Yuri Bondarev hot snow. Hot snow - Yury Vasilyevich Bondarev

The division of Colonel Deev, which included an artillery battery under the command of Lieutenant Drozdovsky, among many others, was transferred to Stalingrad, where the main forces of the Soviet Army accumulated. The battery included a platoon commanded by Lieutenant Kuznetsov. Drozdovsky and Kuznetsov graduated from the same school in Aktobe. At the school, Drozdovsky "stands out for his underlined, as if innate bearing, the imperious expression of his thin, pale face - the best cadet in the division, a favorite of the combatant commanders." And now, after graduating from college, Drozdovsky became Kuznetsov's closest commander.

Kuznetsov's platoon consisted of 12 people, among whom were Chibisov, the gunner of the first gun Nechaev and senior sergeant Ukhanov. Chibisov managed to visit German captivity. They looked askance at people like him, so Chibisov tried his best to oblige. Kuznetsov believed that Chibisov should have committed suicide instead of surrendering, but Chibisov was over forty and at that moment he only thought about his children.

Nechaev, a former sailor from Vladivostok, was an incorrigible womanizer and, on occasion, liked to court Zoya Elagina, the battery medical instructor.

Before the war, Sergeant Ukhanov served in the criminal investigation department, then he graduated from the Aktobe military school together with Kuznetsov and Drozdovsky. Once Ukhanov was returning from AWOL through the toilet window, stumbled upon the division commander, who was sitting on the push and could not help laughing. A scandal broke out, because of which Ukhanov was not given an officer's rank. For this reason, Drozdovsky treated Ukhanov with disdain. Kuznetsov accepted the sergeant as an equal.

Medical instructor Zoya at every stop resorted to the cars that housed Drozdovsky's battery. Kuznetsov guessed that Zoya had only come to see the battery commander.

At the last stop, Deev, the commander of the division, which included Drozdovsky's battery, arrived at the echelon. Next to Deev, “leaning on a stick, walked a lean, slightly uneven in gait unfamiliar general. It was the commander of the army, Lieutenant General Bessonov. The general's eighteen-year-old son went missing on the Volkhov front, and now every time the general's eyes fell on some young lieutenant, he remembered his son.

At this stop, Deev's division unloaded from the echelon and moved on horse-drawn. In Kuznetsov's platoon, the horses were driven by Rubin and Sergunenkov. At sunset we made a short halt. Kuznetsov guessed that Stalingrad was somewhere behind him, but did not know that their division was moving “towards the German tank divisions that had launched an offensive in order to release the thousands of Paulus army surrounded in the Stalingrad area.”

The kitchens fell behind and got lost somewhere in the rear. People were hungry and instead of water they collected trampled, dirty snow from the roadsides. Kuznetsov spoke about this with Drozdovsky, but he sharply reined in him, saying that they were on an equal footing at the school, and now he is the commander. “Every word of Drozdovsky raised such irresistible, deaf resistance in Kuznetsov, as if what Drozdovsky did, said, ordered him was a stubborn and calculated attempt to remind him of his power, to humiliate him.” The army moved on, in every way cursing the elders who had disappeared somewhere.

While Manstein’s tank divisions began to break through to the grouping of Colonel-General Paulus surrounded by our troops, the newly formed army, which included Deev’s division, was thrown south by Stalin’s order, towards the German shock group Goth. This new army was commanded by General Pyotr Aleksandrovich Bessonov, a middle-aged, reserved man. “He did not want to please everyone, did not want to seem like a pleasant conversationalist for everyone. Such a petty game in order to win sympathy always disgusted him.

Recently, it seemed to the general that "the whole life of his son passed monstrously imperceptibly, slipped past him." All his life, moving from one military unit to another, Bessonov thought that he would still have time to rewrite his life cleanly, but in a hospital near Moscow, he “for the first time got the idea that his life, the life of a military man, probably could only be in a single version, which he chose once and for all." It was there that his last meeting with his son Victor, a freshly minted infantry junior lieutenant, took place. Bessonov's wife, Olga, asked him to take his son to him, but Victor refused, and Bessonov did not insist. Now he was tormented by the realization that he could have saved his only son, but did not. "He felt more and more acutely that the fate of his son was becoming his father's cross."

Even during a reception at Stalin's, where Bessonov was invited before a new appointment, the question arose about his son. Stalin was well aware that Viktor was part of the army of General Vlasov, and Bessonov himself was familiar with him. Nevertheless, Stalin approved the appointment of Bessonov as a general of the new army.

From November 24 to November 29, the troops of the Don and Stalingrad fronts fought against the encircled German group. Hitler ordered Paulus to fight to the last soldier, then an order was received for Operation Winter Thunderstorm - a breakthrough of the encirclement by the German Don army under the command of Field Marshal Manstein. On December 12, Colonel-General Goth struck at the junction of the two armies of the Stalingrad Front. By December 15, the Germans had advanced forty-five kilometers towards Stalingrad. The introduced reserves could not change the situation - the German troops stubbornly made their way to the encircled grouping of Paulus. The main task of Bessonov's army, reinforced by a tank corps, was to detain the Germans and then force them to retreat. The last frontier was the Myshkova River, after which flat steppe stretched all the way to Stalingrad.

At the army command post, located in a dilapidated village, an unpleasant conversation took place between General Bessonov and a member of the military council, divisional commissar Vitaly Isaevich Vesnin. Bessonov did not trust the commissar, believed that he was sent to look after him because of a fleeting acquaintance with the traitor, General Vlasov.

Late at night, the division of Colonel Deev began to dig in on the banks of the Myshkova River. The battery of Lieutenant Kuznetsov dug guns into the frozen ground on the very bank of the river, scolding the foreman, who was a day behind the battery along with the kitchen. Sitting down to rest a bit, Lieutenant Kuznetsov remembered his native Zamoskvorechye. The lieutenant's father, an engineer, caught a cold at a construction site in Magnitogorsk and died. Mother and sister stayed at home.

Having dug in, Kuznetsov, together with Zoya, went to the command post to Drozdovsky. Kuznetsov looked at Zoya, and it seemed to him that he “saw her, Zoya, in a house comfortably heated for the night, at a table covered with a clean white tablecloth for the holiday,” in his apartment on Pyatnitskaya.

The battery commander explained the military situation and stated that he was dissatisfied with the friendship that arose between Kuznetsov and Ukhanov. Kuznetsov countered that Ukhanov could have been a good platoon leader if he had been promoted.

When Kuznetsov left, Zoya stayed with Drozdovsky. He spoke to her in the "jealous and at the same time demanding tone of a man who had the right to ask her like that." Drozdovsky was unhappy that Zoya visited Kuznetsov's platoon too often. He wanted to hide his relationship with her from everyone - he was afraid of gossip that would begin to walk around the battery and seep into the headquarters of the regiment or division. Zoya was bitter to think that Drozdovsky loved her so little.

Drozdovsky was from a family of hereditary military men. His father died in Spain, his mother died the same year. After the death of his parents, Drozdovsky did not go to an orphanage, but lived with distant relatives in Tashkent. He believed that his parents had betrayed him and was afraid that Zoya would betray him too. He demanded from Zoya evidence of her love for him, but she could not cross the last line, and this angered Drozdovsky.

General Bessonov arrived at the Drozdovsky battery, who was waiting for the return of the scouts who had set off for the "language". The general understood that the turning point of the war had come. The testimony of the "language" was supposed to provide the missing information about the reserves of the German army. The outcome of the Battle of Stalingrad depended on this.

The battle began with a Junkers raid, after which German tanks went on the attack. During the bombing, Kuznetsov remembered the gun sights - if they were broken, the battery would not be able to fire. The lieutenant wanted to send Ukhanov, but realized that he had no right and would never forgive himself if something happened to Ukhanov. Risking his life, Kuznetsov went to the guns along with Ukhanov and found the riders Rubin and Sergunenkov there, with whom the seriously wounded scout was lying.

Having sent a scout to the OP, Kuznetsov continued the fight. Soon he no longer saw anything around him, he commanded the gun "in an evil ecstasy, in a reckless and frantic unity with the calculation." The lieutenant felt "this hatred of possible death, this fusion with the gun, this fever of delusional rabies and only the edge of consciousness understanding what he was doing."

In the meantime, a German self-propelled gun hid behind two knocked out tanks by Kuznetsov and began firing point-blank at a neighboring gun. Assessing the situation, Drozdovsky handed two anti-tank grenades to Sergunenkov and ordered him to crawl up to the self-propelled gun and destroy it. Young and frightened, Sergunenkov died without fulfilling the order. “He sent Sergunenkov, having the right to order. And I was a witness - and for the rest of my life I will curse myself for this, ”thought Kuznetsov.

By the end of the day, it became clear that the Russian troops could not withstand the onslaught of the German army. German tanks had already broken through to the northern bank of the Myshkova River. General Bessonov did not want to send fresh troops into battle, fearing that the army would not have enough strength for a decisive blow. He ordered to fight to the last shell. Now Vesnin understood why there were rumors about Bessonov's cruelty.

Having moved to the Deeva command post, Bessonov realized that it was here that the Germans had directed the main blow. The scout found by Kuznetsov reported that two more people, along with the captured "tongue", were stuck somewhere in the German rear. Soon Bessonov was informed that the Germans had begun to surround the division.

The head of counterintelligence of the army arrived from the headquarters. He showed Vesnin a German leaflet, which contained a photograph of Bessonov's son, and told how well the son of a famous Russian military leader was being looked after in a German hospital. At the headquarters they wanted Bessnonov to stay in the army command post, under supervision. Vesnin did not believe in the betrayal of Bessonov Jr., and decided not to show this leaflet to the general for the time being.

Bessonov brought tank and mechanized corps into battle and asked Vesnin to go towards them and hurry them up. Fulfilling the request of the general, Vesnin died. General Bessonov never found out that his son was alive.

Ukhanov's only surviving gun fell silent late in the evening, when the shells obtained from other guns ran out. At this time, the tanks of Colonel-General Goth crossed the Myshkov River. With the onset of darkness, the battle began to subside behind.

Now for Kuznetsov, everything was “measured by other categories than a day ago.” Ukhanov, Nechaev and Chibisov were barely alive from fatigue. “This is the only surviving weapon, and four of them were awarded a smiling fate, the accidental happiness of surviving a day and an evening of endless battle, living longer than others. But there was no joy in life.” They ended up behind German lines.

Suddenly, the Germans began to attack again. By the light of the rockets, they saw a human body a stone's throw from their firing platform. Chibisov shot him, mistaking him for a German. It turned out to be one of those Russian intelligence officers that General Bessonov was waiting for. Two more scouts, together with the "tongue", hid in a funnel near two wrecked armored personnel carriers.

At this time, Drozdovsky appeared at the calculation, along with Rubin and Zoya. Without looking at Drozdovsky, Kuznetsov took Ukhanov, Rubin and Chibisov and went to help the scout. Following Kuznetsov's group, Drozdovsky also got in touch with two signalers and Zoya.

A captured German and one of the scouts were found at the bottom of a large funnel. Drozdovsky ordered a search for a second scout, despite the fact that, making his way to the funnel, he attracted the attention of the Germans, and now the entire area was under machine-gun fire. Drozdovsky himself crawled back, taking with him the "language" and the surviving scout. On the way, his group came under fire, during which Zoya was seriously wounded in the stomach, and Drozdovsky was shell-shocked.

When Zoya was brought to the calculation in her unfolded overcoat, she was already dead. Kuznetsov was like in a dream, "everything that had kept him in unnatural tension these days suddenly relaxed in him." Kuznetsov almost hated Drozdovsky for not saving Zoya. “He cried so alone and desperately for the first time in his life. And when he wiped his face, the snow on the sleeve of the quilted jacket was hot from his tears.

Already late in the evening, Bessonov realized that the Germans could not be pushed off the northern bank of the Myshkova River. By midnight, the fighting stopped, and Bessonov wondered if this was due to the fact that the Germans used all the reserves. Finally, a "language" was delivered to the command post, which said that the Germans had indeed committed reserves to the battle. After interrogation, Bessonov was informed that Vesnin had died. Now Bessonov regretted that their relationship "due to the fault of him, Bessonov, did not look the way Vesnin wanted and what they should have been."

The front commander contacted Bessonov and said that four tank divisions were successfully reaching the rear of the Don army. The general ordered the attack. Meanwhile, Bessonov's adjutant found a German leaflet among Vesnin's belongings, but did not dare to tell the general about it.

About forty minutes after the start of the attack, the battle reached a turning point. Following the battle, Bessonov could not believe his eyes when he saw that several guns had survived on the right bank. The corps brought into battle pushed the Germans to the right bank, captured the crossings and began to surround the German troops.

After the battle, Bessonov decided to drive along the right bank, taking with him all the available awards. He rewarded everyone who survived this terrible battle and the German encirclement. Bessonov "did not know how to cry, and the wind helped him, gave vent to tears of delight, sorrow and gratitude." The Order of the Red Banner was awarded to the entire crew of Lieutenant Kuznetsov. Ukhanov was hurt that Drozdovsky also got the order.

Kuznetsov, Ukhanov, Rubin and Nechaev sat and drank vodka with orders lowered into it, and the battle continued ahead.

Yuri Bondarev

HOT SNOW

Chapter first

Kuznetsov couldn't sleep. More and more pounded, rattled on the roof of the car, blizzard hit the overlapping winds, more and more tightly clogged with snow the hardly guessed window above the bunks.

With a wild, blizzard-rending roar, the locomotive drove the echelon through the night fields, in the white mud rushing from all sides, and in the thundering darkness of the car, through the frozen squeal of the wheels, through the anxious sobs, mumbling in the sleep of the soldiers, this roar continuously warning someone was heard locomotive, and it seemed to Kuznetsov that there, ahead, beyond the blizzard, the glow of the burning city was already dimly visible.

After the stop in Saratov, it became clear to everyone that the division was being urgently transferred to Stalingrad, and not to the Western Front, as was originally supposed; and now Kuznetsov knew that he had only a few hours to go. And, pulling the hard, unpleasantly damp collar of his greatcoat over his cheek, he could not get warm, gain warmth in order to fall asleep: a piercing blow blew through the invisible cracks of the swept window, icy drafts walked along the bunks.

“So I won’t see my mother for a long time,” thought Kuznetsov, cringing from the cold, “they drove us past ...”.

What was a past life - the summer months at a school in hot, dusty Aktyubinsk, with hot winds from the steppe, with the cries of donkeys on the outskirts choking in the sunset silence, so precise in time every evening that platoon commanders in tactical exercises, languishing with thirst , not without relief, they checked their watches against them, marches in the stupefying heat, sweaty and white-scorched tunics in the sun, grit of sand on their teeth; Sunday patrols of the city, in the city garden, where in the evenings a military brass band played peacefully on the dance floor; then release to the school, loading on alarm on an autumn night into wagons, a gloomy forest covered in wild snows, snowdrifts, dugouts of a formation camp near Tambov, then again on alarm at a frosty pinking December dawn, a hasty loading into an echelon and, finally, departure - all this unsteady , temporary, someone controlled life has faded now, remained far behind, in the past. And there was no hope of seeing his mother, and quite recently he had almost no doubt that they would be taken west through Moscow.

“I’ll write to her,” Kuznetsov thought with a suddenly heightened sense of loneliness, “and I’ll explain everything. After all, we have not seen each other for nine months ... ".

And the whole car was asleep to the rattle, squeal, to the cast-iron rumble of running wheels, the walls swayed tightly, the upper bunks shook at the frantic speed of the echelon, and Kuznetsov, shuddering, finally vegetating in the drafts near the window, turned back his collar, looked enviously at the sleeping commander of the second platoon lieutenant Davlatyan - his face was not visible in the darkness of the plank.

“No, here, near the window, I won’t sleep, I’ll freeze to the front,” Kuznetsov thought to himself with annoyance and moved, stirred, hearing the frost crunching on the boards of the car.

He freed himself from the cold, prickly crampedness of his place, jumped off the bunk, feeling that he needed to warm himself by the stove: his back was completely numb.

In the iron stove at the side of the closed door, flickering with thick hoarfrost, the fire had long since gone out; But down here, it seemed a little warmer. In the twilight of the carriage, this crimson glow of coal weakly illuminated the new felt boots, bowlers, knapsacks under their heads in various ways sticking out in the aisle. The orderly Chibisov slept uncomfortably on the lower bunk, right on the feet of the soldiers; his head was hidden in the collar up to the top of the cap, his hands were thrust into the sleeves.

Chibisov! - Called Kuznetsov and opened the door of the stove, which wafted from within a barely perceptible warmth. - Everything went out, Chibisov!

There was no answer.

Daily, do you hear?

Chibisov jumped up in fright, sleepy, rumpled, his hat with earflaps pulled down low, tied with ribbons at the chin. Still not waking up from sleep, he tried to push his earflaps off his forehead, to untie the ribbons, crying out incomprehensibly and timidly:

What is me? No, fell asleep? Exactly stunned me with unconsciousness. I apologize, Comrade Lieutenant! Wow, I was drowsy to the bone! ..

We fell asleep and the whole car was chilled out, ”Kuznetsov said reproachfully.

Yes, I didn’t want to, Comrade Lieutenant, by chance, without intent, - Chibisov muttered. - Dropped me...

Then, without waiting for Kuznetsov's orders, he fussed with excessive cheerfulness, grabbed a plank from the floor, broke it over his knee, and began to push the pieces into the stove. At the same time, stupidly, as if his sides were itching, he moved his elbows and shoulders, often bending down, busily looked into the blower, where the fire crawled with lazy reflections; Chibisov's revived, soot-stained face expressed conspiratorial obsequiousness.

I'm now, comrade lieutenant, I'll catch up warmly! Let's heat it up, it will be exactly in the bath. I'll die for the war myself! Oh, how I've been chilling, it breaks every bone - there are no words! ..

Kuznetsov sat down opposite the open door of the stove. The exaggeratedly deliberate fussiness of the orderly, this obvious allusion to his past, was unpleasant to him. Chibisov was from his platoon. And the fact that he, with his immoderate diligence, always trouble-free, lived for several months in German captivity, and from the first day of his appearance in the platoon was constantly ready to serve everyone, caused him wary pity.

Chibisov gently, like a woman, sank down on the bunk, his sleepless eyes blinked.

So we're going to Stalingrad, Comrade Lieutenant? According to reports, what a meat grinder there! Aren't you afraid, Comrade Lieutenant? Nothing?

We’ll come and see what kind of meat grinder it is,” Kuznetsov replied languidly, peering into the fire. - What are you afraid of? Why was asked?

Yes, you can say that there is no fear that before, - Chibisov answered falsely cheerfully and, sighing, put his small hands on his knees, spoke in a confidential tone, as if wanting to convince Kuznetsov: - After our people released me from captivity , believe me, comrade lieutenant. And I spent three whole months, exactly a puppy in shit, with the Germans. They believed... What a huge war, different people are fighting. How can you believe right now? - Chibisov squinted cautiously at Kuznetsov; he was silent, pretending to be busy with the stove, warming himself by its living warmth: he concentratedly squeezed and unclenched his fingers over the open door. “Do you know how I got captured, Comrade Lieutenant? I didn’t tell you, but I want to tell you. The Germans drove us into the ravine. Under Vyazma. And when their tanks came close, surrounded us, and we didn’t even have shells, the regiment commissar jumped out on top of his “emka” with a pistol, shouting: “Better death than captivity to fascist bastards!” and shot himself in the temple. It even splashed from the head. And the Germans are running towards us from all sides. Their tanks are strangling people alive. Here and ... the colonel and someone else ...

And what's next? Kuznetsov asked.

I couldn't shoot myself. They piled us into a heap, yelling "Hyundai Hoch." And led...

It's clear, - said Kuznetsov with that serious intonation, which clearly said that in Chibisov's place he would have acted completely differently. - So, Chibisov, they shouted "Hyundai Hoh" - and you handed over your weapons? Did you have a weapon?

Chibisov answered, timidly defending himself with a forced half-smile:

You are very young, comrade lieutenant, you have no children, you can say that you have no family. Parents are…

Why are the children here? - said Kuznetsov with embarrassment, noticing a quiet, guilty expression on Chibisov's face, and added: - It does not matter.

Why doesn't it, comrade lieutenant?

Well, maybe I didn’t put it that way ... Of course, I don’t have children.

Chibisov was twenty years older than him - "father", "father", the oldest in the platoon. He was completely subordinate to Kuznetsov on duty, but Kuznetsov, now constantly remembering the two lieutenant's cubes in his buttonholes, which immediately burdened him with a new responsibility after school, still felt insecure every time, talking with Chibisov who had lived his life.

Are you awake, lieutenant, or did you just imagine? Is the oven on fire? ' came a sleepy voice overhead.

There was a fuss on the upper bunks, then heavily, like a bear, senior sergeant Ukhanov, the commander of the first gun from Kuznetsov's platoon, jumped to the stove.

Frozen as hell! Are you warming, Slavs? asked Ukhanov with a long yawn. Or do you tell stories?

Shaking his heavy shoulders, throwing back the hem of his overcoat, he walked to the door along the swaying floor. With force he pushed the rumbling bulky door away with one hand, leaned against the gap, looking into the blizzard. Snow swirled in a blizzard in the carriage, cold air blew, the steam carried over the legs; along with the roar, the frosty screeching of wheels, burst in the wild, menacing roar of the locomotive.

Oh, and the wolf night - no fire, no Stalingrad! Ukhanov uttered, shrugging his shoulders, and slammed shut the iron-studded door in the corners.

Then, tapping his felt boots, grunting loudly and in surprise, he went up to the already hot stove; his mocking, bright eyes were still filled with drowsiness, snowflakes were white on his eyebrows. He sat down next to Kuznetsov, rubbed his hands, took out a pouch and, remembering something, laughed, flashing his front steel tooth.

Again grub dreamed. Either I slept, or I didn’t sleep: as if some city was empty, and I was alone ... I entered some bombed-out store - bread, canned food, wine, sausage on the shelves ... Now, I think, I’ll ruban now! But he froze, like a tramp under a net, and woke up. It's a shame ... The store is whole! Imagine, Chibisov!

He turned not to Kuznetsov, but to Chibisov, clearly hinting that the lieutenant was not like the others.

