Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov

Days and nights

In memory of those who died for Stalingrad

... so heavy mlat,

crushing glass, forging damask steel.

A. Pushkin

The exhausted woman sat leaning against the clay wall of the barn, and in a voice calm from fatigue told about how Stalingrad burned down.

It was dry and dusty. A weak breeze rolled yellow clouds of dust under his feet. The woman's feet were burned and barefoot, and when she spoke, she used her hand to scoop up warm dust to the inflamed feet, as if trying to soothe the pain.

Captain Saburov glanced at his heavy boots and involuntarily took half a step back.

He silently stood and listened to the woman, looking over her head to where, at the outermost houses, right in the steppe, the train was unloading.

Behind the steppe, a white stripe of a salt lake shone in the sun, and all this, taken together, seemed to be the end of the world. Now, in September, there was the last and nearest railway station to Stalingrad. Further from the bank of the Volga had to go on foot. The town was called Elton, after the name of the salt lake. Saburov involuntarily remembered the words "Elton" and "Baskunchak" memorized from school. Once it was only school geography. And here it is, this Elton: low houses, dust, a remote railway line.

And the woman kept talking and talking about her misfortunes, and although her words were familiar, Saburov's heart ached. Formerly they went from town to town, from Kharkov to Valuyki, from Valuyki to Rossosh, from Rossosh to Boguchar, and women wept in the same way, and he listened to them in the same way with a mixed feeling of shame and weariness. But here was the Volga naked steppe, the end of the world, and in the words of the woman there was no longer a reproach, but despair, and there was nowhere to go further along this steppe, where for many miles there were no cities, no rivers - nothing.

- Where did they drive it, huh? - he whispered, and all the unaccountable longing of the last day, when he looked at the steppe from the car, was embarrassed by these two words.

It was very difficult for him at that moment, but, remembering the terrible distance that now separated him from the border, he thought not about how he had come here, but precisely about how he would have to go back. And there was in his gloomy thoughts that special stubbornness characteristic of a Russian person, which did not allow either him or his comrades, even once during the entire war, to admit the possibility that there would be no “return”.

He looked at the soldiers hurriedly unloading from the cars, and he wanted to get through this dust to the Volga as soon as possible and, having crossed it, to feel that there would be no return crossing and that his personal fate would be decided on the other side, along with the fate of the city. And if the Germans take the city, he will certainly die, and if he does not let them do this, then perhaps he will survive.

And the woman sitting at his feet was still talking about Stalingrad, one by one naming the broken and burned streets. Unfamiliar to Saburov, their names were filled with special meaning for her. She knew where and when the now burnt houses were built, where and when the trees cut down on the barricades were planted, she regretted all this, as if it were not a question of big city, but about her house, where the familiar things that belonged to her personally disappeared and died to tears.

But she just didn’t say anything about her house, and Saburov, listening to her, thought how, in fact, rarely during the entire war he came across people who regretted their missing property. And the longer the war went on, the less often people remembered their abandoned houses and the more often and stubbornly they remembered only abandoned cities.

Wiping her tears with the end of her handkerchief, the woman cast a long, questioning glance over all who were listening to her and said thoughtfully and with conviction:

How much money, how much work!

– What works? someone asked, not understanding the meaning of her words.

“Build everything back,” the woman said simply.

Saburov asked the woman about herself. She said that her two sons had been at the front for a long time and one of them had already been killed, while her husband and daughter had probably remained in Stalingrad. When the bombing and fire began, she was alone and has not known anything about them since.

- Are you in Stalingrad? she asked.

“Yes,” Saburov replied, not seeing a military secret in this, for what else, if not to go to Stalingrad, could a military echelon be unloading now in this God-forgotten Elton.

- Our surname is Klimenko. Husband - Ivan Vasilyevich, and daughter - Anya. Maybe you will meet somewhere alive, - the woman said with a faint hope.

“Maybe I’ll meet,” Saburov answered as usual.

The battalion had finished unloading. Saburov said goodbye to the woman and, having drunk a ladle of water from a bucket put out on the street, went to the railway track.

