Vyacheslav Mironov. Assault on Grozny Downtown

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     (c) Copyright 1996-1999 Vyachslav Mironov
     (c) Copyright 2001 translation by Alex Dokin (adokin today.com.au)
     (c) Copyright 2001 translation by Konstantin S. Leskov
     (c) Copyright 2001 translation by Marta Malinovskaya
     (c) Copyright 2009 translation by Oleg Abramov (farmount1989 yahoo.com)
     (c) Copyright 2001 translation by Oleg Petrov (siberiaforever hotmail.com)
     Date: Feb-Mar 2001
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     Перевод романа В.Н.Миронова "Я был на этой войне" (Грозный-1995)
     Origin: http://lib.ru/MEMUARY/CHECHNYA/chechen_war.txt ? http://lib.ru/MEMUARY/CHECHNYA/chechen_war.txt

     Translation includes 1-5,7-9,10-15,18 parts of novel.

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     If you are ready to take part in the translation and editing of
this text, please write to artofwar.ru(a)rambler.ru
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        1

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      (c) Copyright 2001 translation by Alex Dokin (adokin[a]today.com.au)
      Date:  7 Mar 2001
      Date:  9 Mar 2001
      Date: 26 May 2001 Corrected version
      Date:  4 Oct 2001
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     I'm running.  The lungs are  bursting. The  damned wheeze is  a murder.
Have to run a zigzag path (in our brigade we call it "run a screw").
     God,  help... Please help. Help keep this insane tempo. That's it, if I
ever get out of here - quit  smoking. Zapp... Zapp... Sniper!!??... Get down
and crawl, crawl out of the killing zone.
     Lying. All seems OK - no sniper, probably just "shul'nyak".
     Alright, now  catch your breath, find your way  around and race ahead -
to the Central Post  of our brigade's the  first battalion. Just a few hours
ago  they reported  on catching a sniper. From the report  we  knew  he  was
Russian and, from his own words, even from  Novosibirsk.  F..ing compatriot.
On two APCs, along with the recon squad I set off to pick up "the clapper".
     En route  to the Central Train  Station, the  streets  are crammed with
burnt and mangled hulks of "armour" and strewn with dead  bodies. The bodies
of our Slavic brothers, all that's  left of the Mikop Brigade, the  one that
"spooks" burnt and wiped out on the New  Year's Eve 95-96.  God,  help me...
let me  out  of here...  They  said,  when  the  First Battalion  busted the
"demons" out of the Station building, as the gunfire slacked off, one of the
grunts,  having looked around, howled. From then on other grunts stayed away
from  him -  another crank. Now charging through the walls like  spellbound,
scared of nothing. And there are enough screwballs like  that in every unit,
the enemy and  ours. Eh,  Mother Russia, what've you  done to your  sons? We
thought,  maybe medivac the fellow, but then  again, can't  even medivac the
casualties,  and  this one, though a crank, still fighting. Up there on "The
Continent" he'd definitely go nuts.
     Literally in a few blocks we  came under ferocious gunfire.  The spooks
were spraying  from above, madly  (about 20  guns) but disorganised. With  a
couple of grunts now had to leave our  APCs behind and sneak our way over to
the headquarters. At least the dogfaces are more confident now, more or less
used to  this,  all were  tested by fire. In the beginning I  howled a wolf,
just like that mad  grunt. The men were  all  "green", some rushing forward,
others  still fear struck in their "armour". I had to boot and kick them out
of  their  APCs  and  foxholes. As for myself, I'm OK.  Baku, Kutaisi  - 90,
Tshinvali -91, Moldova - 92  and now  Chechnya. Alright, just let us get the
hell out of here. But only in one piece.  If crippled, I've got a little toy
in  my pocket  -  RGD-15.  Surely enough  for  me. I've  seen  enough of our
crippled post-war  heroes living  in peace  life.  They too  were  following
orders  of their  Motherland,  their Party,  their Government and hell knows
whom else. "Reinstating Constitutional Order" on the territory of the former
Soviet  Union. And  now  again, we are  beating  our  own  Russian  land  on
somebody's hugger-mugger order...
     All this sped through my mind in  a few seconds. Turned around - all my
grunts are  fine, prone on the  ground, watching. Their faces  are all black
from gunpowder, eyeballs  and teeth are shining. I'm probably no better. Nod
to  one, point direction to  another and we are  all off  sprinting forward,
zigzag,  "screw" and roll. Although, these coats were  surely not  made  for
rolling. The  sweat is blanketing my eyes, fatigues are steamy; the taste of
blood in my mouth is  unbearable and  temples are pounding heavily. Blood is
jammed with  adrenaline.  Short  streaks forward,  bits of  bricks, chips of
concrete and broken glass everywhere. Carefully  avoiding open spaces. Still
alive, thank God.
