans set up their own cemetery next to the stone crosses - even, along a cord. The crosses are identical, wooden, with one crossbar. With what arrogant thought did they choose this place, what significant symbol did they count on?

The women came up with the idea of ​​putting grandfather there, at the very top of the hillock, so that he could see the boring German cemetery, and all the surrounding distance: fields, and forests, and lakes, and the village of Malyavino, and other villages, also not alien to him, and white from the dust of the road, well-trodden by a slow grandfather's step. The women, of course, knew that the dead old man could no longer see anything and the smells of herbs would not touch him, that it did not matter where he lay, but they wanted to keep a living rumor about him, and therefore they chose an ancient high hill to him as if a monument.

The soldiers were equipped to fire a volley of four combat rifles over the grave.

"You don't need to make a fuss over him," said the woman chairman.

Grandma Vera pulled her hands out from under her scarf. Her arms shot up like clods of earth from an explosion.

- Fire! she shouted, “I suppose a soldier. Been fighting all my life. Fire!

The soldiers fired their weapons into the blue evening air. And they shot again. And so they shot three times. Then they left. The women also left. The children left the hill, dressed in whatever they got, washed out, patched up and out of height. Remained near the grave of grandfather Senka and grandmother Vera.

Senka sat bent over, his head bowed. In a gray patched padded jacket, he looked like a fresh pile of earth, not sprouted with herbs. Grandma Vera darted about among the German graves like a black torch. She went up to the edge of the hillock, and kept mumbling and shouting, as if scolding old Savelyev for something, who, in her opinion, had died early, or, on the contrary, promised to live out his unfinished time in her endless old age.

The next day, the wagon soldiers drove off on spring carts to the front. The women were in a hurry to do their work. The children sat down on the warm porch of the hut in which the grandfather lived, which was now empty, empty, light and loud, and tidied up cleanly.

The front had already moved far from the village. Only sometimes at night the huts began to tremble. The wind carried an uneven rolling sound through the open windows, as if something was collapsing, as if dry logs were beating sides and hooting, falling to the ground. The sky over the front was occupied by dawn in the middle of the night, but that terrible dawn seemed to smolder, without flaring up, without burning the heaped silver stars.

All combat troops had long passed through the village, and the carts had passed, and the sanitary unit. The road has calmed down. She would, perhaps, have narrowed down completely, since local population there was nothing to ride on it, and nowhere to go. But columns of cars were walking along the road, loaded with ammunition for the front, and the road was dusty, lived.

A soldier walked along this road, looking for a lodging for the night. He went from the hospital to his division, to a rifle company, where he was a machine gunner before being wounded. The porch, seated with children, beckoned him, led him. The soldier thought: “Here, however, is a cheerful hut. I will stop here, rest in the dense turmoil of life. The soldier remembered his family, where he was his mother's seventh, the youngest son - the last.

“Hello little one,” he said.

“Hi,” the children said to him.

The soldier looked into the hut.

- Live clean. Allow me to live with you until tomorrow. Where is your mother?

“Our mothers are in the field,” Tamarka Suchalkina, the eldest, answered him. “We don’t live in this hut. In it, grandfather Savelyev lived, and now he is dead.

The soldier looked at the children. I saw them - skinny, big-eyed, very intent and quiet.

“Here it is, however…” said the soldier, “what are you doing here, by the empty hut?” Are you playing?

- No, - said the girl Tamarka. - We are just sitting here.

The girl Tamarka began to cry and turned away so that others would not see.

- You go to some other hut to spend the night, - she advised the soldier. - Now it is spacious in the huts. When the front passed, the people did not fit in the huts - they slept on the street. And now there is a lot of empty space in the huts.

"I'll spend the night here," the soldier explained to Tamarka. "I'll go to bed right away." Don't make noise, I have to get up early, I'm in a hurry to join my division.

Tamarka nodded: they say, your business.

The soldier put the bag at the head of the bed and collapsed for the night. I dreamed a little about the nurse Natasha, whom I met in the hospital, to whom I promised to send letters every day, and fell asleep.

In the dream, he felt as if he was being shaken and pushed in the back.

What, on the offensive? he asked, jumping up. He began to fumble around, looking for a rifle, and woke up completely. I saw myself in the hut. I saw windows with a red border from the setting sun. And in front of me I saw a boy in a tattered and not tall padded jacket.

- What are you doing in your boots? - the boy said to the soldier in an adult sullen voice, - Grandfather died on this bench, and you didn’t even take off your boots.

The soldier was angry for the interrupted dream, for the fact that such a sucker teaches him the mind. Shouted:

— Yes, who are you? How I will shoot you in the ears!

- Do not scream. I can scream too, - said the boy, - I am a local resident. It's called Senka. During the day I worked on a horse. Now his mouth is chasing to the lake, to the meadow. - The boy went to the door. His face lit up, he smacked softly and affectionately.

The soldier also saw a horse tied to the porch. That horse was either sick or completely starved. The skin on a wide bone hung like a hoodie. The horse put his head on the railing so that his neck could rest.

- That's the horse! the soldier laughed. There is no other benefit from it.

The boy stroked the horse's muzzle, thrusting a saved crust into his soft black lips.

- Whatever it is - everything is a horse. The veins in his legs are cold. I go out of it, by the fall it will be frisky. It was given to us by the soldiers-carriers. They helped to bury my grandfather. And you, go to bed, take off your boots. Not good. The house had not cooled down even after the grandfather, and you collapsed in your boots.

The soldier gritted his teeth in annoyance. Spat.

- Think, grandfather! - he shouted, - he died, he is dear to him there. He lived his life. Now marshals and generals are dying. Soldiers-heroes lie down in packs in the ground. War! And you're here with your grandfather...

The soldier lay down on a bench facing the stove and grumbled and shouted for a long time about his wounds and the terrible moments that he endured at the front. Then the soldier remembered his mother. She was already too old. Even before the war, she had eleven grandchildren from her eldest sons.

“Grandma,” the soldier sighed, “however, she is now raising this whole horde. Potatoes cook more than one cast iron. Such a crowd needs a lot of food - how many mouths! She should rest, warm her feet in warmth, but, you see, what a war it is.” The soldier stirred and sat down on a bench. It seemed to him that the hut was not empty, that his mother was moving in this hut in her endless chores.

The soldier wanted to say: "Pah!" — but choked. Then he walked around the hut, touched simple utensils, embarrassedly and joyfully feeling that they had saved something for him here that he could forget about in the rush of the war.

“Wow,” said the soldier, “my poor fellows…” And he shouted: “Hey! - not knowing how to call the boy, because all sorts of words that the soldiers call the boys were not suitable here. - Hey, a man on a horse!

Nobody answered him. The boy had already gone to graze his horse by the lake, and was probably now sitting under the birch, lighting a fire.

The soldier took a bag, took his overcoat. Went outside.

The land in this place gently sloped down to the lake. In the village it was still red from the sunset, below, in the pit by the lake, the darkness had gathered and flowed from all sides. In the darkness, as in the palms, a fire burned. Sometimes the fire twisted into a ball, sometimes a trickle of flying sparks rose from its core. The boy kindled a fire and stirred a stick in it, and perhaps threw dry spruce branches into the fire. The soldier found a path. He went down to the boy on a wet meadow.