I don’t argue with your dream, comrade senior sergeant, ”Chibisov answered and sniffed warm air through his nostrils, as if the fragrant smell of bread was coming from the stove, meekly looking at Ukhanov’s pouch. - And if you don’t smoke at all at night, the economy is back. Ten twists.

Oh, you are a great diplomat, dad! said Ukhanov, thrusting a pouch into his hands. - Roll at least as thick as a fist. Who the hell is saving? Meaning? - He lit a cigarette and, exhaling smoke, poked the board in the fire. - And I'm sure, brothers, on the front line with grub will be better. Yes, and trophies will go! Where there are Fritz, there are trophies, and then, Chibisov, the whole collective farm will not have to sweep the lieutenant's extra ration. - He blew on his cigarette, narrowed his eyes: - How, Kuznetsov, the duties of a father-commander are not heavy, huh? It is easier for the soldiers - answer for yourself. Don't you regret having too many gavriks around your neck?

I don’t understand, Ukhanov, why weren’t you given a title? - said Kuznetsov, somewhat offended by his mocking tone. - Can you explain?

Together with senior sergeant Ukhanov, he graduated from a military artillery school, but for unknown reasons, Ukhanov was not allowed to take exams, and he arrived in the regiment with the rank of senior sergeant, was enrolled in the first platoon as a gun commander, which extremely embarrassed Kuznetsov.

All my life I dreamed, - Ukhanov grinned good-naturedly. - I got it in the wrong direction, lieutenant ... Okay, I would take a nap for six hundred minutes. Maybe the store will dream again? BUT? Well, brothers, if anything, consider not returning from the attack ...

Ukhanov threw his cigarette butt into the stove, stretched himself, got up, walked clubfoot to the bunks, jumped ponderously onto the rustling straw; pushing the sleeping ones aside, he said: “Come on, brothers, free up living space.” And soon it was quiet at the top.

You should lie down too, comrade lieutenant, - Chibisov advised with a sigh. - The night is short, you see. Don't worry, for God's sake.

Kuznetsov, his face blazing in the heat of the furnace, also got up, adjusted the holster of his pistol with a trained drill gesture, and said to Chibisov in an ordering tone:

They would have performed better the duties of an orderly! - But, having said this, Kuznetsov noticed Chibisov's timid, bruised look, felt the unjustification of the bossy harshness - he had been accustomed to the command tone for six months at the school - and unexpectedly corrected himself in an undertone:

Just so that the stove, please, does not go out. Do you hear?

Clearly, Comrade Lieutenant. Don't hesitate, you might say. Good sleep...

Kuznetsov climbed onto his bunk, into the darkness, unwarmed, icy, creaking, trembling from the frantic running of the train, and here he felt that he would freeze again in the draft. And from different ends of the car came the snoring and sniffling of the soldiers. Slightly pushing Lieutenant Davlatyan, who was sleeping next to him, who sobbed drowsily, smacked his lips like a child, Kuznetsov, breathing into his upturned collar, pressing his cheek against the wet, prickly pile, chilly tightening, touched his knees with his knees, large as salt, frost on the wall - and from this it became even more colder.

Packed straw slid under him with a wet rustle. The frozen walls smelled ironically, and everything carried and carried in the face with a thin and sharp stream of cold from the graying window overhead clogged with snowstorm snow.

And the locomotive, tearing the night apart with a persistent and menacing roar, raced the echelon without stopping in impenetrable fields - closer and closer to the front.

Chapter Two

Kuznetsov woke up from silence, from a state of sudden and unaccustomed peace, and the thought flashed through his half-asleep mind: “This is unloading! We stand! Why didn't they wake me up?"

He jumped off the bunk. It was a quiet frosty morning. A cold breeze blew through the wide-open door of the carriage; after the blizzard that calmed down by morning, waves of endless snowdrifts arched around motionlessly, mirror-like to the very horizon; the sun, low and without rays, hung over them in a heavy crimson ball, and the crushed frost in the air shone sharply, sparkled.

There was no one in the icy car. There was crumpled straw on the bunks, carbines in the pyramid glowed reddish, untied duffel bags lay on the boards. And near the car, someone clapped their mittens like a cannon, the snow under the felt boots rang firmly, freshly in the tight frosty silence, voices sounded:

Where, fellow Slavs, is Stalingrad?

We do not unload like? There was no team. We can eat. They must not have arrived. Ours are already out with bowlers.

And someone else said hoarsely and cheerfully:

Oh, and a clear sky, they will fly in! .. Just right!

Kuznetsov, instantly shaking off the remnants of sleep, went up to the door and, from the burning radiance of the desert snows under the sun, even closed his eyes, embraced by the cutting frosty air.

The echelon stood in the steppe. Groups of soldiers crowded around the carriage, on the blizzard-beaten snow; excitedly shoved their shoulders, warming themselves, clapping their mittens on their sides, and now and then turning around - all in the same direction.

There, in the middle of the train, in the candy pink of the morning smoked on the platform of the kitchen, opposite them the roof of the lonely building of the siding was gently reddened from the snowdrifts. Soldiers with bowlers ran to the kitchens, to the junction house, and the snow around the kitchens, around the crane-well, swarmed like an ant with overcoats, padded jackets - the whole echelon seemed to be collecting water, preparing for breakfast.

The car was talking:

Well, it sneaks, homies, from the soles! Thirty degrees, perhaps? Now it would be warmer in the hut and dare the woman, and - "Roses are blooming in Chair Chair ...".

Nechaev is all one aria. To whom, but to him about the women! In the Navy, they probably fed you with chocolates - so you male, you can’t drive away with a stick!

Not so rough, homie! What can you understand in this! “Spring is coming in Chair Park…” Hillbilly, brother, you.

Phew, stallion! Again the same!

How long have we been standing? Kuznetsov asked, addressing no one in particular, and jumped down onto the creaking snow.

Seeing the lieutenant, the soldiers, without ceasing to push, stamp their boots, did not stretch out in the statutory greeting ("They got used to it, devils!" thought Kuznetsov), they only stopped talking for a minute; in all of them, hoarfrost was prickly silver on the eyebrows, on the fur of earflaps, on the raised collars of their overcoats. The gunner of the first gun, Sergeant Nechaev, tall, lean, from the Far Eastern sailors, noticeable with velvet moles, slanting sideburns on his cheekbones and a dark mustache, said:

It was ordered not to wake you, Comrade Lieutenant. Ukhanov said: they were on duty all night. So far, there has been no rush.

Where is Drozdovsky? Kuznetsov frowned, looked at the shining needles of the sun.

Toilet, comrade lieutenant, - Nechaev winked. About twenty meters away, beyond the snowdrifts, Kuznetsov saw the commander of the battery, Lieutenant Drozdovsky. Even at the school, he stood out with an accentuated, as if innate in his bearing, with an imperious expression of a thin, pale face - the best cadet in the division, a favorite of the combatant commanders. Now he, naked to the waist, playing with the strong muscles of a gymnast, walked in full view of the soldiers and, bending down, silently and energetically rubbed himself with the snow. A light steam came from his supple, youthful torso, from his shoulders, from his clean, hairless chest; and there was something demonstratively stubborn in the way he washed himself and rubbed himself with handfuls of snow.

Well, he’s doing the right thing, ”Kuznetsov said seriously.

But, knowing that he himself would not do this, he took off his hat, put it in the pocket of his overcoat, unbuttoned his collar, picked up a handful of hard, rough snow, and, tearing his skin painfully, rubbed his cheeks and chin.

What a surprise! Are you to us? - he heard the exaggeratedly delighted voice of Nechaev. - How glad we are to see you! We greet you with the whole battery, Zoechka!

Washing himself, Kuznetsov suffocated from the cold, from the insipidly bitter taste of snow, and, straightening up, catching his breath, having already taken out a handkerchief instead of a towel - he did not want to return to the car, - again he heard the laughter behind him, the loud talk of the soldiers. Then a fresh female voice said from behind:

I don't understand, first battery, what's going on here?

Kuznetsov turned around. Near the car, among the smiling soldiers, stood the orderly officer of the battery, Zoya Elagina, in a coquettish white sheepskin coat, in neat white felt boots, in white embroidered mittens, not military, all, it seemed, festively clean, winter, who came from another, calm, distant world. Zoya looked at Drozdovsky with stern eyes that held back laughter. And he, not noticing her, with trained movements, bending and unbending, quickly rubbed his strong pink body, beat his hands on his shoulders, on his stomach, exhaling, somewhat theatrically raising his chest with breaths. Everyone was now looking at him with the same expression that had been in Zoe's eyes.

Lieutenant Drozdovsky shook off the snow from his chest and, with the disapproving look of a man who was prevented, untied the towel at his waist, allowed without a desire:

Contact.

Good morning, comrade battalion commander! - she said, and Kuznetsov, drying himself with a handkerchief, saw how the tips of her eyelashes, shaggyly covered with hoarfrost, trembled a little. - I need you. Can your battery give me attention?

Without haste, Drozdovsky threw a towel over his neck and moved towards the carriage; snow-washed shoulders gleamed and shone; short hair is damp; he walked, gazing authoritatively at the soldiers crowding around the carriage with his blue, almost transparent eyes. On the go he dropped carelessly:

I'm guessing a paramedic. Have you come to the battery to inspect form number eight? There are no lice.

You talk a lot, Nechaev! - Drozdovsky cut off and, passing by Zoya, ran up the iron ladder into the car, filled with the talk of soldiers returning from the kitchen, excited before breakfast, with steaming soup in pots, with three knapsacks stuffed with crackers and loaves of bread. The soldiers, with the usual hustle for such a thing, were spreading someone's overcoat on the lower bunk, preparing to cut bread on it, their faces burned by the cold were preoccupied with economic employment. And Drozdovsky, putting on his tunic, straightening it, commanded:

Quiet! Is it possible without a market? Gun commanders, put things in order! Nechaev, why are you standing there? Take care of the products. You seem to be a master at sharing! They'll deal with the nurse without you.

Sergeant Nechaev nodded apologetically to Zoya, climbed into the car, and spoke from there:

What's the reason, homies, stop the rush! Why did they make noise like tanks?

And Kuznetsov, feeling uncomfortable because Zoya saw this noisy bustle of soldiers busy dividing food, who no longer paid attention to her, wanted to say with some terrifying intonation of his most dashing: “It really makes no sense for you to conduct an inspection in our platoons. But it's just good that you came to us."

He would not have fully explained to himself why, almost every time Zoya appeared in the battery, everyone was pushed to this disgusting, vulgar tone, to which he was now tempted, a careless tone of flirting, a hidden hint, as if her arrival jealously revealed something to everyone , as if on her slightly sleepy face, sometimes in the shadows under her eyes, something promising, vicious, secret was read in her lips, which she could have had with the medical battalion young doctors in the ambulance car, where she was most of the way. But Kuznetsov guessed that at every stop she came to the battery not only for a sanitary inspection. It seemed to him that she was looking for communication with Drozdovsky.

Everything is in order in the battery, Zoya, - Kuznetsov said. - No inspection required. Moreover, breakfast.

Zoya shrugged.

What a special car! And no complaints. Don't be naive, it doesn't suit you! - she said, measuring Kuznetsov's eyelashes with a wave, smiling mockingly. - And your beloved lieutenant Drozdovsky, after his dubious procedures, I think, will not be on the front line, but in the hospital!

Firstly, he is not my favorite, - Kuznetsov replied. - Secondly…

Thank you, Kuznetsov, for your frankness. And secondly? What do you think of me, secondly?

Lieutenant Drozdovsky, already dressed, tightening his overcoat with a belt with a brand new holster dangled, easily jumped into the snow, looked at Kuznetsov, at Zoya, slowly finished:

Are you saying, medical officer, that I look like a crossbow?

Zoya threw back her head in defiance.

Maybe so ... At least the possibility is not ruled out.

That's what, - Drozdovsky announced decisively, - you are not a class teacher, and I am not a schoolboy. I ask you to go to the ambulance. Is that clear?.. Lieutenant Kuznetsov, stay behind me. I - to the division commander.

Drozdovsky, with an impenetrable face, threw up his hand to his temple and, with the flexible, elastic gait of a fine construction worker, as if tightened by a belt and a new harness, strode past the soldiers busily scurrying along the rails. They parted before him, fell silent at the mere sight of him, and he walked, as if parting the soldiers with his eyes, at the same time answering greetings with a short and careless wave of his hand. The sun in iridescent frosty rings stood over the radiant whiteness of the steppe. A dense crowd continued to gather around the well and immediately dispersed; here they fetched water and washed themselves, taking off their hats, groaning, snorting, shivering; then they ran to the kitchens smoking invitingly in the middle of the echelon, just in case, skirting around a group of divisional commanders near a frost-covered passenger car.

Drozdovsky went to this group.

And Kuznetsov saw how, with an incomprehensible, helpless expression, Zoya followed him with inquiring, slightly laced eyes. He offered:

Would you like to have breakfast with us?

What? she asked inattentively.

Together with us. You haven't had breakfast yet.

Comrade Lieutenant, everything is getting cold! Waiting for you! shouted Nechaev from the carriage door. “Pea soup puree,” he added, scooping from the pot with a spoon and licking his mustache. - Do not choke - you will be alive!

Behind him, the soldiers rustled, sorting out their portions from the spread overcoat, some with a satisfied chuckle, others grumblingly seated on the bunk, plunging spoons into the bowlers, sinking their teeth into the black, frozen slices of bread. And now no one paid any attention to Zoya.

Chibisov! Kuznetsov called. - Come on, my bowler hat to the medical officer!

Sister! .. Why are you? - Chibisov answered in a melodious voice from the car. - Camping with us, one might say, is fun.

Yes… well, she said absently. - Maybe ... Of course, Lieutenant Kuznetsov. I didn't have breakfast. But ... me your bowler hat? And you?

Later. I won’t stay hungry,” Kuznetsov answered. Chewing hurriedly, Chibisov went up to the door, too eagerly sticking out his overgrown face from his upturned collar; as in a child's game, Zoya nodded with pleasant participation, thin, small, in a short, absurdly wide overcoat sitting on him.

Get in, sister. Why!..

I'll eat a little from your bowler, - said Zoya Kuznetsova - Only together with you. Otherwise, I won't...

The soldiers ate breakfast with sniffling and quacking; and after the first spoons of warm soup, after the first sips of boiling water, they again began to glance at Zoya curiously. Unbuttoning the collar of her new short fur coat so that her white throat was visible, she carefully ate from Kuznetsov's bowler hat, placing the bowler hat on her knees, lowering her eyes under the looks turned on her.

Kuznetsov ate with her, trying not to watch how she neatly raised the spoon to her lips, how her throat moved as she swallowed; her lowered eyelashes were damp, in the melted hoarfrost, stuck together, blackened, hiding the gleam of her eyes, which betrayed her excitement. She was hot near the red-hot stove. She took off her hat, her chestnut hair spilled over the white fur of her collar, and without a hat she suddenly emerged as an unprotected pitiful, high-cheeked, large-mouthed, with an intensely childish, even timid face, which stood out strangely among the steamed, purple faces of the gunners, and for the first time Kuznetsov noticed: she was ugly. He had never seen her without a hat before.

- “Roses are blooming in Chair Park, spring is coming in Chair Park ...”.

Sergeant Nechaev, legs apart, stood in the aisle, humming softly, looking around Zoya with an affectionate smile, while Chibisov especially helpfully poured out a full mug of tea and handed it to her. She took the hot mug with her fingertips and said shyly:

Thanks, Chibisov. She raised her moist, luminous eyes to Nechaev. - Tell me, sergeant, what are these parks and roses? I don't understand why you sing about them all the time?

The soldiers stirred, encouragingly encouraging Nechaev:

Come on, sergeant, there's a question. Where are these songs from?

Vladivostok, - Nechaev answered dreamily. - A bank leave, a dance floor, and - “In the Chair Chair ...” I served for three years under this tango. You can kill yourself, Zoya, what were the girls in Vladivostok - queens, ballerinas! I will remember all my life!

He straightened his sea buckle, made a gesture with his hands, indicating an embrace in dance, took a step, wagged his hips singing:

- "Spring is coming in Chair Park ... Your golden braids are dreaming ...". Tram-pa-pa-pi-pa-pi...

Zoya laughed hard.

Golden braids… Roses. Pretty vulgar words, Sergeant… Queens and ballerinas. Have you ever seen queens?

In your face, honestly. You have a figurine of a queen,” Nechaev said boldly and winked at the soldiers.

Why is he laughing at her? thought Kuznetsov. “Why didn’t I notice before that she was ugly?”

If it were not for the war - oh, Zoya, you underestimate me - I would steal you on a dark night, take you somewhere in a taxi, sit in some country restaurant at your feet with a bottle of champagne, as in front of a queen ... And then - sneeze into the world! Would you agree?

By taxi? In a restaurant? It's romantic, - said Zoya, waiting for the laughter of the soldiers. - Never experienced.

Everything would be tested with me.

Sergeant Nechaev said this, enveloping Zoya with brown eyes, and Kuznetsov, sensing the naked slipperiness in his words, interrupted sternly:

Enough, Nechaev, grind nonsense! We talked from three boxes! What's with the restaurant, damn it! What does that have to do with it!.. Zoya, drink some tea, please.

You are funny, - said Zoya, and as if a reflection of pain appeared in a thin wrinkle on her white forehead.

She still held the hot cup in front of her lips with her fingertips, but did not drink her tea in small sips as before; and that mournful wrinkle, which seemed accidental on her white skin, did not straighten out, did not smooth out on her forehead. Zoya put the mug on the stove and asked Kuznetsov with deliberate insolence:

Why are you looking at me like that? What are you looking for in my face? Soot from the stove? Or, like Nechaev, did they also remember some queens?

I only read about queens in children's fairy tales, ”Kuznetsov replied and frowned to hide his awkwardness.

You are all funny,” she repeated.

And how old are you, Zoya, eighteen? Nechaev asked guessingly. - That is, as they say in the fleet, they left the stocks in the twenty-fourth? I am four years older than you, Zoechka. Significant difference.

You didn't guess," she said, smiling. - I'm thirty years old, comrade slipway. Thirty years and three months.

Sergeant Nechaev, showing extreme surprise on his swarthy face, said in a tone of playful allusion:

Do you really want to be thirty? Then how old is your mother? Does she look like you? Allow her address. - A thin mustache rose in a smile, parted over white teeth. - I will conduct front-line correspondence. Let's exchange photos.

Zoya looked squeamishly at Nechaev's lean figure and said with a tremble in her voice:

How you were stuffed with the vulgarity of the dance floor! Address? Please. The city of Przemysl, the second city cemetery. Write or remember? After the forty-first year, I have no parents, - she finished fiercely. - But know, Nechaev, I have a husband ... It's true, dear, it's true! I have a husband…

It became quiet. The soldiers, who had been listening to the conversation without sympathetic encouragement at this naughty game played by Nechaev, stopped eating - they all turned to her at once. Sergeant Nechaev, peering with jealous distrust into the face of Zoya, who was sitting with downcast eyes, asked:

Who is he, your husband, if not a secret? Regimental commander, perhaps? Or are there rumors that you like our lieutenant Drozdovsky?

“This, of course, is not true,” Kuznetsov thought, also without trust in her words. - She made it up now. She doesn't have a husband. And it can't be."

Well, enough, Nechaev! Kuznetsov said. - Stop asking questions! You are like a broken gramophone record. Don't you notice?

And he got up, looked around the car, the pyramid with weapons, the DP light machine gun at the bottom of the pyramid; noticing on the bunk an untouched bowl of soup, a portion of bread, a little white pile of sugar on a newspaper, he asked:

And where is senior sergeant Ukhanov?

At the foreman, comrade lieutenant, - answered from the upper bunk, sitting on his legs tucked in, a young Kazakh Kasymov. - He said: take a cup, take bread, he will come ...

In a short quilted jacket, in wadded trousers, Kasymov silently jumped from the bunk; crookedly spreading his legs in felt boots, his eyes twinkled with narrow slits.

Can you search, Comrade Lieutenant?

No need. Have breakfast, Kasymov.

Chibisov, sighing, spoke in an encouraging, melodious voice:

Is your husband, sister, angry or what? Serious, right, man?

Thank you for your hospitality, first battery! - Zoya shook her hair and smiled, opening her eyebrows above the bridge of her nose, put on her new hat with hare fur, tucked her hair under the hat. - Here, it seems, the steam locomotive is being served. Do you hear?

The last run to the front - and hello, Fritz, I'm your aunt! someone shouted from the upper bunk and laughed wickedly.

Zoya, don't leave us, by God! Nechaev said. - Stay in our car. What is your husband for? Why is he in the war?

There must be two locomotives coming, - said a smoky voice from the bunk. - Now us quickly. Last stop. And Stalingrad.

Or maybe not the last? Maybe here?..

Well, hurry up! Kuznetsov said.

Who said steam locomotive? Crazy? - the gunner Yevstigneev, a sergeant in years, uttered loudly, drinking tea from a mug with thorough efficiency, and jumped up with a jerk, looked out of the car door.

What is it, Evstigneev? Kuznetsov called out. - Team?

And, turning around, I saw his large head tilted up, his eyes searching the sky in alarm, but he did not hear an answer. Anti-aircraft guns fired from both ends of the echelon.

Say, brothers, wait! - someone shouted, jumping from the bunk. - Arrived!

Here's your steam locomotive! With bombs...

The approaching thin ringing immediately crashed into the feverish barking of anti-aircraft guns, then the twin battle of machine guns ripped through the air above the echelon - and a cry of warning voices burst into the car from the steppe: “Air! "Messer"! Gunner Evstigneev, throwing a mug on the bunk, rushed to the pyramid with weapons, pushing Zoya to the door on the move, and around the soldiers jumped from the bunk in confusion, grabbing carbines from the pyramid. For a short moment, the thought slipped through Kuznetsov's head: “Only calmly. I'll be the last one out!" And he commanded:

All from the wagon!

Two echelon anti-aircraft guns fired so deafeningly close that their frequent blows resounded in the ears with bursts of ringing. The rapidly overtaking sound of engines, the scream of machine-gun bursts scattered overhead with a fractional clatter, passed along the roof of the car.

