Read Mityaev's stories about the war online. Mityaev A.M. Dugout. Anatoly Mityaev feat of a soldier stories

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Anatoly Mityaev
DUGOUT

Dugout

All night the artillery battalion raced along the highway towards the front. It was freezing. The moon illuminated the sparse forests and fields along the edges of the road. Snow dust swirled behind the cars, settled on the rear sides, and covered the cannon covers with growths. The soldiers, dozing in the back under a tarpaulin, hid their faces in the prickly collars of their greatcoats and pressed themselves closer to each other.

Soldier Mitya Kornev was riding in one car. He was eighteen years old and had not yet seen the front. This is not an easy task: during the day, to be in a warm city barracks far from the war, and at night to be at the front among the frosty snow.

The night turned out to be quiet: the guns did not fire, the shells did not explode, and the rockets did not burn in the sky.

Therefore, Mitya did not think about battles. And he thought about how people can spend the whole winter in fields and forests, where there is not even a poor hut to warm up and spend the night! This worried him. It seemed to him that he would certainly freeze.

Dawn has arrived. The division turned off the highway, drove through a field and stopped at the edge of a pine forest. Cars, one after another, slowly made their way through the trees into the depths of the forest. The soldiers ran after them, pushing them if the wheels were slipping. When a German reconnaissance plane appeared in the brightening sky, all the vehicles and guns were standing under the pine trees. The pine trees sheltered them from the enemy pilot with shaggy branches.

The foreman came to the soldiers. He said that the division would stand here for at least a week, so it was necessary to build dugouts.

Mitya Kornev was assigned the simplest task: clearing the site of snow. The snow was shallow. Mitya’s shovel came across cones, fallen pine needles, and lingonberry leaves, green as if in summer. When Mitya touched the ground with a shovel, the shovel slid over it as if it were a stone.

“How can you dig a hole in such stone ground?” - thought Mitya.

Then a soldier came with a pickaxe. He dug grooves in the ground. Another soldier inserted a crowbar into the grooves and, leaning on it, picked out large frozen pieces. Under these pieces, like crumb under a hard crust, was loose sand.

The foreman walked around and looked to see if everything was being done correctly.

“Don’t throw sand too far,” he told Mitya Kornev, “a fascist reconnaissance officer will fly by, see yellow squares in the white forest, call bombers on the radio... He’ll get into trouble!”

When the wide and long hole reached Mitya’s waist, they dug a ditch in the middle - a passage. On both sides of the passage there were bunks. They placed pillars at the edges of the pit and nailed a log onto them. Together with other soldiers, Mitya went to cut down surveillance.

The trails were placed with one end on a log and the other on the ground, just like making a hut. Then they were covered with spruce branches, frozen blocks of earth were placed on the spruce branches, the blocks were covered with sand and sprinkled with snow for camouflage.

“Go get some firewood,” the foreman said to Mitya Kornev, “get more ready.” Can you feel the frost getting stronger! Yes, chop only alder and birch - they burn well even raw...

Mitya was chopping wood, while his comrades lined the bunks with small soft spruce branches and rolled an iron barrel into the dugout. There were two holes in the barrel, one at the bottom for putting firewood, the other at the top for a pipe. The pipe was made from empty tin cans. To prevent the fire from being visible at night, a canopy was placed on the pipe.

Mitya Kornev’s first day at the front passed very quickly. It got dark. The frost intensified. The snow creaked under the guards' feet. The pines stood as if petrified. The stars twinkled in the blue glass sky.

And it was warm in the dugout. Alder firewood burned hotly in an iron barrel. Only the frost on the raincoat that covered the entrance to the dugout reminded of the bitter cold. The soldiers laid out their overcoats, put duffel bags under their heads, covered themselves with their overcoats and fell asleep.

“How good it is to sleep in a dugout!” – thought Mitya Kornev and also fell asleep.

But the soldiers had little sleep. The division was ordered to immediately go to another section of the front: heavy fighting began there. The night stars were still trembling in the sky when cars with guns began to drive out of the forest onto the road.

The division raced along the highway. Snow dust swirled behind cars and guns. In the bodies, soldiers sat on boxes with shells. They huddled closer together and hid their linden overcoats in the prickly collars of their overcoats so that the frost would not sting so much.

A bag of oatmeal

That autumn there were long, cold rains. The ground was saturated with water, the roads were muddy. On the country roads, stuck up to their axles in mud, stood military trucks. The supply of food became very bad.

In the soldier's kitchen, the cook cooked only soup from crackers every day: he poured cracker crumbs into hot water and seasoned with salt.

On such and such hungry days, soldier Lukashuk found a bag of oatmeal. He wasn't looking for anything, he just leaned his shoulder against the wall of the trench. A block of damp sand collapsed, and everyone saw the edge of a green duffel bag in the hole.

- What a find! - the soldiers were happy. There will be a great feast... Let's cook porridge!

One ran with a bucket for water, others began to look for firewood, and still others had already prepared spoons.

But when they managed to fan the fire and it was already hitting the bottom of the bucket, an unfamiliar soldier jumped into the trench. He was thin and red-haired. The eyebrows above the blue eyes are also red. The overcoat is worn out and short. There are windings and trampled shoes on my feet.

- Hey, bros! he shouted in a hoarse, cold voice. - Give me the bag here! If you don't put it down, don't take it.

He simply stunned everyone with his appearance, and they gave him the bag right away.

And how could you not give it away? According to front-line law, it was necessary to give it up. Soldiers hid duffel bags in trenches when they went on the attack. To make it easier. Of course, there were bags left without an owner: either it was impossible to return for them (this is if the attack was successful and it was necessary to drive out the Nazis), or the soldier died. But since the owner has arrived, the conversation is short - give it back.

The soldiers watched silently as the red-haired man carried away the precious bag on his shoulder. Only Lukashuk could not stand it and quipped:

- He’s so skinny! They gave him extra rations. Let him eat. If it doesn't burst, it might get fatter.

It's getting cold. It snowed. The earth froze and became hard. Delivery has improved. The cook was cooking cabbage soup with meat and pea soup with ham in the kitchen on wheels. Everyone forgot about the red soldier and his porridge.