“I came to spend the night with you,” he said, “won’t you drive me away?” I was the only one who got cold.

“Lie down,” the boy answered him. “Put your overcoat here, it’s dry here.” Here I burned the earth with a fire yesterday.

The soldier put on his greatcoat and stretched out on the soft earth.

Why did grandfather die? he asked when they had been silent for as long as they should.

“From a bomb,” Senka answered.

The soldier got up.

- Direct hit or shrapnel?

— All the same. Died. For you, he is a stranger, but for us, he is a grandfather. Especially for small children.

Senka went to see the horse. Then he threw brushwood and herbs on the fire to drive away mosquitoes. He spread a tattered padded jacket near the soldier's overcoat and lay down on it.

"Sleep," he said. "I'll wake you up early tomorrow." There is a lot to do. I buried two potatoes under the ashes, we'll eat them in the morning.

The soldier had already dozed in the hut, interrupted his sleep for a while, and now he could not fall asleep right away. He looked at the sky, at the clear stars, clear as tears.

Senka didn't sleep either. He looked at the warm crimson in the sky, which seemed to flow down from the hills into the lake and cool in its dark water. The thought occurred to him that his grandfather still lives to this day, only he moved to another, more convenient place for himself, on a high hill, from where he could look wider at his land.

The sleeping soldier mumbled something loving in his sleep. Mist rose from the lake. Unsteady shadows staggered over the meadow, huddled together in a dense herd. It seemed to Senka that many horses were grazing around him - both bay and buckskin. And strong, stately mares gently caress their foals.

“Grandfather,” the boy said, already falling asleep. “Grandfather, now we have horses ...

And the soldier stirred at these words, laid his heavy warm hand on the boy.

Anatoly Mityaev "Vacation for four hours"

The soldier most often had to fight far from home.

His house is in the mountains in the Caucasus, and he is fighting in the steppes in Ukraine. The house is in the steppe, and he is fighting in the tundra, by the cold sea. The place where to fight, no one chose for himself. However, it happened that a soldier defended or fought off his enemy from native city, my native village. Vasily Plotnikov also ended up in his native land. After the battle ended and the Nazis retreated, the soldier asked the commander for permission to go to the village of Yablontsy. There is his house. There was a wife with a little daughter and an old mother. Only a dozen kilometers to Yablontsy.

"Very well," said the commander, "I give you, Private Plotnikov, four hours' leave." Come back without delay. It is now eleven, and at fifteen trucks will arrive and take us in pursuit of the Nazis.

Plotnikov's comrades brought their food supplies - canned food, crackers, sugar. Everything was put in a duffel bag for him. Let him feed the family. Gifts are not great, but from the bottom of my heart! They were a little jealous of Plotnikov. It's no joke - I haven't seen my relatives for two years, I didn't know anything about the family, and now we have a quick date. True, the soldiers also thought that Plotnikov's wife, and little daughter, and old mother could die in fascist captivity. But sad thoughts were not expressed aloud.

And Vasily Plotnikov himself thought about it. And so his joy was unsettling. He said only one word to his comrades: “Thank you!”, put the straps of a duffel bag on his shoulders, hung a machine gun around his neck and walked straight across the field, through the woods to Yablontsy.

The village of Yablontsy was small, but very beautiful. She often dreamed of the soldier Plotnikov. Under the tall old willows, as under a green tent, in the cool shade stood strong houses with carved porches, with clean benches in front of the windows. Gardens were behind the houses. And everything grew in these gardens: yellow turnips, red carrots, pumpkins that looked like leather balls, sunflowers that looked like brass, polished to a shine basins in which they boiled jam. And beyond the gardens were gardens. Ripe apples in them - whatever you want! Sweet and sour pears, honey-sweet terentievkas and the best Antonov apples in the whole world. In autumn, when they soaked Antonovka in barrels, when they put it in boxes for winter storage, lining the layers with rye straw, everything in Yablontsy smelled of apples. The wind, flying over the village, was saturated with this smell and carried it far around the district. And people - whether passers-by, travelers, whose path was away from the Yablons - turned off the road, went in, drove there, ate plenty of apples, and took them with them. The village was generous, kind. How is she now?

Vasily Plotnikov was in a hurry. The sooner he reaches the village, the more time he will have to visit his relatives. All paths, all paths, all ravines and hillocks were known to him from childhood. And after an hour or so, he saw from a high place Yablontsa. Had seen. Has stopped. I looked.

There was no green tent over the Yablons. Instead, a black, torn cobweb was stretched in the sky: the leaves on the high willows were burned, the branches were also burned, and the branches were charred, they lined the sky with a black cobweb.

The heart of the soldier Vasily Plotnikov sank and ached. With all his strength, he ran to the village. As if he wanted to help his Yablon people in some way. And there was nothing to help. Yablontsy became ashes. The calcined earth was covered with ashes, gray as road dust, and strewn with firebrands. Among this ashes were smoked stoves with tall chimneys. It was unusual and eerie to see brick chimneys of such a height. Previously, they were covered with roofs, and no one saw them like that. The stoves seemed to be living beings, some huge birds stretching their long necks into the empty sky. The birds wanted to take off at a terrible moment, but did not have time and remained, petrified, in place.

Vasily Plotnikov's house stood in the middle of the village before the fire. The soldier easily found and recognized his stove. Whitewash shone through the soot. He himself whitewashed the stove before leaving for the war. Then he did a lot of other work around the house, so that his wife, mother and daughter could live easier. “Where are they now? What happened to them?

“The village perished in the fire,” Vasily Plotnikov reasoned. “If it had been bombed or shelled, some furnaces would certainly have collapsed, pipes would have collapsed ...” And he had a hope that the inhabitants of Yablons had escaped, gone somewhere either in the woods.

He walked through the ashes, looking for the iron remains of the house - doorknobs, hooks, large nails. He found all this, covered with brown scale, took it in his hands, looked at it - as if asking about the fate of the owners. There was no answer.

Plotnikov imagined how a team of fascists, a special team, had descended on Yablontsi. They jumped out of trucks with cans of gasoline. They doused the walls with gasoline. And then came the fascist torch-bearer. And set the houses on fire, one by one. From beginning to end, set fire to the entire village. And at the same time, or maybe a little earlier or a little later, an enemy tank drove through the gardens, breaking apple trees, crushing them into the ground ... Thousands of villages were destroyed by the Nazis in a similar way during the retreat.

The soldier gathered a pile of bricks, blew the ashes off them, and sat down. And so, sitting, without taking off his duffel bag and machine gun, he thought a bitter thought. He did not immediately feel that someone was touching the top of his boot. Rather, he felt light tremors, but did not pay attention, because there was not a living soul around. And when I looked at the boots, I saw a cat - gray with a white chest, my cat Dunyushka.

- Dunyushka! Where are you from, Dunyushka?

He took her under the stomach with his outstretched hand, put her on his knees and began to stroke.