The fighters, sitting on the sleepers, took off their boots, tucked footcloths. Some of them, having saved the rations given out in the morning, chewed bread and dry sausage. A true, as usual, soldier's rumor spread through the battalion that after unloading, a march was immediately ahead, and everyone was in a hurry to finish their unfinished business. Some ate, others repaired torn tunics, others smoked.

Saburov walked along the station tracks. The echelon in which the commander of the regiment Babchenko was traveling was supposed to come up any minute, and until then the question remained unresolved whether Saburov’s battalion would begin the march to Stalingrad without waiting for the rest of the battalions, or after spending the night, in the morning, the whole regiment.

Saburov walked along the tracks and looked at the people with whom he was to fight the day after tomorrow.

He knew many by face and by name. They were "Voronezh" - this is how he called those who fought with him near Voronezh. Each of them was a treasure, because they could be ordered without explaining unnecessary details.

They knew when the black drops of bombs falling from the plane flew right at them and they had to lie down, and they knew when the bombs would fall further and they could safely watch their flight. They knew that it was no more dangerous to crawl forward under mortar fire than to remain lying still. They knew that tanks most often crush those who run away from them, and that a German submachine gunner, shooting from two hundred meters, always expects to frighten rather than kill. In a word, they knew all those simple but salutary soldierly truths, the knowledge of which gave them confidence that they were not so easy to kill.

He had a third of the battalion of such soldiers. The rest were to see the war for the first time. At one of the carriages, guarding the property not yet loaded onto the wagons, stood a middle-aged Red Army soldier, who from a distance attracted the attention of Saburov with his guard bearing and thick red mustache, like peaks, sticking out to the sides. When Saburov approached him, he famously took "on guard" and with a direct, unblinking look continued to look into the face of the captain. In the way he stood, how he was belted, how he held his rifle, one could feel that soldier's experience, which is given only by years of service. Meanwhile, Saburov, who remembered by sight almost everyone who was with him near Voronezh, before the division was reorganized, did not remember this Red Army soldier.

- What's your last name? Saburov asked.

“Konyukov,” the Red Army man rapped out and again stared fixedly at the captain’s face.

- Did you participate in battles?

- Yes sir.

- Near Przemysl.

- Here's how. So, they retreated from Przemysl itself?

- Not at all. They were advancing. In the sixteenth year.

It was dry and dusty. A weak breeze rolled yellow clouds of dust under his feet. The woman's feet were burned and barefoot, and when she spoke, she used her hand to scoop up warm dust to the inflamed feet, as if trying to soothe the pain.

Captain Saburov glanced at his heavy boots and involuntarily took half a step back.

He silently stood and listened to the woman, looking over her head to where, at the outermost houses, right in the steppe, the train was unloading.

Behind the steppe, a white stripe of a salt lake shone in the sun, and all this, taken together, seemed to be the end of the world. Now, in September, there was the last and nearest railway station to Stalingrad. Further from the bank of the Volga had to go on foot. The town was called Elton, after the name of the salt lake. Saburov involuntarily remembered the words "Elton" and "Baskunchak" memorized from school. Once it was only school geography. And here it is, this Elton: low houses, dust, a remote railway line.

And the woman kept talking and talking about her misfortunes, and although her words were familiar, Saburov's heart ached. Formerly they went from town to town, from Kharkov to Valuyki, from Valuyki to Rossosh, from Rossosh to Boguchar, and women wept in the same way, and he listened to them in the same way with a mixed feeling of shame and weariness. But here was the Volga naked steppe, the end of the world, and in the words of the woman there was no longer a reproach, but despair, and there was nowhere to go further along this steppe, where for many miles there were no cities, no rivers - nothing.

- Where did they drive it, huh? - he whispered, and all the unaccountable longing of the last day, when he looked at the steppe from the car, was embarrassed by these two words.

It was very difficult for him at that moment, but, remembering the terrible distance that now separated him from the border, he thought not about how he had come here, but precisely about how he would have to go back. And there was in his gloomy thoughts that special stubbornness characteristic of a Russian person, which did not allow either him or his comrades, even once during the entire war, to admit the possibility that there would be no “return”.

He looked at the soldiers hurriedly unloading from the cars, and he wanted to get through this dust to the Volga as soon as possible and, having crossed it, to feel that there would be no return crossing and that his personal fate would be decided on the other side, along with the fate of the city. And if the Germans take the city, he will certainly die, and if he does not let them do this, then perhaps he will survive.