Rushing to the open door, Kuznetsov saw soldiers with carbines jumping on the snow, scattering across the sunny white steppe. And, feeling a cold lightness in his stomach, he jumped out of the car himself, in a few jumps he reached a huge snowdrift shimmering blue down the slope, fell from a run with someone nearby, feeling the piercing whistle drilling the air with the back of his head. With difficulty overcoming this heaviness in the back of his head, bending to the ground, he nevertheless raised his head.

In the vast cold-blue radiance of the winter sky, thin planes sparkling aluminum, flashing in the sun with plexiglass caps, a trio of Messerschmitts dived into the echelon.

The paths of anti-aircraft shells, bleached by the sun, continuously flew out towards them from the end and in front of the echelon, crumbled into a dotted line, and the elongated wasp bodies of the fighters fell steeper and steeper, rushed down, trembling with the sharp flame of machine guns and rapid-fire cannons. A dense rainbow of tracks rushed from above the sides of the cars, from which people fled.

Just above the roofs of the cars, the first fighter leveled off and swept horizontally along the echelon, the other two flashed behind it.

Ahead of the locomotive, swaying the air, a bomb gap grew, whirlwinds of snow soared - and, having steeply gained altitude, making a U-turn towards the sun, the fighters, descending, again rushed to the echelon

“They see us all well,” Kuznetsov had. - Need to do something!"

Fire!.. Fire from carbines at the planes! - He knelt down, giving a command, and immediately on the other side of the snowdrift he saw Zoya's raised head - her eyebrows were slanted in surprise, her frozen eyes were widened. He shouted to her: - Zoya, to the steppe! Get away from the wagons!

But she, silently biting her lips, looked at the train. Lieutenant Drozdovsky ran there in jumps in his narrow overcoat, as if drenched over his body, and shouted something - it was impossible to understand. Drozdovsky jumped into the open doors of the car and jumped out with a light machine gun in his hands. Then, having run off into the steppe, he fell near Kuznetsov, with a frantic haste, squeezing the bipod of the DP into the crest of a snowdrift. And, snapping the disk into the clamps, he slashed the burst at the fighters, which dived from the shining blue of the sky, pulsing with ragged flashes.

A direct fiery corridor of tracks aimed at the ground was rapidly approaching. Kuznetsov's head was struck by the deafening crackle of bursts, the piercing ringing of the engine, iridescent, as in a kaleidoscope, sparkled in his eyes. Icy dust sprayed into my face, knocked down by machine-gun bursts from a snowdrift. And in the roaring blackness, which closed the sky for a second, spent large-caliber cartridge cases tumbled and jumped in the snow. But the most incomprehensible thing was that Kuznetsov managed to notice in the Messerschmitt's plexiglass cap rushing down the ovoid, helmet-covered head of the pilot.

Having doused with the iron clink of engines, the planes came out of the dive a few meters from the ground, leveled off, quickly gaining altitude over the steppe.

Volodya! Don't get up! Wait! .. - he heard a scream and immediately saw how Drozdovsky threw away the empty disk, trying to get up, and Zoya, tightly hugging him, pressed her chest against him, did not let him go. - Volodya! I beg you!..

Can't you see - the disk is over! Drozdovsky shouted, twisting his face, pushing Zoya away. - Don't interfere! Don't bother, they say!

He unhooked her hands, ran to the carriage, and she, confused, lay in the snow, and then Kuznetsov crawled close to her.

What's with the machine gun?

She looked - her expression instantly changed, became defiant, unpleasant.

What about Lieutenant Kuznetsov? Why don't you shoot at planes? Cowardly? One Drozdovsky?..

From what, from a pistol to shoot? .. So you think?

She didn't answer him.

The fighters dived ahead of the echelon, circling over the locomotive, and the first two Pullman cars began to smoke thickly. Flames of flame slipped out of the open doors, crawled along the roof. And this fire that broke out, the roofs engulfed in flames, the stubborn dive of the Messerschmitts suddenly caused Kuznetsov a feeling of nauseating impotence, and it seemed to him that these three planes would not fly away until they had defeated the entire echelon.

“No, now they will run out of cartridges,” Kuznetsov began to inspire himself. “Now it’s over…”

But the fighters made a U-turn and again at low level went along the echelon.

Sanita-ar! Sister-a! - came a cry from the side of the burning cars, and the figures rushed about randomly there, dragging someone through the snow.

Me, - said Zoya and jumped up, looking at the open doors of the car, at the machine gun stuck in the snowdrift. - Kuznetsov, where is Drozdovsky? I'm going. Tell him I'm there...

He had no right to stop her, and she, holding the bag, walked with quick steps, then ran across the steppe in the direction of the fire, disappeared behind the snowdrifts.

Kuznetsov!.. You?

Lieutenant Drozdovsky ran up from the car in jumps, fell near the machine gun, inserted a new disk into the clamps. His thin pale face was angrily pointed.

What are they doing, bastards! Where is Zoya?

Someone was wounded in front, ”Kuznetsov answered, pressing the machine-gun bipod more tightly into the hard crust of snow. - Here they go again...

Bastards... Where is Zoya, I ask? - Drozdovsky shouted, leaning his shoulder to the machine gun, and as the Messerschmitts dived one after another, his eyes narrowed, the pupils froze with black dots in the transparent blue.

The anti-aircraft gun at the end of the echelon fell silent.

Drozdovsky fired a long burst at the elongated metal hull of the first fighter that glittered overhead and did not let go of the trigger until the fuselage of the last aircraft flashed like a blinding razor blade.

Got it! Drozdovsky shouted out in a strangled voice. - Did you see, Kuznetsov? After all, I got in! .. I could not help but get in! ..

And the fighters were already rushing over the steppe, tearing through the air with heavy machine guns, and the fiery peaks of the tracks seemed to pry the bodies of people stretched out on the snow with their points, turning them over in helical white wraps. Several soldiers from neighboring batteries, unable to withstand the shooting from the air, jumped up, swept under the fighters, rushing in different directions. Then one fell, crawled and froze, arms outstretched. The other ran in a zigzag, looking wildly to the right, then to the left, and the tracks from the diving Messerschmitt overtook him obliquely from above and passed through him like hot wire, the soldier rolled through the snow, waving his arms crosswise, and also froze; the padded jacket smoked on it.

Silly! Silly! Just before the front! .. - Drozdovsky shouted, pulling an empty disk from the clamps.

Kuznetsov, kneeling down, commanded in the direction of the soldiers crawling across the steppe:

Not to run! No one to run, lie down!..

And then he heard his command, breaking into the deafening silence with full force. Machine guns didn't fire. The roar of the planes entering the peak did not put pressure on my head. He understood that it was over...

Plunging into the blue frosty sky, the fighters left with a thin whistle to the southwest, and soldiers hesitantly got up from behind the snowdrifts, shaking off the snow from their overcoats, looking at the flaming cars, slowly walked to the echelon, brushed the snow off the weapons. Sergeant Nechaev, with a naval buckle knocked to one side, shook off his cap on his knee (glossy-black hair was disheveled), laughed with a violent laugh, mowing red-veined squirrels at Lieutenant Davlatyan, commander of the second platoon, an angular, frail, big-eyed boy. Davlatyan smiled in embarrassment, but his brows tried ineptly to frown.

Why are you so… not at all, laughing, Nechaev? I don't understand, - Davlatyan stammered a little. - What's wrong with you?

Have you said goodbye to your life, Comrade Lieutenant? Nechaev burst into a gurgling laugh. - The end, thought?

The commander of the control platoon, foreman Golovanov, a gigantic, unsociable-looking guy with a machine gun on a sloping chest, who was walking behind Nechaev, gloomily straightened him:

You're talking nonsense, sailor.

Then Kuznetsov saw Chibisov hobbled timidly and brokenly, and next to him the guilty Kasymov, wiping his round, sweaty cheekbones with the sleeve of his overcoat, the closed, shame-wrinkled face of the elderly gunner Yevstigneev, who was all covered in snow. And in Kuznetsov's soul something stuffy, bitter, akin to anger for the humiliating moments of general helplessness, for the fact that now they were all forced to experience the disgusting fear of death, rose up.

Check for people! - came from afar. - Check the batteries!

And Drozdovsky gave the command:

Platoon leaders, build crews!

Control platoon, stand up! - Sergeant Major Golovanov rumbled.

First platoon, stand up! - picked up Kuznetsov.

In the second platoon ... - lieutenant Davlatyan sang in a school way. - Build-a! ..

The soldiers, who had not cooled down after the danger, excited, brushing themselves off, pulling up their slipped belts, took their places without the usual conversations: everyone looked at the southern side of the sky, and there it was already unbelievably bright and clear.

As soon as the platoon was formed, Kuznetsov, looking around the gun crews, stumbled upon the gunner Nechaev, who was nervously shifting on the right flank, where the commander of the first gun should have been. Senior Sergeant Ukhanov was not in the ranks.

Where is Ukhanov? Kuznetsov asked worriedly. - Did you see him during the raid, Nechaev?

I know myself, comrade lieutenant, where would he be, - Nechaev answered in a whisper. - I went to the foreman for breakfast. Maybe there is still rubbed ...

Still with the foreman? - doubted Kuznetsov and walked in front of the platoon. - Who saw Ukhanov during the raid? Has anyone seen?

The soldiers, shivering in the cold, silently exchanged glances.

Comrade lieutenant, - Nechaev called again in a whisper, making a suffering face. - Look! Maybe he is there...

Over the fiery echelon, over the snows, over the junction building sunk in snowdrifts, calmly, as before the raid, the tiniest frost was falling under the sun. And in front, near the surviving cars, the frantic movement continued - batteries lined up everywhere, and past them, from the burning pullmans, two soldiers carried someone - wounded or killed - on their greatcoats.

No, Kuznetsov said. - This is not Ukhanov, he is in a padded jacket.

Kuznetsov pondered how he should explain the absence of Ukhanov, took five steps towards Drozdovsky, but did not have time to report - he said demandingly:

Where is the gun commander Ukhanov? I don't see him in action! I'm asking you, commander of the first platoon!

First you need to find out ... whether he is alive, ”Kuznetsov answered and approached Drozdovsky, who was waiting for his report with a readiness for action. “He has such a face as if he doesn’t intend to believe me,” Kuznetsov thought, and for some reason remembered his determination during the raid, his pale, pointed face when he pushed Zoya away, firing the first machine-gun disc at the Messerschmitt.

Lieutenant Kuznetsov, did you let Ukhanov go somewhere? Drozdovsky said. - If he had been wounded, the medical instructor Elagina would have informed long ago. I think so!

And I think that Ukhanov was late at the foreman, ”Kuznetsov objected. - He has nowhere else to be.

Send someone to the platoon immediately! What is he still doing in the kitchen? Do you cook porridge with the cook together?

I'm going myself.

And Kuznetsov, turning, walked through the snowdrifts to the divisional kitchens.

When he approached the farm platoon, the kitchen fires had not yet gone out on the platform, and below, feigning attention, were the riders, the clerk, and the cook. The foreman of the battery Skorik, in a long-brimmed command overcoat, narrow-faced, with predatory green eyes set close to a hooked nose, walked softly in front of the formation like a cat, with his hands behind his back, now and then looking at the sleeping car, in which the senior commanders were crowded, military railroad workers, talking with someone from the authorities, who recently arrived at the echelon in a long trophy car.

Quietly! - Sensing the approaching Kuznetsov with the back of his head, Skorik shouted and, like a ballet, glided in a circle at one point, threw out his fist to his temple with an artistic gesture, straightened his fingers. - Comrade lieutenant, economic platoon ...

At ease! - Kuznetsov frowned at Skorik, who with his voice moderately revealed the subordination corresponding to a low lieutenant rank. - Do you have Senior Sergeant Ukhanov?

Why, Comrade Lieutenant? - Skorik was wary. How can he be here? I won't allow it... What's the matter, Comrade Lieutenant? No, disappeared? Please tell me! Where is he, head two ears?

Ukhanov was at your breakfast? Kuznetsov asked sternly. - Have you seen him?

The narrow, highly experienced face of the foreman expressed the work of thought, the assumed degree of responsibility and personal involvement in what happened in the battery.

So, Comrade Lieutenant, - Skorik spoke with solid dignity. - I remember very well. The commander of the gun, Ukhanov, received breakfast for calculation. He quarreled with the cook indecently. Because of the portions. Personally, I had to make a remark to him. Loose, as in civilian life. It is very correct, comrade lieutenant, that he was not awarded the rank. Slobber. He didn’t cut himself ... Maybe he went to the farm. There is a farm behind the station in the beam! - And immediately, solidly drawing himself up, he whispered: - Comrade lieutenant, generals, no way, here ... Batteries bypass? You report, according to the charter already ...

From the sleeping car, a rather large group moved past the batteries built at the echelon, and Kuznetsov recognized from a distance the commander of the division, Colonel Deev, tall, in cloaks, his chest crossed with belts. Next to him, leaning on a stick, walked a lean, slightly uneven in gait unfamiliar general - his black coat (no one wore this in the division) stood out among other coats and overcoats.

It was the commander of the army, Lieutenant General Bessonov.

Overtaking Colonel Deev, he walked, slightly limping; he stopped at each battery, listened to the report, then, shifting a thin bamboo stick from his right hand to his left, raised his palm to his temple, and continued his rounds. At that moment, when the commander of the army and the commanders accompanying him lingered near the next car, Kuznetsov heard the high and sharp voice of the general:

In answer to your question, I want to tell you one thing: for four months they besieged Stalingrad, but did not take it. Now we are on the offensive. The enemy must feel our strength and hatred in full measure. Remember something else: the Germans understand that here, near Stalingrad, we are defending the freedom and honor of Russia before the whole world. I will not lie, I do not promise you easy fights - the Germans will fight to the last. Therefore, I demand from you courage and awareness of your strength!

The general uttered the last words in an excited voice, which he could not help but excite others; and Kuznetsov felt the persuasive power of this thin man in a black sheepskin coat, with a sickly, ugly face, who, having passed the neighboring battery, was approaching the economic platoon. And, not yet knowing what he would report to the general, once here, near the kitchens, he gave the command:

Quietly! Right alignment! Comrade General, economic platoon of the first battery of the second division ...

He didn't finish the report; thrusting his stick into the snow, the lieutenant-general stopped in front of the frozen economic platoon, inquiringly turned his hard eyes on the division commander Deev. He, from the height of his height, answered him with a soothing nod, smiled with bright lips, saying in a strong young baritone:

There are no casualties here, Comrade General. All targets. Right, sergeant major?

Nimai not a single lad, Comrade Colonel! - Skorik shouted out faithfully and cheerfully, inserting Ukrainian words into his speech for some unknown reason. - Sergeant Major Skorik! - And, bravely unfolding his chest, he froze with the same expression of complete obedience.

Bessonov stood four paces from Kuznetsov, the corners of his astrakhan collar, frosted with breath, could be seen; thin, smoothly shaven bluish cheeks, deep folds of an imperiously compressed mouth; from under lowered eyelids, the knowing, tired gaze of a fifty-year-old man who had survived a lot prickly probed the clumsy figures of riders, the stone figure of the foreman. Sergeant Skorik, thrusting his chest out sharply, shifting his legs, leaned forward.

Why so sergeant-major? said the general in a raspy voice. - At ease.

Bessonov let the sergeant-major and his platoon out of sight and wearily turned to Kuznetsov.

And you, comrade lieutenant, what do you have to do with the economic platoon?

Kuznetsov drew himself up silently.

Did a raid get you here? - as if prompting, Colonel Deev said, but his voice was sympathetic, while the colonel's eyebrows irritatedly united on the bridge of his nose. - Why are you silent? Answer. You're being asked, lieutenant.

Kuznetsov felt Colonel Deev's impatient, hurried anticipation, noticed how Sergeant Skorik and his motley household platoon turned their heads to him at the same time, saw how the accompanying commanders shifted, and finally said:

No, Comrade General...

Colonel Deev pressed his red eyelashes at Kuznetsov.

What's "no", lieutenant?

No, Kuznetsov repeated. - The raid did not find me here. I'm looking for my gun commander. He was not to be trusted. But I think…

There are no gun commanders in the economic platoon, Comrade General! - shouted the foreman, choking on the air in his chest and rolling his eyes at Bessonov.

But Bessonov paid no attention to him and asked:

Are you, lieutenant, straight from the school? Or fought?

I fought ... Three months in forty-one, - Kuznetsov said not very firmly. - And now he graduated from the artillery school ...

School, - repeated Bessonov. "So you're looking for your gun commander?" Have you looked at the wounded?

There are no wounded or dead in the battery, ”Kuznetsov answered, feeling that the general’s question about the school was caused, of course, by the impression of his helplessness and inexperience.

And in the rear, as you understand, lieutenant, there are no missing persons, - Bessonov corrected dryly. - In the rear, the missing have one name - deserters. I hope this is not the case, Colonel Deev?

The divisional commander waited a few moments for an answer. It became quiet. In the distance came unintelligible voices, the whistling hiss of an engine. Buffers clattered and rattled there: two flaming pullmans were unhooked from the train.

I don't hear an answer.

Colonel Deev spoke with exaggerated confidence:

The artillery regiment commander is a new man. But there were no such cases, Comrade General. And hopefully it won't. I am convinced, comrade general.

Bessonov's hard mouth twitched slightly.

Well... Thank you for your confidence, Colonel.

The maintenance platoon stood, just as not moving, foreman Skorik, petrified in front of the formation, made terrible suggestive signs to Kuznetsov with his eyebrows, but he did not notice. He felt the general's restrained dissatisfaction when talking with the division commander, the restless attention of the staff commanders, and, with difficulty overcoming stiffness, asked:

Permission to go ... comrade general?

Bessonov was silent, peering motionlessly into Kuznetsov's pale face; the cold staff commanders furtively rubbed their ears and shifted from foot to foot. They did not quite understand why the commander of the army lingered so unnecessarily long here, in some kind of economic platoon. None of them, neither Colonel Deev nor Kuznetsov, knew what Bessonov was thinking now, and he, as often happened lately, thought at that moment about his eighteen-year-old son, who went missing in June on the Volkhov front. It seemed to him that he had disappeared through his indirect fault, although he understood with his mind that in a war, sometimes nothing can save either from a bullet or from fate.

Go, lieutenant, - Bessonov said in a heavy voice, seeing the lieutenant's awkward efforts to overcome his confusion. - Go.

And with a gloomy look, he raised his hand to his hat and, surrounded by a group of staff commanders, walked along the echelon, deliberately pressing on his sore leg. She was freezing.

The pain escalated as soon as the leg froze, and Bessonov knew that the feeling of pain in the nerve affected by the fragment would remain for a long time, you need to get used to it. But the fact that he constantly had to experience interfering pain in his lower leg, which caused the fingers on his right foot to go numb and often appeared something similar to the fear of meaningless lying in the hospital, where he was afraid to get a second time if the wound opened, and the fact that after being appointed to the army he all the time he thought about the fate of his son, gave rise in him to disturbing shocks of spiritual incompleteness, unusual fluctuation, which he could not stand either in himself or in others.

Surprises in life did not happen to him so often. However, the appointment to a new position - the commander of the army - fell like snow on his head. He received a brand new army, freshly formed in the rear, already in the days of its loading into wagons (up to eighteen echelons were sent to the front every day), and today's acquaintance with one of its divisions, which was unloading at several stations northwest of Stalingrad, did not completely satisfy him. This dissatisfaction was caused by an unforeseen Messerschmitt raid and the failure to provide air cover for the landing area. After listening to the exculpatory explanations of the VOSO representative: “Our fighters flew off ten minutes ago, Comrade Commander,” he exploded: “What do you mean, they flew away? Ours flew away, and the Germans arrived on time! Worthless is the price of such provision! And, having said so, he now regretted his intemperance, for it was not the station commandant who was responsible for air cover; this Lieutenant Colonel VOSO just caught his eye first.

Having already moved away from the economic platoon together with the staff commanders, Bessonov heard behind him the low voice of Deev, who had lingered at the line:

What the hell are you talking about, lieutenant? Well - look for a bullet! Got it? Half an hour... I'll give you half an hour!

But Bessonov pretended not to hear anything when Colonel Deev caught up with him near the platform with guns, saying as if nothing had happened:

I know this battery, Comrade Commander, I have full confidence in it. I remember her from training exercises. True, the platoon commanders are very young. Haven't fledged yet...

What are your excuses, Colonel? interrupted Bessonov. - Please be more specific. Clearer.

Excuse me, Comrade General, I didn't mean to...

What didn't you want? Exactly? Bessonov spoke with a weary expression. "Do you take me for a boy too?" So, there is no point in ringing spurs in front of me. Absolutely deaf to it.

Comrade commander...

As for your division, Colonel, I will get a full picture of it only after the first battle. Remember this. If offended, I will survive somehow.

Colonel Deev, shrugging his shoulders, answered discouraged:

I have no right to take offense at you, comrade commander.

Have! But it would be clear - for what!

And, plunging his wand into the snow, Bessonov looked around at the staff commanders who had overtaken them and fell silent, whom he also did not yet know well enough. They, looking down, were silent, not participating in the conversation.

S-quietly! Alignment to the right! - a loud command rushed in front of the formation darkening against the cars.

The third howitzer battery of one hundred and twenty-two, Comrade General, said Colonel Deev.

Let's see howitzer, - casually said Bessonov.

Chapter Three

In the stone building of the junction, where Kuznetsov went just in case, Ukhanov was not there. The two low halls are wildly empty, cold, the wooden benches are dirtyly shabby, on a semi-dark mess of snow brought here by feet; the iron stove with a chimney leading out of a window sealed with plywood was not heated, and there was a smell of the suffocating acid of overcoats: soldiers from all the passing echelons had been here.

When Kuznetsov stepped out into the fresh air, into the frosty sun, the train was still standing in the middle of the expanse of snow sparkling to the horizon, and there a black smoke cone stretched obliquely in the windless sky: the wagons driven to a dead end were burning down. The steam locomotive rang piercingly on the tracks in front of the lowered semaphore. Batteries lined up in motionless rows along the wagons. Half a kilometer behind the station, straight haze of a farmhouse invisible in a beam rose above the steppe.

“Where to look for it? Is it really in this damned farm that the foreman said about? Kuznetsov thought, and already with angry desperation he ran in that direction along the toboggan road, along the rut shaped by skids.