Dunyushka clung closer to her master, closed her eyes, and purred. She murmured softly, calmly. She slowly repeated monotonous sounds as she inhaled and exhaled, as if rolling peas. And it seemed to Plotnikov that the cat knew how hard it was for people in the war, how heavy his heart was. She also knows where the soldier's wife, daughter and mother are. They are alive, they took refuge in the forest from the Nazis, and their main sadness is not about the burnt house, but about it. Is he alive, soldier Vasily Plotnikov? If alive, then they will live. They will see that there are no fascists, that the Soviet Army drove them away, and they will come from the forest to the village. They dig a dugout for the winter. They will patiently wait for the end of the war, the return of the soldiers. The soldiers will return, build everything new. And gardens will be planted...

“Where were you, Dunyushka, when the Yablontsy burned?” And how much do you love your house if you don't leave it, burned down?

As time went. It was time to return to the unit. The soldier crumbled some bread into a piece of earthenware bowl for the cat. I put the duffel bag with food in the stove and closed it with a damper. Then he scratched on the stove with a burnt nail:

"I'm alive. Didn't find you at home. Write.

Field mail 35769. V. Plotnikov.

The cat ate the bread. Picked up food to the last crumb. Sitting by the crock of earth, she began to wash herself—licking her paw with her pink tongue, rubbing her muzzle with her paw. “Good omen,” the soldier thought, “This is for guests. The cat washes away the guests. And who are the guests? Of course, the wife, daughter and mother are the mistresses of the burnt house.” That thought made the soldier feel better. And other thoughts came: how he and his comrades would get into the truck, how they would catch up with the Nazis and start a new battle. He will shoot from a machine gun, throw grenades, and if the ammunition runs out, he will kill the fascist with a simple fist ...

- Well, goodbye, Dunyushka! I have to go. As if they didn't leave without me.

The cat looked into the owner's eyes. Got up. And when he walked through the ashes, she ran beside him. She ran for quite some time. She stopped behind the burnt willows, on a green hillock. From there, she followed the soldier with her eyes. The soldier turned around, each time he saw a gray lump with a white speck on a green tubercle.

The troops, in which Vasily Plotnikov's battalion was, advanced very well, drove and drove the Nazis. He received a letter from home when they left the Yablons for as much as half a thousand kilometers.

Anatoly Mityaev "Bag of oatmeal"

That autumn there were long cold rains. The ground was soaked with water, the roads became muddy. On the country roads, bogged down to the very axis in the mud, were military trucks. With the supply of food became very bad. In the soldiers' kitchen, the cook cooked only cracker soup every day: he poured cracker crumbs into hot water and seasoned it with salt.

On such and such hungry days, the soldier Lukashuk found a sack of oatmeal. He was not looking for anything, just leaned his shoulder against the wall of the trench. A block of damp sand collapsed, and everyone saw the edge of a green duffel bag in the hole.

- What a find! - the soldiers rejoiced, - There will be a feast by the mountain ... Let's cook porridge!

One ran with a bucket for water, others began to look for firewood, and still others had already prepared spoons.

But when it was possible to fan the fire and it was already beating at the bottom of the bucket, an unfamiliar soldier jumped into the trench. He was thin and red. Eyebrows over blue eyes redheads too. Overcoat worn, short. On the legs are windings and trampled shoes.

- Hey brother! he shouted in a hoarse, cold voice, "Give the sack over here!" Do not put - do not take.

He will simply stun everyone with his appearance, and the bag was given to him immediately.

And how could you not give up? According to the front-line law, it was necessary to give. Duffel bags were hidden in trenches by soldiers when they went on the attack. To make it easier. Of course, there were bags left without an owner: either it was impossible to return for them (this is if the attack was successful and it was necessary to drive the Nazis), or the soldier died. But since the owner has come, the conversation is short - to give.

The soldiers watched in silence as the redhead carried the precious sack over his shoulder. Only Lukashuk could not stand it, he quipped:

- He's skinny! They gave him an extra ration. Let it burst. If it doesn't break, it might get fatter.

The cold has come. Snow. The earth froze, became hard. The delivery has improved. The cook cooked cabbage soup with meat in the kitchen on wheels, pea soup with ham. Everyone forgot about the red-haired soldier and his oatmeal.

A big offensive was being prepared.

Long lines of infantry battalions marched along hidden forest roads and ravines. At night, tractors were dragging guns to the front line, tanks were moving.

Lukashuk and his comrades were also preparing for the offensive. It was still dark when the guns opened fire. It got brighter - planes hummed in the sky.

They threw bombs on Nazi dugouts, fired machine guns at enemy trenches.

The planes took off. Then the tanks roared. Behind them, the infantrymen rushed to the attack. Lukashuk and his comrades also ran and fired from a machine gun. He threw a grenade into the German trench, wanted to throw more, but did not have time: the bullet hit him in the chest. And he fell. Lukashuk lay in the snow and did not feel that the snow was cold. Some time passed, and he stopped hearing the roar of battle. Then he stopped seeing the light—it seemed to him that a dark, still night had come.

When Lukashuk regained consciousness, he saw an orderly. The orderly bandaged the wound, put Lukashuk in a boat - such plywood sledges. The sleigh slid and swayed in the snow. Lukashuk's head began to spin from this quiet swaying. And he didn't want his head to spin, he wanted to remember where he had seen this orderly, red-haired and thin, in a well-worn overcoat.

- Hold on, brother! Do not be shy - you will live! .. - he heard the words of the orderly.

It seemed to Lukashuk that he had known this voice for a long time. But where and when he heard it before, he could no longer remember.

Lukashuk regained consciousness when he was transferred from the boat to a stretcher to be taken to a large tent under the pines: here, in the forest, a military doctor was pulling out bullets and shrapnel from the wounded.

Lying on a stretcher, Lukashuk saw the sled-boat on which he was taken to the hospital. Three dogs were tied to the sled with straps. They lay in the snow. Icicles are frozen on the wool. The muzzles were overgrown with frost, the eyes of the dogs were half closed.

The nurse approached the dogs. In his hands was a helmet full of oatmeal. Steam poured from her. The orderly stuck his helmet into the snow to cool it - it's harmful for dogs to get hot. The orderly was thin and red-haired. And then Lukashuk remembered where he had seen him. It was he who then jumped into the trench and took the bag of oatmeal from them.

Lukashuk smiled at the orderly with his lips, and, coughing and panting, said:

- And you, Red, never got fat. One ate a bag of oatmeal, but everyone is thin.

The orderly also smiled and, stroking the nearest dog, answered:

They ate oatmeal. But they got you on time. And I recognized you right away. As I saw it in the snow, I knew it…” And he added with conviction: “You will live!” Don't be shy!

Valentina Oseeva "Stump"

People were returning. At a small blue station that had survived the bombing, women and children with bundles and shopping bags were unloading randomly and fussily from the cars. On both sides of the road, boarded-up houses, buried deep in snowdrifts, were waiting for their owners. Here and there the fireflies of oil lamps flared up in the windows, and smoke rose from the chimneys. The house of Marya Vlasyevna Samokhina was empty for the longest time. Its fence fell down, and only here and there were stakes still firmly knocked down. Above the gate stuck up and beat in the wind a broken plank. On frosty winter nights, falling into the snow, a hungry dog, like a hunted wolf, wandered to the overgrown porch. He walked around the house, listening to the silence that reigned behind the large windows, sniffing the air and, helplessly dragging a long tail, stacked on a snowy porch. And when the moon threw bright yellow circles on the empty house, the dog raised his muzzle and howled.

