- I understand Uncle Dima! - Vasek answered Arsentev knowingly. He ran after him all the way to the plane. And he stopped, not far seeing off the lieutenant.

He was this boy, was an orphan of the war, and was picked up by the flight of the village of the Moscow region burned by the Nazis. Vasek was already like his own in this regiment and was like a son to everyone, like Dmitry Arsentiev.

Here in military Belorussia Vasek accompanied each pilot of this unit every time. Sometimes even helping, pulling a parachute behind someone in their still weak boyish hands.

Arsentiev felt sorry for him more than anyone else and did not allow him to do this and carried his parachute in his hands, although Vasek asked him to help him before the flight.

He loved children, and the children of war almost nursed on his hands, like orphans. Because he himself was an orphan. Becoming such long before the war. Having tasted all the joy and sorrow of children's orphanage loneliness. Sometimes they laughed at him in parts, as if they were a mother with a child. She and Vaska were an inseparable couple. They chased the ball over the airfield, then lay in the shadow under the fighter disguised in the forest here.

Arsentev was now only twenty-eight. Yes, and his commander, captain Anikanov, was a little two years his senior. Both very young pilots of their military extermination unit, under the liberated Mogilev, almost near the Dnieper, now fighting the fascists in Belarus since the spring of 1944.

Vasek was a good boy, only the war took the boy's parents away. Fascist tanks swept through the village. And after the infantry of the Germans. And Vasek was left alone, of the survivors, because nothing was left of the village, and everyone was just killed. His village Lepnevka and so was small and stood just on the path of the Nazis, along the road along which their tanks drove. That was not his village and relatives and his villagers. In the village the boys later passed the front line here and there, an offensive was going on. As a result, in the place where she stood, there was not a single house or even a hint of a village. Everything was dug up with bombs and shells.

He wandered for a long time through the forests and the surviving villages, and so gradually he fell first to the scouts, and then to the infantry unit. Then he settled down here at the airfield. He was sent here by the soldiers, for the purpose of the goals will be the lad. So he eventually became the son of a regiment, and now he accompanied the lieutenant and his best friend Dmitry Arsentyev and his lead captain Sergey Anikanov to reconnaissance flight over Snezhnitsa. Settlement, quite large in the area of ​​extensive forest swamps and deep forests. There, according to the information of the infantry intelligence, there were Germans and tanks, with a new series. They say three Tigers, and if so, it was necessary to fly over the Snack and try to find out exactly the location of the Fritz and their military equipment for the offensive and the possibility of the seizure or destruction of this equipment, already advancing infantry troops. An offensive was being prepared all along the front, and the Snezhnitsy were part of this offensive plan. Together with the partisans entrenched near the village in the Belarusian forests, as was the command of the plans, this offensive was to knock the enemy far beyond the front line to the West with one blow. And liberate all the districts and villages occupied by the Fritz in the frontline area.

In general, as Arsentiev Dmitriy himself heard, the command planned to seize new German cars, attacking the village and knocking out the Germans. But first needed aerial reconnaissance and adjustment of the terrain with those swamps and forests. So they sent them as the best pilots of the unit to explore over this big village. And they were preparing for departure.

Two Yak-3 fueled and loaded with solid ammunition.

- Uncle Dima, and when you arrive, we will play football? - Vasek ran to the lieutenant Arsentiev who was putting on a parachute and pressed against him as to his own father.

Dmitri pressed the boy to himself and said - Let's play Vasek. Let's play. Here we just fly to Fritz and play. We're earring soon. He turned to his commander, captain Anikanov, and their mechanics, Jacob. The captain also went up to the boy and lifted him in his arms - Vasily - he told him seriously - Keep order here without us and let us relax with these two idiot. He nodded at their mechanics. Those smiled, realizing the joke of a comedy.

- And then they are here without us what they want, they do. There is no one to drive. They go around the airfield and baklushi beat. You find a job for them here.

Vasek nodded - Good Uncle Seryozha.

- That's fine - he let the boy to the ground - It's time to fly Dima. The fog is still hanging, and the sun has not risen. Fritz is still sleeping. For lunch we will be back. Check your watch. And they both raised their hands in front of them, looked at the watch.

“Half past seven,” said Anikanov, adjusting the holster on his belt with the TT comic, buttoning his pilot's headset on his chin with pilot glasses.

“And I also have,” Arsentiev answered him, doing the same.

“By airplanes,” the captain ordered, and they, with their parachutes dressed, headed towards the battle-yaks, which were filled with full tanks and tested in terms of ammunition equipment and mechanics.

***

From the village commandant's office, which was located in the village school that had been seized by the Germans, a whip leaped out - I did not see our Toad! - He turned to another policeman.

“No, Whip,” replied the Dryka. “From early morning it is not somewhere.” I have no idea where umyknul freak.

- It is necessary to look for this goat - the Whip was explained to him as the most senior over them - Search. Until Kogel did not recognize. He and so then in that year lost two of his infantry. Lost without a trace. They say in the area of ​​the Wolf farm. Found that tracked motorcycle, and they blew like a dick.

Past the rural commandant's office in which the headquarters of the German infantry and tank corps was located right in the middle of the street littered with wheels and cars and tracks of tanks, grunting and snorting with the belly of pork hog hanging to the ground. Brorov Borka, elders of the village of Seraphim Kozhuby. He was the only one left in the whole village still alive, as was the cow, Dawn, at the local resident Anna Semagina and her daughter Simka, who were not yet eaten by the Germans during their two-year stay in Snezhnitsa.

The policemen, silently, carried out this order of the old hog under the mockery and giggles of the German motorcyclists standing there, and continued the conversation.

“Well, and that,” said Dryk, “They hung two villagers for them and that’s all.”

- And for this freak, we hang, you understand an idiot? - swore at the Dryku Whip - Maybe his partisans stole and interrogated him in the forest den. I need a warden, this fucking Kozhub. Maybe he has him or the old man can him, somewhere he saw the last time - he took the Dryku collar - In short. Blow to him and find out at least something. Let the villagers pozazar and pozhishet around. Up to the Wolf Farm.

“He and these rural people would never go there,” said Dryk.

“They will, if Kogel starts searching,” answered the Short Whisper of the Dry Whip. These damn partisans. And we will be hanged instead of these villagers, for this Toad. He himself knows how he treats us. How to slop. We are for them, the same scum, like these all the villagers! Even worse! And trust should be earned Dryk - he pulled the policeman's collar and pushed him away - Got it?

- Understood - replied displeasure to the Whip Dryk.

- Well, once I understood, so cheshi to the elder, and I’ll follow and look like while you are running - the Dryke Whip replied - I’ve got a deal for ten marks with a single mechanical tunic.

Dryk turned and went, but Whip stopped him - Yes, even with Acne ceiling. With his woman, this is Lyubava Andronnikova. Maybe German schnapps got drunk, bastard, and sleep in his hut. I don't even see that Pimple monster from the early morning hours. Maybe both get drunk! Strangle both! Come on, blow out of here.

Dryka turned around and walked towards the headman's house - He has business, and I have to look for one Toad! - He was indignant out loud to himself - He would have fled! Idiot!

***

In the house of the headman were the headman of the village of Snezhnitsa ... Read more →