A big offensive was being prepared.

Long lines of infantry battalions walked along hidden forest roads and along ravines. At night, tractors dragged guns to the front line, and tanks moved.

Soldier Lukashuk and his comrades were also preparing for the attack.

It was still dark when the cannons opened fire. The planes began to hum in the sky. They threw bombs at fascist dugouts and fired machine guns at enemy trenches.

The planes took off. Then the tanks began to rumble. The infantrymen rushed after them to attack. Lukashuk and his comrades also ran and fired from a machine gun. He threw a grenade into a German trench, wanted to throw more, but didn’t have time: the bullet hit him in the chest. And he fell.

Lukashuk lay in the snow and did not feel that the snow was cold. Some time passed and he stopped hearing the roar of battle. Then he stopped seeing the light - it seemed to him that a dark, quiet night had come.

When Lukashuk regained consciousness, he saw an orderly.

The orderly bandaged the wound and put Lukashuk in a boat - like a plywood sleigh.

The sled slid and swayed in the snow. From this quiet swaying, Lukashuk began to feel dizzy. But he didn’t want his head to spin - he wanted to remember where he had seen this orderly, red-haired and thin, in a worn out overcoat.

- Hold on, brother! Don’t be timid - you will live!.. - he heard the words of the orderly.

It seemed to Lukashuk that he had known this voice for a long time. But where and when I heard it before, I also couldn’t remember.

Lukashuk regained consciousness when he was transferred from the boat onto a stretcher to be taken to a large tent under the pine trees: here, in the forest, a military doctor was pulling bullets and shrapnel from the wounded.

Lying on a stretcher, Lukashuk saw a sled-boat on which he was being transported to the hospital. Three dogs were tied to the sled with straps. They were lying in the snow. Icicles froze on the fur. The muzzles were covered with frost, the dogs' eyes were half-closed.

The orderly approached the dogs. In his hands he had a helmet full of oatmeal. Steam was pouring out of her. The orderly stuck his helmet into the snow to tap - hot is harmful to the dogs. The orderly was thin and red-haired. And then Lukashuk remembered where he had seen him. It was he who then jumped into the trench and took a bag of oatmeal from them.

Lukashuk smiled at the orderly with just his lips and, coughing and choking, said:

- And you, redhead, haven’t gained weight. One of them ate a bag of oatmeal, but he was still thin.

The orderly also smiled and, poking the nearest dog with his hand, answered:

- They ate the oatmeal. But they got you there on time. And I recognized you immediately. As I saw it in the snow, I knew it... - And he added with conviction: - You will live! Don't be timid!..

Missile shells

Everyone has seen military missiles: some saw them at a parade, some in a movie, some in a picture. The rockets are huge – some are as tall as a tree. And the current missiles began with eres - rocket shells. They were fired by Katyushas.

At the beginning of the war, no one knew anything about these first missiles. They were kept secret so that the Nazis could not make the same ones for themselves. Our soldier sapper Kuzin did not know about them either.

That's what happened to him one day.

From the very evening, when it got dark, the commander sent Kuzin to place mines in the hollow. So that enemy tanks could not get to our trenches along this hollow.

Laying mines is not an easy task. The Germans fire flares into the sky. One rocket burns out, another flares up. And everything around – even a small wormwood sticking out of the snow – is visible as if during the day. The cousin was saved from German observers by a camouflage suit. Over padded trousers and a padded jacket, the sapper was wearing a white jacket with a hood and white trousers.

The sapper laid mines, covered them with snow and crawled back into the trenches to the infantrymen. There he told where the mines were, he even made a drawing so that our men wouldn’t run into our own mines, and went to his unit.

He walked through the night forest. It was quiet in the forest, only occasionally snow balls plopped from the branches. The air was unwinterly warm - spring was approaching. Kuzin was in a good mood. He placed the mines successfully: the infantrymen were happy. He also knew that his comrades were waiting for him in the dugout, worried about him, and keeping the tea hot on the stove.

While Kuzin was covering the mines with snow, strange cars stopped not far from the sappers’ dugout. Light metal rails were raised on them, like ladders on fire trucks. Then regular trucks arrived. There were rocket shells in their bodies. Soldiers removed shells from trucks and placed them on the rails of combat vehicles. “Katyushas” - and that was them - were preparing to hit the fascist tanks.

The Nazis guessed that their tanks, lurking at the front line, would be hunted. They sent a plane for night reconnaissance. The plane flew over the forest once, twice. He found nothing and, while flying away, fired a machine-gun burst just in case. Cousin saw a chain of red lights of luminous bullets rush from the sky into the forest. The sapper thought that if he had walked a little faster, he would have fallen under these bullets just right. And now they, having knocked down several birch branches, went under the snow and dug into the frozen ground.

But this has to happen! One bullet hit a rocket shell lying on the snow. It pierced the part where the fuel was. The fuel caught fire. And the shell crawled. If it had been aimed at the sky, it would have flown away immediately.

But he lay in the snow and could only crawl.

The shell roared through the forest, bumping into trees, circling around them, burning the bark and branches with flame. Then, having climbed onto a hummock, he suddenly rushed forward through the air and again plopped down in the snow a few steps from the sapper Kuzin.

The sapper had been under fire and bombing more than once, never lost his presence of mind, but here he was so frightened that he stood still.

The rocket shell ran out of fuel, and after jumping once or twice, it fell silent in the juniper bushes. And Kuzin, stealthily, walked away from him and started to run.

In the dugout, the sapper told his comrades about what happened to him. The comrades sympathized with Cousin and cursed the incomprehensible rabid thing with the last words. And the sapper lieutenant put on his sheepskin coat and went to find out what was going on.

Soon he saw the Katyushas, ​​found their commander and began to reprimand him.

- What does this mean? They scared their own soldier half to death... They could have caused trouble. Suddenly the shell would explode...

“Please forgive us,” said the Katyusha commander, “but it’s not our fault.” It was the German who set fire to the ER. But he couldn't explode. There was no fuse in it. Right now my soldiers are screwing in the fuses. Ten minutes will pass, and we will fire a salvo of missiles at the fascist tanks. Let's scare someone! Not half to death - to death. Tell your sapper to wait to sleep and watch us shoot.