The howl disturbed the neighbors. Exhausted, suffering people, burying their heads in the pillows, threatened to plug this hungry throat with a club. Maybe there would be a person who decided to raise a club on a lean dog's body, but the dog, as if knowing this, was wary of people, and in the morning only footprints remained in the snow, stretching in an uneven chain around the abandoned house. And only one little man from the house opposite every evening, behind the old collapsed cellar, was waiting for a hungry dog. In trampled boots and an old gray overcoat, he quietly climbed out onto the porch and watched the snow turn white in the twilight. Then, clinging to the wall, he turned sharply around the corner of the house and walked to the cellar. There, squatting down, he made a dense hole in the snow, laid out crusts of bread from his pocket, and quietly retreated around the corner. And behind the cellar, slowly rearranging its paws and not taking its hungry wolf eyes from the hole, a lean dog appeared. The wind shook her bony body as she greedily swallowed what the little man brought. When he had finished eating, the dog raised his head and looked at the boy, and the boy looked at the dog. Then both dispersed in different directions: the dog in the snowy twilight, and the boy in a warm house.

The fate of the little man was the fate of many children caught in the war and destitute by the fascist barbarians. Somewhere in Ukraine, in a golden autumn, in a charred village that had just been recaptured from the Nazis, a beardless sergeant Vasya Voronov found a two-year-old boy wrapped in warm rags in the garden. Nearby, on the plowed garden land, among chopped heads of cabbage, in a white shirt embroidered with red flowers, lay a young woman with her arms outstretched. Her head was turned to one side, her blue eyes were fixed in rapt contemplation. high slide cut cabbage leaves, and the fingers of one hand tightly squeezed a bottle of milk. Large milky drops slowly flowed down to the ground from the neck plugged with paper... If not for this bottle of milk, perhaps Vasya Voronov would have run past the murdered woman, catching up with his comrades. But then, sadly bowing his head, he carefully took out hands of the dead bottle, followed her fixed gaze, heard a faint grunt behind the cabbage leaves, and saw wide-open children's eyes. With clumsy hands, a beardless sergeant pulled out a child wrapped in a blanket, put a bottle of milk in his pocket and, bending over the dead woman, said:

- I'm taking... Do you hear? Vasily Voronov! - and ran to catch up with his comrades.

At a halt, the fighters gave the boy warm milk to drink, lovingly looked at his strong little body and jokingly called Kocheryzhka.

The stalk was quiet; hanging his head on Vasya Voronov's shoulder, he silently looked back at the road along which Vasya was carrying him. And if the boy began to cry, Voronov's comrades, with faces dusty and sweaty from the heat, danced in front of him, heavily shaking their ammunition and slapping their knees:

- Oh yes we are! Oh yes we are!

Stump fell silent, peering intently into each face, as if he wanted to remember it for the rest of his life.

- Studying something! - the soldiers joked and teased Vasya Voronov. - Hey, father, report something to the authorities about the newborn!

“I’m afraid they’ll take it away,” Vasya frowned, hugging the boy to him. And stubbornly added: - I will not give. I won't give it to anyone. So I told his mother - I won’t leave him!

- Stupid, boy! Are you going to fight with a child? Or will you ask for a babysitter now? - the fighters reasoned with Vasya.

- I'll send it home. To my grandmother, to my mother. I will order that they take care of there.

Having firmly decided the fate of Kocheryzhka, Vasya Voronov achieved his goal. After a heart-to-heart talk with his superiors and passing his pet from hand to hand to a nurse, Vasya wrote a long letter home. Everything that happened was described in detail in the letter, and it ended with a request: keep Kocheryzhka as one of your own, take care of him as your son Vasily’s own child, and not call him Kocheryzhka anymore, because the boy was baptized in a warm river font by Voronov himself and his comrades who gave him name and patronymic: Vladimir Vasilyevich.

A young sister brought Vladimir Vasilyevich to the Voronov family in the winter of 1941, when the Voronovs themselves, having boarded up their house, ran with things and shopping bags to the blue station. On the way, in a hurry, Anna Dmitrievna and Grandmother Petrovna read Vasenka’s letter, with sighs and tears they accepted from their sister a bundle in a gray soldier’s blanket and, loaded with things, climbed with it into the country car, and then into the heating truck ... And when they returned to the old housing and opened their damp house, the war had already moved away, Vasenka's letters were coming from the German lands, and Kocheryzhka was already running around the room and sitting on the bench, intently studying new angles and new faces with his greenish-blue eyes under the dark laces of his eyebrows. Vasenka's mother, Anna Dmitrievna, glancing cautiously in the direction of the boy, wrote to her son:

“The covenant of your honor and conscience, our dear fighter Vasenka, we keep. We don’t offend your stump, that is, Vladimir Vasilyevich, only our wealth is small - we can’t especially support him. By order of your boy, we remember you, how what happened between you, and we keep that bottle as a keepsake. Still explain to us, Vasenka, what you will order to call us, and all “aunty” and “aunty” I tell him, he calls his grandmother Petrovna, and calls your sister Granya Ganya.

Vasya Voronov, having received a letter, sent an answer:

“Thank you very much for your hard work. I'll figure out the rest when I get home. One request: do not call the stump, because this is a marching title, given by chance due to the circumstances of the location in the cabbage. And he should be like a man, Vladimir Vasilyevich, and be aware that I am his father.

Vasya Voronov, after thinking, always wrote the same thing to his stump: "Grow up and obey." So far, he has not taken on the big tasks of raising his adopted son. The stalk grew poorly, but obeyed well. He listened silently, slowly, understandingly and seriously.

- Fathers, why are you sitting on a bench like a swaddled? Go run a little! Aunt Anna Dmitrievna shouted as she walked, noticing him.

- Where to run? asked Kocheryka, sliding down from the bench.

- Yes, in the garden, my fathers!

Kocheryochka went out onto the porch and, as if embarrassed, looked at his aunt with an uncertain smile, then, lowering his arms, awkwardly moving his legs, he ran to the gate. From there he slowly returned and again sat down on a bench or on the porch. Petrovna shook her head.

“Tired, Kocheryzhka, I mean Volodechka?”

The boy raised his thin eyebrows and answered in monosyllables:

Granya ran to school. Sometimes her girlfriends would gather at the porch like a flock of merry birds. Granya pulled Kocheryzhka out, put him on her knees, blew on his large forehead with fluffy dark curls, and crossing his strong, tanned arms over his stomach, said:

This is our girls! We found it in cabbage! Don't believe? He himself knows. Really, Kocheryka?

- True, - the boy confirmed, - they found me in cabbage!

- Poor him! the girls gasped, stroking his head.

"I'm not poor," said Kocheryka, moving their hands away. "I have a father." Vasya Voronov - that's who!

The girls began to mess with him, but Kocheryka did not like noisy games. One day Petrovna gave him some earth from an old flower pot, and in the very corner of the wide bench Kocheryka made a vegetable garden for himself. In the garden, he made neat beds. Granya gave the boy red glossy paper and green tissue paper. The stalk cut out round red berries, laid them out on the beds, and next to them stuck green bushes from tissue paper. Then he brought a branch from the garden and hung paper apples on it, painted with Grani. Petrovna also took part in the game - she secretly put fresh carrots in the garden and was surprised loudly:

- Look, your carrots are ripe!

