Although we had rescued the ZIL, our ATA is now bogged. I was franticly trying to estimate our odds of escaping from this trap. Strengthened with the second ATA on solid soil, and the help of two winches, I attempted to release my first ATA from the mud. The engines roared, the winches tried in vain, but… the second ATA also slipped into the swamp slowly!
There was nothing to tie up to, not a tree, neither a building! The first ATA apparently sat down deeply in the muddy field. For a half an hour we were trying to pull this ATA with a help of the second ATA but only got the second ATA sucked into the muddy field as well and have torn apart both winches and two cables.
Covered with the dirt and boiling with angriness, we noted that our entertainment crowd has gradually changed. A lot of bearded men were there giving us not really friendly looks. Guns were noticeable under loose Afghanis’ tunics. There was only an hour left before the twilight. If we will stay here — they will shoot us down. If we will leave without the ATA s — they will plunder them first and then burn them. A bloody international help, damn it!
Ordering everyone to be alert, I jumped into the ZIL and I directed the Afghani where to drive. Coming to the nearest outpost, I collected cables and another two ATAs and returned to the scene.
It was getting dark. The Afghanis’ ring around us was getting smaller and denser. Our dear ATAs are powerful, passable, but… too light. They went into a skid. We decided to pull them again but the cable burst into pieces again. The soldiers’ faces became gloomy and I became so angry that I decided to take it out on “natives”:
— Why are you looking for? We got into this mess because of your idiot. Let’s all pull the wire!
I was telling them this just to blow off steam, with no hope. But what do you think? One of them dragged over a hank of wire which was so solid, with its thickness of a little finger! Five times I twisted around the hook of our second-in-trouble ATA and we all pulled. The poor ATA rose out of the mud. Thank God! Solders were so happy! Quickly we fastened the rest of the wire to three
ATAs, and in one attempt pulled together. With a loud sound “sh-sh-viak!, the swamp spat out its prey.
After disconnecting our equipment, we looked at each other and began to laugh. When we finally stopped laughing, we noticed that “the natives” disappeared into the twilight. There was only one white-bearded “native” left, the one who had brought the wire. He was a teacher at the local school and he decently spoke Russian. So I grabbed a few boxes with lunches and came to him to say “thanks”. He refused to accept my baksheesh (see “Terminology and Glossary” — Editor), but shook my hands with a great pleasure. He was talking something about an international help. And I, who had already thousands of times damned this international help, unexpectedly concluded for myself that I had done the right thing.
Nikolay Ruban
Ruban, Nikolai Yurievich was born in 1961, in Uzbekistan. After the graduation from the Ryazan Airborne School and the Military Academy of Frunze, he was ordered to serve in Afghanistan. Currently, he is Lieutenant Colonel in the army reserve and lives in Moscow.
The Soldier’s Grey Hair
Tashkent, the year of 1985. The cargo compartment hatch of a military aircraft IL-76 is wide open. The ex-sergeant, dembel (see “Terminology and Glossary — Editor) Dimon Zamyatin was marching on the concrete of the Tuzel airfield runway; his boots play a metallic sound like clattering against a duralumin frame. He is very popular, a kind of hero for mates to follow, about whom can be said “the cock of the walk”, especially if you noticed the Medal for Bravery on his uniform. Wearing a blue beret and rusty tan, he holds a little suitcase packed with cheap souvenirs for the family. There is also his dembel photo album (a compulsory attribute for a soldier after army service — Editor). His well-kept fancy forelock of grey hair stuck out from his beret and told us as much about the owner as the medal and the stripe for being wounded on his chest.
When his mother spotted this grey hair, she began shaking with a silent cry. Trying to comfort her, Dimon was softly stroking his mother’s shuddering back: “Come on, do not cry, I am here! I am back home, alive and healthy.”
This evening, in the village, Dimon transformed himself into a vivid image of the famous Tyorkin (a fictional hero — the soldier of the Great Patriotic War from the famous poem “The Book about the Fighter” by Alexander Tvardovsky — Editor).
But nowadays, unlike Tyorkin, Dimon did not smoke “Kazbek”, he preferred Bulgarian “BТ”. Otherwise, it was almost the identical conversation that you can find in the Tvardovskiy’s “Tyorkin”: “— How was it? — On day-to-day. — Were you scared? — Sometimes I was. — Did you often rush to attack? — Sometimes I did…” When the conversation led to his grey hair, he frowned and spoke through clenched teeth: “There was just one event…” And the listeners respectfully sighed; nobody dared to stir his wounded soul.
This is how it happened…
When Dimon finished his military training, he was assigned to Afghan, to a landing-assault force that was located in Jalabad. Carrying a transmitter on his shoulders, he was running up and down to the mountains for half a year. He had a tough life, but got used to the heat and frost. His guardian angel kept him away from bullets, but did not save him from hepatitis. Nobody was surprised: in the past, hepatitis in Afghan had knocked down two armies: the army of Alexander the Great and the English one.
From the hospital, Dimon returned skinny and barely alive; to fully recover he needed occupational therapy. No need to say that around the hospital there was enough work, such as digging countless trenches, for instance. The battalion commander looked at this goner and sent him to the radio retransmission station in a hope that Dimon, who was not able to carry any equipment after occupational therapy, will get a good chance to accumulate some fat under his belly and shape himself back to a human appearance. The retransmission station was situated on top of the mountain, at the foot of which the transmission brigade was stationed.
For a good half a day, Dimon was walking to the station on a snake-like road alongside the rocky walls. He stopped for a break more than one hundred times, gasping and clearly understanding that to reach this damn station is beyond his strength, and the damn battalion commander send him there just to get rid of him. But eventually he got there, and he found a real paradise for himself.
The station personnel of seven people was led by the sergeant Lyoha Kedrov, a solid and thrifty Siberian man. He was strict in discipline, but he did not use his fists and did not allow anybody to do it. There was plenty of food and they ate as much as they wished. The food was prepared by soldiers, or to be exact, it was the one — Uzbekistani-born Ravshan Mirzoyev who did the cooking, while the others only peeled potatoes and washed the dishes. There was no drill. Nobody marched. After the duty at the station or outpost, you could sleep or do whatever you wanted. Ravshan has a great talent for cooking. From ordinary standard supply, he managed to create such delicacies and yummy dishes. On top of this, assiduous Lyoha made the tasty home-brewed beer for holidays, not too much, but enough for everyone. Once a week, the first sergeant delivered supplies on a donkey, called Vaska. The first sergeant was the only superior who solders see. So, everything was as supposed to be in a solder’s paradise.