And the woman sitting at his feet was still talking about Stalingrad, one by one naming the broken and burned streets. Unfamiliar to Saburov, their names were filled with special meaning for her. She knew where and when the now burnt houses were built, where and when the trees cut down on the barricades were planted, she regretted all this, as if it were not about a big city, but about her house, where friends who belonged to her personal things.

But she just didn’t say anything about her house, and Saburov, listening to her, thought how, in fact, rarely during the entire war he came across people who regretted their missing property. And the longer the war went on, the less often people remembered their abandoned houses and the more often and stubbornly they remembered only abandoned cities.

Wiping her tears with the end of her handkerchief, the woman cast a long, questioning glance over all who were listening to her and said thoughtfully and with conviction:

How much money, how much work!

– What works? someone asked, not understanding the meaning of her words.

“Build everything back,” the woman said simply.

Saburov asked the woman about herself. She said that her two sons had been at the front for a long time and one of them had already been killed, while her husband and daughter had probably remained in Stalingrad. When the bombing and fire began, she was alone and has not known anything about them since.

- Are you in Stalingrad? she asked.

“Yes,” Saburov replied, not seeing a military secret in this, for what else, if not to go to Stalingrad, could a military echelon be unloading now in this God-forgotten Elton.

- Our surname is Klimenko. Husband - Ivan Vasilyevich, and daughter - Anya. Maybe you will meet somewhere alive, - the woman said with a faint hope.

“Maybe I’ll meet,” Saburov answered as usual.

The battalion had finished unloading. Saburov said goodbye to the woman and, having drunk a ladle of water from a bucket put out on the street, went to the railway track.

The fighters, sitting on the sleepers, took off their boots, tucked footcloths. Some of them, having saved the rations given out in the morning, chewed bread and dry sausage. A true, as usual, soldier's rumor spread through the battalion that after unloading, a march was immediately ahead, and everyone was in a hurry to finish their unfinished business. Some ate, others repaired torn tunics, others smoked.

Saburov walked along the station tracks. The echelon in which the commander of the regiment Babchenko was traveling was supposed to come up any minute, and until then the question remained unresolved whether Saburov’s battalion would begin the march to Stalingrad without waiting for the rest of the battalions, or after spending the night, in the morning, the whole regiment.

Saburov walked along the tracks and looked at the people with whom he was to fight the day after tomorrow.

He knew many by face and by name. They were "Voronezh" - this is how he called those who fought with him near Voronezh. Each of them was a treasure, because they could be ordered without explaining unnecessary details.

They knew when the black drops of bombs falling from the plane flew right at them and they had to lie down, and they knew when the bombs would fall further and they could safely watch their flight. They knew that it was no more dangerous to crawl forward under mortar fire than to remain lying still. They knew that tanks most often crush those who run away from them, and that a German submachine gunner, shooting from two hundred meters, always expects to frighten rather than kill. In a word, they knew all those simple but salutary soldierly truths, the knowledge of which gave them confidence that they were not so easy to kill.

He had a third of the battalion of such soldiers. The rest were to see the war for the first time. At one of the carriages, guarding the property not yet loaded onto the wagons, stood a middle-aged Red Army soldier, who from a distance attracted the attention of Saburov with his guard bearing and thick red mustache, like peaks, sticking out to the sides. When Saburov approached him, he famously took "on guard" and with a direct, unblinking look continued to look into the face of the captain. In the way he stood, how he was belted, how he held his rifle, one could feel that soldier's experience, which is given only by years of service. Meanwhile, Saburov, who remembered by sight almost everyone who was with him near Voronezh, before the division was reorganized, did not remember this Red Army soldier.

- What's your last name? Saburov asked.

“Konyukov,” the Red Army man rapped out and again stared fixedly at the captain’s face.

- Did you participate in battles?

- Yes sir.

- Near Przemysl.

- Here's how. So, they retreated from Przemysl itself?

- Not at all. They were advancing. In the sixteenth year.

- That's it.

Saburov looked attentively at Konyukov. The soldier's face was serious, almost solemn.

- And in this war for a long time in the army? Saburov asked.

No, the first month.