The sappers were standing near the dugout when orange tongues of fire hit the snow behind a thicket of trees. The air was filled with roar and crash. Fire trails streaked the black sky. Suddenly everything became quiet. And after some minutes, behind the line of our trenches and even further, where the enemy tanks were hiding, there was a roar and a pounding sound. These were eres - rocket shells - exploding.

Before going to bed, the sappers forced Kuzin to repeat the story about his meeting with Eres. This time no one scolded the projectile. On the contrary, everyone praised it.

Olga Nikolaevna Sorokina
Summary of the conversation. Reading the story “Dugout” by A. Mityaev. Senior group

Subject. Reading story A. Mityaeva« Dugout» .

Program content. Expand children's understanding of the life of soldiers at the front. Show their dexterity, skill, dexterity, attract them to the difficulties of front-line life. Show the fighter’s human qualities, his charm, humor, simplicity.

Progress of the lesson.

Part 1 Introductory conversation.

V-l: Children, on what day are there fireworks in Moscow and the hero cities? Children: Fireworks are given in hero cities on Victory Day. IN- l: Children, the biggest holiday for people was the first Victory Day. How people were waiting for him! How long did it take them to get to him? On this day people laughed and cried with happiness. Because the victory was not easy, many soldiers were left lying on the battlefield. (You can play the song "Victory Day" or children can sing.)

Today we will talk to you about how difficult it was for the soldiers during the war. But they loved theirs land and fought fearlessly for victory.

2. Reading« Dugout» A. Mityaeva.

3. Conversation on issues.

Do you think it was easy or difficult to build? dugout(Children remember from the text how the soldiers built dugout).

What qualities did the soldiers show during construction? dugouts? -Why didn’t the soldiers have to live long in dugout?

V-l: You see, children, how difficult it was during the war. Sometimes, without having time to warm up or eat, the soldiers went back into battle in order to quickly drive out the Nazis from our land.

V-l: Children, but despite the difficulties of the war, the soldiers did not lose heart, and when there were moments of rest, they could joke and laugh. There was always some funny guy who would lift the spirits of the fighters. The poet A Tvardovsky wrote about such a cheerful fighter in his book "Vasily Terkin".

2. Reading passages about B. Terkin from the chapter "Crossing", "Harmonic".

Part 3. Looking at the painting"Rest after the battle".

Conversation. -Children, at what moment are the fighters depicted in the picture? -What types of troops are the fighters gathered here from? -Look carefully, what are the fighters doing? -What is the mood of the fighters in the picture? -Why are they all having so much fun? -Pay attention to the fighter- narrator. He is the one who makes all the fighters happy. -What do you think he’s talking about? tells?

Teacher's summary.

Publications on the topic:

Reading stories from G. Snegirev’s book “About Penguins” senior group Date: 03/17/17 Goal: development of the emotional and sensory sphere of perception of stories, development of children’s ability to understand the meaning and main content.

Reading the Russian folk tale “The Frog Princess” (senior group) Speech development senior group Reading the Russian folk tale “The Frog Princess” Purpose: To introduce children to the fairy tale “The Frog Princess”.

Summary of the conversation “Military equipment - protector and assistant of soldiers” (senior group) Military equipment is the protector and assistant of soldiers. Goal: Education of moral and patriotic feelings, love for the Motherland, respect for the Russian one.

GCD summary. Reading the story “Cabbage Leaf” by E. Bekhlerova Summary of GCD in the second junior group. Reading the story “Cabbage Leaf” by E. Bekhlerova and talking about what was read. Programmatic learning: encourage.

Abstract of the GCD “Reading the story by N. Kalinina “The Snow Bun” Integration of educational areas: “Artistic and aesthetic development”, “Speech development”, “Social and communicative development”,.

Summary of GCD in the middle group Reading the story by E. Charushin “Little Bunnies” Tasks: Situational conversation: What to do if you find a small bunny, chick, etc. in the forest. How will you behave? Reading the story by E. Charushin.

Summary of a lesson on familiarization with fiction. Senior group. Reading the fairy tale by V. Suteev “The Bag of Apples”\Lesson notes on familiarization with fiction. Senior group. Reading the fairy tale by V. Suteev “The Bag of Apples” Program content:.

Hello friends!

This year, as always, for the May holidays I went to my small homeland in the ancient Ryazan town of Sapozhok. While reading the local newspaper, I was surprised to find an article about the opening in the children's library of a museum exhibition dedicated to the life and work of our fellow countryman, writer and journalist, participant in the Great Patriotic War Anatoly Vasilyevich Mityaev.

Anatoly was the eldest of three children. From the age of five he could read. He went to school located in the neighboring village of Alabino, where his mother taught. Later, the family moved to Sapozhok, and the writer continued his studies at school No. 1. Before the war, his father was transferred for work, first to the Kaluga region, then to the Moscow region. There, in the village of Klyazma, Anatoly graduated from 9 classes and was going to enter the forestry technical school of Petrozavodsk, he Since childhood I wanted to become a forester.
But the Great Patriotic War began, my father went to the front. Anatoly got a job as a mechanic at a factory and dreamed of becoming a scout or partisan. When the Germans approached Stalingrad, without waiting for the call, he became a volunteer, ended up in the heavy mortar division, and after 3 days he was on the front line. He fought on the Bryansk, Volkhov, North-Western and Belorussian fronts. He was shell-shocked and awarded the medal “For Courage.”

After the war, Anatoly Vasilyevich’s main activity was chose journalism. From 1950 to 1960 Mityaev was the executive secretary of the newspaper “Pionerskaya Pravda”, and then until 1972 - editor-in-chief of the children's magazine "Murzilka". Writers and artists still remember the work of Mityaev as editor with gratitude to this day; his authority was extremely high.
In those years, A. Mityaev wrote “The Book of Future Commanders” and “The Book of Future Admirals” for children, and with his input, military themes flourished on the pages of the magazine. "Murzilka" talked about orders and medals, about military specialties, and published the "Heroic ABC".