     Zapp... zapp... again! Damn  it,  could it  really be a sniper? Ducking
into  the nearest basement, grenades on stand-by. Who or what is waiting for
us  in there? Pair of corpses. Fatigues seem like  ours - Slavic. Nod to one
of the grunts to  secure  the window, and then myself move to the doorframe.
The second grunt kneels near one of the bodies, unbuttons his coat and flank
jacket and fetches his papers and the dog tags. Same with the second corpse.
The  boys  wouldn't  mind  anymore  but their  families  must  be  notified.
Otherwise smart  asses  in  the Government  won't  pay them  their pensions,
reasoning  that soldiers are missing  in  action  and who knows,  maybe even
crossed over to the other side.
     - Got the papers? - I asked.
     - Got'em - answered private Semeonov, nicknamed "Semeon". - What's now?
     - Now, via this basement we run across to the neighbouring street, then
to  the first batt (battalion). Do we have radio  contact  with them? -  I'm
asking  my  RTO (Radiotelephone operator), private Harlamov. His nickname is
"Glue". His arms are long, sticking out of his BDU, like sticks, no one size
fits. Wrists are  disproportionately huge.  First  time you see the  guy the
impression is like torn gorilla arms were sewn to a man's body. Now probably
no one could recall where his nickname "Glue" originated.
     Our soldiers are  Siberians  and  all together we  are "mahra" (Russian
word for cheap tobacco). In the  WWII books and movies,  infantry is  called
"The Queen  of  the battle field  ".  In  real  life, however, we  are  just
"mahra". And one individual infantryman is a "mahor". That's life.
     - Get on the APCs too, - that's me about the left behind at the Railway
Station APCs, - ask how they're hanging.
     Glue moves away  from  the  window  and a  starts  muttering  into  his
handset, calling onto the 1st Battalion's Road Post and our APCs.
     -  All OK, comrade Capitan, -  says  RTO. - "Sopka" is waiting for  us,
"boxes" were fired upon and rolled back a block.
     - Fine, let's  go, or  we'll  frost down here, - I make terrible hoarse
sounds  coughing. At last my normal breathing  came  back. I spat with green
and yellow slime  - consequence of my many years of smoking. - Eh, mama told
me: "learn English"
     -  My mama told  me:  "Do  NOT  crawl into  wells, sonny". -  Picked up
Semeon.
     No sign of the enemy in  the window at the other side of  the house and
we  leapfrog,  taking  short streaks,  stooped four times our normal  hight,
towards the Central  Train Station. High above in the sky, a  jet fighter is
barraging the city with high explosives and shooting at somebody's positions
from  an  unreachable hight.  Down  here,  there  is  no  single front line.
Gunfights  are starting everywhere sporadically and sometimes turn into some
kind of cheesecake: ragheads,  us, ragheads again and so on (US Marines call
it  a "cluster fuck").  All of it, in one  word could  be called a madhouse,
almost no interaction anywhere.  Especially  difficult  to work with are the
Internal Forces. To be precise: all THIS is their operation, but we,  mahra,
are doing their job  for them. Often we storm  the  same objects in complete
ignorance of each other's presence.  Sometimes we  even point  the Air Force
guys onto them and they onto us. In the dark we fire  on each other and take
our own grunts prisoners.
     Now we are  going  to the  Central Train Station, where, in almost full
complement,  was wiped  out  the  Mikop  Brigade.  Vanished  into the night.
Nothing was  done before  they were sent in. No reconnaissance  to ascertain
the spooks' defensive structures, no artillery runs to  soften them up. When
after the battle they  began to  fall asleep (imagine  no sleep  for a week,
adrenaline and Vodka for breakfast,  lunch  and dinner), spooks slunk up and
wasted  them  from  a point blank  range. Just the mistake Chapaev made:  no
guards along perimeter.  Here,  though,  all guards were soundly  asleep  or
spooks gashed them quietly. Everything was  on fire, all that could burn and
even all that couldn't. It seemed like  the Earth, asphalt and  house  walls
were  ablaze from  the  burning fuel. People  panicked in the inferno,  some
tried to return fire,  some  helping the wounded.  Some even shot themselves
not to get into the ragheads' hands. Few were trying to flee. No one of them
must be judged.  What would you, my reader, do in that hell  on earth? Don't
know? Ha? That's it. Then don't you dare judging them!
     No  one knows what exactly  happened there. Their commander, with  both
his legs injured; still tried to reassert control, although he could retreat
to the rear. He stayed though. God, guard their souls and our lives...