Saburov took another look at Konyukov's strong figure with pleasure and moved on. At the last carriage, he met his chief of staff, Lieutenant Maslennikov, who was in charge of the unloading.

Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov

Days and nights

In memory of those who died for Stalingrad

... so heavy mlat,

crushing glass, forging damask steel.

A. Pushkin

The exhausted woman sat leaning against the clay wall of the barn, and in a voice calm from fatigue told about how Stalingrad burned down.

It was dry and dusty. A weak breeze rolled yellow clouds of dust under his feet. The woman's feet were burned and barefoot, and when she spoke, she used her hand to scoop up warm dust to the inflamed feet, as if trying to soothe the pain.

Captain Saburov glanced at his heavy boots and involuntarily took half a step back.

He silently stood and listened to the woman, looking over her head to where, at the outermost houses, right in the steppe, the train was unloading.

Behind the steppe, a white stripe of a salt lake shone in the sun, and all this, taken together, seemed to be the end of the world. Now, in September, there was the last and nearest railway station to Stalingrad. Further from the bank of the Volga had to go on foot. The town was called Elton, after the name of the salt lake. Saburov involuntarily remembered the words "Elton" and "Baskunchak" memorized from school. Once it was only school geography. And here it is, this Elton: low houses, dust, a remote railway line.

And the woman kept talking and talking about her misfortunes, and although her words were familiar, Saburov's heart ached. Formerly they went from town to town, from Kharkov to Valuyki, from Valuyki to Rossosh, from Rossosh to Boguchar, and women wept in the same way, and he listened to them in the same way with a mixed feeling of shame and weariness. But here was the Volga naked steppe, the end of the world, and in the words of the woman there was no longer a reproach, but despair, and there was nowhere to go further along this steppe, where for many miles there were no cities, no rivers - nothing.

- Where did they drive it, huh? - he whispered, and all the unaccountable longing of the last day, when he looked at the steppe from the car, was embarrassed by these two words.

It was very difficult for him at that moment, but, remembering the terrible distance that now separated him from the border, he thought not about how he had come here, but precisely about how he would have to go back. And there was in his gloomy thoughts that special stubbornness characteristic of a Russian person, which did not allow either him or his comrades, even once during the entire war, to admit the possibility that there would be no “return”.

He looked at the soldiers hurriedly unloading from the cars, and he wanted to get through this dust to the Volga as soon as possible and, having crossed it, to feel that there would be no return crossing and that his personal fate would be decided on the other side, along with the fate of the city. And if the Germans take the city, he will certainly die, and if he does not let them do this, then perhaps he will survive.

And the woman sitting at his feet was still talking about Stalingrad, one by one naming the broken and burned streets. Unfamiliar to Saburov, their names were filled with special meaning for her. She knew where and when the now burnt houses were built, where and when the trees cut down on the barricades were planted, she regretted all this, as if it were not about a big city, but about her house, where friends who belonged to her personal things.

But she just didn’t say anything about her house, and Saburov, listening to her, thought how, in fact, rarely during the entire war he came across people who regretted their missing property. And the longer the war went on, the less often people remembered their abandoned houses and the more often and stubbornly they remembered only abandoned cities.

Wiping her tears with the end of her handkerchief, the woman cast a long, questioning glance over all who were listening to her and said thoughtfully and with conviction:

How much money, how much work!

– What works? someone asked, not understanding the meaning of her words.

“Build everything back,” the woman said simply.

Saburov asked the woman about herself. She said that her two sons had been at the front for a long time and one of them had already been killed, while her husband and daughter had probably remained in Stalingrad. When the bombing and fire began, she was alone and has not known anything about them since.

- Are you in Stalingrad? she asked.

“Yes,” Saburov replied, not seeing a military secret in this, for what else, if not to go to Stalingrad, could a military echelon be unloading now in this God-forgotten Elton.

- Our surname is Klimenko. Husband - Ivan Vasilyevich, and daughter - Anya. Maybe you will meet somewhere alive, - the woman said with a faint hope.

“Maybe I’ll meet,” Saburov answered as usual.

The battalion had finished unloading. Saburov said goodbye to the woman and, having drunk a ladle of water from a bucket put out on the street, went to the railway track.