Later, Anatoly Vasilyevich worked as editor-in-chief of the Soyuzmultfilm film studio. Based on his scripts, 11 cartoons for children were filmed (“The Lost Granddaughter”, “Penguins”, “Alien Colors”, “The Adventures of Dot and Comma”, “Three Pirates”, “Six Ivans - Six Captains” and others).

In the 1990s, Mityaev headed the editorial team of the magazine “New Toy. Russian magazine for children.”

But Anatoly Vasilyevich devoted the lion’s share of his non-working time (more precisely, sleep) to writing stories and fairy tales for children.

From his pen came many talented works for children and teenagers. Among them are fairy tales, short stories, historical narratives, and retellings of Russian epics.

Mityaev's fairy tales are kind, fascinating and witty. Sometimes the most ordinary objects become heroes of his fairy tales. In the best fairy tales of Mityaev there is a deep feeling of his native land.

From fairy tales the author came to history - these are books about the history of Russia, great battles and the art of war. For guys who dream of becoming military, Anatoly Vasilyevich wrote such unique works as "The Book of Future Commanders" And "The Book of Future Admirals." The writer talks about the historical events of our Motherland briefly, but in a fascinating way, and everything is easy to remember.

An interesting and well-known fact: using Mityaev’s historical books, using them as textbooks, both students of secondary schools and students of military academies pass exams equally successfully.

The theme of the Great Patriotic War occupies a special place in Mityaev’s work. About what the writer personally saw and experienced during the war years - stories collected in books "The sixth is incomplete", "The Feat of a Soldier" etc.

For teenagers A. Mityaev created a serious book based on documentary material "One thousand four hundred and eighteen days." It talks about the Great Patriotic War from the initial period to Victory Day. The author himself sincerely valued stories about the war.
“The Russian fleet in stories about ships, admirals, discoveries and battles at sea” And “Thunders of Borodin” were published after the author’s death in 2008 and 2012. In total, Anatoly Vasilyevich wrote more than 40 books for children of different ages - from kindergarteners to young men. “The Book of Future Commanders” and “The Book of Future Admirals” have been published in millions of copies.

The books of A.V. are dedicated to the education of a citizen, a purposeful, kind and courageous owner of the country. Mityaeva. They are reprinted several times and translated into other languages.

In his small homeland, in the village of Sapozhok in the Ryazan region, where Mityaev had not been since the 30s of the twentieth century until 2004, the front-line writer is remembered and honored. On the occasion of the 85th anniversary of the writer’s birth, a solemn opening of a memorial plaque in honor of A.V. Mityaev took place. At school No. 1, where he once studied, lessons dedicated to his work are regularly held, and classes for elementary school students are taught by high school students.


A landmark event was the opening of a museum exhibition dedicated to the life and work of Anatoly Vasilyevich Mityaev, whose name is given to the Sapozhka children's library.

The opportunity to create a museum arose thanks to the collaboration of the library with the widow of the writer Iya Nikolaevna. Last fall Anatoly Vasilyevich’s personal belongings were transferred to the children’s library.

The library received photographs of Anatoly Vasilyevich from different periods of his life, books from his personal library, many of which with dedicatory inscriptions from the authors of the books: Bulat Okudzhava, Valentin Berestov, Eduard Uspensky and many others.

The center of the exhibition is the writer’s large desk and bookcase, his manuscripts, typewriter, radio, and table lamp. From his personal belongings it is clear that Anatoly Vasilyevich loved hunting and fishing, and his handmade wood crafts told us about another of his talents, the talent of an artist.
But the most valuable thing he left as a legacy for future generations
A.V. Mityaev is his own books.

© Mityaev A.V., heirs, 2010

© Yudin V.V., illustrations, 2002

© Rytman O. B., illustration on binding, 2015

© Design of the series. OJSC Publishing House "Children's Literature", 2015

Dugout

All night the artillery battalion raced along the highway towards the front. It was freezing. The moon illuminated the sparse forests and fields along the edges of the road. Snow dust swirled behind the cars, settled on the sides, and covered the cannon covers with growths. The soldiers, dozing in the back under a tarpaulin, hid their faces in the prickly collars of their greatcoats and pressed themselves closer to each other.

Soldier Mitya Kornev was riding in one car. He was eighteen years old and had not yet seen the front. This is not an easy task: during the day, to be in a warm city barracks far from the war, and at night to be at the front among the frosty snow.

The night turned out to be quiet: the guns did not fire, the shells did not explode, and the rockets did not burn in the sky.

Therefore, Mitya did not think about battles. And he thought about how people can spend the whole winter in fields and forests, where there is not even a poor hut to warm up and spend the night! This worried him. It seemed to him that he would certainly freeze now.

Dawn has arrived. The division turned off the highway, drove through a field and stopped at the edge of a pine forest. Cars, one after another, slowly made their way through the trees. The soldiers ran behind them, pushing them if the wheels were slipping. When a German reconnaissance plane appeared in the brightening sky, all the vehicles and guns were standing under the pine trees. The pine trees sheltered them from the enemy pilot with shaggy branches.

The foreman came to the soldiers. He said that the division would stand here for at least a week and that dugouts needed to be built.

Mitya Kornev was assigned the simplest task: clearing the site of snow. The snow was deep. Mitya’s shovel came across cones, fallen pine needles, and lingonberry leaves, green as if in summer. When Mitya touched the ground with a shovel, the shovel slid over it as if it were a stone.

“How can you dig a hole in such stone ground?” - thought Mitya.

Then a soldier came with a pickaxe. He dug grooves in the ground. Another soldier thrust a crowbar into the groove and, leaning on it, picked out large frozen pieces. Under these pieces, like crumb under a hard crust, was loose sand.

The foreman walked around and looked to see if everything was being done correctly.

“Don’t throw sand too far,” he told Mitya Kornev. - A fascist reconnaissance aircraft will fly by, see yellow squares in the white forest, call bombers on the radio...

When the wide and long hole reached Mitya’s waist, they dug a ditch in the middle - a passage. On both sides of the passage there were bunks. They placed pillars at the edges and nailed a log onto them. Together with other soldiers, Mitya chopped up poles. They were placed with one end on a log, the other on the ground - just like making a hut. Then they were covered with spruce branches, frozen blocks of earth were placed on the branches, the blocks were covered with sand and sprinkled with snow for camouflage.