Ahead, in the beam, the roofs shone, sparkled under the sun, the low windows hemmed with lush snowdrifts flashed like mirrors - everywhere morning calm, complete silence, desertedness. It looked like they slept in warm huts or ate leisurely breakfast, as if there had never been a Messerschmitt raid - probably they were used to this in the farm.

Inhaling the bitter smoke of dung, reminiscent of the smell of fresh bread, Kuznetsov descended into the beam, walked along the only path trodden between snowdrifts with frozen horse manure, past gnarled willows sugared with hoarfrost, past huts with carved architraves and, not knowing which hut to go into, where to look for When he reached the end of the street, he stopped in confusion.

Everything here, in this farm, was serenely peaceful, long and firmly established, rustic cozy. And maybe because from here, from the beam, neither the train nor the siding was visible, Kuznetsov suddenly had a feeling of isolation from everyone who remained there, in the cars: it seemed that there was no war, but it was this sunny frosty morning , silence, purple shadows of smoke over the snowy roofs.

Uncle, uncle! What's wrong? - I heard a squeaky voice.

Behind the wattle fence, a small figure wrapped in a sheepskin coat, bending over an ice-covered frame, lowered a bucket onto the poles into the well.

Is there a fighter somewhere? - asked Kuznetsov, going up to the well and uttering a phrase prepared in advance. - The fighter did not pass?

From the depths of the collar, from the slit of fur blackened, eyes peered out with curiosity. It was a boy of about ten years old, his voice squeaked tenderly, his childish fingers tiptoed over the icy pole of a well crane.

I ask if you have a fighter? Kuznetsov repeated. - I'm looking for a friend.

Now there is no one, - the boy answered briskly from the fur bowels of a huge sheepskin coat, sagging on him to the toes. - And we have a lot of fighters. From echelons. They change. If you, uncle, have a tunic or kufayka, mother will exchange it once. Or soap ... No? And then my mother baked bread ...

No, Kuznetsov replied. - I don't change. I'm looking for a friend.

And underneath?

My mother wanted underwear for herself. If warm ... There was a conversation.

With a creaking of a pole, the boy pulled out a bucket full of leaden-heavy winter well water; splashing water, he put it on the edge of the log house, thick with ice growths, picked up the bucket, dragging the floors of the sheepskin coat over the snow, bending over, carried it to the hut, said:

Farewell for now. - And, with red fingers, pushing back the mutton fur of the collar, he shot his black eyes to the side. - Isn't that your comrade, uncle! Kaidalik had one, the legless one.

What? Which kaidalik? - asked Kuznetsov and immediately saw senior sergeant Ukhanov behind the fence of the last hut.

Ukhanov went down the steps of the porch to the path, putting on his hat, his face was steamed, calm, full. His whole appearance spoke of the fact that he was now in comfort, warm, and now he went out for a walk on the street.

Ah, lieutenant, hello! Ukhanov shouted with good-natured friendliness and smiled. - How is it here? Are you looking for me? And I looked out the window, I look - mine!

He approached with the clubfoot of a country boy, peeling pumpkin seeds, spitting out the husk, then reached into the pocket of a padded jacket, handed Kuznetsov a handful of large yellowish seeds, and said peacefully:

Fried. Try. Loaded four pockets. Until Stalingrad, enough to click on everyone. - And, looking into the angry eyes of Kuznetsov, he asked half seriously: - What are you doing? Come on, lieutenant: what's the point? Keep the seeds...

Take away the seeds! said Kuznetsov, turning pale. - So, he sat here in a warm hut and gnawed seeds when the "Messer" train was fired at? Who gave you permission to leave the platoon? You know, after that, who can you be considered?

The contented expression was washed away from Ukhanov's face, his face instantly lost the well-fed look of a country boy, and became mockingly imperturbable.

Oh, there it is something? .. So know, lieutenant, during the raid I was there ... I crawled on all fours near the well. I wandered into the village, because the railwayman from the siding, who was crawling next to me, said that the train would stand for a while ... Let's not find out the rights! - Ukhanov, grinning, gnawed a pumpkin seed, spat out the husk. - If there are no questions, I agree to everything. Consider: caught a deserter. But God forbid: I didn’t want to let you down, lieutenant! ..

Well, let's go to the echelon! And throw your seeds you know where? - cut Kuznetsov. - Went!

Let's go, let's go. Let's not fight, lieutenant.

The fact that he could not restrain himself at the sight of the imperturbable calmness of Ukhanov, who must have been indifferent to everything, and the fact that he could not understand this calmness towards something that was not indifferent to him, especially angered Kuznetsov, and, straying into an unpleasant tone himself, he finished:

You have to think in the end, damn it! The batteries are checking the personnel, we will probably unload at the next station, but the gun commander is not there! .. How do you order us to regard this? ..

If anything, lieutenant, I take the blame: in the village I changed soap for seeds. No shit. Will manage. They won’t send them further than the front, they won’t give more bullets, ”Ukhanov answered, and as he walked, on the rise from the beam, he looked back - at the shining tops of the roofs, at the candy windows under the lowered willows, at the blue shadows of the smoke above the snowdrifts, he said: “It’s just a miracle village! And the girls are beautiful to the devil - either Ukrainians or Cossacks. One entered, eyebrows arrows, blue eyes, does not walk, but writes ... What is it, lieutenant, in any way, our "hawks" appeared? Ukhanov added, raising his head and screwing up his light, unshy eyes. - No, for sure we will unload here. Look how guarded!

The low winter sun hung like a white disk in the steppe above the military echelon with the uncoupled steam locomotive stretched long on the tracks, above the gray formations of the soldiers. And high above the steppe, above the pullmans burning at a dead end, bathing in the frosty blue, a pair of our “hawks” fell on the thin silvery planes, patrolling the echelon.

Run to the wagon! Kuznetsov ordered.

Chapter Four

Bat-tarya-ah! Unload! Platform guns! Bring out the horses!

We were lucky, homies: a whole artillery regiment on cars, and our battery on horseback.

The tank does not see the horse well. Got the point of this case?

What, Slavs, to stomp on foot? Or Fritz nearby?

Don't rush, you'll make it to the next world. On the front line, you know how? The accordion did not have time to stretch - the song ended.

Why did you twist the hurdy-gurdy? You better tell me: will they give out tobacco before the fight? Or will the foreman hold? Well, stingy, there is nowhere to put samples! They said they would feed on the march.

Not a foreman - Saratov suffering ...

Our Germans in Stalingrad were squeezed in a ringlet ... We are going there, therefore ... Eh, in the forty-first we would surround the Germans. Where would you be now!

The wind is cold. By evening, the frost will hit even harder!

By evening, we'll hit the German ourselves! You won't get cold.

What about you? Most importantly, take care of your personal item. And then you will bring it to the front line! Then do not return to your wife without a document.

Brothers, in which direction is Stalingrad? Where is he?

When four hours ago they were unloading from the train at that last steppe junction before the front, together - in platoons - they rolled the guns from the platforms littered with snow along the logs, led the stagnant, stumbling horses out of the cars, which, snorting, squinting excitedly with their eyes, began to greedily grab the snow with their lips When the entire battery was loaded, boxes of shells were thrown onto carts, weapons, the last equipment, duffel bags, bowlers were taken out of abandoned, disgusting wagons, and then lined up in a marching column, the feverish excitement that usually occurs when the situation changes, owned people. Regardless of what was waiting for everyone ahead, people experienced a surge of irrepressible fun, too willingly responded with laughter to jokes, to good-natured abuse. Warmed up by work, they jostled in the ranks, faithfully looking at the platoon commanders with the same guessing of a new, unknown turn in their fate.

In those moments, Lieutenant Kuznetsov suddenly felt this universal unity of tens, hundreds, thousands of people in anticipation of the still unknown imminent battle and, not without excitement, thought that now, precisely from those minutes of the beginning of the movement to the front line, he himself was connected with all of them for a long time and firmly. Even the always pale face of Drozdovsky, who commanded the unloading of the battery, seemed to him not so cold and impenetrable, and what he experienced during and after the Messerschmitt raid seemed to be gone, forgotten. And the recent conversation with Drozdovsky also moved away and was already forgotten. Contrary to assumptions, Drozdovsky did not listen to Kuznetsov's report about the full presence of people in the platoon (Ukhanov was found), interrupted him with the obvious impatience of a man busy with urgent business: “Proceed to unload the platoon. And so that the mosquito does not undermine the nose! It's clear?" - "Yes, it's clear," Kuznetsov answered and went to the carriage, where, surrounded by a crowd of soldiers, the commander of the first gun stood as if nothing had happened. In anticipation of a close battle, the entire echelon past gradually faded, erased, leveled off, remembered by casual, small - and Kuznetsov and, apparently, Drozdovsky, as well as everyone in the battery, seized by a nervous impulse of movement into this untested, new, as if compressed to failure in one metal word - Stalingrad.

However, after four hours of marching across the icy steppe, among snows deserted to the horizon, without farmsteads, without short rests, without the promised kitchens, the voices and laughter gradually ceased. The excitement passed - people moved wet with sweat, watered, their eyes hurt from the infinitely hard sparkle of sunny snowdrifts. Occasionally, somewhere to the left and behind, a distant thunder began to rumble. Then it calmed down, and it was not clear why the advanced line, which should have approached, was not approaching, why there was a rumble behind the back - and it was impossible to determine where the front was now, in what direction the column was moving. They walked, listening, snatching handfuls of stale snow from the roadside, chewing it, puckering their lips, but the snow did not quench their thirst.

Scattered by fatigue, the huge column stretched out in discordant order, the soldiers walked more and more slowly, more and more indifferently, some were already holding on to the shields of the guns, to the limbers, to the sides of the carts with ammunition, which were pulled and pulled, mechanically shaking their heads, small, shaggy Mongolian horses with wet muzzles, overgrown with thorns of frost. In the artillery teams the flanks of the roots, importantly shining in the sun, were smoking, on their steep backs the riders swayed numbly in their saddles. The wheels of the guns squealed, the windrows thudded dully, somewhere behind, the engines of the ZISs, skidding on the rises from the beams, kept howling. The shattered crunch of snow under many feet, the rhythmic hoofbeats of wet horses, the strained chirping of tractors with heavy howitzers on trailers - all merged into a uniform drowsy sound, and over the road, over guns, over cars and people, a whitish veil with iridescent needles hung heavily from the icy blue of the sun, and the column stretched out across the steppe moved under it as if in a half-sleep.

Kuznetsov had not been ahead of his platoon for a long time, but was reaching for the second gun, sweating profusely, his tunic under a padded jacket and overcoat stuck to his chest, hot streams rolled down from under his hat from flaming temples and immediately froze in the wind, tightening his skin. The platoon moved in complete silence in separate groups, having long lost their original orderliness that had delighted them, when they went out into the steppe with jokes, with causeless laughter, leaving behind the place of unloading. Now, in front of Kuznetsov's eyes, backs with ugly protruding mounds of knapsacks swayed unevenly; all of them had their overcoats tangled in belts drawn with grenades. Several duffel bags, thrown off someone's shoulders, lay on the limbers.

Kuznetsov walked in weary indifference, waiting for only one thing - a command to halt, and, occasionally looking back, he saw how dejectedly hobbled, limping, behind the Chibisov's carts, how until recently such a neat sailor, the gunner Nechaev, trudged along with an unrecognizably bad expression on his face, with thick, frosty, wet mustaches, on which he constantly blew and licked untidy at the same time. "When is the final halt?"

When is the halt? Forgot? - he heard behind him the sonorous and indignant voice of Lieutenant Davlatyan; his voice always surprised Kuznetsov with its naive purity, for some reason gave rise to pleasant, like a bygone past, memories of what was once a sweet, carefree school time, in which Davlatyan probably still lived, but which was vaguely and distantly remembered Kuznetsov.

He turned around with an effort: his neck was squeezed, cooled by a damp celluloid collar, issued by a foreman at the school.

Davlatyan, with a slender, big-eyed face, unlike the others without a balaclava, was catching up with Kuznetsov and appetizingly nibbling on a lump of snow on the go.

Listen, Kuznetsov! - Davlatyan said in a glassy clear, school voice. - You know, as a Komsomol organizer of the battery, I want to consult with you. Come on if you can.

What about Goga? Kuznetsov asked, calling him by his first name, as he used to call him at the school.

Didn't you read a sumptuous German essay? - Sucking the snow, Davlatyan took out a four-fold yellow leaflet from the pocket of his overcoat and frowned. - Kasymov found it in a ditch. They were thrown from the plane at night.

Show me Goga.

Kuznetsov took the leaflet, unfolded it, ran his eyes over the large letters of the text:

"Stalingrad bandits!

You have temporarily managed to encircle part of the German troops near your Stalingrad, which has been turned into ruins by our air fleet. Don't rejoice! Do not expect that now you will attack! We will arrange a fun holiday for you on your street, we will drive you across the Volga and continue to feed the Siberian lice. Before the glorious victorious army, you are weak. Take care of your holey skins, Soviet thugs!”

Straight crazy! - said Davlatyan, seeing the grin of Kuznetsov, who had read the leaflet to the end. - They probably didn’t think that they would be given life in Stalingrad. What do you think of this propaganda?

Right Goga. An essay on a free theme, - Kuznetsov answered, handing over the leaflet. - In general, I have not yet read such abuse. In the forty-first they wrote something else: “Give up and do not forget to take a spoon and a bowler hat!” They were bombarded with such leaflets every night.

Do you know how I understand this propaganda? Davlatyan said. - The dog smells a stick. That's all.

He crumpled up the leaflet, threw it over the curb, laughed with a light laugh that again reminded Kuznetsov of something far away, familiar, sunny - a spring day in the windows of the school, the leaves of lindens dotted with warm reflections.

Do you notice anything? - Davlatyan spoke, adjusting to Kuznetsov's step. - First we went west, and then turned south. Where are we going?

To the front line.

I myself know that I’m on the front line, so, you know, you guessed it! Davlatyan snorted, but his long, plum eyes were attentive. - Stalingrad behind now. Tell me, you fought ... Why didn't they announce the destination to us? Where can we come? It's a secret, no? Do you know anything? Really not in Stalingrad?

Anyway, to the front line, Goga, - Kuznetsov answered. - Only to the front line, and nowhere else.

Davlatyan resentfully moved his sharp nose.

What is this, an aphorism, right? Am I supposed to laugh? I know myself. But where can there be a front? We're going somewhere southwest. Do you want to look at the compass?

I know it's southwest.

Listen, if we're not going to Stalingrad, it's terrible. The Germans are being beaten up there, and are we somewhere in the middle of nowhere?

Lieutenant Davlatyan really wanted a serious conversation with Kuznetsov, but this conversation could not clarify anything. Both did not know anything about the exact route of the division, which had noticeably changed on the march, and both already guessed that the final point of the movement was not Stalingrad: it now remained behind, where a distant cannonade occasionally rolled out.

Pull up! .. - came the command from the front, reluctantly transmitted through the column in voices. - Wider sha-ag! ..

Nothing is clear yet, - Kuznetsov answered, looking at the column endlessly stretched across the steppe. - We're going somewhere. And they tweak all the time. Maybe, Goga, we are going along the ring. According to yesterday's report, there are fights again.

Ah, then it would be great! .. Pull up, guys! - Davlatyan, in turn, gave the command with a kind of school drill overflow, but choked, said cheerfully: - Well, you know, the popsicle got in the way, it got stuck in my throat! And you chew too. Quenches thirst, and then all wet as a mouse! - And, like sugar, with pleasure sucked a lump of snow.

Do you like popsicles? Come on, Goga, you'll end up in the medical battalion. I think he's already hoarse," Kuznetsov smiled involuntarily.

In the medical battalion? Never! Davlatyan exclaimed. - What kind of medical battalion is there! To hell, to hell!

And he, probably, as in school exams, superstitiously spat three times over his shoulder, becoming serious, threw a lump of snow into a snowdrift.

I know what a medical battalion is. Horror in a square. You've been lying around all summer, at least hang yourself! You lie like a fool and hear from everywhere: “Sister, ship, sister, duck!” Yes, some kind of idiotic nonsense, you know ... Only he arrived at the front near Voronezh and on the second day picked up some kind of stupidity. The stupidest disease. Fought, it's called! I almost lost my mind with shame!

Davlatyan again snorted contemptuously, but then quickly looked at Kuznetsov, as if warning that he would not allow anyone to laugh at him, because he was not to blame for that illness.

What kind of disease, Goga?

Stupid, I say.

Bad disease? Eh, lieutenant? came the mocking voice of Nechaev. - How did you manage, out of inexperience?

Turning up his collar, his hands in his pockets, he stupidly walked behind the gun and, hearing the conversation, cheered up a little, glanced sideways at Davlatyan; blue lips squeezed out a cold half-grin.

Don't be shy, lieutenant. Did you get screwed? It happens…

W-you, Don Juan! cried Davlatyan, and his pointed nose pointed indignantly at Nechaev. - What kind of stupid nonsense are you talking about, it's impossible to listen! I had dysentery... infectious!

Horseradish radish is not sweeter, - Nechaev did not argue and patted his mitten on his mitten. - What are you doing, Comrade Lieutenant?

Stop the nonsense! Right now! - Davlatyan ordered in a falsetto voice and blinked like an owl in the afternoon. - You are always drawn to say something incomprehensible!

Nechaev's frosty mustache twitched amusedly, beneath them a blue gleam of even, young teeth.

I say, Comrade Lieutenant, we all walk under God.

It's you, not me... you walk under God, not me! - Davlatyan shouted with completely absurd indignation. - To listen to you - just your ears wither ... as if you have been doing these stupid things all your life, like some kind of sultan! From your vulgarity women cry, probably!

They cry from another, lieutenant, at different moments. A smile flickered under Nechaev's mustache. - If you didn’t drag it to the registry office - tears and hysteria. Women, it’s like - with one hand they press to themselves: bye-bye-bye, ghoul-gul-ghul, they push the other away: away, I hate, disgusting, leave me alone, shame on you ... And all that. Psychology of a trap and malicious deceit. You didn’t have much practice, lieutenant, study while Sergeant Nechaev is alive. I pass on my observational experience.

What right do you have... to talk about women like that? - Davlatyan was completely indignant and became like a disheveled sparrow. What do you mean by practice? Go to the market with your thoughts!..

Lieutenant Davlatyan even began to stutter in indignation, his cheeks bloomed with dark scarlet spots. He had not forgotten how to blush at the rude abuse of soldiers or cynically naked talk about women, and this, too, was that distant, school-like thing that remained in him and which was almost absent in Kuznetsovo: he got used to a lot in the summer baptism near Roslavl.

Go to the gun, Nechaev, - Kuznetsov intervened. - Didn't you notice that you got into someone else's conversation?

Yes, Comrade Lieutenant, - Nechaev drawled and, making a careless gesture resembling a trump card, went to the gun.

Still, you are a lieutenant, Goga, and get used to it, ”said Kuznetsov, restraining himself so as not to laugh, seeing how Davlatyan turned up his nose, purple in the cold, with militant impregnability.

And I don't want to get used to it! What is this for? With some hints climbed! What are we, animals?

Pull up! Closer to the guns! Get ready to win!..

Drozdovsky rode out from the head of the column towards the battery. In the saddle he sat straight, like a glove, impenetrable face under a hat slightly shifted from his forehead sternly; He switched from a trot to a walk, stopped the strong-legged, long-haired, with a damp muzzle Mongolian horse along the side of the column, with a captious look examining the stretched platoons, a chain and randomly marching soldiers. Their chins were tightened by balaclavas thickened with frost, collars were turned up, knapsacks swayed unevenly on hunched backs. Not a single team, except for the “halt” command, could no longer pull up, subdue these people, stupefied in fatigue. And Drozdovsky was annoyed by the half-asleep discordance of the battery, the indifference, indifference to everything of people; but it was especially irritating that soldier's duffel bags were stacked on the limbers and someone's carbine stuck out like a stick from a pile of duffel bags on the first gun.

Pull up! - Drozdovsky raised himself elastically in the saddle. - Keep a normal distance! Whose duffel bags are on the front? Whose carbine? Take it from the front! ..

But no one moved to the front end, no one ran, only those who were walking closer to him slightly quickened their steps, or rather, they pretended that the command had been understood. Drozdovsky, rising higher and higher in his stirrups, let the battery pass him by, then resolutely flicked his whip on the top of his felt boots:

Firing platoon commanders, come to me!

Kuznetsov and Davlatyan came up together. Leaning slightly from his saddle, burning them both with his transparent eyes reddened by the wind, Drozdovsky spoke sharply:

The fact that there is no halt does not give the right to dissolve the battery on the march! Even carbines on the limbers! What, maybe people don't obey you anymore?

Everyone is tired, battalion commander, to the limit, ”Kuznetsov said quietly. - It's clear.

Even the horse breathes like that! .. - Davlatyan supported and stroked the damp muzzle of the battalion horse, covered in spiky icicles, which covered his mitten with steam of breath.

Drozdovsky jerked the reins, the horse tossed its head.

It turns out that my platoon commanders are lyricists! he spoke venomously. - "People are tired", "the horse is barely breathing." Are we going to visit for tea or go to the front line? Do you want to be nice? At the good people at the front, people are dying like flies! How will we fight - with the words "forgive me, please"? So ... if in five minutes the carbines and duffel bags are on the limbers, you, the platoon commanders, will carry them on your shoulders! Clearly understand?

Feeling Drozdovsky's evil rightness, Kuznetsov put his hand to his temple, turned around and walked to the front. Davlatyan ran to the guns of his platoon.

Whose clothes? - Shouted Kuznetsov, pulling a duffel bag rattling with a bowler hat from the front. - Whose carbine?

The soldiers, turning around, mechanically adjusted the knapsacks over their shoulders; someone said ruefully:

Who left the junk? Chibisov, no way?

Chibiso-ov! - Nechaev yelled with a sergeant's intonation, straining his throat. - Lieutenant!

Little Chibisov, in an overcoat wide, short, like a thick skirt, limping, bumping into soldiers, hurried to the front of the ammunition carts, from a distance showing everyone an expectant, frozen smile.

Your duffel bag? And a carbine? Kuznetsov asked, embarrassed that Chibisov was bustling about at the front end, expressing his mistake with his eyes and movements.

My, comrade lieutenant, my ... - The steam settled on the frosty wool of the balaclava, his voice was muffled. - It's my fault, comrade lieutenant ... I rubbed my leg until it bled. I thought I would unload - it would be a little easier for my leg.

