I turned the body on its back with a gun barrel. We are standing and blatantly staring at the body. Other guys popped out from tanks’ manholes and also looked towards us wondering what was in front of us.
And in front of us on the ground we saw human remains — a body of an inexperienced human cockerel, only twelve years old, maybe a little bit older, with open eyes filled by pale yellow dust to the point that it looks like he was wearing dusty glasses. His facial features reminded me of Mephistopheles in his adolescence, a kind of prototype for a medieval image of little devils. An inhuman face of an animal nationality…. Devils bustard! Why did your Mother brought you into this world, dead meat?!
And then I cannot explain what got into me. In the past nothing even close to this had happen and I cannot re-call that other guys had experienced something like this… I got mad… I picked up my gun and started to shoot. I kept shooting this ugly face till the very last bullet. Take it all, bastard! Now, these pieces can be buried, these leftovers of a devoted martyr for jihad, a twisted seeker of the Islamic state, mothers fuckers!
Zubyara heavily approached me from behind and took PC mine. Patting my shoulders, he said softly in his native Ukrainian:
— Lets go, brother, he had got enough….
Indeed, he got too much enough! With all of these we left….
Near the machines is a boiling pot. The young soldiers are preparing their positions. The platoon commander is rushing to a commander to make his report. I looked around, my comrade Yurets together with the rest of the young soldiers are hectically shoveling to prepare a stand point under the brisk shouting of Slobodyanyuk. But where is Timur? Timur has not been seen around. What a..?!
Here he is! I can see him sitting under a tree and saying something to — or crying over — the dead dog. It cannot be right! I came closer… It turns out he was singing! He was sitting down on his haunches and with a twig shushed away flies and, at the same time, was murmuring something special in his own language to the dog, unrecognizable to others, but distinctively very sad.
I looked attentively and to my surprise — the dog was breathing! What a cool dog! The breath of this dog was shallow, irregular, occasionally intermittent, but the injured body was not yet giving up life! I looked at the wounds… A terrifying line of razor was visible from the neck to the belly, forming a deep wound with visible edges and unrecognizable parts of this body: you cannot identify where the impact occurred and where not. The wound was a mess… a mixture of dust, blood, curled fur in the chest glued with dried blood. The heat already did its job….
I remember that a leg was also broken. It was obvious no need to turn the dog for a further examination, no need to torment the animal. Without any doubt the dog was at the end of his unfortunate life. But as a four-legged soldier of the de-mining division, he deserved a better option to die rather than on the sidelines of this god forgotten road. As usual in this situation, I wanted to inject him with promedol (see “Terminology and Glossary” — Editor), but then changed my mind — who knows how the dog will react? So, we gently put him on the cape and carried him to my 149 division, absolutely sure that we will bury the dog this evening.
We did not have time to have a rest. When a platoon commander arrived, the orders were followed one after another, and this bedlam was going on until we reached Kishim almost in the dark. But the order was given — no light or bonfire. Why? It was a mystery to me because after such a fruitful day, a single Allah soul could not be found in the whole area. Everything was combed, no fleas! The order was a complete nonsense!
But dinner time was fast approaching. We put the BMP’s ejectors under the cans of porridge and stewed meet and started to wait… it is indeed a long procedure of heatting up the dinner. Whilst waiting, I decided to have a stroll to see how the dog, Dusya, was doing… Surprise! He was alive! He even moved his tail to greet me! I called Tatar Timur and together we carefully moved the dog to a better place. Indeed, the dog felt much better: he was holding his head, his eyes were sharp and he was curious towards the things around him. At the same time, I spotted a deep sadness that seemed to be nested in the bottom of his eyes. So much understanding and anguish in his eyes….We fetched water for him from the jar — he gulped it at once.
I did find a couple of cans “Buckwheat with chicken broth.” This valued porridge, you know, can beat everything to hell. I throw these cans on the ejector, and went to get more, I whispered a couple of nice words to the guys….
“Yes, Glebych, no question, dear, take few more!”
I put everything together, tested how hot it is — just right! — and put the food, the size of just about the entire helmet, in front of Dusya, in the hole dug up by Temir.
Food, as they say, is a life….
The poor dog was working on the food so hard that I understood — it is time to call a military nurse and doctor Stepan. It was not easy. After a long conversation on the radio with a number of people, I was connected to Stepan who hectically was fixing wounded soldiers in different locations and therefore was constantly on the move. In the beginning of our conversation, when he realized the nature of my call, he swore at me in any possible and impossible way (I want to say, that Stepan was a professor in this department), and after both of us got enough satisfaction from a heated argument, finally he instructed me to boil plenty of water and promised to come.
Considering the order of no fire under any circumstances, we found the way out how to boil water and our superior just scratched his head observing how enthusiastically and clever this challenge was overcome. The platoon commander only shook his head, watching this circus.
Finally Stepan arrived dragging his sack, full of medicine supplies. The dog was examined on the spot. I ask:
— Well?
— Yes, there is a lot of sewing that should be done: the leg, body… then look at the breast as you can see his dick is coming out but what a hell? It is not official, I suppose, we can try…Okay, lets do it! Come on — time is everything now!
So, we began…
We took Temir, a lantern, the Stepan’s medical kit, water and started to mend our Duxya.
The first step was to clean the numerous wounds, then to inject anesthetic. After this, we disinfected and covered in penicillin this poor pal, injected intramuscular painkillers, and flooded with iodine his entire wounded body.
Stepan spread the curved needle around with antiseptic conventional army harsh thread and says:
— What are you looking at? Grab the clip and go ahead!
— Gee! Should I to do sewing?
— Who else?
Well, it was not the right time to get myself into an argument with Stepan, thanks that he came at all. So, we began to sew. Stepan worked, shouted and cursed in such a highly professional manner, that at the end of surgery I could not laughed any more. I wonder, where he learned to swear so professionally? I cannot imagine the place….
Dusya was laying motionless… Only when nerves sometime distorted the skin, then Stephan had his go and vocalized a possibility to sew his dick to the tail. Oh, some funny stuff like this, until I could not cope any more, tiring from unstoppable laugher.
Serge, a platoon commander, also spend the whole evening with us, laughing until he could not continue to do it and convulsions spread over his body exhausted from laughing. Of course, what else can you expect from him, a lieutenant, on this cool day?