The fighters, sitting on the sleepers, took off their boots, tucked footcloths. Some of them, having saved the rations given out in the morning, chewed bread and dry sausage. A true, as usual, soldier's rumor spread through the battalion that after unloading, a march was immediately ahead, and everyone was in a hurry to finish their unfinished business. Some ate, others repaired torn tunics, others smoked.

Saburov walked along the station tracks. The echelon in which the commander of the regiment Babchenko was traveling was supposed to come up any minute, and until then the question remained unresolved whether Saburov’s battalion would begin the march to Stalingrad without waiting for the rest of the battalions, or after spending the night, in the morning, the whole regiment.

Saburov walked along the tracks and looked at the people with whom he was to fight the day after tomorrow.

He knew many by face and by name. They were "Voronezh" - this is how he called those who fought with him near Voronezh. Each of them was a treasure, because they could be ordered without explaining unnecessary details.

They knew when the black drops of bombs falling from the plane flew right at them and they had to lie down, and they knew when the bombs would fall further and they could safely watch their flight. They knew that it was no more dangerous to crawl forward under mortar fire than to remain lying still. They knew that tanks most often crush those who run away from them, and that a German submachine gunner, shooting from two hundred meters, always expects to frighten rather than kill. In a word, they knew all those simple but salutary soldierly truths, the knowledge of which gave them confidence that they were not so easy to kill.

He had a third of the battalion of such soldiers. The rest were to see the war for the first time. At one of the carriages, guarding the property not yet loaded onto the wagons, stood a middle-aged Red Army soldier, who from a distance attracted the attention of Saburov with his guard bearing and thick red mustache, like peaks, sticking out to the sides. When Saburov approached him, he famously took "on guard" and with a direct, unblinking look continued to look into the face of the captain. In the way he stood, how he was belted, how he held his rifle, one could feel that soldier's experience, which is given only by years of service. Meanwhile, Saburov, who remembered by sight almost everyone who was with him near Voronezh, before the division was reorganized, did not remember this Red Army soldier.

- What's your last name? Saburov asked.

“Konyukov,” the Red Army man rapped out and again stared fixedly at the captain’s face.

- Did you participate in battles?

- Yes sir.

- Near Przemysl.

- Here's how. So, they retreated from Przemysl itself?

- Not at all. They were advancing. In the sixteenth year.

- That's it.

Saburov looked attentively at Konyukov. The soldier's face was serious, almost solemn.

- And in this war for a long time in the army? Saburov asked.

No, the first month.

Saburov took another look at Konyukov's strong figure with pleasure and moved on. At the last carriage, he met his chief of staff, Lieutenant Maslennikov, who was in charge of the unloading.

Maslennikov reported to him that the unloading would be completed in five minutes, and, looking at his hand-held square watch, he said:

- Allow me, comrade captain, to check with yours?

Saburov silently took out his watch from his pocket, fastened to the strap with a safety pin. Maslennikov's watch was five minutes behind. He looked with disbelief at Saburov's old silver watch with cracked glass.

Saburov smiled:

- Nothing, change it. Firstly, the clock is still fatherly, Bure, and secondly, get used to the fact that in war the authorities always have the right time.

Maslennikov once again looked at those and other watches, carefully brought his own and, having saluted, asked permission to be free.

The trip in the echelon, where he was appointed commandant, and this unloading were the first front-line task for Maslennikov. Here, in Elton, it seemed to him that he already smelled of the proximity of the front. He was excited, anticipating a war in which, as it seemed to him, he shamefully long did not take part. And Saburov fulfilled everything entrusted to him today with special accuracy and thoroughness.

Simonov Konstantin

Days and nights

Simonov Konstantin Mikhailovich

Days and nights

In memory of those who died for Stalingrad

So heavy mlat

crushing glass, forging damask steel.

A. Pushkin

The exhausted woman sat leaning against the clay wall of the barn, and in a voice calm from fatigue told about how Stalingrad burned down.

It was dry and dusty. A weak breeze rolled yellow clouds of dust under their feet. The woman's legs were burned and barefoot, and when she spoke, she raked warm dust to her inflamed feet with her hand, as if trying to soothe the pain.

Captain Saburov glanced at his heavy boots and involuntarily took half a step back.