Tired? Kuznetsov asked unexpectedly quietly and looked at Drozdovsky. He, straightening up in the saddle, rode along the column and watched them from the side. Kuznetsov ordered in an undertone: - Keep up, Chibisov. Go for the front.

I listen, I listen...

Loosely and drunkenly falling on a rubbed leg. Chibisov hobbled along behind the gun.

And whose is this cider? - asked Kuznetsov, taking the second duffel bag.

At that moment, laughter was heard from behind. Kuznetsov thought that they were laughing at him, at his foreman's diligence or at Chibisov, and looked around.

To the left of the gun, Ukhanov and Zoya were walking along the side of the road in a bearish hut, chuckling, telling her something, and she, as if broken by a belt at the waist, listened absently, nodding at him with a sweaty, tired face. There was no sanitary bag on her side - she probably put it on the sanrote's wagon.

They had apparently been walking together behind the battery rear for a long time, and now both of them caught up with the guns. The tired soldiers squinted at them unkindly, as if looking for a secret, irritating meaning in Ukhanov's feigned gaiety.

And why is it filled with a stable stallion? - observed the elderly Rubin, swaying in the saddle with a square body, now and then with a mitten, his chilly chin was crinkled with a mitten. - Exactly to show in front of the girl the heroic state of nerves: alive, they say, I am! Look, neighbor, - he turned to Chibisov, - how our battery greenery around the girl breeds city cupids. Exactly and do not think to fight!

BUT? - Chibisov replied, diligently hurried after the front, and, blowing his nose, wiped his fingers on the floor of his overcoat. - Forgive me for God's sake, I did not hear ...

Are you pretending to be a capercaillie, a prisoner? Puppies, I say! Rubin shouted. - Let's give a woman with you at least in full readiness - they would refuse ... And at least henna would be for them!

BUT? Yes, yes, yes, - Chibisov muttered. - At least henna ... you speak correctly.

What is "true"? City whim in the head - that's what! All hee hee yes ha ha around the skirt. Frivolity!

Don't talk nonsense, Ruby! - said Kuznetsov angrily, lagging behind the front and looking in the direction of Zoya's white sheepskin coat.

Waddling, Ukhanov continued to tell her something, but Zoya now did not listen to him, did not nod to him. Raising her head, she looked in some kind of expectation at Drozdovsky, who, like everyone else, turned in their direction, and then, as if on order, she went to him, instantly forgetting about Ukhanov. Approaching Drozdovsky with an unfamiliar, submissive expression, she called out in an uneven voice:

Comrade lieutenant…” and, walking beside the horse, raised her face to him.

Drozdovsky, in response, half frowned, half smiled, stealthily stroked her cheek with the back of his glove, and said:

I advise you, medical instructor, to sit on the wagon of the sanrote. There is nothing for you to do in the battery.

And he spurred his horse into a trot, disappeared in front, at the head of the column, from where the command was rushing: “Descent, win!”, And the soldiers squeezed around the teams, near the limbers, stuck around the guns that slowed down the movement before the descent.

So, to me in sanrot? Zoya said sadly. - Good. I'll go Goodbye boys. Don't be bored.

Why go to Sanrota? - said Ukhanov, not at all offended by her brief inattention. - Sit on the front of the gun. Where is he taking you? Lieutenant, is there a place for a medical officer?

Ukhanov's quilted jacket is open on his chest to the belt, the balaclava is removed, the hat with loose, dangling ears is pressed onto the back of the head, revealing a wind-scorched forehead to redness, bright eyes, as if not knowing shame, are screwed up.

There may be an exception for the medical instructor, - Kuznetsov answered. - If you are tired, Zoya, sit on the limber of the second gun.

Thank you, dear ones, - Zoya perked up. - I'm not tired at all. Who told you that I'm tired? I even want to take off my hat: how hot it is! And I want to drink a little ... I tried snow - it gave me some kind of iron taste in my mouth.

Want a sip for pep? Ukhanov unfastened his flask from his belt, shook it suggestively over his ear, and the flask gurgled.

Really? .. And what is here, Ukhanov? Zoya asked, and the frosted brows went up. - Water? Do you have left?

Try it. - Ukhanov unscrewed the metal stopper on the flask. If it doesn't help, kill me. From this carbine. Can you shoot?

Somehow I can pull the trigger. Do not worry!

Kuznetsov was displeased with her unnatural liveliness after a fleeting conversation with Drozdovsky, this inexplicable disposition and gullibility towards Ukhanov, and he said sternly:

Remove the flask. What do you suggest? Water or vodka?

No! Or maybe I want to! Zoya shook her head with defiant determination. - Why do you take care of me, lieutenant? Dear ... are you jealous? She stroked his overcoat sleeve. - This is not necessary at all, Kuznetsov, I beg you, honestly. I feel the same way about both of you.

I can’t be jealous of your husband,” Kuznetsov said semi-ironically, and this, it seemed, sounded like tortured vulgarity.

To my husband? She widened her eyes. - Who told you that I have a husband?

You yourself said. Don't you remember? And yet, forgive me, Zoya, this is none of my business, although I would be glad if you had a husband.

Oh yes, she said then to Nechaev ... What nonsense! She laughed. - I want to be a free feather. If a husband means children, and this is absolutely impossible in a war, like a crime. Do you understand? I want you to know this, Kuznetsov, and you, Ukhanov ... I just believe you, both of you! But let me have some kind of serious and formidable husband, if you like, Kuznetsov! Okay?

We remember, - answered Ukhanov. - But that doesn't matter.

Then thank you brothers. You are still good. You can fight.

And, closing her eyes, as if before a sensation of pain, overcoming herself, she took a sip from the flask, coughed, immediately laughed, waving the mitten in front of her outstretched, blowing lips. With disgust, as Kuznetsov noticed, she handed over the flask, looked through wet eyelashes at Ukhanov, who was imperturbably screwing on the cork, but said, not without cheerful amazement:

That's disgusting! But how good it is! A lightbulb went off in my stomach!

Maybe repeat? Ukhanov asked good-naturedly. - Is it your first time? Exactly this…

Zoya shook her head.

No, I've tried...

Put away the flask, and so I don't see! Kuznetsov said sharply. - And escort Zoya to the sanrote. She'll be better there!

Well, why do you want to command me, lieutenant? Zoya asked jokingly. - You, in my opinion, imitate Drozdovsky, but not very skillfully. He would have ordered in an iron voice: "To the rank!", and Ukhanov would have answered: "Yes."

I would think, - said Ukhanov.

Wouldn't think anything. "Yes" - and that's it!

Hold on!.. Descent! came a threatening command ahead. - Brake! Calculations to the guns!

Kuznetsov repeated the command and went forward, towards the head of the battery, where soldiers densely crowded around the team of the first gun, holding the frames and wheels with their hands, resting their shoulders on the shield, on the front, and the riders, cursing and shouting, pulled on the reins, held back the horses, shiny with sweat, squatting on hind legs before a steep descent into a deep beam.

The front battery passed the rolled, trodden, flaming icy descent with glass, safely passed along the bottom of the beam, and the guns and limbers, ant-like covered with swarming soldiers, pushed by them from below, rose to the opposite slope, behind which an endless column flowed and flowed in the steppe. And far below, on the road, the commander of the control platoon, foreman Golovanov, was waiting and shouting in a hoarse voice:

Come on...come on me!

Be careful! Don't break horses' legs! Calculations one-hold! - Drozdovsky commanded, riding up on a horse to the edge of the descent. - Platoon commanders! .. Let's kill the horses - we'll roll the guns on ourselves! Obsess! Slower! Slower!..

“Yes, if we break the legs of the horses, we will have to carry the guns on ourselves!” Kuznetsov thought excitedly, suddenly realizing that both he and everyone else are completely subject to someone else's will, which no one has the right to resist in a violent, unstoppable, huge stream, where there was no longer an individual person with his impotence and fatigue. And, reveling in this absorbing dissolution in everyone, he repeated the command:

Hold on, hold on!.. All to the guns! - and rushed to the wheels of the first limber, in the midst of soldiers' bodies, and the calculation with brutalized faces, with a wheeze, fell on the limber, on the wheels of the gun sliding along the steep slope.

Stop, infection! Os-sady! - riders shouted at the horses in disarray. They seemed to wake up and, screaming, terribly opened their mouths in the icy fringe on the comforters.

The wheels of the limber and the guns did not rotate, pulled together by brake chains, but the chain did not crash into the road, which was knurled to a polished smoothness, stuffed, and the soldiers' felt boots drove around, slid along the slope, finding no points of support. And the weight of the limber loaded with shells and the weight of the guns uncontrollably piled on top. Wooden rolls from time to time hit the hind legs of the crouched rooters with upturned snouts; the riders screamed wildly, looking back at the crew, hating and pleading with their eyes - and the whole ball of hard-breathing bodies hanging on the wheels rolled down, speeding up and speeding up the movement.

Obsess! Kuznetsov breathed out, feeling the irresistible weight of the gun, seeing next to him Ukhanov's bloodshot face, his broad back resting against the front; and on the right - Nechaev's round eyes, bulging out of tension, his white mustache, and suddenly the thought flashed through his flushed head that he had known them for a long time, perhaps from those terrible months of retreat near Smolensk, when he was not a lieutenant, but when like this the guns were pulled out during the retreat. However, he did not know them then and was surprised at the thought. - Legs, take care of your legs ... - Kuznetsov squeezed out in a whisper.

The gun with the limber rolled down the slope into a beam, the chain screeched through the snow, sweaty roots slipped on the descent, with a sharp ringing knocking out sharp splashes of ice with their hooves; the riders, falling back, barely holding on in the saddles, pulled on the reins, but the right horse of the front blow-off suddenly fell on its belly on the road and, trying to get up, jerking its head forcefully, rolled down, pulling the roots behind it.

The rider on the left carried away stayed in the saddle, with a frightened-crazy look staggered to the side, unable to raise the right one with a heart-rending cry, and she hit the road, slid on her side, tore, pulled the traces. In desperation, Kuznetsov felt how the gun was rushing down the slope, overtaking the fallen horse, saw how the foreman Golovanov rushed to meet her below, then jumped aside and again rushed with an attempt to grab the reins.

Obsess! .. - shouted Kuznetsov.

And, feeling a weightless lightness in his shoulder, he did not immediately realize that the front end, together with the gun, had rolled down and stopped at the bottom of the beam. With a sharp curse, the soldiers wearily straightened their backs, rubbing their shoulders, and looked ahead at the team.

What's with the carry? - Kuznetsov barely uttered, staggering on stiff legs, and ran to the horses.

Golovanov with scouts, Sergunenkov, his riding partner Rubin from the natives, were already standing here. Everyone looked at the horse lying on its side in the middle of the road. Sergunenkov, thin, pale, with a frightened face of a teenager, with long arms, looking around helplessly, suddenly took hold of the reins, and the young, carried away, as if realizing what he wanted to do, shook her head, breaking free, squinting imploringly with moist, blood-mirror, excited eyes. Sergunenkov withdrew his hand and, looking around in silent desperation, squatted down in front of the carrying woman. Moving its wet, sweaty flanks, the horse scraped its hind hooves on the ice, feverishly trying to get up, but did not get up, and from the way its front legs were unnaturally bent, Kuznetsov realized that it would not rise.

Give it a fry, Sergunenkov! What got upset? Don't you know the habit of this bastard-simulator? Rubin, a soldier with a weather-beaten, rough face, swore in his hearts, riding from the roots, and whipped his cuff with a whip.

What to see? I know her: everything bucks! Just to play. Knut to her - she suddenly comes to her senses!

Shut up, Ruby, you're tired! Ukhanov gave him a warning nudge with his shoulder. - You want to say - think.

And the horse did not reach the front, - Chibisov sighed with pity. - What a trouble...

Yes, it seems, the front legs, - said Kuznetsov, bypassing the carry-on. - Well, what have you done, driving, damn you! They held the reins, they say!

What to do, lieutenant? Ukhanov said. - The end of the horse. Three remained. There are no spares.

On the hump, so we'll drag the gun? Nechaev asked, biting his mustache. - I've been dreaming of it for a long time. Since childhood.

Here is the battalion commander here ... - Chibisov said timidly. - He'll figure it out.

What do you have, first platoon? Why the delay?

Drozdovsky descended on his Mongol horse into a beam, rode up to a crowd of soldiers parted in front, quickly glanced at the carried-away, heavily sideways, in front of which Sergunenkov was squatting, hunched over. Drozdovsky's thin face seemed calmly frozen, but restrained rage splashed in the pupils.

I… warned you, first platoon! - Sharing the words, he spoke and pointed with a whip at Sergunenkov's stooped back. - What the devil are confused? Where did you look? Riding man, are you praying? What's with the horse?

You see, Comrade Lieutenant, - said Kuznetsov. Sergunenkov, like a blind man, turned his eyes to Drozdovsky; tears rolled down his childish cheeks from under frosted eyelashes. He was silent, licking these bright droplets with his tongue, and, taking off his mitten, stroked the horse's muzzle with cautious tenderness. Carried away did not struggle, did not try to get up, but, swelling her stomach, lay quietly, knowingly, stretching out her neck like a dog, resting her head on the road, breathing with a whistle into Sergunenkov's fingers, feeling them with her soft lips. There was something incredibly melancholy, dying in her moist, squinting eyes at the soldiers. And Kuznetsov noticed that Sergunenkov had oats in his palm, probably hidden away in his pocket for a long time. But the hungry horse did not eat, only, quivering with wet nostrils, sniffed the rider's palm, weakly grasping with his lips and dropping wet grains on the road. She caught, apparently, a smell long forgotten in these snowy steppes, but at the same time she felt something else, something inevitable, which was reflected in the eyes and posture of Sergunenkov.

Legs, Comrade Lieutenant, - Sergunenkov spoke in a weak voice, licking the droplets of tears from the corners of his mouth with his tongue. - Look ... like a man, she is tormented ... And she had to go to the right ... She was frightened of something ... I was holding her back ... she is a young filly. Inexperienced under guns...

It was necessary to hold, a hedgehog's head! And do not dream about girls! - angrily uttered riding Rubin. - Why hung the nurses? .. Ugh, puppy! .. People here soon indiscriminately, and he is over the horse ... It's sickening to watch! It is necessary to shoot, so as not to suffer, - and that's it!

All square, clumsy, thickly dressed - in a padded jacket, in an overcoat, in quilted trousers - with a scabbard on his right leg, with a carbine behind his back, this rider unexpectedly aroused Kuznetsov's hostility with his vicious determination. The word "shoot" sounded like a sentence to the execution of an innocent.

You'll have to, you see, - said someone. - A pity the filly ...

During the retreat near Roslavl, Kuznetsov once saw how soldiers, out of pity, shoot wounded horses that have ceased to be a draft force. But even then it looked like an unnatural, unjustifiably cruel execution of a weakened person.

Stop the hysteria, Sergunenkov! You had to think before. Nobody but you is to blame. Pull yourself together! - interrupted Drozdovsky and pointed with a whip at the ditch. - Pull the horse out of the way, so as not to interfere. Continue descending! In places!

Kuznetsov said:

The second gun should be unhooked from the limber and lowered by hand. So it will be more correct.

As you like, even lower it on your shoulders! - Drozdovsky answered, looking over Kuznetsov's head at the soldiers awkwardly dragging the horse to the side of the road, and grimaced. - Immediately shoot! Ruby!..

And the carried away seemed to understand the meaning of the given order. Her broken, shrill neighing cut through the frosty air. Like a cry for pain, for protection, this vibrating screech pierced Kuznetsov's ears. He knew that the horses caused suffering, pushing her, alive, with broken legs, to the ditch, and, ready to close his eyes, saw her last effort to rise, as if to prove that she was still alive, that there was no need to kill her. The rider Rubin, baring his strong teeth, with hasty anger on his crimson face, hurriedly retracted the bolt of his rifle, and the barrel oscillated aimlessly, aimed at the horse's raised head, wet, sweaty, with lips trembling from the last imploring neigh.

A shot crackled dryly. Rubin swore and, looking at the horse, sent a second cartridge into the receiver. The horse no longer neighed, but quietly moved its head from side to side, now not defending itself, and, trembling with its nostrils, only snorted.

Crazy, you don't know how to shoot! Ukhanov shouted furiously, standing near Sergunenkov, frozen in a daze, and rushed to the driver: - You have to work at the meat processing plant!

He snatched the rifle from Rubin's hands and, carefully aiming, fired point-blank at the horse's head, which was poking its muzzle into the snow. Turning white at once, he snapped out a cartridge that had sunk into the crest of a snowdrift, and tossed the rifle to Rubin.

Get your stick, butcher! Why are you grinning like a fool? Itchy nose?

Here you are a butcher, you see, albeit an urban one, very literate, ”Rubin muttered offendedly and, bending his thick, square body tightly, raised his rifle, brushed the snow off it with his sleeve.

Take care of your face, I'm very literate, remember! - Ukhanov said and turned to Sergunenkov, rudely patted him on the shoulder: - All right. All is not yet lost. Let's get, brother, trophy horses in Stalingrad. I promise.

The Germans call it Parsheron, - said Sergeant Major Golovanov. - We'll get it!

Not a parcheron, but a percheron,” Ukhanov corrected. - Time to know! What, are you fighting for the first year?

And who will understand them?

Understand!

Don't praise me, Comrade Lieutenant! Ukhanov answered with impudent mockery. In his bright eyes, a hot gleam did not cool down, as if provoking a quarrel. - It's still early... You're wrong! I am not a horse killer.

Kuznetsov gave the command to unhook the limber from the second gun.

The halt was announced at sunset, when the column was drawn into some burnt village. And then everyone was surprised by the first ashes on the sides of the road, the lonely skeletons of charred furnaces under sharply sticking willows along the banks of a frozen river, where poisonous red steam rose from the holes in the fog. On the ground and along the western horizon burned the blood-purple light of a December sunset, so hot and frosty, piercing like pain, that the faces of the soldiers, the icy guns, the croup of the horses that had stopped by the side of the car - everything was shackled by him, numb in his metallic brightness , in his cold fire on the snowdrifts.

Brothers, where are we going? Where is the German?

There used to be a village here. Look, not a single house. What? He went to Fedka's wedding, but he came to Sidor's funeral!

Why on earth did he sing about the funeral? Let's get to Stalingrad. Bosses know better...

When was the fight here?

A long time ago, it was.

Warm up somewhere, huh? Let's go to the front line.

And you tell me, where is she, advanced?

Another three kilometers to the village, at the crossroads of the steppe roads, when a large group of tanks - freshly painted white “thirty-fours” - stopped the column for several minutes, moving across it towards the sunset, the sighting blast broke with a crunch, a comet flashed in the air above the tanks, black dust covered the snow on the side of the road. No one lay down at first, not knowing where he came from in a crazy way, the soldiers looked at the tanks that blocked the path of the column. But as soon as the T-34s passed, the blunt impacts of shots from distant batteries were heard somewhere behind, and long-range shells drilled into the airspace with a long sniff, exploding at the crossroads with a bomb roar. Everyone thought that the Germans were watching this intersection from the rear, and in exhaustion they lay down right on the side of the road - no one had the strength to run far from the road. The firing soon ended. There were no losses, the column stretched further. People walked, barely dragging their feet, past huge fresh craters, the onion smell of German tol dissipated in the air. This smell of possible death no longer reminded me of danger, but of Stalingrad now inaccessible, of the invisible Germans on the mysterious, distant firing points, from where they were now shooting.

And Kuznetsov, now falling into a short oblivion, now hearing the united steps and the unified movement of the column, thought of one thing: “When will they command a halt? When is the break?

But when finally, after many hours of march, they entered the burnt village, when the command “halt” fluttered in front of the column with a long-awaited call, no one felt physical relief. Rigid riders slid down from the smoking horses; stumbling, stepping unsteadily on stiff legs, they retreated to the roadside, shuddering, immediately relieving themselves of a small need. And the gunners collapsed helplessly on the snow, behind the wagons and near the guns, closely clinging to each other with their sides and backs, sadly looking around at what had recently been a village: the gloomy shadows of the stoves, like monuments in a cemetery, the distant, sharply outlined contours of the two surviving barns - black seals in the frosty blazing sky in the west.

This space, set on fire by the sunset, was crowded with cars, tractors, Katyushas, ​​howitzers, wagons, densely accumulated here. However, a halt on the streets of a non-existent stanitsa, without warmth, without kitchens, without the feeling of being close to the front, was like a lie, like an injustice that everyone felt. The wind was blowing from the west, carrying icy needles of snow, a cloying, sad smell of the ashes of conflagrations.

Barely overpowering himself so as not to fall, Kuznetsov approached the riders of the first gun. Rubin, turning even more purple, with sullen reticence felt the traces of the roots, the sweaty-slippery sides of the horses were soaring. Young Sergunenkov, unforgivingly closing his whitish eyebrows, stood near his only carry-away, held a handful of oats in his palm to the tired horse's greedily grasping lips, stroked and ruffled its wet bent neck with the other hand. Kuznetsov looked at the riders, not noticing one another, wanted to say something conciliatory to both of them, but did not say and went to the calculations with a desire to lie in the middle of the soldiers' bodies, lean against someone's back and, shielding his face from the burning wind with his collar, lie down, breathe into it, warming up like that.

- …Climb! Stop the lure! - stretched along the column. - Get ready to move!

You didn’t have time to blink, stop spending the night? irritated voices were talking in the dark. - Everyone is racing.

There would be something to chew on, but there are no foremen with a kitchen on the horizons. Fighting in the rear!

“Well, here it is again,” thought Kuznetsov, subconsciously waiting for this command and feeling lead fatigue in his legs to tremble. - So where is the front? Where is the movement? .. "

He did not know, but only guessed that Stalingrad remained somewhere behind him, it seemed, in the rear, he did not know that the entire army, and, consequently, their division, which included the artillery regiment and its battery, its platoon, forced moved in one direction - to the south-west, towards the German tank divisions that had launched an offensive in order to release the thousands of Paulus army surrounded in the Stalingrad region. He did not know that his own fate and the fate of all who were close to him - those who were destined to die and those who were to live - now became a common fate, regardless of what awaited everyone ...

Get ready to move! Platoon commanders, to the battery commander!