Anna Dmitrievna called Petrovna a pander, but she herself somehow brought two toy buckets and a scoop for the "garden". Stump loved the earth; he took her in the palm of his hand, pressed his cheek against her, and, when a mean Winter sun fell from the window, said seriously:

- Don't block the sun, because nothing will grow!

"Agronomist!" Petrovna spoke proudly of him.

Life at that time was difficult. The Voronovs did not have enough bread, they did not have their own potatoes. Anna Dmitrievna worked in the dining room. She brought the leftover soup in a can. Granya with a swing climbed into the can with a spoon and caught the thick. At the table, her mother scolded her:

“At a time like this, when all the people have not yet recovered from the war, she thinks only of herself!” Catch the thick and mother and grandmother as you wish! Yes, the Stump is still in our hands!

— I won't! he said in fright, sliding down from his chair. "I won't eat!"

- Sit down! .. What kind of "I won't" is this? Anna Dmitrievna shouted at him in irritation.

Stump bowed his head low and began to drip large tears. Petrovna would get up from her seat and, wiping his eyes with her apron, scolded her daughter and granddaughter:

- Are you ruffling the child's nerves? Someone else's child is at the table, and they are counting pieces in front of him! They took it for their own, so keep it in good conscience!

“Yes, what did I say to him?” Anna Dmitrievna gasped, “I’m not yelling at him, but at my own daughter!” I won't lay a finger on him! I can’t live with him ... Let whoever takes it brings up!

“And should I live with him?” I don’t need it at all in my old age, but once they took it, you need to have a heart! Look, he's so nervous!

- Well, nervous! Submitted, and that's it! - shouted through tears Granka, who received a cuff from her mother, - That's it, I'll write everything to my brother! Let him take it completely! We do not need!

- And who will live with me? Kocheryka suddenly asked, looking around at everyone with anxious, tear-stained eyes.

Petrovna remembered:

- Mustache, mustache, son! Don't just cry! The Soviet government will not leave an orphan! And the father! What's the father for? There he is looking... There he is... She took Vasya's photograph from the shelf and, wiping it with her palm, gave it to the boy. - And-and, what a father ... With a gun!

Kocheryzhka smiled through his tears at Vasya's kindly cheeky face, and Petrovna, feeling deeply moved, held the boy tightly to her:

- Will he quit? How did he see this gorushka ... She lies, a dove of the heart, and milk is something from a bottle drip-drip ... - She suddenly interrupted herself and, propping her neck with her hand, began to sway from side to side, - Oh, my God! Oh, my God ... I carried my son, my dear ...

Anna Dmitrievna, listening to her words, stopped in the middle of the room; Granya sat quietly, looking with her round eyes first at her mother, then at her grandmother.

And he said to her, dead...

Kocheryok closed his eyes and, struggling against drowsiness, pressed the card closer to himself.

"... I won't leave your son for nothing..." came Petrovna's fading voice, mingled with tears and sighs. "Oh, my God, my God..."

“Look, the card is all crumpled!” Granka suddenly shouted. Let me take it from him!

Petrovna blocked Kocheryzhka from her:

- Don't touch, don't touch, Granechka! I'll take it myself!

Anna Dmitrievna, as if waking up, ran to the bed, fluffed up a pillow and took the sleeping boy from Petrovna's hands. Grainka twirled right there to pull Vasya's card out of Kocheryka's hot sleepy hands, but her mother silently took her hand away and, looking into the girl's snub-nosed serene face, thought: "What is missing in her - heart or mind?"

The dog howled at night. Kocheryka knew that she was howling from hunger, from longing for her masters, and for this they wanted to kill her. Kocheryshka wanted the dog to stop howling and not to be killed. Therefore, one day, seeing traces of dog paws behind his cellar, he began to carry the remains of food there. The dog and the boy were afraid of each other. While Stumpy was putting his treasures into the hole, the dog stood at a distance and waited. He didn't want to stroke her tangled hair on her skinny ribs—she didn't want to wag her tail. But often they looked at each other.

And then there was a short conversation between them.

"Everything?" the dog's eyes asked.

"Everything," answered Kocheryka's eyes.

And the dog left to make him wait anxiously behind the cellar in the twilight of the next day, listening to every voice from the house. At the table Stump, looking with frightened eyes at all the faces, hid bread in his bosom.

One night he woke up to the sound of a dog. But it wasn't a howl. It was a short screech. Kocheryka listened. The squeal did not repeat itself. The boy realized that something had happened. He slid off the bed and, sobbing, walked to the door. Petrovna, wearing only her skirt, sleepy and disheveled, grabbed him in her arms:

- Where are you going? Where, my father?

Stump wept loudly.

- Shut up, shut up, son ... You'll wake up everyone in the house ...

But the boy escaped from her hands and, choking with tears, pointed to the door:

- There, there...

- Where are we going with you? After all, it’s dark in the yard ... There are all the wolves running around now ... Look!

Petrovna lifted Kocheryzhka to the window and pulled back the curtain. There was a thaw outside; through the wet glass one could see a yellow shadow falling from the lighted window of the empty house onto the porch. The stump suddenly fell silent, and Petrovna, yawning, said:

- No way, have the Samokhins arrived?

That night, a woman was walking from the station, sinking deep into the snow with her heavy boots. A torn man's coat, tied with a rope, wrapped around her knees with wet floors, a black scarf slid down to her shoulders, gray strands

hair stuck to cheeks. The woman often stopped and listened to the howl of the dog. At the gate, a torn board touched her shoulder, and a wild dog got up from the porch and, pressing his ears to the back of his head, moved towards her. The woman held out her hands to him, moved her lips almost audibly. With a short screech, the dog fell into the snow and crawled towards her on its belly... The woman hugged him by the neck and pulled out a key from her pocket. Then she climbed the steps, opened the door, lit the stub of a candle, and a yellow shadow fell from the lighted window, which Kocheryka saw.

The dog didn't come. For two days Kocheryka waited for her, looking at the light shining across the road. Now, hoarse, angry barking often came from there. One could hear how the dog rushed to the fence and to the end of the street accompanied those walking by with a jerky bark. He guarded his house. At night, no one heard his plaintive howl and did not threaten to plug his throat with a club. Kocheryzhka knew from the neighbors' conversations that one old woman, Marya Vlasyevna, had returned to the Samokhins' house... Grandmother Markevna, who had not gone anywhere during the war, considered herself the mistress of an empty village with boarded-up houses. It seemed to her that it was she who, staying here, under German bombs, saved the entire village from destruction. And as a hostess, she met all those who returned, affably and pitifully, not stinting either on sympathy or on a bundle of firewood for cold people. She was the first to appear to families who had not yet warmed empty corners, and, leaning against the door frame, chilly wrapping herself in a checkered shawl, she said:

- Well, thank the Lord! We're back! You won't beat your feet on your own doorstep!