“Go get some firewood,” the foreman said to Mitya Kornev, “get more ready.” Can you feel the frost getting stronger! Yes, chop only alder and birch: they burn well even raw...

Mitya was chopping wood, while his comrades lined the bunks with small spruce branches and rolled an iron barrel into the dugout. There were two holes in the barrel - one at the bottom for putting firewood, the other at the top for a pipe. The pipe was made from empty tin cans. To prevent the fire from being visible at night, a canopy was placed on the pipe.

Mitya Kornev’s first day at the front passed quickly. It got dark. The frost intensified. The snow creaked under the guards' feet. The pines stood as if petrified. The stars twinkled in the blue glass sky. And it was warm in the dugout. Alder firewood burned hotly in an iron barrel. Only the frost on the raincoat that covered the entrance to the dugout reminded of the bitter cold. The soldiers laid out their overcoats, put duffel bags under their heads, covered themselves with their overcoats and fell asleep.

“How good it is to sleep in a dugout!” – thought Mitya Kornev and also fell asleep.

But the soldiers had little sleep. The division was ordered to immediately go to another section of the front: heavy fighting began there. The night stars were still trembling in the sky when cars with guns began to drive out of the forest.

The division raced along the highway. Snow dust swirled behind cars and guns. In the bodies, soldiers sat on boxes with shells. They huddled closer to each other and hid their faces in the prickly collars of their greatcoats so that the cold would not sting so much.

Samovar

There were stubborn battles all winter. And finally, closer to spring, the Nazis could not stand it and retreated.

Mitya Kornev still didn’t really know what was happening. He watched with surprise and joy as our soldiers rushed towards enemy positions. Infantrymen, sappers, and signalmen with reels were running. Sleighs with ammunition and field kitchens hurried along the trail, crushed by tanks. In a few minutes, the trenches, dugouts and dugouts that had been lived in over the winter were empty. Only Mitin's division remained in place: the guns fired after the fascists.

But then they stopped shooting. Tractor vehicles emerged from their shelters at once. The artillerymen attached guns to them, threw their belongings into the bodies, and climbed in themselves. Mitya also wanted to get into the back of the car. But then the foreman approached. He handed Mitya a duffel bag and said:

- Here's some food for you, Kornev. You will remain to guard the shells. We can't take everything away. In three days we will come for them and for you.

And the division left.

Everything happened so quickly, so unexpectedly that Mitya did not immediately understand what situation he was in.

Left alone, Mitya counted the boxes, painted with lime for camouflage, and adjusted them so that they lay flat. There was nothing more to do. Mitya walked near the shells. I listened. I looked closely.

But there was no movement around, and there were no sounds. There was dead silence. People went on the offensive. And the birds and animals disappeared from these places even earlier. Bombs and shells fell so thickly here that they broke and cut every tree in the forest. All that was left of the pine trees were torn stumps - tall, taller than a man. In the falling twilight, the remains of the trees seemed like fantastic creatures. They pulled broken pieces of wood in all directions and seemed to complain to Mitya about their bitter fate. Mitya looked at them, and his heart became more and more anxious.

It got dark. Mitya climbed into the dugout. The owners took away the stove and lamp. Mitya groped for the couch, raked the straw against the wall and lay down, placing the bag of food under his head. I placed the machine gun nearby. The heat has gone out of the dugout. Along with the cold of the night, fears began to creep up on Mitya.

“What if the Nazis sneak up? - thought Mitya. - Or maybe a man-eating wolf will come? Now he’ll scratch his paws at the door... The door is thin... And there’s no lock...” Mitya wanted to jump up and shoot at the door with a long burst from a machine gun. But he didn’t jump up, he forced himself to lie down. And so, lying down, he waited for other thoughts: that he was a soldier, he wasn’t supposed to be afraid. He doesn’t just spend the night in a dugout, he guards an ammunition depot, and woe to anyone who tries to blow it up or steal it. “It’s time to go to fast!” - Mitya said to himself. After these words, he stood up, cocked the machine gun and opened the door.

The night was not black, as it seemed in the dugout. She was gray. A faint light came from the snow. In this gray light, Mitya saw a stack of boxes with shells. Slowly he walked around it several times and returned. “Now sleep!” - Mitya ordered himself. He pulled his hat down further, curled up, and tucked the tails of his overcoat to make it warmer. But in the cold and loneliness, sleep could not come. Mitya dozed off a little.

In the morning, after warming up by the fire and chewing crackers, Mitya went to look for a stove. “Otherwise I’ll freeze,” he thought. “At least some bad little stove should remain.” So many people lived all winter..."

Mitya climbed the dugouts and dugouts. He came across a lot of all sorts of things. He found a lamp made from a shell casing, there were even concentrates of millet porridge, but there was no stove. Who would leave such a treasure in the winter! But suddenly, in the half-collapsed dugout, where Mitya had no intention of looking, but for some reason he looked, he saw a samovar. The copper samovar was huge and round. He stood on a pine tree on four wide paws, like those of a purebred dog. The handle of the short tap was intricate, similar to the number eight; on the eight there were many small rings and curls. On top of the samovar there was a burner with patterned cutouts - like a royal crown. It was the Tsar Samovar. This discovery made Mitya happy. With concentrates in his bosom, a lamp under his arm, and a samovar on his shoulder, he went home.

The post was in perfect order. Mitya began organizing his affairs. First, he lit a large fire to light coals for the samovar. Then he began to cut out the bottoms of the cans with a knife. There were a lot of empty cans, and soon, sticking one into the other, Mitya assembled a long pipe. We still had to get water. Mitya filled a pot with snow and hung it over the fire. While the snow was melting, he brought a handful of sand and a rag from the dugout and began to scrub his find.

The copper was cleaned well, the samovar began to shine. In the red side of the samovar, Mitya saw his own face - with a thick nose, a flattened forehead and chin, and cheeks spread out to the sides. Mitya winked at his reflection, and the face on the samovar responded with a wonderful, cheerful grimace.

“Nothing, you can live!” - thought Mitya.