In the thickening twilight, without much desire, with sluggish sluggishness, the soldiers rose. From everywhere came coughing, groaning, sometimes swearing. The crews, dissatisfied with getting up to the guns, dismantled the rifles and carbines laid on the beds, commemorating the kitchen and the foreman by God. And the riders took evil bags off the muzzles of the horses, swinging their elbows at them: “But, parasites, you should eat everything!” Ahead they began to shoot with exhausts, engines hummed - howitzer batteries were slowly pulled down the street for movement.

Lieutenant Drozdovsky, in a group of scouts and signalmen, stood in the middle of the road, near an extinguished fire, which smoked white smoke down his legs. When Kuznetsov approached, he shone a pocket torch at the map under the celluloid of the tablet, which was held in the hands of the huge foreman Golovanov; in a tone that brooked no objection, Drozdovsky said:

Questions are redundant. The destination of the route is unknown. The direction is along this road, to the southwest. You are with a platoon ahead of the battery. The battery is still moving in the rear of the regiment.

It’s clear, it’s clear, ”Golovanov rumbled in a guttural tone and, surrounded by scouts and signalmen, went forward along the road, past the darkening wagons.

Lieutenant Kuznetsov? - Drozdovsky raised the flashlight. His harsh light hurt his eyes. Pulling back slightly, Kuznetsov said:

Is it possible without lighting? I see it that way. What's new, comrade?

Is everything okay in the platoon? Are there no leftovers? Are there no patients? Ready to move?

Drozdovsky asked questions mechanically, apparently thinking of something else, and Kuznetsov was suddenly angry at this.

People didn't have time to rest. I would like to ask: where is the kitchen, battalion commander? Why was the sergeant lagging behind? Is everyone hungry as hell? And ready to move, what to ask? No one got sick, no one fell behind. There are also no deserters...

What kind of report is this, Kuznetsov? - interrupted Drozdovsky. - Dissatisfied? Maybe we will sit back and wait for food? Are you a platoon leader or some kind of rider?

As far as I know, I'm a platoon leader.

Imperceptibly! Weaving on the occasion of all sorts of Ukhanovs! .. What kind of mood are you in? Platoon immediately! Drozdovsky ordered in an icy tone. - And prepare the personnel not for thoughts of grub, but for battle! You surprise me, Lieutenant Kuznetsov! Either people are lagging behind, or horses are breaking their legs ... I don’t know how we will fight together!

You surprise me too, battalion commander! You can also talk differently. I’ll understand better,” Kuznetsov replied hostilely and walked into the darkness, filled with the hum of engines, the neighing of horses.

Lieutenant Kuznetsov! Drozdovsky called out. - Back!..

What else?

The flashlight beam approached from behind, smoking in the frosty fog, resting on the cheek with a tickling light.

Lieutenant Kuznetsov! .. - A narrow blade of light cut through the eyes; Drozdovsky went ahead, blocking the way, stretching himself with a string. - Stop, I ordered!

Take away the lantern, battalion commander, - Kuznetsov said quietly, feeling what might happen between them at that moment, but right now every word of Drozdovsky, his unquestioningly minting voice raised such irresistible, deaf resistance in Kuznetsov, as if what he was doing, he was saying, Drozdovsky ordered him was a stubborn and calculated attempt to remind him of his power and humiliate him.

"Yes, he wants it," thought Kuznetsov, and thinking so, he felt the beam of a flashlight moved close, and in the blinding orange circles of light he heard Drozdovsky's whisper:

Kuznetsov... Remember, I am in command in the battery. Me!.. Only me! This is not a school! The familiarity is over! If you wiggle, it will end badly for you! I won't stand on ceremony, I don't intend to! All clear? Run to the platoon! - Drozdovsky pushed him with a lantern in the chest. - To the platoon! Run!..

Blinded by the direct light, he did not see Drozdovsky's eyes, only something cold and hard, like a blunt point, pressed against his chest. And then, sharply pulling aside his hand with a flashlight and holding it a little, Kuznetsov said:

You'll still remove the lantern... And as for the threat... it's funny to listen, battalion commander!

And he went along an invisible road, hardly distinguishing in the dark the contours of cars, limbers, guns, the figures of riders, the croup of horses - after the light of the lantern, circles went ahead, like sparkling spots of extinguished fires in the dark. Near his platoon, he ran into Lieutenant Davlatyan. On the run, he breathed a soft pleasant smell of bread, quickly asked:

Are you from Drozdovsky? What's there?

Go gogo. He is interested in the mood in the platoon, whether there are sick people, whether there are deserters, ”Kuznetsov said, not without malicious irony. - I think you have it, don't you?

He disappeared into the darkness, taking with him that soothing, homely smell of bread.

“Just stupidity and hysteria,” Kuznetsov thought, remembering Drozdovsky's warning words and feeling an unnatural nakedness in them. - What is he? Is he taking revenge on me for Ukhanov, for the horse that broke his legs?”

From a distance, passed along the column, as if ascending the stairs, the familiar command "step march" was approaching. And Kuznetsov, approaching the team of the first gun, with the silhouettes of riders showing through on horseback, repeated it:

Platoon, step ma-arsh! ..

The column moved at once; The footsteps of many feet pounded at random. And when the platoon began to stretch along the road, someone thrust a hard prickly cracker into Kuznetsov's hand.

Like a hungry animal, right? he heard Davlatyan's voice. - Take it. It will be more fun.

Gnawing on a biscuit, experiencing a viscous-sweet satisfaction of hunger, Kuznetsov said, touched:

Thanks Goga. How did you keep it?

Well, you! You are talking nonsense. Let's go to the front line, shall we?

Probably Goga.

Rather, you know, honestly ...

Chapter Five

While in the highest German headquarters everything seemed to be predetermined, developed, approved, and Manstein's tank divisions began fighting for a breakthrough from the Kotelnikovo area to Stalingrad, tormented by a four-month battle, to the more than three hundred thousandth group of Colonel General, closed by our fronts in the snow and ruins Paulus, tensely waiting for the outcome - at this time, another of our freshly formed in the rear army, by order of the Headquarters, was thrown south through the boundless steppes towards the Goth army strike group, which included thirteen divisions. The actions of both sides resembled, as it were, the scales on which the last possibilities in the circumstances were now placed.

... Either overtaking the column, or lagging behind, the trophy "horch" raced, shaking along the side of the road. General Bessonov, his head pulled into his collar, sat motionless, looking through the windshield, silent from the moment he left the army headquarters. This long silence of the commander was perceived in the car as his unsociableness, as an obstacle that no one dared to overcome first. The member of the Military Council, divisional commissar Vesnin, was silent. And, leaning back in the corner of the back seat, Bessonov's adjutant, a young, sociable disposition, Major Bozhichko, pretended to be sleeping, who from the very beginning of the trip was occupied with the idea of ​​telling the last staff joke, but there was no clever chance - he did not risk breaking the firm silence of his superiors.

But Bessonov did not think that this isolation of his could be perceived as an unwillingness to communicate, as a self-confident indifference to others. He had long known from experience that talkativeness or silence could not change anything in his relationships with people. He did not want to please everyone, did not want to seem pleasant to all interlocutors. Such a petty, vain game with the aim of winning sympathy always disgusted him, irritated him in others, repelled, like empty lightness, the spiritual weakness of an insecure person. Bessonov learned long ago that in war, superfluous words are dust that sometimes obscures the true state of things. Therefore, when he received the army, he asked little about the merits and demerits of the corps and division commanders, traveled around them, got to know each other dryly, looked closely at everyone, not entirely satisfied, but not entirely disappointed either.

What Bessonov saw through the glass of the "horch" with the headlights occasionally flashing in the frosty fog - the faces of soldiers and commanders, like a woman covered in frosty balaclavas, the endless movement of felt boots dragging along the road - did not tell him about the frightening drop in "fighting spirit" , but about the ultimate, devastating fatigue, separated from his power. These balaclava-clad soldiers were to go into battle, and perhaps one in five of them were to die sooner than they thought. They did not and could not know where the battle would begin, they did not know that many of them were making the first and last march of their lives. And Bessonov clearly and soberly determined the measure of the approaching danger. He knew that the front was barely holding on in the Kotelnikovsky direction, that German tanks had advanced forty kilometers in the direction of Stalingrad in three days, that now they had only one obstacle in front of them - the Myshkova River, and beyond it the flat steppe to the Volga itself. Bessonov was also aware that in those moments, when, sitting in the car, he was thinking about the situation known to him, his army and Manstein's tank divisions were moving with equal persistence towards this natural line, and from the one who would be the first to reach Myshkova , depended on a lot, if not all.

He wanted to look at his watch, but did not look, did not move, thinking that this gesture would break the silence, serve as an occasion for a conversation, which he did not want. He remained silent as before, leaning stone-immovably on his stick, finding a comfortable position for a long time, stretching out his wounded leg to the heat of the engine. The elderly driver, occasionally looking sideways, vaguely saw, in the faint glow of the instruments, the edge of the general's gloomy leaden eye, his dry cheek, and his tightly compressed lips. Carrying different commanders, an experienced driver understood the silence in the car in his own way - as a result of a quarrel on the eve of the trip or dressing down by the front-line authorities. Behind him, sometimes a match flared up with a small glow, the flame of the commissar's cigarette reddened in the darkness, the leather of the belt creaked; there, in the corner of the seat, Bozhichko, always cheerful in conversation, was still pretending to snore.

“He didn’t like something, or he’s unsociable in character,” the driver thought, at the same time, at every flash of a cigarette behind his back, he was tormented by the desire to take at least one puff. - And does not smoke, you see, from the face of the patient, green. Or ask for permission: allow me, they say, one cigarette, comrade commander, already the ears are swollen without smoking ... ".

Turn on the headlights,” Bessonov said suddenly. The driver flinched at his voice, turned on the headlights. A powerful clearing of light cut down ahead, in a frosty fog. The mist, scattered over the road under strong headlights, swirled, hit the windows in waves, got tangled in the waving "wipers", flowing around the car with bluish smoke. For a moment it seemed - the car was moving along the bottom of the ocean, the smooth roar of the engine was the most sounding matter in its depths under the water column.

Then it sharply approached, appeared to the right, grew, blackened, flashed randomly under the bright light with icy bowlers, machine guns, rifles, a column. She huddled in a swarming crowd in front of huge, like haystacks covered with snow, tanks blocking the road. The soldiers turned around at the unusually striking light of the car - dissatisfied, tired, as if with a white band-aid plastered over with balaclavas - and at the same time shouted something, waved their hands.

To the tanks, - ordered Bessonov to the driver.

Apparently, the guys from the mechanized corps, - said Vesnin, a member of the Military Council, brightening up. - What are they, such scoundrels, staged a pandemonium! Infantry offended? - He, however, experiencing a weakness for the tankers, said "scoundrels" affectionately and added with cautious admiration: - Here are the eagles!

But crawling, comrade commissar, - mockingly put in Bozhichko, who immediately came to his senses.

These are not corps machines,” Bessonov firmly corrected. - Mamin's body is moving along the railroad. To our left. They can't be here now. Under no circumstances.

Let me find out, comrade commander? Bozhichko replied in a cheerful voice, as if he was not dozing at all. He sat up idle, without talking, and was clearly glad of the possibility of any manifestation of energy.

Bessonov ordered the driver:

Stop the car.

The powerful motor of the "horch" fell silent, the headlights fell in silence, tentacles were drawn into the radiator. Night closed at once, the column and tanks disappeared. Bessonov waited in the car, getting used to the darkness, then opened the door, sticking out his wand to stop it. Climbing out, he touched the edge of the door with his foot and, pricked by pain in his shin, stood for a while, annoyed at himself for the fact that, as he got out, he thought not to hurt his leg, and so he did.

Everything was cloudy blue, frosty, starry. In the midst of this snowy darkness, Bessonov could not clearly distinguish a column stretched out under the stars into the steppe, crowded with square bulks of tanks: long silhouettes of cars with curtained sidelights, wagons, crowded soldiers. On the road he heard the hum of idling car and tractor engines; hoarse voices, frozen through and through, shouted ahead, interspersed with obscenities:

Hey, tankers, your mother's technique, why dug in in the rear?

Mother honest, they do not knit bast!

Get your iron out of the way - spread out, exactly at the wedding! I suppose they got drunk on vodka - they flooded their eyes!

Clear the way. Let's go!

Brothers, some bosses are here ... Two cars! ..

Bessonov went to these discordant cries, knowing that he was still little seen in the troops, there were no buttonholes and general insignia on the sheepskin coat, but at the sight of a high hat in the crowd, the abuse gradually faded away, and someone who suddenly realized himself nearby said:

No general...

Who is the commander of the tank unit? asked Bessonov not in a loud, but in a weary, creaky voice. - Please report.

It became quiet. Members of the Military Council Vesnin and Bozhichko came up from the car, talking. When they stopped, they also fell silent. Submachine gunners jumped onto the road from the second car - security.

Bessonov waited. Nobody responded.

From the dark bulk of the last tank with bluish islands of snow sparkling on the armor, there was an icy smell of metal heated by frost, rancid cooled diesel fuel. It seemed that there was no one in the car, the lights were not on, the tank seemed to be dead dead. Only something blackened in the tower hatch, stirred a little, obscuring the stars, but from there - not a sound.

I say, let the commander of the tank unit come up to me, - Bessonov repeated in the same tone. - I'm waiting.

Who needs? You, infantry, do not command me! Better go around the tanks sideways, out of harm's way! - an angry voice answered from above, and this vaguely black, protruding from the tower, moved more noticeably across the stars.

Come on, get down to the general, a bird's head in a tank helmet! Why are you having a dialogue? - Bozhychko said with caustic gaiety and, grabbing the iron handrails, climbed onto the armor, hurried: - In a moment, in a moment! To the general!

To what other general? Don't take me for a gun! Not the first day... General with infantry stomping, or what? And who is in the headquarters?

Come on, come on, honey, you're talking long. Jump from the sky to the ground!

A hand-held flashlight flared up above, with a greenish camouflage light snatched out of the emerging emptiness of the sky a wide and huge, it seemed from below, man in overalls, apparently worn over a padded jacket. The man slowly climbed out of the hatch onto the armor, jumped down onto the road.

God, shine a light on him,” ordered Bessonov. - And let him down.

Come on, come on, boy, come closer, don't be shy, - said Bozhichko.

The tanker stopped in front of Bessonov, noticeably smaller on the ground, but still a head taller than him, clumsily baggy in his full uniform, an excited face streaked with soot, downcast eyes under the light of a flashlight, lined with the blackness of burning, also black trembling lips were parched. He was breathing heavily, and there was a smell of wine fumes.

Drunk? asked Bessonov. - Look at me, tanker!

No... comrade general. I'm the norm ... the norm ... - squeezed out the tankman, without raising his mournfully black eyelids, his nostrils flared.

Part number and rank? Where are you from?

The tankman's parched lips moved feverishly:

Separate forty-fifth tank regiment, first battalion; commander of the third company, lieutenant Azhermachev ...

Bessonov looked at him intently, not yet believing in the accuracy of the answer.

How is it forty-five? How did you get here, company commander? he asked very clearly. - The forty-fifth regiment is attached to another army and, as you know, keeps the defense ahead! Answer more clearly.

The tanker suddenly threw up his head, his eyelids opened at once in some kind of clownish, terrible outline of his eyes, filled with intoxicating haze. He spoke softly:

There is no defense there ... The Germans occupied the village. Bypassed from the rear. There are three cars left of my company ... Two of them have holes ... Incomplete crews ... I escaped with the remnants of the company ...

Break out? - asked Bessonov and, only at that moment understanding everything very clearly, repeated this sharp word with prickly paws, so familiar from the forty-first year: - Break out? And the rest, too, lieutenant, escaped? Who else got out? - Bessonov repeated unkindly, emphasizing "broke out" and "broke out."

Ah, the skin! - swore someone in the crowd of soldiers. The tanker spoke in a sobbing voice:

I don't know... I don't know who got out. I broke through with these tanks... There was no connection, comrade general... The radio did not work. I could not…

What can you add?

Bessonov, holding back his anger, burned with pain in his lower leg, no longer saw anyone in particular, but heard the scattered sounds of commands, the rumble of engines behind his huge, panting, stopped, like a living body, column, as if broken on the way to where they had escaped from. blind desperation, this drunk lieutenant tanker and these three tanks, blocking the road now, and felt something poisonous, as if panic itself was a black shadow hovering in the air. The soldiers around the tanker froze.

Bessonov repeated:

Anything to add, lieutenant?

The tanker sucked in air through his nostrils, as if crying silently.

Major Titkov! - Bessonov ordered into the darkness in a distinctly hard, merciless voice, in which the inevitability of the sentence pronounced sounded. - Arrest him! .. And like a coward - to the tribunal!

He knew the indisputable significance of his orders, he knew that his order would be carried out instantly, and when he saw the undersized, iron-strong, with the figure of a wrestler, Major Titkov from the guards and two young athletic submachine gunners who approached the tanker, grimacing, involuntarily turned away, abruptly threw to Major Bozhichko :

Check out how the other tankers in the cars feel there!

There is a check, comrade commander! Bozhichko replied with a weak cry of amazement and humility, as if at that moment some kind of deadly wave emanated from the commander, touching him, the adjutant, too. And this was unpleasant for Bessonov. He went ahead along the road.

Who is the commander here? Why was the truck blocking the road? said Bessonov with cold restraint, stepping onto the bridge; his wand stuck into the wooden flooring. He walked quickly, trying not to limp.

The soldiers crowding on the bridge respectfully made way for Bessonov; someone said:

They have a problem with the engine.

Ahead, in the middle of the bluish stripe of the bridge showing through under the stars, somewhat sideways, probably after skidding, loomed dimly a high-body truck with a raised hood, under which a light burned yellow. Her light was almost obscured by heads bent over the engine in concern.

Commander, come to me! Whose car? - And immediately a fragile figure - like a boy, dressed in a long overcoat - quickly straightened up near the hood. Earflaps shifted over a protruding ear, narrow shoulders drawn from behind by the light of a light bulb, the face is not visible - only the steam of breath and the sonorous cry of a young cockerel on a high note:

Junior Lieutenant Belenky! Oeresbe car attached to the artillery supply ... Sudden stop due to a malfunction ... We are transporting shells ...

Esbe, - finished the junior lieutenant. - A separate repair and construction battalion ... Six vehicles are temporarily attached to the artillery supply!

Well, well, oeresbe ... you won’t pronounce it, ”said Bessonov. - Tie your tongue with a knot ... - And he asked: - Is there any hope of fixing the car in five minutes?

N-no, Comrade General...

Bessonov did not listen to the end:

Five minutes to unload shells and clear the bridge. Throw the car off the roadway if you don't have time! Not a second of delay!

The junior lieutenant stood frozen, his protruding ear with a hat stuck out strangely.

Comrade General! Comrade commander! - soared in the direction of the tanks, a wild pleading cry, similar to sobs. - I ask you to listen ... I ask! .. Let me go to the general! Let the general go! Then you me...

This cry again gave a push of pain in the wounded leg. Bessonov turned around and, suddenly feeling that he might fall, having stumbled at the wrong step, went back, as if under the pain of torture, and when he saw near the bulk of the tanks people from his guard, with force tearing off the lieutenant, who was clinging to the tracks with both hands, arrogantly sitting on the snow - tanker, involuntarily stopped. Vesnin, a member of the Military Council, immediately approached him from the car and spoke with persuasive vehemence:

Pyotr Alexandrovich, I beg you... A young guy, in general. He was apparently in a state of prostration when the Germans piled on. But he understands that he committed a crime, he realizes ... I just spoke to him. Please, don't be so harsh!

“This seems to be the first disagreement between me and the commissar,” thought Bessonov. “I quickly saw cruelty in my actions.”

The pain in the leg did not let go, it squeezed the shin with hot claws, Bessonov, as if through a blue glass, saw from the side the long oval of Vesnin's face, his gleaming glasses, and, ready to get into the car, said dryly:

Apparently, you forgot what panic is, Vitaly Isaevich? Forgot what this infection is? Or so, in this state of prostration, will we reach Stalingrad? Come on, let them let the tanker down. I want to look at it again,” he added.

Major Titkov, bring the lieutenant! Vesnin ordered.

The major and submachine gunners brought the tanker down, he was breathing hoarsely and quickly, his teeth were chattering finely, as if he had been doused with ice water naked. He could not utter a word, and when he finally tried to speak, only the strangled sounds of sharp throats were heard, and Vesnin touched him on the shoulder:

Get a grip, lieutenant. Speak!

The tanker took a step towards Bessonov and croaked:

Comrade Commander... all life, blood... I will atone for blood... - He rubbed his chest with his hands to push the air into his lungs. - For the first and last time... If I don't justify... shoot me. Just believe. I'll put a bullet in my forehead!..

Bessonov, without listening to the end, stopped him with a wave of his hand:

Enough! Immediately into the tank - and forward! Where did you get out! And if you think again about this “break out”, you will go to court as a coward and an alarmist! Immediately forward!

Bessonov limped to the car, and it seemed to him that in the resulting movement behind him he heard a hysterically suppressed sob of laughter, a choked "thank you", absurd, senseless, unpleasant, like this animal laughter, as if he, Bessonov, due to some perverted whim had the right to take and give life, and giving, brought uncontrollable happiness to others.

“Something is wrong in me, not the way I would like ... This should not be,” thought Bessonov already in the car, stretching his leg to the engine. - I would like it to be different. But how? Have I evoked fear, resignation to fear? Or was this tanker sincerely repenting?

The driver, finishing his smoke in a hurry, inhaled so much on a thick cigarette that the shag crackled, sparks flew, his mustache was illuminated with heat, he said guiltily to Bessonov:

Excuse me, comrade general, I puffed up ...

He turned on the motor. Vesnin silently climbed into the car.

Smoke,” Bessonov permitted with disgust, “if you can't stand it. We'll capture Major Bozhychko on the bridge. Go.

What kind of makhorka do you have, Ignatiev? Let me try. "Gouge your eyes" out? Goes to the liver? - Vesnin gave a voice, settling in the back seat.

Yes, if you don’t disdain, you’ll get through, comrade member of the Military Council, ”the driver answered eagerly. - Take a purse.