And then she vigilantly noticed someone's tear-stained eyes, sadly shook her head, cursed the fascist murderers, wiped her tears with the end of her handkerchief and comforted:

- What to do, my dear, the war ... Now you won’t return and you won’t climb into the grave yourself. Strengthen your heart, no matter how you are ... I suppose you will not cry alone, people will cry with you both over your and over their grief ... All together, it will be easier ...

Her gray, sharp face, warm hands with dark veins, tears and sympathy soothed. More than one orphaned woman cried out her grief along with Markevna. After weeping, Grandma Markevna ordered in a businesslike manner:

- Try the stove - does it smoke? Yes, let's go to me: firewood of dry ladies or pour boiling water.

Grandmother Markevna lived alone, but from morning to evening people crowded with her - women, children. Everyone needed something. Sometimes, on a wide bench under the stove, a wrapped-up child would sit by the grandmother, and the grandmother, coming from the yard, would say:

- Look, God sent ... Whose is it? Safronov or Zhurkin? - And she answered herself: - I suppose the Zhurkins ... She has gone to the city to her daughter-in-law today ...

Rattled a damper in the oven, Markevna pulled out a hot potato, blew on it, tossing it from palm to palm, and brought it to the child:

- On-kos ... Warm your hands and eat!

Now Grandma Markevna often sat at Petrovna's and, pointing to Samokhina's house, said with resentment:

- I go to her, and she leaves me ... I go to the yard, and she goes to the house ... I see that there is no face on her.

“Yes, yes,” Petrovna confirmed, “she is averse to people ... but it happened, as she worked as a librarian at a factory, there was no end to some guys, she herself welcomed everyone.

Markevna freed her pointed chin from her shawl and blew her nose noisily.

“I’m going up in the canopy, but my heart is not in the right place ... And it’s a pity for her, and it’s sickening to be imposed ... I just think to myself: grief is like a noose around the neck, if there is no one to stretch it, it will overwhelm the whole person,” Markevna glanced at Kocheryzhka and suddenly whispered: "After all, she came back alone." Where is the daughter-in-law, where is her granddaughter. Everything is probably buried in the damp earth. As it happened, it was not. And she herself is all torn, thin little coat ...

"Oh, ho, ho..." Petrovna sighed, resting her cheek on her hand. But where did she lose everyone?

But Markevna had already gone from sympathy to resentment again:

- Is there a human soul left in it? “Darling,” I say, “my dear, have you returned alone to your house?” And she looked at me, grabbed the table with her hands and how she shouted: “Don't ask!” My fathers! It was as if I had stuck a needle in her heart...” Markevna covered herself with a handkerchief and began to cry.

Petrovna glanced briefly at Kocheryzhka. His face was grey, his lips trembled, his eyes were frightened.

- Get out of here! What kind of child is this?! Petrovna shouted angrily and, grabbing Kocheryka by the arm, dragged him into the kitchen. She threw him an overcoat and a handkerchief, "Go, go!" It's always like this: he sticks to the bench and sits, it gets on your nerves," she explained to grandmother Markevna, returning to the room.

Stump hesitantly stamped his feet in the kitchen, took a baked potato from the stove, put on his greatcoat, went out into the yard and wandered off into the barking of the dogs. He wanted to look at the dog, which had not come to the cellar for two days. But he was afraid that that woman would suddenly appear on the porch of the Samokhins and shout at him as at Grandmother Markevna. There was no one in the yard. Without taking his eyes off the closed door, Kocheryshka stood at the fence for a long time, then bravely headed for the gate.

Marya Vlasyevna was sitting alone by the cold stove. Near her lay a broken stool and a billhook. The creak of the door, the gray overcoat, and the outstretched hand with the baked potato frightened her. She threw back from her forehead grey hair and, blinking, she said:

— My God, what is it?

Marya Vlasyevna sighed deeply:

- Wolf!

A dog ran in from the yard, sniffed the boy noisily and, wagging its tail, stopped next to him. Marya Vlasyevna watched in silence as Kocheryshka fed the dog. Then she looked into the stove and struck a match. The match went out. She chirped again. Stump picked up thin pieces of wood from the floor and placed them in front of her. Then he hugged the dog by the neck and said in surprise:

- I'm not afraid of her.

Dry boards crackled in the stove. The boy carefully squatted down and held out his red hands to the light.

— Whose are you? Marya Vlasyevna asked softly, peering into his face with intense attention.

— Vasya Voronova. I'm Stump," he said timidly, and noticing a faint smile on her lips, he began to tell his story.

He did it just like Petrovna, propping up his neck with his hand and swaying from side to side. Marya Vlasyevna listened to him with astonishment and pity. Saying goodbye, Kocheryzhka said:

- I'll come to you tomorrow.

On the way he was taken over by Granya. Waving the ends of the handkerchief, she angrily dragged him towards the house:

- Goes don't know where! All covered in snow! The real Stump!

Samokhina shunned her neighbors. She sat alone for hours with her hands on her knees. Her memory, with painful accuracy, drew her one thing, then another ... Things scattered in disorder reminded her of packing for the road and the tear-filled face of her daughter-in-law Masha. Masha explained her tears in different ways, inappropriately: either by unwillingness to part with a familiar corner, or by fear of an unfamiliar road. Marya Vlasyevna did not know then that Masha was hiding her son's death from her, that she alone was going through her heavy grief, sparing her old mother. Marya Vlasyevna recalls how angry she was with her for these tears, how on the last night of the preparations, having lost her patience, she sternly shouted at her daughter-in-law: “Stop it! Get a hold of yourself! Ashamed! People are losing loved ones...

Marya Vlasyevna's thoughts jump. She sees a long train filled with women and children. She sits between her own and other people's knots, squeezing the carts into a corner; the granddaughter's sweaty little head, covered by her wide palm, is pressed against her chest. In the semi-darkness, Masha's large tearful eyes. And then the bombing and the dead stop, where she, Marya Vlasyevna, darted between the broken cars, not letting go of the round blue teapot and pointlessly explaining to someone with eyes frozen in horror: "I went for hot ... for hot ..."

And from under the rubble, people pulled out something terrible, shapeless, in which it was no longer possible to recognize either the granddaughter or Masha. Someone took away her blood-stained hood, someone thrust a bundle into her hands and led her behind a stretcher covered with gray tarpaulin... Lost at this stop, alone among strangers, she accidentally untied Mashin's bundle and there she found her son's card along with his letters to his wife. Next to the card lay a gray piece of paper, which reported the glorious death of the honest fighter Andrei Samokhin ... The son's face was joyful and surprised, as if he himself did not believe in this message about his death. Marya Vlasyevna clasped her hands, looked around the empty corners, and whispered without tears:

"My little ones... my little ones...

Volchok laid his sharp muzzle on her knees and, sighing noisily, licked her old, wrinkled hands.

Now, when Kocheryshka put the bread in his pocket, Petrovna threw a meaningful look at Anna Dmitrievna, and she herself put a pile of baked potatoes in front of the boy:

- Eat, eat, son! And then hide it for yourself!

Stump took the potatoes in his hands and looked around at everyone with an incredulous, questioning look. But everyone was looking at their plates, otherwise they went out on purpose into the kitchen, and, looking at Kocheryshka hastily putting on her overcoat, Petrovna whispered mysteriously:

- Collected...