It became cozy in the dugout with the samovar, and when Mitya lit it, it became warm. And Mitya felt completely warm after tea. Drinking plenty of real samovar tea - not everyone can do this in war! Walking around the shells, Mitya kept looking at the dugout, at the chimney from which bluish smoke rose. At night the smoke was no longer visible. But sparks became visible, they flew upward in red midges.

And the next night Mitya also did not fall asleep for a long time, he was also thinking. But the thoughts were calm, not alarming, not scary. He imagined people who sat at a samovar in peacetime. It must have been a big family. Mother and father, children, grandparents. On the table they had all sorts of delicious things: bagels, flatbreads, jam, sweets... And above this deliciousness, above the cups and saucers, the samovar rose. Then the Nazis attacked. The owner of the samovar, of course, went to war. Where are the mother and children and grandparents? Left the front. They left the samovar - there it is! Carry him... The infantrymen to whom he ended up did not carry him either. It’s clear that they were sorry to part with him. But nothing can be done - the infantry already has a lot of cargo: a rifle, cartridges, grenades, a gas mask, a shovel... So Mitya thought to himself and imperceptibly fell asleep.

The three days promised by the foreman had passed. But they still didn’t go for the shells or for Mitya. “That’s right, they drove the fascists far,” Mitya guessed. - But without shells, how can you drive them away? Well, nothing. I'll wait. Now we can wait."

One day, it was on the sixth day, the samovar suddenly began to sing. A subtle buzzing sound with bells was heard in its hot center. The tiny bells were ringing louder and louder every minute. Soon the separate sounds merged into one - as if a pipe was blowing. Mitya remembered a humorous sign: the samovar was singing towards the road. Indeed, that day the cars arrived.

Mitya’s comrades, as soon as the shells were loaded, began to drink tea. Some people brewed a birch twig in a mug, others a burnt cracker. And everyone patted the samovar on its round sides, as if thanking it for the pleasure it had given.

Mitya made a place for himself in the truck among the boxes. He sat down there comfortably and placed the still warm samovar on his lap. So he took him to his division.

Night blindness

Mitin's comrade, Corporal Savkin, took the tanker prisoner. Savkin lay under a fascist tank, knocked out in a no-man's land, and watched through binoculars where enemy machine guns were firing. At this time, the fascist crawled to the tank. Apparently, he wanted to find out what damage the car had so that he could then take it home. The corporal allowed the fascist about ten meters, threw away his disguise with the barrel of his machine gun and said: “Hyunda hoch!” The German started to rush to the side, but immediately realized that it was useless to run, and, kneeling, raised his hands.

Savkin brought the prisoner to the division's location. The commander praised the corporal, rejoiced at his luck and ordered the German to be taken for interrogation to brigade headquarters. Savkin lay under the tank all day in the morning, cold and hungry. Mitya Kornev was assigned to lead the prisoner further.

It was three kilometers to the headquarters. The road went through the forest.

Mitya walked behind the fascist. The barrel of Mitya’s machine gun was pointed at the enemy’s back. And Mitya’s eyes looked at nature. Spring was beginning. True, there was no greenery yet, but there was no more snow either. The birches stood quiet and solemn - they were waiting for a meeting with real warmth. Mitya tore off a kidney. The brown bud seemed to be entangled with a green thread. These scales began to disperse, slowly freeing the leaf.

It was dusk. It's getting colder. The birches have become stern, almost winter-like. Dusk was gathering quickly, as if they were in a hurry to hide the trees from frost. It was still a long way to the brigade headquarters, when suddenly everything was covered in a dark haze. Nothing became visible: neither the prisoner, nor the white birches. “Strange evening,” thought Mitya and tripped over a bump. He rubbed his eyes with his palm, but it was as if there was a veil over them.

Mitya's hearing strained. He heard the loud beating of his heart in his chest. And I also heard a German walking, poking his boots into the damp road. The steps were measured, without failure. “So,” thought Mitya, “the German sees where he is advancing. He doesn't stumble like I do. What's wrong with my eyes? Are you really blind? Night blindness has set in.”

Mitya was scared. He remembered the soldiers who had night blindness. During the day they saw well. And as the sun set, they were collected from the trenches, from the firing positions, and they, helpless, holding each other by the straps of their greatcoats, followed the sighted guide soldier. We walked away from the front line, to a safe place. They could not fight at night.

Anxious thoughts flashed through Mitya’s head.

“If a fascist runs away, what will I tell the commander? Okay, he’ll run away, but if he kills someone of ours along the way, will he blow something up? Tell him to lie down? And wait for someone to walk down the road? A fascist can guess that I don’t see.”

Here - either the road became harder, or the prisoner had gone far - the steps became barely distinguishable. Mitya increased his speed, hurried, his foot fell into a hole, and he almost fell. Then, out of frustration or despair, Mitya unexpectedly suddenly shouted:

“Hitler is kaput,” agreed a nearby German.

“He doesn’t guess,” Mitya realized. “He doesn’t realize it yet.”

Fifty steps later Mitya asked again:

- Kaput Hitler?

“Hitler is kaput,” the German responded. This time angrily: they say, what to ask, and everything is clear.

Mitya felt somehow awkward, as if ashamed for such a monotonous, frivolous conversation. But he did not know any other German words and soon again asked the boring question to the prisoner. What was to be done? By the voice of the prisoner, Mitya determined where he was and checked himself to see if he was going astray. When Mitya, having swallowed his saliva, again prepared for the question, the German himself said in an arrogant tone:

- Kaput, kaput. Hitler is kaput.

He decided that the young guard, who looked like a teenager, was entertaining himself in such a stupid way out of boredom.

“Consider yourself smart, consider me stupid,” thought Mitya, “I’ll be patient.” A new concern overwhelmed him - not to get past the brigade headquarters. The headquarters was located in the forest about two hundred meters from the main road. How to find a fork?

Luckily, patrolmen were stationed at the fork at night. When the cry was heard: “Stop, who’s coming?” – Mitya even shuddered with joy.

- Ours! - he shouted. He immediately corrected himself: “Friendly and German!” - And he spoke hotly, hurriedly, fearing that the patrolman would not listen to the end and would leave: “I’m taking the prisoner to headquarters.” But the eyes don't see. You should see us off. I'm afraid I'll miss the fascist; he'll run - I can't see him. I have night blindness.