Ahead, tanks roared mightily, throwing sparks from their exhaust pipes; the tracks gnashed, they began to stir, the eyes of the headlights gleamed like an animal. In the blizzard raised by the caterpillars, the cars turned around on the side of the column that had receded from the road. The front one began to crawl onto the bridge that drummed under it. Slowing down the engine speed, the tank stopped in front of a truck obliquely blocking the passage, around which they worked, the soldiers fussed, unloading the last shells. Headlights highlighted the figure of Major Bozhychko on the bridge. He commanded the unloading. Then, putting his hands to his mouth with a mouthpiece, the major shouted something to the tankman who was standing in the upper hatch. The soldiers ran away from the truck. The front tank shot with exhausts, rushed forward, hit the side of the car with caterpillars, dragged it along the flooring with toy ease. Breaking the railing of the bridge, the truck rushed down, hit the ice of the river with a crunch.

What a war of monstrous destruction! Nothing has a price, - Vesnin said sadly, looking down through the glass.

Bessonov did not answer, he sat stooping.

With the headlights on, the light hurrying the tanks, the Horch slowed down. Major Bozhichko, agitated, smelling strongly of the sharply medicinal frosty air, did not get in, but tumbled into the car and, slamming the door, puffing after energetic actions on the bridge, reported not without pleasure:

You can move, comrade commander.

Thanks, major.

In the light of the headlights, Bessonov saw on the edge of the bridge, near the broken railings, the erect figure of a junior lieutenant in a long overcoat with a high, cock-like voice, with an awkwardly protruding ear. The junior lieutenant either looked down in confusion, then looked back at the "horch", as if for the first time not understanding anything, asking for protection from someone.

Bessonov ordered:

Turn on the headlights, Ignatiev, - and, finding a comfortable position for the leg near the warm engine, with his eyes closed, he sunk his head deeper into the collar.

Victor, he thought. - Yes, Vitya ... ".

Recently, all the young faces that Bessonov met by chance caused him bouts of painful loneliness, his inexplicable paternal guilt towards his son, and the more often he now thought about him, the more it seemed that his son’s whole life passed monstrously imperceptibly, slipped past him. .

Bessonov could not remember exactly the details of his childhood, could not imagine what he loved, what toys he had when he went to school. He only remembered clearly how one night his son woke up, probably from a terrible dream and began to cry, and when he heard, he turned on the light. The son sat in the crib, thin, clutching the net with thin, trembling hands. Then Bessonov picked it up and, with his hairy chest, felt the weak body pressed against him, the ribs, feeling the sparrow smell of blond hair wet on the crown, carried it around the room, muttering absurd words of a fictitious lullaby, stunned by the tenderness of his father's instinct. “What are you, son, I won’t give you to anyone, we are with you, brother, together ...”.

But I remembered something else more vividly, something that especially executed later: the wife, with a frightened face, pulled the belt out of her hands, and he whipped it on the cheap, covered trousers, bred in the attic dust, of his twelve-year-old son, who did not make a sound at the same time. And when he dropped the belt, the son ran out, biting his lips, looked around at the door - in his gray, maternal eyes, unshed tears of boyish shock trembled.

Once in his life he hurt his son. Then Victor stole money from the desk to buy pigeons ... The fact that he led pigeons in the attic was found out later.

Bessonov was transferred from unit to unit - from Central Asia to the Far East, from the Far East to Belarus - everywhere there was a state-owned apartment, state-owned foreign furniture; moved with two suitcases; his wife got used to this long ago, always ready for a change of place, for his new appointment. She meekly carried him and her heavy cross.

Perhaps it was necessary. But long later, having gone through the battles near Moscow, lying in the hospital, he thought at night about his wife and son and understood that much was not as it could be, that he lived as if according to a working draft, all the time in the depths of his consciousness hoping in a year, in two, to rewrite your life cleanly - after thirty, after forty years. But the happy change never came. On the contrary, ranks and positions were raised, at the same time wars broke out - in Spain, in Finland, then the Baltic states, Western Ukraine, and finally - the forty-first year. Now he did not set himself anniversaries, he only thought that this war would certainly change a lot.

And in the hospital, for the first time, the thought came that his life, the life of a military man, probably could only be in a single version, which he himself chose once and for all. Nothing in his life was a gift. You can’t rewrite it cleanly, and you don’t need to do this. It's like fate: either - or. There is no middle. Well, if he had to choose again, he would not change his fate. But, realizing this, Bessonov was aware of the unforgivable: what was closest to him, the only variant of the life he had chosen, slipped, fleetingly flashed past, as if in smoke, and he could not find an excuse either before his son or before his wife.

The last meeting with Victor took place right there, in a hospital near Moscow, in a clean and white ward for generals. The son, having received an appointment after graduating from the infantry school, came to him with his mother three hours before the train left for the front from the Leningrad station. Shining with crimson cubes, smartly creaking with a new commander's belt, sword belt, all festive, happy, smart, but, it seemed, somewhat toy in military splendor, the newly minted junior lieutenant, whom the girls apparently looked back at on the streets, was sitting on a nearby bunk (a walking neighbor - the general delicately left) and spoke in a brittle lively bass about his appointment to the army. About how damned they “were tired” at the school of these endless “become, equal, calm!”. And now, thank God, to the front, they will give a company or a platoon - they give it to all graduates - and real life will begin.

In a conversation, he casually called Bessonov "father", as he had not called before, which he had to get used to. And Bessonov looked at his lively face with gray cheerful eyes, with a gentle fluff on his cheeks, at the thin hand of a capable boy, with which he somewhat anxiously patted the pocket of diagonal riding breeches, and for some reason thought about other boys - junior lieutenants and lieutenants, platoon commanders and the mouth, which almost always had to be seen once: others came to the next battle ...

Allow him, please, to smoke, Petya, - his wife interrupted, watching her son with concern. He started smoking, don't you know?

So you smoke, Victor? - Bessonov asked, unpleasantly surprised inwardly, but pushed the cigarettes and matches of the neighbor-general on the bedside table. - Take it here...

I'm eighteen, father. Everyone in the school smoked. I can't be a black sheep.

And drink, apparently? Already tried? Well, frankly, you're a junior lieutenant, an independent person.

Yes, I tried ... No, no, I have mine. "Guns". Can? Nothing for you? - quickly said the son and, blushing, blew into a cigarette; he lit a match in a special way, in a frontal way, in the palms, as he must have learned from someone in the school. “I can imagine,” he spoke briskly to hide his embarrassment, “what would have happened if you had known earlier. Would you flog?

The son smoked clumsily, blowing smoke down, under the bunk, as if he were smoking in the barracks of the school, fearing the appearance of the commander on duty. Bessonov and his wife looked at each other in silence.

No, Bessonov answered dully. - Never after that. Do you think I'm... a harsh father?

And yet he did the right thing then, ”said the son. - I had to flog. That was a fool!

He, laughing, said this, remembering what now especially tormented Bessonov - the physical pain that had once been inflicted on his son.

My dear men ... Now I have two adult men! - quietly exclaimed the mother and squeezed Bessonov's brush on the blanket with her fingers. - Petya, a strange thing is happening, as if without your participation. Victor is leaving for Volkhovsky, to an unknown army... Can't you do anything, take him to your place... to some division of yours? At least it would be in front of your eyes. You understand?

He understood everything, more than she did, he knew the moth-short fates of the commanders of rifle platoons and companies. He thought about this more than once and, with a gesture of reassurance, wanted to stroke his wife's small warm hand, but restrained himself in the presence of his son.

Now I, Olya, as you can see, are a general without an army, ”said Bessonov, carefully looking at his son, but at the same time turning to his wife. - When the situation is really clear, I will recall Victor, unless, of course ...

The son did not let him finish, choked on smoke, shook his head negatively.

Well, no, father! Under the wing of the father-general? No! And don't talk about it, mother! Maybe even as adjutant to his father? Orders will begin to give?

I will not appoint you to the adjutant, but I will appoint a company of ladies, ”said Bessonov. - And as for the orders - I will not give them without merit. Although I know that they receive them in different ways.

No! At the school, the guys only asked, with such, you know, smiles: “Well, now to dad?” I do not want, father! What difference does it make where the company is commanded? Yes, I have an appointment in my pocket. There are four of us from the school - we want to go together. We studied together, we will attack together! And if so - fate! There are no two destinies, father! he repeated someone's words, apparently heard by him. - Honestly, mother, it does not happen!

Bessonov only moved his fingers under his wife's wet palm, she, too, was silent. What seemed to his son now clear and simple, what excited him so much with the expectation of a new independent life, military camaraderie, decisive and, of course, victorious attacks, was portrayed by Bessonov in a somewhat different light. He knew well what a battlefield was, how ugly death in war can sometimes be.

But he had no right to tell his son everything, to destroy in him the naive illusion of youth in an experienced and down-to-earth way. Yes, he would not perceive anything now. Victor clearly felt one thing: how captivatingly the order to go to the front crunched in the pocket of his new tunic. Yes, the war itself had the right to make real amendments.

Fate, Bessonov repeated. - You say, Victor, fate. But the fate of the war is still not a turkey. And this, no matter how strange it may seem to you, every minute every day ... overcoming oneself. Inhuman overcoming, if you want to know. However, this is not the point...

Yes, that's not the point, let's not climb into the jungle of philosophy! - the son nonchalantly agreed and asked, pointing to his father's bandaged leg under the covers: - And how are you, nothing now? From here soon? I can imagine how boring it is to lie here! I'm sorry, father! Doesn't it hurt?.. Oh, damn it, time!.. The guys are waiting for me. I have to go to the station! - and looked at the clock; from this movement of his it was possible to understand that he still did not imagine what pain was, could not even imagine the very possibility of pain.

I hope I can get out of here,” said Bessonov. - And here's what you're saying: write to your mother. At least once a month.

Four times a month, I promise! - Victor got up, almost happy at the thought that soon he would finally get into the car with his school friends.

No, twice, Vitya, - corrected the mother. - And no more. At least I will know...

I promise, mom, I promise. It's time, let's go!

And there was something else to remember.

Before leaving, the son stood, smiling, indecisively, not knowing whether to kiss his father (this was not customary in the family). And he did not dare, did not kiss, but extended his hand in an adult way.

Goodbye, father!

However, Bessonov, squeezing his son's fragile hand, pulled him in and, turning his thin, shaved, as always, cheek, frowning, said:

OK. I don't know when we'll see you again - war, son. - For the first time in the whole conversation, he called him “son”, but not with the intonation that Victor put into the word “father”.

Viktor awkwardly pressed his lips to the edge of his mouth, and Bessonov kissed him on his hot cheek, sensing the sweet smell of pure boyish sweat from his tunic. Said:

Go! Just remember: fragments and bullets disdain old people. They are looking for people like you ... And if you think of it - write, I will find you a company. Well, no fluff to you, no feather, junior lieutenant!

It seems they say, "to hell with it," father?.. Get well soon. I'll write after the first fight!

He laughed, ran his hand along the belt of his belt, smoothed out the folds of a neat commander's tunic, and, with pleasure straightening the pistol holster shining with yellow skin, picked up a brand new, crisp cloak from the back of the bed, deftly threw it over his hand. At the same moment, something with a fractional thud fell on sunny floor of the chamber. They were fresh, golden-shine cartridges for the TT pistol. The pockets of Viktor's cloak were stuffed with them. After graduating from the school of cartridges, only two clips were issued, and he somehow managed to increase their supply, which would be enough for him for many months of the war.

Turning to the window, Bessonov said nothing. And the mother said in a pitiful voice:

What's this? Why do you need so much? I'll help... now. Have you been given that much?

Mom, I myself ... Wait. It is, just in case.

The son, a little embarrassed, began to quickly collect cartridges from the floor, and when he straightened up, pushing them into his pockets, he saw another one rolled away, and, looking back at his father (he was looking out the window), with the toe of his chrome boot, with a light blow, sent the cartridge somewhere into the corner, with a happy face, he went out, as if for a walk, all festive, all toy, junior lieutenant, in crispy belts, with a brand new raincoat thrown over his arm.

Bessonov later found this mirror-polished cartridge under a steam heating battery and held it in his palm for a long time, feeling its strange weightlessness.

... - Commissar, how old is he? Nineteen twenty? Bessonov asked creakingly, breaking the silence in the car.

Tanker?

And there was another one. On the bridge.

In general, boys, Pyotr Alexandrovich.

The Horch, swaying softly over bumps, raced with its headlights off. The tanks had long since disappeared into the bluish haze of the frosty night. On the right, in a black dotted line, trucks with attached heavy guns walked without lights. From time to time there was a splash of wheels skidding on the ice, fragments of commands flew by the wind behind the frozen glass - and Bessonov, all the time feeling this continuous movement, thought:

“Yes, hurry, hurry!”

The soft heat from the heated engine enveloped the bottom of the leg, soothing the pain, wrapping it around it like hot cotton wool; mechanically tapping, evenly waving the "wipers", cleaning the frost from the windows. The whole steppe in front was dull blue under the hot cold stars.

Behind him, a matchlight flared phosphorically, and the smell of cigarette smoke spread through the car.

Yes, twenty, he told me so, - answered Vesnin and immediately asked with confidential caution: - Tell me, Pyotr Alexandrovich, what about your son after all? So you don't hear anything?

Bessonov became alert, firmly squeezed the stick placed between his knees.

How do you know about my son, Vitaly Isaevich? he asked restrainedly, without turning his head. - You wanted to ask: is my son alive?

Vesnin said softly:

I'm sorry, Pyotr Alexandrovich, I didn't want to, of course, somehow ... Of course, I know something. I know that you have a son, a junior lieutenant... He fought on Volkhovsky, in the Second shock, which... In general, you know her fate.

Vesnin was silent.

That's right," Bessonov said coldly. - The second shock, in which my son served, was defeated in June. The commander surrendered. A member of the Military Council shot himself. The communications chief led the remnants of the army out of the encirclement. Among those who left, there was no son. Those who knew him claim that he is dead. Bessonov frowned. - I hope everything I said will die in this car. I would not want idle sensation-hunters to whisper about the events at Volkhovsky. Out of time.

Vesnin could be heard lowering the creaking glass, throwing away the half-smoked cigarette, how the driver shifted in his seat, as if this warning applied only to him, muttered:

Offend you, comrade commander. I've been proven a hundred times...

Be offended if you do not understand, - said Bessonov. - This also applies to Major Bozhychko. Next to me I will not tolerate either too talkative drivers or too talkative adjutants.

Understood, comrade commander! - not offended, cheerfully responded Bozhychko. - Let me know if there are any mistakes.

Everyone has them, - said Bessonov.

“Cool and not simple,” thought Vesnin. - He made it clear that he would not adapt to anyone. In general, he is closed to all locks, not disposed to frankness. What does he think of me? For him, I’m probably just a bespectacled civilian, albeit in the form of a divisional commissar ... ”

Forgive me, Pyotr Alexandrovich, for one more question, - Vesnin said with a desire to melt the ice of some officiality between them. - I know that you were at Headquarters. How is he? Imagine, in my life I saw him several times, but only in the stands. Close - never.

What can I answer you, Vitaly Isaevich? Bessonov said. - You can't answer it with one word.

Just as Vesnin, groping for a new commander, involuntarily restrained himself, so Bessonov was not in the mood to open his soul, to talk about what, to some extent, also concerned his son, about whom Vesnin had asked a minute ago. He felt more and more acutely that the fate of his son was becoming his father's cross, unremitting pain, and, as often happens, the attention, sympathy and curiosity of those around him even more touched the bleeding wound. Even at Headquarters, where Bessonov was invited before being assigned to the army, during the conversation a question arose about his son.

Chapter six

The call to Headquarters was unexpected for him. Bessonov was at that moment not in his Moscow apartment, but at the academy, where he taught the history of military art for two years before the war. Having already heard that an order about his new appointment was to be signed, he went to the head of the academy, General Volubov, an old friend, classmate in the Finnish campaign, a sober, subtle connoisseur of modern tactics, a modest man, not loud in military circles, but very experienced, whose advice Bessonov has always appreciated. Their leisurely conversation, jumbled with memories, while drinking tea in the general's office was interrupted by a phone call. The head of the academy, saying his usual: "Lieutenant General Volubov", with a changed face, raised his eyes to Bessonov, added in a whisper:

You, Pyotr Alexandrovich... Comrade Stalin's assistant. Pick up the phone, please.

Bessonov, puzzled, picked up the phone; an unfamiliar voice, even and quiet, learnedly calm, without any hint of an order, greeted, calling Bessonov not by his rank, but “comrade Bessonov”, then politely asked if he could come today at two o’clock in the afternoon to Comrade Stalin and where to send car.

If it doesn’t make it difficult, to the entrance of the academy, - Bessonov answered and, having finished the conversation, he was silent for a long time under the questioning look of General Volubov, trying not to show the unrest that suddenly gripped him, the outward signs of which were always unpleasant for him in people. Then, looking at his watch, he said in an ordinary voice: - In an hour and a half ... to the Supreme. Here's how it turns out.

I only ask you, Pyotr Alexandrovich, - the head of the academy warned, holding Bessonov by the elbow, - no matter what they ask you, do not rush to answer. Everyone who has been to him says: he does not like nimble people. And for God's sake, do not forget - do not call by name and patronymic, call officially - Comrade Stalin. He does not tolerate a name and patronymic in circulation ... In the evening I will come to you - you will tell me everything in detail.

... In Stalin's waiting room, finished with oak panels, dimly lit through the windows on a grayish-hazy cold day of late autumn, on strong, hard-upholstered chairs, two generals unfamiliar to Bessonov were sitting in silent expectation, and when the middle-aged, gray-haired colonel who accompanied Bessonov in the car, led him in, from behind a wide desk lined with telephones, a small bald man with an expressionless smile, in a modest civilian suit, with an inconspicuous, gray, overworked face, got up. Looking into Bessonov's pupils, shaking hands with a weak, boneless hand, he said that he would have to wait, without specifying how long to wait, and he himself escorted Bessonov to a free chair near two generals.

End of free trial.

Yuri Vasilievich Bondarev "Hot snow"

1. Biography.

2. Place and time of action of the novel "Hot Snow".

3. Analysis of the work. a. The image of the people. b. The tragedy of the novel With. Death is the greatest evil. d. The role of past heroes for the present. e. Character portraits.

f. Love in the work.

g. Kuznetsov and people.

b. Drozdovsky.

in. Ukhanov.

h. The proximity of the souls of Bessonov and Kuznetsov

Yuri Vasilyevich Bondarev was born on March 15, 1924 in the city of Orsk. During the Great Patriotic War, the writer as an artilleryman went a long way from Stalingrad to Czechoslovakia. After the war, from 1946 to 1951, he studied at the M. Gorky Literary Institute. He began to publish in 1949. And the first collection of short stories "On the Big River" was published in 1953.

Widespread fame brought the writer of the story

"Youth of Commanders", published in 1956, "Battalions

they ask for fire "(1957)," The last volleys "(1959).

These books are characterized by drama, accuracy and clarity in the description of the events of military life, the subtlety of the psychological analysis of the characters. Subsequently, his works "Silence" (1962), "Two" (1964), "Relatives" (1969), "Hot Snow" (1969), "Shore" (1975), "Choice "(1980), "Moments" (1978) and others.

Since the mid-60s, the writer has been working on

creating films based on their works; in particular, he was one of the creators of the script for the film epic "Liberation".

Yuri Bondarev is also a laureate of the Lenin and State Prizes of the USSR and the RSFSR. His works have been translated into many foreign languages.

Among Yuri Bondarev's books about the war, "Hot Snow" occupies a special place, opening up new approaches to solving the moral and psychological problems posed in his first stories - "Battalions Ask for Fire" and "Last Salvos". These three books about the war are an integral and developing world, which has reached the greatest completeness and figurative power in "Hot Snow". The first stories, independent in all respects, were at the same time, as it were, a preparation for a novel, perhaps not yet conceived, but living in the depths of the writer's memory.

The events of the novel "Hot Snow" unfold near Stalingrad, south of the blockaded by Soviet troops of the 6th Army of General Paulus, in the cold December 1942, when one of our armies withstood the blow of the tank divisions of Field Marshal Manstein in the Volga steppe, who sought to break through the corridor to the army of Paulus and get her out of the way. The outcome of the battle on the Volga, and maybe even the timing of the end of the war itself, largely depended on the success or failure of this operation. The duration of the novel is limited to just a few days, during which the heroes of Yuri Bondarev selflessly defend a tiny patch of land from German tanks.

In "Hot Snow" time is squeezed even tighter than in the story "Battalions ask for fire." "Hot Snow" is a short march of General Bessonov's army unloaded from the echelons and a battle that decided so much in the fate of the country; these are cold frosty dawns, two days and two endless December nights. Knowing no respite and lyrical digressions, as if the author's breath was caught from constant tension, the novel "Hot Snow" is notable for its directness, direct connection of the plot with the true events of the Great Patriotic War, with one of its decisive moments. The life and death of the heroes of the novel, their very destinies are illuminated by the alarming light of true history, as a result of which everything acquires special weight and significance.

In the novel, Drozdovsky's battery absorbs almost all of the reader's attention, the action is concentrated mainly around a small number of characters. Kuznetsov, Ukhanov, Rubin and their comrades are part of a great army, they are a people, a people, to the extent that the hero's typified personality expresses the spiritual, moral traits of the people.

In "Hot Snow" the image of the people who went to war appears before us in a fullness of expression, unprecedented before in Yuri Bondarev, in the richness and diversity of characters, and at the same time in integrity. This image is not exhausted either by the figures of young lieutenants - commanders of artillery platoons, or by the colorful figures of those who are traditionally considered to be people from the people - like the slightly cowardly Chibisov, the calm and experienced gunner Yevstigneev, or the straightforward and rude riding Rubin; nor by senior officers, such as the division commander, Colonel Deev, or the army commander, General Bessonov. Only collectively understood and accepted emotionally as something unified, with all the difference in ranks and ranks, they constitute the image of a fighting people. The strength and novelty of the novel lies in the fact that this unity is achieved as if by itself, imprinted without any special efforts of the author - a living, moving life. The image of the people, as the result of the whole book, perhaps most of all nourishes the epic, novelistic beginning of the story.