And Anna Dmitrievna sighed heavily:

What does he need there?

If it weren't for Markevna, the Voronov family would have long ago banned Kocheryzhka from going to her unsociable neighbor.

- In grief, he himself was born, and even on her grief goggles. It’s possible to spoil a child altogether,” Petrovna was worried.

“But don’t let her in - she will cry,” Anna Dmitrievna was upset.

Galka swindled pink lips:

- You yourself allow ... Vasya will come - he will hit everyone ... She didn’t find him, and all right!

But Markevna was of a different opinion.

- How can you not let? she said sternly. He who wipes other people's tears will shed less than his own ... Not every grief lets him close, but a child is like a warm ray ... After all, I, the old one, irritated her darling ...

The story of Samokhina, embellished and implausible, went around the whole village, they talked about her in the factory cooperative, where people received potatoes.

The truth in all this was only that the woman was left alone. But this was not what tormented Markevna when she remembered Samokhina. Her dead soul tormented her in a living person, and, unable to revive it herself, she hoped for Kocheryzhka.

As she left, Markevna would take out a freshly baked loaf of bread from under her kerchief and thrust it into Petrovna's mouth:

- Give the boy something ... let him blow ... from himself, sort of.

Kocheryka did not understand the little tricks of adults, he really wore it on his own. Entering Marya Vlasyevna, he simply laid everything he had brought on the table, choosing pieces for the dog. Once Samokhina said sternly:

“Don’t wear it anymore,” But, noticing the fright in his eyes, she asked: “Who is sending you?”

"I'm going myself," sobbed Kocheryka.

Marya Vlasyevna stroked his head:

“Don’t wear it anymore, do you hear? So come...

In the evening she gathered up some of the linen, fitted the light bulb, and sat down to fix it. Then she lit the stove, heated the water, washed the room, pulled out a small chair from the shed and, after thinking, put it near the stove.

It was getting dark, but there was no Stump. Anna Dmitrievna could not stand it, put on a shawl and went to Samokhina's house:

- At least I can see with my own eyes how he is there ...

But, having reached the gate, frightened by the furious barking of the dog, she turned back and, having come home, wrote a letter to her son.

“My dear Vasenka!

I am fulfilling my maternal duty and hasten to consult with you. Your son Volodenka is a quiet boy, he doesn’t give us any trouble, only recently we have completely lost our heads with him and we don’t know what to do ... "

Anna Dmitrievna described in detail the return of her neighbor Samokhina, the boy's affection for her, and ended with the words:

"... His heart is soft, and his persistent character is all in you."

Having sealed the letter, she called Granka:

- Take it to the station. Let's call Kocheryzhka.

“I won’t follow him,” Granka refused.

At that time Entrance door knocked, and together with the frosty steam, two figures stood on the threshold. A woman in a black headscarf and a man's overcoat tied with a rope was holding Kocheryka by the hand.

“I had your boy,” she said quietly, and turned to leave.

But Anna Dmitrievna was agitated:

- He is with you, and you with us ... sit down a little.

Petrovna quickly pushed Granka off the stool and went out into the kitchen.

— At least have some tea with us... Good neighbors are like a second family. Having said this, she suddenly became frightened and added timidly: "Don't offend the old woman, Vlasyevna!"

- Thanks. My dog ​​is locked up there,” said Marya Vlasyevna with a sigh.

But Anna Dmitrievna drew her into the room and seated her on a stool.

"Sit down, sit down next to me, Volodechka!" Sit down beside your aunt,” she fussed.

“Drink some tea in the cold,” Petrovna treated him.

Samokhina silently took the cup. Anna Dmitrievna pushed a piece of sugar towards her.

- Eat, eat, dove! Petrovna whispered to Kocheryzhka, not knowing how to carry on the conversation.

Granya looked at the guest point-blank. Smooth gray hair, deep wrinkles. The face is tired. She seemed to have a fatal headache. She raised her faded gray eyes with difficulty to the speaker. When greeting her guest, Petrovna carefully chose her words and, afraid to say what she shouldn't, looked helplessly at Anna Dmitrievna. Anna Dmitrievna pulled Granka under the table, turned to Kocheryzhka and, not listening to his answers, talked about the weather:

- All snow and snow! And where did he get so much? On the railway, the girls only row ... they only row ...

In the midst of tea-drinking, Markevna entered. Seeing Samokhina at the table, she became shy, thrust her hand with a tablet to everyone and immediately started a loud conversation:

— Winter, winter! And spring is here! Sitting on a hillock, looking at the sun!

- That's right, that's right! Feeling support in her, Petrovna brightened up. “We have already suffered through the winter! Now every plant will reach for the sun, every darling on earth will feel better.

Markevna looked sternly at her.

“And snowdrops will show up anywhere, and little yellow flowers along the ravines ...” Petrovna began with a frightened face.

And the guest sat silently, clutching a mug with both hands, as if she wanted to warm her cold hands. Her eyes looked somewhere far away, past these people who gave her tea to drink. And they, having exhausted all the empty words, frightened

her silence, at first they switched to a whisper, and then fell completely silent, looking at each other in bewilderment and sadness. Only Stump sniffled and fidgeted uneasily on the bench. It seemed to him that everyone had forgotten about the guest, and she had been drinking hot water without sugar for a long time. Afraid that she would never leave, he remembered the best, in his opinion, words that Petrovna had said to the guests, turned to Samokhina and, pushing sugar towards her, said loudly:

- Eat, dove!

Samokhina looked at him and smiled. Petrovna gasped, Granka burst out laughing, and Markevna said triumphantly:

- Treat! Treat! You are the owner! Ask for another cup!

Seeing Marya Vlasyevna off, Anna Dmitrievna asked her not to forget them.

“And if the boy doesn’t interfere, then we’re only happy ... only happy,” she repeated, fearing to herself that Vasya would give an order not to let Kocheryzhka go to Samokhina.

Now every morning after breakfast Stump began to gather.

- To work, son? - Petrovna asked him jokingly, not suspecting that after the prohibition to carry food, the boy came up with a new concern for himself: walking around the yard or along the road, he diligently collected chips, put them in a bouquet, brought them to Marya Vlasyevna and silently watched how she kindled a fire with his chips .

He liked that the room was clean. Having traced wet felt boots on the floor, he took a rag and, snoring, rubbed his traces. Increasingly, he found Samokhina at work. One day she brought dirty laundry in a round basket, and the next day, approaching the house, he saw thick white smoke coming from the chimney. The room was warm, and a boiler gurgled on the stove. Marya Vlasyevna was washing, rolling up her sleeves. Stump stopped on the threshold and smiled tenderly:

- It's warm here!

Marya Vlasyevna took off his overcoat and pushed a little chair to the stove:

- Get warm. Look at the pictures.

She pulled a damp picture book from the shelf and handed it to the boy. The dog sat down next to him. Turning the pages, Stump looked at the pictures and moved his lips.

Marya Vlasyevna moved a chair to the stove and began to read. She read slowly: the multitude of words and her own voice bored her. Sometimes, turning the page, she fell silent, but Kocheryka's eyes looked at her with impatient expectation, and she read on until she had finished the tale.

— All? Stump asked with regret.