He silently stood and listened to the woman, looking over her head to where, at the outermost houses, right in the steppe, the train was unloading.

Behind the steppe, a white stripe of a salt lake shone in the sun, and all this, taken together, seemed to be the end of the world. Now, in September, there was the last and nearest railway station to Stalingrad. Further to the bank of the Volga had to go on foot. The town was called Elton, after the name of the salt lake. Saburov involuntarily recalled the words "Elton" and "Baskunchak" memorized from school. Once it was only school geography. And here it is, this Elton: low houses, dust, a remote railway line.

And the woman kept talking and talking about her misfortunes, and although her words were familiar, Saburov's heart ached. Formerly they went from town to town, from Kharkov to Valuyki, from Valuyki to Rossosh, from Rossosh to Boguchar, and women wept in the same way, and he listened to them in the same way with a mixed feeling of shame and weariness. But here was the Volga naked steppe, the end of the world, and in the words of the woman there was no longer a reproach, but despair, and there was nowhere to go further along this steppe, where for many miles there were no cities, no rivers.

Where did they go, huh? - he whispered, and all the unaccountable longing of the last day, when he looked at the steppe from the car, was embarrassed by these two words.

It was very difficult for him at that moment, but, remembering the terrible distance that now separated him from the border, he thought not about how he had come here, but precisely about how he would have to go back. And there was in his gloomy thoughts that special stubbornness, characteristic of a Russian person, which did not allow either him or his comrades, even once during the whole war, to admit the possibility that there would be no “return”.

He looked at the soldiers hurriedly unloading from the cars, and he wanted to get through this dust to the Volga as soon as possible and, having crossed it, to feel that there would be no return crossing and that his personal fate would be decided on the other side, along with the fate of the city. And if the Germans take the city, he will certainly die, and if he does not let them do this, then perhaps he will survive.

And the woman sitting at his feet was still talking about Stalingrad, one by one naming the broken and burned streets. Unfamiliar to Saburov, their names were filled with special meaning for her. She knew where and when the now burnt houses were built, where and when the trees cut down on the barricades were planted, she regretted all this, as if it were not about a big city, but about her house, where friends who belonged to her personal things.

But she just didn’t say anything about her house, and Saburov, listening to her, thought how, in fact, rarely during the entire war he came across people who regretted their missing property. And the longer the war went on, the less often people remembered their abandoned houses and the more often and stubbornly they remembered only abandoned cities.

Wiping her tears with the end of her handkerchief, the woman cast a long, questioning glance over all who were listening to her and said thoughtfully and with conviction:

How much money, how much work!

What works? - someone asked, not understanding the meaning of her words.

Back to build everything, - the woman said simply.

Saburov asked the woman about herself. She said that her two sons had been at the front for a long time and one of them had already been killed, while her husband and daughter had probably remained in Stalingrad. When the bombing and fire began, she was alone and has not known anything about them since.

Are you in Stalingrad? she asked.

Yes, - answered Saburov, not seeing a military secret in this, because for what else, if not to go to Stalingrad, could a military echelon be unloaded now in this God-forgotten Elton.

Our surname is Klymenko. Husband - Ivan Vasilyevich, and daughter - Anya. Maybe you will meet somewhere alive, - the woman said with a faint hope.

Maybe I'll meet, - Saburov answered habitually.

The battalion had finished unloading. Saburov said goodbye to the woman and, having drunk a ladle of water from a bucket put out on the street, went to the railway track.

The fighters, sitting on the sleepers, took off their boots, tucked footcloths. Some of them, having saved the rations given out in the morning, chewed bread and dry sausage. A true, as usual, soldier's rumor spread through the battalion that after unloading, a march was immediately ahead, and everyone was in a hurry to finish their unfinished business. Some ate, others repaired torn tunics, others smoked.

Saburov walked along the station tracks. The echelon in which the commander of the regiment Babchenko was traveling was supposed to come up any minute, and until then the question remained unresolved whether Saburov’s battalion would begin the march to Stalingrad without waiting for the rest of the battalions, or after spending the night, in the morning, the whole regiment.

Saburov walked along the tracks and looked at the people with whom he was to fight the day after tomorrow.

He knew many by face and by name. They were "Voronezh", as he called himself those who fought with him near Voronezh. Each of them was a treasure, because they could be ordered without explaining unnecessary details.