     When our brigade fought its way through  heavy rebel  defences to  help
them, our tanks had to struggle through barricades of corpses of  our Slavic
brothers... When you  see how tracks chop  and hummer human flesh, how heavy
leading  wheels coil  intestines of people just like yourself...  When heads
pop open  with  a  crunch  under a steel  caterpillar and all around  it  is
sprayed with a grey and red  mass of brain. Brain  of a maybe unaccomplished
genius, poet, scientist  or just good lad, father, brother, son, friend  who
didn't chicken out and came here in this shithole of a place called Chechnya
and, may be, to his last moment, didn't even realised what the hell happened
to him. When your boots slip  on the bloody  mucus, then the important thing
is to  think of nothing, and concentrate  on  only one  objective:  survive,
survive and save your men. Because those you'd lose will come to you in your
dreams.
     As their CO you'd then  have to write up  their Death Notifications and
body ID reports.  The job I  don't even wish to  my  worst enemy. I'd rather
choke  in an attack, blasting  from my  beloved AKS left, right  and forward
with  my eyes popping  out, rather than write those horrible papers. Why all
these wars? Although, honestly, no one of us  has really understood what has
transpired here. At all times only one goal in mind  - survive, complete the
task and save your  men. And what  if you don't?  They'll send more in, who,
maybe, because of your inexperience,  cowardice and desire to go  home, will
drop under machinegun  fire and will be ripped to pieces by grenades, mines,
mortar or be captured.  All THIS:  because of  YOU. The very thought of this
responsibility makes my stomach rumble. How about you, my reader?
     Glue noticed some movement in a window of the five-story building, next
to the Station Plaza. He yelled out: "Spooks!!!" and leaped back. Semeon and
myself too  hastened to take cover behind the nearest heap  of rubble.  From
behind his corner, Glue opened  up  at the window from his AK. Shivering, we
too began to load up grenades in launchers.
     Eh, what a wonderful device, this launcher (Russian GP-25, under-barrel
grenade launcher for AK  assault rifles, similar to M203 - grenade-launching
tube sometimes  mounted under  the rifle barrel  of  an  M-16).  We call  it
lovingly: "podstvol'nichek",  although,  weight  of the device could prove a
bit too much (about half a kilo). It is mounted under the rifle's barrel and
can be fired  straight  into the target or launch in an overhead trajectory.
It could  be described  as a  tube (about  2.5  inches in diameter)  with  a
trigger and a  safety pin. There is also an aiming  mechanism, but since the
first days  we  conned it  so that now  easily  can  do  without it. From  a
standard  issue  GP-25, a grenade  can easily be  dropped into the  smallest
window or thrown over any  structure.  In  a straight  line it delivers  its
mighty punch  to  about 400 meters, its shrapnel (after the explosion) cover
an  area  of about 14  meters. A fairytale of firearms. It  saved  countless
lives in  Grosny. How would you bust  sharpshooters  from  upper floors in a
quick gunfight in town? There is no other way but the GP-25, believe me. You
could call for  an air strike or long range artillery and then pull  out  or
try to contact your own "armour",  which, by the way, can be easily burnt by
RPGs...  On the other  hand, there is an every  soldier's personal  launcher
that he can use to bust the ragheads  by  himself. The device also possesses
one other undisputed  advantage: its grenades  explode  on impact. Imagine a
gunfight  inside a block of units when a  raghead  is above you on the third
floor. Next, you throw a standard issue grenade with a time-delay of about 5
seconds.  Now, count:  fetch the safety pin and throw,  then the bitch  hits
something on the way up and falls right back into your lap. Only later on in
January they  shipped us  these  mountainous  grenades, or as we  call  them
"afghan" grenades. These  babies only explode when they hit something  hard.
Before then, some  local  "Kulibin"  (famous Russian inventor  of  the  19th
century) guessed to slam the grenade  up his heel, thus arming it, and throw
the  darling  as  far as he  could away  from  his  persona. And, ramming an
obstacle, it burst with shrapnel, obliterating every living thing around it.
     Now Semeon and I were  blasting off our grenades  into the window where
Glue spotted motion. Semeon hit the target from his first attempt; I made it
with my second. The first one slammed into the wall and burst, tearing off a
decently sized piece of masonry and making a huge cloud of dust.
     Putting to  work the results of  our little  skirmish, all three of us,
glinting  at  the dreaded house,  quickly  cleared  the  open  space,  then,
sprinting and sneaking, a few blocks later, at last made it to the HQ.
     The silly bastards imagined we were ragheads and nearly shot us.
     They escorted us  to the outpost where we found our Com-batt (Battalion
Commander).
     Tough chap is  our Com-batt. Physically not so much a big man, but as a
commander and a person: giant. I  won't hide  the fact that our  brigade  is
blessed with battalion commanders. It'd take a while to describe each one of
them, so I'll  pass on that, but to say  the least - all are real  men.  Who
once went to war, would know what I mean.
     1<sup>[<sup>[st]</sup>]</sup>  battalion's   HQ  was  situated  in  the
Railway Station's basement. As we walked in, the Com-batt was boldly cursing
somebody on the field radio.