“I see,” said the patrolman. – And I’m thinking: why are two people walking and one is shouting like a clockwork: “Hitler is kaput!”?

The patrolman took Mitya by the hand and said to the prisoner: “Go ahead!” - Yes, with such intonation that the fascist understood him, and all three walked towards the headquarters.

In the morning Mitya began to see well again. He arrived at his division just as breakfast was starting. This time, a sanitary instructor stood next to the cook at the camp kitchen. And first it was necessary to hand him the spoon, and then the pot to the cook. The sanitary instructor poured thick liquid from a bottle into each spoon and demanded that the artilleryman drink it immediately.

-What is this? – Mitya asked when his turn came. - Fish oil? “I don’t like fish oil,” Mitya began to refuse.

- Drink, Kornev, without talking! – the sanitary instructor got angry. “If I had started giving this medicine earlier, you wouldn’t have had to deal with the prisoner yesterday.” You don’t have the necessary vitamin in your body, which is why your vision is impaired.

Mitya drank and licked the spoon.

“Thank you,” he said to the instructor.

- Cheers! - he answered.

Indeed, Mitya Kornev became healthy after a few days. He could fight the Nazis not only during the day, but also after sunset - at any time of the day.

Dust

Wheels and soldiers' feet ground the dirt on the dirt road into fine dust. Dust covered everything around: grass, bushes, and grasshoppers.

Private Mitya Kornev was riding in a truck next to the driver. Their cabin was cracked, made of canvas - there was not enough metal for iron ones at that time - and the dust in it stood, as they say, in a column. Mitya dreamed of how they would get to their division, how they would shake out their gymnasts and wash themselves with water.

There wasn't much left to go. But suddenly there was a bang from the front. The truck sank as if it had gone limp. The tire went flat.

In about thirty minutes the driver and Mitya did what needed to be done. We checked the other wheels. It was possible to go. And then Mitya saw: only the ribbon from the medal was hanging on his tunic; the medal itself - a silver circle with the inscription “For Courage” - was lost.

“I dropped the medal,” said Mitya.

- How did you drop it? – the driver was surprised. - When?

- Probably when the wheel was being repaired...

“We’ll find it,” said the driver.

He knelt down by the wheel, plunged his hands up to his elbows into the hot dust and began to rummage around there.

Mitya was leaning over the other wheel.

-What are you looking for, Slavs? Isn't it money? If I find it, half of it is mine.

A carriage stopped next to the truck. The rider, without waiting for an answer, jumped off. From the outside it might have seemed like a shell had hit the road - such a tornado of dust rose up.

“The medal was lost,” admitted Mitya, “For courage.”

“This is a serious matter,” said the driver.

He threw a whip into the cart and also began to rake up the dust.

The three of us searched until the lorry signaled. The carriage prevented her from passing. In the lorry, nurses were sitting on hospital mattresses. To keep their hair from getting dusty, they tucked it under their caps and looked like boys.

- Brothers! Why are you digging around like chickens? – asked the little nurse, and the girlfriends laughed.

The rider rose from the wheel. Taking the horse back, he explained:

- This one lost his medal.

- Well?! – the nurses gasped in unison.

When the lorry started moving, the little nurse shouted to Mitya:

- Oh, you! We need you to come to our hospital for treatment!

The lorry left. The rider left on a horse. But the road is just a road, so that people can walk along it and drive. A squad of sappers pulled alongside the truck. The boss was an elderly sergeant major. His nose is like a beetroot. Even powdered with dust, the nose glowed red.

- Lost the nut? – the foreman asked sympathetically. - It’s okay, you’ll get there without one.

“A nut would be fine,” the driver replied, “a medal...

- Bunglers! - the foreman got angry. - There is no one to teach you!

- Maybe you can look for it with a mine detector? - Mitya asked.

- Why! – one sapper agreed and began to attach headphones to his head. - Just drive the car further away. There is so much iron in it, it will squeak in your headphones and you will go deaf.

Mitya was very happy. The driver climbed into the cab to start it. But the red-nosed foreman commanded:

– Stop searching! Form up! Step march!

And the sappers left.

Mitya just sat down by the wheel. Tears flowed naturally from the insult. “What kind of person is this? - thought Mitya. “What did it cost to help?”

He did not hear the foreman explain to the sappers as he walked:

- The car must not be touched. This way you can at least see where the medal could have fallen. Here they are, all four wheels, as the song says... But you won’t find a medal with a mine detector: on the road there are nuts, and nails, and bolts, and bullets, and fragments, and even soldier’s buttons...

At this time, Cossack reconnaissance approached the truck. Even though it’s hot, the Cossacks are wearing kubanka hats. The trousers of the privates are like those of generals, with stripes. There are checkers and pistols on their belts, and machine guns on their backs. And each intelligence officer has a chest full of orders and medals. They shine - dust is not dust for the Cossacks.

The riders stopped their horses. One leaned from the saddle towards Mitya:

- Why are you upset? Who offended?

Mitya was embarrassed to explain. Why, they ask.

- Dropped the medal. We've been looking for an hour now...

- Kozlov! - they shouted from the middle of the platoon. - You have a lot of medals. Give them one.

“I won’t,” the scout said seriously. “If they didn’t save their own, they’ll sow someone else’s.”

The Cossacks moved their horses. The platoon was enveloped in dust like a cloud, and with this cloud disappeared around the bend.

The cook in the field kitchen arrived. Smoke was oozing from the chimney. In the cauldron behind the iron wall, porridge puffed and spluttered. The cook was young, Mitya’s age.

“Yes, I would,” he said, “if I received a medal, I would take care of it... After the war, if you walk down the street with a medal, everyone will say: “This one did not cower in front of the Nazis.” And I have nowhere to get an award. I'm with porridge all the time. “You,” he consoled Mitya, “don’t worry.” You'll get more. And even an order. You artillerymen have somewhere to get it. Sorry for not helping you search. The mouth needs to be fed. I would also put some porridge for you, but it’s impossible to open the cauldron in such dust...