The boy looked at her closely and, bowing his head, asked:

- Do you have walking boots?

- There is not. And you have? Marya Vlasyevna suddenly asked slyly.

He looked at his trampled boots:

- And I don't have one!

They both laughed.

Since then, reading has become a favorite pastime of both. Marya Vlasyevna washed linen for the factory canteen; Kocheryka waited patiently while she finished her laundry and, pulling her chair up to the stove, began to read to him. From fairy tales to stories. The first Italian "Kashtanka". In the place where the little dog was running along the street, looking for traces of the carpenter, Kocheryka became agitated. He stopped listening, looked ahead and asked impatiently:

- And the owner, where is your owner? - And he got angry: - I don’t need about the goose! I say, look for the owner!

Marya Vlasyevna had to prove, explain, persuade. Kocheryka listened, agreed, and, pressing against her shoulder, asked:

- Read, Baba Manya!

Life was starting to get back on track. Anna Dmitrievna no longer brought soup from the dining room, and Petrovna more and more often spoiled her hot cakes. The boys' cheeks turned pink. The stump was forced to drink goat's milk, and as he hopped about the room, Petrovna quipped:

- Look, look, the goat is bungling!

Only one letter came from Vasya. It smelled of recent gunpowder, was full of homesickness and confidence in the imminent end of the war:

“If only I could set foot on my native land, hug you all and look into the eyes of my son ... What a guy I suppose has grown! After all, he was in his sixth year! Too bad he doesn't recognize me!

- Where can I find out? Petrovna sighed.

It snowed. Wet black earth dried up. People happily fussed, poured into the gardens. They cut up the beds, tied up young trees and called to each other from yard to yard in resonant rejuvenated voices. In Marya Vlasyevna's garden, strawberry bushes turned green, thin raspberry twigs crawled out from under the snow. Beans tied in a rag were wet on the window in a plate. Stump looked into the rag every day and was touched when the beans had tiny green tails. Maria Vlasyevna brought seedlings of cabbage from the city, they planted it together and rejoiced at the strong, tight stems. On Victory Day, Marya Vlasyevna and Kocheryzhka again sat side by side at Anna Dmitrievna's table. A lot of people gathered, it was noisy, they drank to the glorious fighters, to Vasya Voronov. Petrovna splashed some sweet wine into a cup and handed it to Kocheryka:

“Drink, drink, Vladimir Vasilyevich, to your papa!”

The common joy pushed aside the personal grief of each. Crying for the dead, people rejoiced at the living. Marya Vlasyevna wept and rejoiced even more, embracing Petrovna and Anna Dmitrievna. Kocheryshka looked at everyone with shining eyes and was embarrassed when they drank to his father, Vasya Voronov.

Every day the military came from the blue station. Every now and then Markevna, shielding her eyes with her hand, looked at the main road and, seeing a man in a green tunic, went out onto the porch. To an invalid without an arm or a leg, she herself walked towards, bowed low and said:

- I'm sorry, son! He suffered for us sinners!

And the touched stranger hugged her withered shoulders:

“It didn’t hurt in vain, mother.

Petrovna sent Granka after every train to see if Vasya was coming.

Anna Dmitrievna jumped up at night and, hearing voices on the road, called out:

- Vasenka!

Marya Vlasyevna, seeing a military man from a distance, pointed Kocheryzhka at him. But the boy confidently replied:

- Not him. I recognize him immediately.

He assured that even an angry Volchok would not bark at Vasya.

“After all, he is not a stranger, but my father,” he said ingenuously.

Marya Vlasyevna smiled sadly. She imagined a tall, broad-shouldered man who takes Kocheryka by the hand and takes him away from her house forever. She even dreamed of the boy following his father, looking back at the porch where they so often sat with a book, at the dog he fed, and at her, his grandmother Manya...

But Kocheryshka, not noticing her anxiety, said more and more often:

"Father is coming to me!"

Vasily Voronov has arrived. He was strong, stocky, with a broad smile and a loud voice. Granka was the first to see him and rushed into the passage with a screech. Mother and grandmother jumped out onto the porch. Vasya threw off two suitcases from his shoulders, grunted and pressed both old gray heads to his chest.

- Oh, my old ladies!

- You are our fighter, defender! Petrovna babbled, pouring tears over his tunic.

"Sonny... sonny... Vassenka..." Anna Dmitrievna repeated, feeling him with trembling hands.

Granka, at the sight of her brother, suddenly became embarrassed and hid behind the door.

- Come on, bring it here! Vasily shouted, pulling his sister out, “Well, show yourself what you have become? Small, big, kind, evil?

Releasing Granka, Vasya looked around and anxiously asked:

— Where is he?

Everyone understood that he was asking about Kocheryzhka.

"Now, now," Petrovna hurried on, tying her handkerchief.

Anna Dmitrievna hurriedly began to tell that the boy was with the neighbor Samokhina, about whom she wrote in a letter.

- The same one? So they are friends? Vasya smiled broadly, grabbed his hat and called out to Petrovna: "Stop, grandma!" I'll go there myself! I'm mixing them up now! Which house is it? Smiling cheerfully, he ran across the road to Samokhina's house.

Stump in long blue trousers was standing next to Marya Vlasyevna, cutting raspberry bushes with large garden shears. Marya Vlasyevna was saying something to him, straightening her hair, which had fallen out from under her shawl. Volchok barked at the fence. Stump looked around, threw down the scissors, and said in a whisper:

- Baba Manya...

A military man walked from the gate, driving away the dog with his hat. Stump rushed to him, but suddenly, shy, stopped.

- Stump! Vladimir Vasilievich? shouted Vasya Voronov, spreading his arms wide.

Kocheryka squeezed his eyes shut and, jumping up, grabbed him by the neck.

“What a son, what a son I have grown up!” - looking into his face, said Vasily.

Marya Vlasyevna looked at them silently with a bewildered pitiful smile. The dog squealed uneasily.

- Recognized me? Vasily asked happily, stroking the boy's dark eyebrows with his fingers and peering intently into the familiar bluish-green eyes.

- Got it! I knew right away! And she found out! Kocheryshka turned to Marya Vlasyevna and, clutching Vasily's arm with both hands, dragged him along. Did you recognize my father? he asked Marya Vlasyevna quickly and anxiously.

“I didn’t know, so I found out!” - Vasya said with excitement in his voice and, going up to Marya Vlasyevna, kissed her on both cheeks. We've known each other for a long time! We met through him, right?

Marya Vlasyevna looked into his open eyes and sighed with relief. But Kocheryzhka was already dragging Vasya by the hand, showing him the beds, bushes and saying, choking with joy:

“Look what we planted here with her!” Look, father!

He pronounced the word "father" firmly, as if he had long been accustomed to it. And Vasya Voronov, turning every minute to Samokhina, repeated:

- Thank you for it, thank you! - And irresistibly rejoiced: - No, what a son I have!

Marya Vlasyevna smiled and nodded her head, but her hands trembled. She stopped at the porch, raised her tired gray eyes to Vasya Voronov, and quietly asked:

- Will you go somewhere or will you live with your mother?

He understood her question and said firmly:

- Nowhere! We now have two houses with him, and both are our own. What else to look for?