They knew when the black drops of bombs falling from the plane flew right at them and they had to lie down, and they knew when the bombs would fall further and they could safely watch their flight. They knew that it was no more dangerous to crawl forward under mortar fire than to remain lying still. They knew that tanks most often crush those who run away from them, and that a German submachine gunner, shooting from two hundred meters, always expects to frighten rather than kill. In a word, they knew all those simple but salutary soldierly truths, the knowledge of which gave them confidence that they were not so easy to kill.

He had a third of the battalion of such soldiers. The rest were to see the war for the first time. At one of the carriages, guarding the property not yet loaded onto the wagons, stood a middle-aged Red Army soldier, who from a distance attracted the attention of Saburov with his guard bearing and thick red mustache, like peaks, sticking out to the sides. When Saburov approached him, he famously took "on guard" and with a direct, unblinking gaze continued to look into the face of the captain. In the way he stood, how he was belted, how he held his rifle, one could feel that soldier's experience, which is given only by years of service. Meanwhile, Saburov, who remembered by sight almost everyone who was with him near Voronezh, before the division was reorganized, did not remember this Red Army soldier.

What's the last name? Saburov asked.

Konyukov, - the Red Army man rapped out and again stared fixedly at the captain's face.

Did you participate in battles?

Yes sir.

Under Przemysl.

Here's how. So, they retreated from Przemysl itself?

Not at all. They were advancing. In the sixteenth year.

That's it.

Saburov looked attentively at Konyukov. The soldier's face was serious, almost solemn.

And in this war for a long time in the army? Saburov asked.

No, the first month.

Saburov took another look at Konyukov's strong figure with pleasure and moved on. At the last carriage, he met his chief of staff, Lieutenant Maslennikov, who was in charge of the unloading.

Maslennikov reported to him that the unloading would be completed in five minutes, and, looking at his hand-held square watch, he said:

Allow me, comrade captain, to check with yours?

Saburov silently took out his watch from his pocket, fastened to the strap with a safety pin. Maslennikov's watch was five minutes behind. He looked with disbelief at Saburov's old silver watch with cracked glass.

Saburov smiled:

Nothing, change it. Firstly, the clock is still fatherly, Bure, and secondly, get used to the fact that in war the authorities always have the right time.

Maslennikov once again looked at those and other watches, carefully brought his own and, having saluted, asked permission to be free.

The trip in the echelon, where he was appointed commandant, and this unloading were the first front-line task for Maslennikov. Here, in Elton, it seemed to him that he already smelled of the proximity of the front. He was excited, anticipating a war in which, as it seemed to him, he shamefully long did not take part. And Saburov carried out everything entrusted to him today with special care and thoroughness.

1942 New units are pouring into the army of the defenders of Stalingrad, transferred to the right bank of the Volga. Among them is the battalion of Captain Saburov. With a furious attack, the Saburovites are knocking out the Nazis from three buildings that have wedged into our defenses. Days and nights of heroic defense of houses that have become impregnable for the enemy begin.

“... On the night of the fourth day, having received an order for Konyukov and several medals for his garrison at the regimental headquarters, Saburov once again made his way to Konyukov’s house and presented awards. Everyone to whom they were intended were alive, although this rarely happened in Stalingrad. Konyukov asked Saburov to screw on the order - his left hand was cut by a fragment of a grenade. When Saburov, like a soldier, with a folding knife, cut a hole in Konyukov's tunic and began to screw the order, Konyukov, standing at attention, said:

- I think, comrade captain, that if you make an attack on them, then it is most capable of going right through my house. They keep me under siege here, and we are right from here - and on them. How do you like my plan, Comrade Captain?

- Wait. There will be time - we will do it, - Saburov said.

Is the plan correct, Comrade Captain? Konyukov insisted. – What do you think?

- Correct, correct ... - Saburov thought to himself that in the event of an attack, Konyukov's simple plan was really the most correct.

“Right through my house—and on them,” repeated Konyukov. - With a complete surprise.

He repeated the words "my house" often and with pleasure; a rumor had already reached him, by soldier's mail, that this house was called “Konyukov's house” in the reports, and he was proud of it. ... "