“What is it?” said Mitya, touched by the participation, and firmly shook the cook’s hand goodbye. - All! - he decided when the kitchen left. - Can't find it.

Mitya sat on the step of the truck. The driver sat down next to him. They thought about one thing: it was time to go. The division is already worried. And it’s simply impossible to find a medal. There's nothing you can do about it. Many people have misfortunes. Now a misfortune has happened to Mitya. The driver went to the side of the road, picked off a thorny bush and began to knock the dust off his trousers. Mitya didn’t even have the strength for such an easy task. Then a “goat” drove up - a short car with a canvas top. He braked near the truck, and so quickly that the dust that was spinning behind him flew forward. The “goat” seemed to deceive her. The door opened and the lieutenant looked out:

- Why are you standing? Running out of fuel?

Mitya jumped up from the bandwagon:

- There is fuel, Comrade Lieutenant. Let's go now. They were looking for a medal. Got lost when the wheel was being repaired.

- Found it? – asked the lieutenant.

“No way,” answered Mitya.

- Search again. And find it! I give it fifteen minutes. “The lieutenant looked at his watch, then at Mitya, slammed the door, and the “goat” rushed off and sped off.

– Should we look again? – Mitya said uncertainly.

“We’re looking for fifteen minutes,” the driver agreed, “as the lieutenant ordered.”

And they again began to feel the dust around the wheels. The dust was so dry, so light that it flowed between my fingers. It was impossible to take it in a pinch. In a handful it weighed nothing; the handful seemed empty. And suddenly it seemed to Mitya that there was something heavy in his hand. He slowly unclenched his fingers, the dust ran away from his palm, and on his palm, in the very middle of it, lay a silver circle.

- Found it! Found it! Found it! - Mitya shouted and began kicking up the dust with his boots.

“Just stop,” the driver rejoiced, “come on, show me!”

They looked at the medal for a long time, as on the day when Mitya was awarded it for courage in repelling an attack by German tanks.

Anatoly Mityaev

DUGOUT

Dugout

All night the artillery battalion raced along the highway towards the front. It was freezing. The moon illuminated the sparse forests and fields along the edges of the road. Snow dust swirled behind the cars, settled on the rear sides, and covered the cannon covers with growths. The soldiers, dozing in the back under a tarpaulin, hid their faces in the prickly collars of their greatcoats and pressed themselves closer to each other.

Soldier Mitya Kornev was riding in one car. He was eighteen years old and had not yet seen the front. This is not an easy task: during the day, to be in a warm city barracks far from the war, and at night to be at the front among the frosty snow.

The night turned out to be quiet: the guns did not fire, the shells did not explode, and the rockets did not burn in the sky.

Therefore, Mitya did not think about battles. And he thought about how people can spend the whole winter in fields and forests, where there is not even a poor hut to warm up and spend the night! This worried him. It seemed to him that he would certainly freeze.

Dawn has arrived. The division turned off the highway, drove through a field and stopped at the edge of a pine forest. Cars, one after another, slowly made their way through the trees into the depths of the forest. The soldiers ran after them, pushing them if the wheels were slipping. When a German reconnaissance plane appeared in the brightening sky, all the vehicles and guns were standing under the pine trees. The pine trees sheltered them from the enemy pilot with shaggy branches.

The foreman came to the soldiers. He said that the division would stand here for at least a week, so it was necessary to build dugouts.

Mitya Kornev was assigned the simplest task: clearing the site of snow. The snow was shallow. Mitya’s shovel came across cones, fallen pine needles, and lingonberry leaves, green as if in summer. When Mitya touched the ground with a shovel, the shovel slid over it as if it were a stone.

“How can you dig a hole in such stone ground?” - thought Mitya.

Then a soldier came with a pickaxe. He dug grooves in the ground. Another soldier inserted a crowbar into the grooves and, leaning on it, picked out large frozen pieces. Under these pieces, like crumb under a hard crust, was loose sand.

The foreman walked around and looked to see if everything was being done correctly.

“Don’t throw sand too far,” he told Mitya Kornev, “a fascist reconnaissance officer will fly by, see yellow squares in the white forest, call bombers on the radio... He’ll get it in nuts!”

When the wide and long hole reached Mitya’s waist, they dug a ditch in the middle - a passage. On both sides of the passage there were bunks. They placed pillars at the edges of the pit and nailed a log onto them. Together with other soldiers, Mitya went to cut down surveillance.

The trails were placed with one end on a log and the other on the ground, just like making a hut. Then they were covered with spruce branches, frozen blocks of earth were placed on the spruce branches, the blocks were covered with sand and sprinkled with snow for camouflage.

“Go get some firewood,” the foreman said to Mitya Kornev, “get more ready.” Can you feel the frost getting stronger! Yes, chop only alder and birch - they burn well even raw...

Mitya was chopping wood, while his comrades lined the bunks with small soft spruce branches and rolled an iron barrel into the dugout. There were two holes in the barrel, one at the bottom for putting firewood, the other at the top for a pipe. The pipe was made from empty tin cans. To prevent the fire from being visible at night, a canopy was placed on the pipe.

Mitya Kornev’s first day at the front passed very quickly. It got dark. The frost intensified. The snow creaked under the guards' feet. The pines stood as if petrified. The stars twinkled in the blue glass sky.

And it was warm in the dugout. Alder firewood burned hotly in an iron barrel. Only the frost on the raincoat that covered the entrance to the dugout reminded of the bitter cold. The soldiers laid out their overcoats, put duffel bags under their heads, covered themselves with their overcoats and fell asleep.

“How good it is to sleep in a dugout!” - thought Mitya Kornev and also fell asleep.

But the soldiers had little sleep. The division was ordered to immediately go to another section of the front: heavy fighting began there. The night stars were still trembling in the sky when cars with guns began to drive out of the forest onto the road.

The division raced along the highway. Snow dust swirled behind cars and guns. In the bodies, soldiers sat on boxes with shells. They huddled closer together and hid their linden overcoats in the prickly collars of their overcoats so that the frost would not sting so much.

A bag of oatmeal

That autumn there were long, cold rains. The ground was saturated with water, the roads were muddy. On the country roads, stuck up to their axles in mud, stood military trucks. The supply of food became very bad.