Yuri Bondarev is characterized by aspiration for tragedy, the nature of which is close to the events of the war itself. It would seem that nothing answers this aspiration of the artist so much as the most difficult time for the country to start the war, the summer of 1941. But the writer's books are about a different time, when the defeat of the Nazis and the victory of the Russian army are almost certain.

The death of heroes on the eve of victory, the criminal inevitability of death, contains a high tragedy and causes a protest against the cruelty of the war and the forces that unleashed it. The heroes of "Hot Snow" are dying - the battery medical officer Zoya Elagina, the shy Eedov Sergunenkov, a member of the Military Council Vesnin, Kasymov and many others are dying ... And the war is to blame for all these deaths. Let Lieutenant Drozdovsky’s heartlessness be blamed for the death of Sergunenkov, even if the blame for Zoya’s death falls partly on him, but no matter how great Drozdovsky’s fault, they are, first of all, victims of the war.

The novel expresses the understanding of death as a violation of higher justice and harmony. Recall how Kuznetsov looks at the murdered Kasymov: "now under Kasymov's head lay a shell box, and his youthful, beardless face, recently alive, swarthy, turned deathly white, thinned by the terrible beauty of death, looked in surprise with moist cherry half-open eyes at his chest, at torn to shreds, excised quilted jacket, as if even after death he did not comprehend how it killed him and why he could not get up to the sight.In this unseeing squint of Kasymov there was a quiet curiosity about his unlived life on this earth and at the same time a calm mystery death, into which the burning pain of the fragments overturned him when he tried to rise to the sight.

Even more acutely Kuznetsov feels the irreversibility of the loss of the driver Sergunenkov. After all, the mechanism of his death is revealed here. Kuznetsov turned out to be a powerless witness to how Drozdovsky sent Sergunenkov to certain death, and he, Kuznetsov, already knows that he will curse himself forever for what he saw, was present, but failed to change anything.

In "Hot Snow", with all the tension of events, everything human in people, their characters are revealed not separately from the war, but interconnected with it, under its fire, when, it seems, one cannot even raise one's head. Usually the chronicle of battles can be retold separately from the individuality of its participants - a battle in "Hot Snow" cannot be retold except through the fate and characters of people.

The past of the characters in the novel is essential and weighty. For some it is almost cloudless, for others it is so complex and dramatic that the former drama is not left behind, pushed aside by the war, but accompanies a person in the battle southwest of Stalingrad. The events of the past determined Ukhanov's military fate: a gifted, full of energy officer who would have commanded a battery, but he is only a sergeant. The cool, rebellious character of Ukhanov also determines his movement within the novel. Chibisov's past troubles, which almost broke him (he spent several months in German captivity), echoed in him with fear and determine a lot in his behavior. One way or another, the past of Zoya Elagina, and Kasymov, and Sergunenkov, and the unsociable Rubin slips in the novel, whose courage and loyalty to soldier's duty we will be able to appreciate only by the end of the novel.

The past of General Bessonov is especially important in the novel. The thought of his son being taken prisoner by the Germans makes his position both at Headquarters and at the front difficult. And when a fascist leaflet announcing that Bessonov's son was taken prisoner falls into the counterintelligence of the front in the hands of Lieutenant Colonel Osin, it seems that a threat has arisen to Bessonov's service.

All this retrospective material enters the novel so naturally that the reader does not feel its separateness. The past does not require a separate space for itself, separate chapters - it has merged with the present, opened its depths and the living interconnectedness of one and the other. The past does not burden the story about the present, but gives it great dramatic sharpness, psychologism and historicism.

Yuri Bondarev does exactly the same with portraits of characters: the appearance and characters of his characters are shown in development, and only by the end of the novel or with the death of the hero does the author create a complete portrait of him. How unexpected in this light is the portrait of Drozdovsky, always fit and collected, on the very last page - with a relaxed, broken-sluggish gait and unusually bent shoulders.

and immediacy in the perception of characters, feelings

their real, living people, in whom always remains

the possibility of mystery or sudden insight. Before us

the whole person, understandable, close, and meanwhile we are not

leaves the feeling that we only touched

edge of his spiritual world - and with his death

you feel like you haven't fully understood it yet

inner world. Commissar Vesnin, looking at the truck,

thrown from the bridge onto the river ice, says: "What a war, monstrous destruction. Nothing has a price." The monstrosity of war is expressed most of all - and the novel reveals this with brutal frankness - in the murder of a person. But the novel also shows the high price of life given for the Motherland.

1989 began with an attack on the writer Yuri Bondarev. As we remember, six months ago he spoke at the 19th party conference, where, with courage worthy of a front-line soldier and patriot of his country, he told the truth about Gorbachev's perestroika: that it had strayed from the right course, that anti-patriots were seizing power in the country under perestroika flags. This speech caused a real wave of hatred for the writer among the liberals. Almost all the media at his disposal (including cinema) published devastating materials about Bondarev's speech. Since only one list of such publications will take up a lot of space, I will limit myself to only a few - the most programmatic ones.

On January 6, the Knizhnoye Obozreniye newspaper published a long (five-page) interview with the famous liberal poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko (by the way, he was one of the co-chairs of the April Writers' Association). The poet devoted one and a half pages from his interview to Yuri Bondarev, chiding him for his participation in the film epic "Liberation" (as we remember, the writer acted there as a screenwriter). We can safely say that the entire liberal public spoke through Yevtushenko, who from the very beginning considered this grandiose epic film a shameful stain in the history of Soviet cinematography. But let's listen to the poet himself:

“The film “Liberation” was conceived as a major action of mass reorientation of people back to the personality cult of Stalin, a well-thought-out major action. A compromised Stalinist was not needed to create the script. They needed a writer of the thaw, with an honest name, which Bondarev had. Apparently, this is what happened to Bondarev: for the first time he finds himself in the circle of famous military leaders. During the war, he, perhaps, saw only colonels, but here at the same table with generals, marshals, he talks, spends evenings, goes to visit them, drinks with them ... He falls into the euphoria of being close to his yesterday's superiors, that in the war and couldn't imagine...

I do not want to say that you need to turn away from communication with military leaders. But one should not fall into the general-marshal euphoria, which displaces all ideas about the war. Bondarev stopped looking at the war with trench eyes. It's an old problem!"

Here we interrupt the speech of the poet for a short remark. When the war began, Bondarev was 17 years old, and Yevtushenko was only eight. Therefore, the first practically from the school bench went to the front and fought the entire war in artillery (the most vulnerable branch of the army after the infantry), and Yevtushenko spent all this time sitting near his mother's skirt. Therefore, the poet's reasoning about the way the front-line soldier Bondarev perceives the war looks blasphemous. As they say, whose cow would moo ...

Secondly, Yuri Bondarev was not the only author of the "Liberation" script. There was also a screenwriter Oscar Kurganov (Esterkin), who wrote almost all the episodes with military leaders (and Bondarev described the battle scenes, relying largely on the text of his novel The Battalions Ask for Fire). However, Kurganov (Esterkin) Yevtushenko does not mention a word in his interview, which is quite understandable. As we remember, after the second joint film with Yuri Ozerov - "Soldiers of Freedom" - Kurganov (Esterkin) disagreed with the director, and their relationship ended there. This scandal raised the screenwriter's reputation among liberals, and since then his participation in the "Liberation" was no longer remembered by them. As the saying goes, a raven will not peck out a crow's eye.

But back to Yevtushenko's interview.

“In the film Liberation, Stalin again appeared charming. The film was released in gigantic circulation and became the first mass trial action of the resurrection of the cult of personality. It was a very dangerous moment (here Yevtushenko is right: a dangerous moment for cosmopolitan liberals. - F.R.).

Bondarev was rewarded to the maximum, publicly raised (and again I note: no matter who the cow was mooing ... Yevtushenko served the authorities much more zealously: he wrote the poems “Kazan University” (about Lenin), “Under the Skin of the Statue of Liberty” (against America), “Mother and Neutron bomb ”(again, anti-American), for which only five years ago (in 1984) he was awarded the State Prize of the USSR, and even earlier he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. - F.R.). The film was immensely popular, because the opium of what we call the cult of personality has not yet faded from the psychology of people (in fact, it is called patriotism, which is really worse for liberals. - F.R.).

Unbeknownst to himself, Bondarev believed that the enthusiasm and excitement around the film is the opinion of History, its decisive word in assessing events, the opinion of the people as a whole. But what eventually becomes the opinion of the people sometimes does not consist at all in the opinion of the majority for a given period of time, but sometimes in the opinion of a minority and even in an insulted - humiliated opinion (that is, in the opinion of cosmopolitan liberals. - F.R. .). Moreover, popular opinion is sometimes hidden in the opinion that is called "anti-popular" at this stage of history. But Bondarev forgot about it...

Remember the most famous sentimental episode of the film, when Stalin says: they say, he doesn’t change soldiers for marshals ... This episode evoked enthusiastic applause. Stalin again began to seem like a great man to those who did not know his true crimes. After all, the exposure of the cult of personality was half-hearted, the veil was only lifted over the crimes ... (And again, the poet is right: if the Soviet rulers had decided to tell the whole truth about why Stalin began to burn out the "fifth column" with a red-hot iron, which was preparing a military coup and the restoration of bourgeois orders, then different Yevtushenki would have long been silent in a rag or ... they would have left for the cordon. - F.R.).

Before Bondarev there was an opportunity to comprehend what happened. Repent? Why repent? We are all humans. It was possible in one of the articles to think aloud about what happened to him, to others, to our time? But publicity carries the fear of exposure (you feel where the poet is driving: the order bearer, front-line soldier Yuri Bondarev is a coward, and I, the skirt maker Yevgeny Yevtushenko, am a hero. - F.R.). There is another fear - a professional one: Bondarev is used to being in the spotlight for so many years (one can argue here: against the background of Yevtushenko, always dressed like a rooster in colorful shirts and jackets, people like Yuri Bondarev always looked modest. - F.R) . And suddenly this focus of attention somehow inadvertently shifted from his works to others (here the poet is right: the liberals ensured that the heroic prose about the war was replaced by deheroized libels. - F.R.). There was a combination of professional jealousy with the fear of exposure ... And he did not have the courage to speak honestly about it. The salvation of man, as I said above, is in confession. Bondarev's fear of confession is becoming more and more aggravated... From the moment he became the author of "Liberation", this pseudo-epic, he became objectively protected from any criticism... "

Here is such an "obtrusive" interview given by the liberal poet, licked and caressed by the Soviet authorities no less ardently and passionately than those people whom he so zealously reproached for this. For example, take the same Yuri Bondarev. His books were repeatedly published in the USSR and the countries of socialism, but in capitalist countries almost no one knew about them - they did not publish them. But Yevgeny Yevtushenko was read a lot there: after all, he managed to write not only "for Lenin", but also "against Stalin." He also tried himself as a professional photographer, and his photo albums were published in England, the USA and Singapore, his photo exhibitions were held in eight countries, and he visited 92 (!) countries as a poet. And now let us ask ourselves: if Yevtushenko had not been favored in every way by the Soviet authorities, could he have traveled around the world with such frequency?

At the end of this topic, I will cite a letter from V. Khetagurova, a well-known shock worker of labor of the 30s, which was published in the Young Guard magazine almost on the same days when Yevtushenko gave his interview:

“It is very disappointing when you see how, for example, the famous poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, sitting imposingly in an armchair in front of a television camera, gleaming with a ring on his finger, talks about the fact that almost all of our current troubles came from the 30s. More and more often I hear arguments about whether all these incredible efforts were needed then in the industrialization of the country, the transformation of agriculture. But without them, victory in the war against fascism could have come not in 1945, but much later.

Is it possible to indiscriminately reject everything that was created by the hands of honest people, their everyday labor heroism? After all, this means to cross out everything that they lived with in their youth, on which they raised their children, all their work! This is also how the idea in the human soul is gradually destroyed.

But back to the critical campaign against Yuri Bondarev.

Almost simultaneously with the interview with E. Yevtushenko, the first issue of the Ogonyok magazine this year saw the light of day. It contained an open letter to Yuri Bondarev, written by Mikhail Kolosov, editor-in-chief of the Literaturnaya Rossiya newspaper. Here are just a few excerpts from that message:

“Believe me, it’s not easy for me to write this: for a long time I considered you my like-minded person. Moreover - you were my idol, I idolized you.

First of all, we were brought together by the front-line brotherhood, your books about the war were also my books - about me, about us - truthful and honest, imaginative and courageous. My admiration for you began to dissipate when I saw you in business, in your work, in your relations with people, when I had to work under your leadership in the weekly Literaturnaya Rossiya, when you became in power of the Russian Union of Writers, when you "burdened" himself with a mass of other positions, titles, awards, prizes and a mass of publications. You withstood the test of fire at the front, you withstood the test of fame to some extent, but you did not pass the test of power and excessive well-being that fell on you ...

Now, when critical articles against “untouchable” writers, including yours, are increasingly appearing in the press, you are trying with particular zeal to subdue the newspaper for yourself: you need it as a mouthpiece that promotes your, to put it mildly, not very progressive ideas ( as we remember, Bondarev's speech at the party conference was also called by the liberals "not progressive" - ​​F.R.), as an organ that would protect you and your group from criticism, denounce and sling mud at your opponents ...

At the XIX All-Union Party Conference, you likened the situation in the country to an airplane that took off, but does not see the site where to land, predicting a catastrophe.

There is no need to mention your other "prophecies" of this kind...

Make your way through the crowd of sycophants and look around. Look around and think: are you fighting there, are you fighting for those ideals that will benefit the people, are you not sowing, a preacher of good in words, the seeds of evil in deeds, the seeds of suspicion and enmity?

As soon reality will show, the prophecies of Yuri Bondarev will fully come true, and people like M. Kolosov will forever go down in history as blind men, or even simply traitors.

It will only be a few days after the publication of the issue with this letter, when his fellow sovereigns will rise to the defense of Yuri Bondarev. The Pravda newspaper of January 18, 1989 will publish a letter from seven prominent figures of Soviet literature and art: six writers (M. Alekseev, V. Astafiev, V. Belov, S. Vikulov, P. Proskurin, V. Rasputin) and one cinematographer (Sergey Bondarchuk). Here are some excerpts from it:

“In some publications, under the guise of vital slogans, an unprecedented distortion of history takes place, the social achievements of the people are being revised, cultural values ​​are being vulgarized. Unfortunately, it is precisely this trend that is especially characteristic of many Ogonyok publications. They go far beyond literary disputes. The magazine took on the role of a certain judge on all issues of public life, politics, economics, culture, morality. Attempts are being made to openly rehabilitate the dubious phenomena of the past.

This is done according to the principle: someone said, heard from someone, someone called someone on the phone, i.e. without relying on documents, on carefully verified facts, on serious analysis, on generally accepted laws of ethics, and finally . But with a clearly defined task - to humiliate, slander, discredit.

It is this “method” that was used to write an open letter to Yuri Bondarev (“Spark”, No. 1, 1989), striking in cynicism and cruelty. Have we really lost our self-respect and civic conscience to such an extent that we allow humiliation and insult of a well-known artist for no reason at all?

And the point is not only that this and similar Ognikov publications make us, writers, uncomfortable; painful and ashamed for the Soviet publication ...

We are struck by the clearly marked tendency in a number of press organs to discredit and cross out the multinational Soviet artistic culture, especially Russian - classical and modern. The unworthy fuss around Mayakovsky, the intensifying attacks on Sholokhov and the living writers recognized by the people are in line with spitting on our spiritual values.

That's what worries us. That is what compels us to turn to your newspaper in the days when the world calls for tolerance and mercy.

The call of the authors of the letter was not heard by the liberals. By that time, they had already firmly “saddled history” and were not going to show either tolerance, let alone mercy, towards their ideological opponents. Therefore, already a few days later, indignant responses from representatives of the liberal camp poured into Pravda. Among the authors of these letters were: Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Andrey Voznesensky, Bulat Okudzhava, Anatoly Pristavkin, Fazil Iskander, Vasil Bykov, Ion Druta, etc. could.

Yuri Bondarev

HOT SNOW

Chapter first

Kuznetsov couldn't sleep. More and more pounded, rattled on the roof of the car, blizzard hit the overlapping winds, more and more tightly clogged with snow the hardly guessed window above the bunks.

With a wild, blizzard-rending roar, the locomotive drove the echelon through the night fields, in the white mud rushing from all sides, and in the thundering darkness of the car, through the frozen squeal of the wheels, through the anxious sobs, mumbling in the sleep of the soldiers, this roar continuously warning someone was heard locomotive, and it seemed to Kuznetsov that there, ahead, beyond the blizzard, the glow of the burning city was already dimly visible.

After the stop in Saratov, it became clear to everyone that the division was being urgently transferred to Stalingrad, and not to the Western Front, as was originally supposed; and now Kuznetsov knew that he had only a few hours to go. And, pulling the hard, unpleasantly damp collar of his greatcoat over his cheek, he could not get warm, gain warmth in order to fall asleep: a piercing blow blew through the invisible cracks of the swept window, icy drafts walked along the bunks.

“So I won’t see my mother for a long time,” thought Kuznetsov, cringing from the cold, “they drove us past ...”.

What was a past life - the summer months at a school in hot, dusty Aktyubinsk, with hot winds from the steppe, with the cries of donkeys on the outskirts choking in the sunset silence, so precise in time every evening that platoon commanders in tactical exercises, languishing with thirst , not without relief, they checked their watches against them, marches in the stupefying heat, sweaty and white-scorched tunics in the sun, grit of sand on their teeth; Sunday patrols of the city, in the city garden, where in the evenings a military brass band played peacefully on the dance floor; then release to the school, loading on alarm on an autumn night into wagons, a gloomy forest covered in wild snows, snowdrifts, dugouts of a formation camp near Tambov, then again on alarm at a frosty pinking December dawn, a hasty loading into an echelon and, finally, departure - all this unsteady , temporary, someone controlled life has faded now, remained far behind, in the past. And there was no hope of seeing his mother, and quite recently he had almost no doubt that they would be taken west through Moscow.

“I’ll write to her,” Kuznetsov thought with a suddenly heightened sense of loneliness, “and I’ll explain everything. After all, we have not seen each other for nine months ... ".

And the whole car was asleep to the rattle, squeal, to the cast-iron rumble of running wheels, the walls swayed tightly, the upper bunks shook at the frantic speed of the echelon, and Kuznetsov, shuddering, finally vegetating in the drafts near the window, turned back his collar, looked enviously at the sleeping commander of the second platoon lieutenant Davlatyan - his face was not visible in the darkness of the plank.

“No, here, near the window, I won’t sleep, I’ll freeze to the front,” Kuznetsov thought to himself with annoyance and moved, stirred, hearing the frost crunching on the boards of the car.

He freed himself from the cold, prickly crampedness of his place, jumped off the bunk, feeling that he needed to warm himself by the stove: his back was completely numb.

In the iron stove at the side of the closed door, flickering with thick hoarfrost, the fire had long since gone out; But down here, it seemed a little warmer. In the twilight of the carriage, this crimson glow of coal weakly illuminated the new felt boots, bowlers, knapsacks under their heads in various ways sticking out in the aisle. The orderly Chibisov slept uncomfortably on the lower bunk, right on the feet of the soldiers; his head was hidden in the collar up to the top of the cap, his hands were thrust into the sleeves.

Chibisov! - Called Kuznetsov and opened the door of the stove, which wafted from within a barely perceptible warmth. - Everything went out, Chibisov!

There was no answer.

Daily, do you hear?

Chibisov jumped up in fright, sleepy, rumpled, his hat with earflaps pulled down low, tied with ribbons at the chin. Still not waking up from sleep, he tried to push his earflaps off his forehead, to untie the ribbons, crying out incomprehensibly and timidly:

What is me? No, fell asleep? Exactly stunned me with unconsciousness. I apologize, Comrade Lieutenant! Wow, I was drowsy to the bone! ..

We fell asleep and the whole car was chilled out, ”Kuznetsov said reproachfully.

Yes, I didn’t want to, Comrade Lieutenant, by chance, without intent, - Chibisov muttered. - Dropped me...

Then, without waiting for Kuznetsov's orders, he fussed with excessive cheerfulness, grabbed a plank from the floor, broke it over his knee, and began to push the pieces into the stove. At the same time, stupidly, as if his sides were itching, he moved his elbows and shoulders, often bending down, busily looked into the blower, where the fire crawled with lazy reflections; Chibisov's revived, soot-stained face expressed conspiratorial obsequiousness.

I'm now, comrade lieutenant, I'll catch up warmly! Let's heat it up, it will be exactly in the bath. I'll die for the war myself! Oh, how I've been chilling, it breaks every bone - there are no words! ..

Kuznetsov sat down opposite the open door of the stove. The exaggeratedly deliberate fussiness of the orderly, this obvious allusion to his past, was unpleasant to him. Chibisov was from his platoon. And the fact that he, with his immoderate diligence, always trouble-free, lived for several months in German captivity, and from the first day of his appearance in the platoon was constantly ready to serve everyone, caused him wary pity.

Chibisov gently, like a woman, sank down on the bunk, his sleepless eyes blinked.

So we're going to Stalingrad, Comrade Lieutenant? According to reports, what a meat grinder there! Aren't you afraid, Comrade Lieutenant? Nothing?

We’ll come and see what kind of meat grinder it is,” Kuznetsov replied languidly, peering into the fire. - What are you afraid of? Why was asked?

Yes, you can say that there is no fear that before, - Chibisov answered falsely cheerfully and, sighing, put his small hands on his knees, spoke in a confidential tone, as if wanting to convince Kuznetsov: - After our people released me from captivity , believe me, comrade lieutenant. And I spent three whole months, exactly a puppy in shit, with the Germans. They believed... What a huge war, different people are fighting. How can you believe right now? - Chibisov squinted cautiously at Kuznetsov; he was silent, pretending to be busy with the stove, warming himself by its living warmth: he concentratedly squeezed and unclenched his fingers over the open door. “Do you know how I got captured, Comrade Lieutenant? I didn’t tell you, but I want to tell you. The Germans drove us into the ravine. Under Vyazma. And when their tanks came close, surrounded us, and we didn’t even have shells, the regiment commissar jumped out on top of his “emka” with a pistol, shouting: “Better death than captivity to fascist bastards!” and shot himself in the temple. It even splashed from the head. And the Germans are running towards us from all sides. Their tanks are strangling people alive. Here and ... the colonel and someone else ...