     -  F...ing  hell, where are you charging, moron? You schmuck,  they are
luring you out there. And you are buying it with your dogfaces. Clean up the
area around you!  To the last "spook"!!!  - Com-batt was  yelling  into  the
handset.  - Pull the "boxes" out  of  there, let the grunts work!  Yourself,
stay on the BP and don't stick your head out there.
     He hung up and saw me.
     - Hey man, - he smiled.
     - God bless, - I said shaking his hand.
     - What's new in the Group's HQ?  Let's go eat, - he offered, looking at
me merrily. At war, seeing a familiar face  before you  is always a delight.
That means that luck not only follows you but also your comrades.
     Still  in the heat of the  past clash, I knew that  if I  don't have  a
drink now, I'd soon be shaking with a  nervous, drumbeat-like  fever or turn
hysterical and just keep  gabbling ...  So I  accepted the  man's offer with
appreciation.
     Setting himself on a box from artillery rounds, Com-batt softly called:
"Ivan,  we've  got guests,  come on eat". Then from a  neighbouring basement
appeared   the  1<sup>[<sup>[st]</sup>]</sup>  Battalion's  chief  of  staff
captain  Ilin.  Skinny  fellow,  the  biggest  volleyball aficionado  in our
brigade,  although, at  his  job,  pedant and  perfectionist. In  peace life
always tight,  in  perfectly ironed and shiny uniform, now he  looked barely
any  different than any other man around  us. Same gunpowder- parched  face,
unshaven and in need of sleep.
     - Hey,  Slava, - he  said and his eyes glinted a little. We were almost
of the same age,  only I was a senior officer in the Brigade's HQ and he was
a  chief of staff  in the battalion.  Both  captains.  We  had a history  of
friendship, so did our wives and kids.
     I couldn't conceal my emotions and went straight for a  hug. Slowly  my
nerves  were giving in and  I was turning a bit hysterical  after our little
adventure.
     I wasn't worried for my grunts.  They were all here, amongst their own,
thus will be worm and fed in no time.
     - You've come for the sniper, Slava? - Asked Com-batt.
     - Sure, who else, - I replied. - How did you manage to grab that son of
a bitch?
     - He just wouldn't let us breath for three  days, - Ivan turned grim. -
He made up a nest by the  Station and plinked at us over the  plaza. Knocked
down three grunts and shot our first company leader through his leg. We were
unable to  medivac  the  wounded and had  to  fetch the medics  over here to
operate on them.
     - And how is he, - I asked. That  story about the  medics  I've already
heard: fine job. But the company leader: would he live and walk again?
     - Yeah, yeah, sure, - Com-batt confirmed merrily, - I let  him rest for
now,  only  the problem  is  we're short on company leaders, you know it too
well yourself.  So we have to use the two-year-termers ("civilian officers",
college  graduates  on the obligatory  military duty, in  officers ranks  by
default).  But this  lad  is  rather snappy. A bit of a hotshot though: like
Chapaev on his horse, rushes to free all Chechnya by himself.
     - What did the sniper have on him? - I asked. - Maybe, he wasn't even a
sniper after all. You know,  could've been  some daunted local, a great deal
of them bumming around town these days.
     Com-batt and the CoS almost seemed upset. Ivan leapt to his feet, raced
to his niche and fetched a  soviet SKS  rifle. Only the scope was foreign, I
noticed  that instantly,  - I've  seen those before. Most probably Japanese:
fine toy.
     Pal  Palych  -  com-batt  -  while Ivan and  myself were inspecting the
carbine, was telling that the detained shooter had two boxfuls of  rounds in
his  pockets and  in his nest  they found a case of  beer and  two packs  of
cigarettes.  While recounting this, Palych was setting up the table: carving
bread, opening  stewed  meat cans,  condensed  milk containers, salads  (God
knows where those came  from), pickles and marinated  tomatoes. And at last,
positioned a bottle of Vodka on this improvised table.
     By  then  I  counted  all  slashes  on  the  carbine's  butt:  equalled
thirty-three. Thirty-three chopped lives. The way the snipers worked here we
all knew first  hand. They met us while we  were coming into town, at night,
by  early  WWII maps. Though we raced, crushing our  heads against the walls
inside our  APCs, ragging our teeth from  the mad ride  and damning everyone
and  everything,  snipers managed  to shoot  off dangling  antennas from the
passing armoured vehicles, at night  and in clouds of dust. Without intercom
they'd stop and officers  sent men to check out what the hell happened, this
very moment snipers  picked them out. They also had another slick idea: they
didn't always finish off their "game", but  rather wounded him, shooting him
through his legs, so that he wouldn't crawl out of the killing zone and then
held back. The downed men cried out and snipers picked the speeding helpers,
just like the duck silhouettes  at a shooting  gallery. By now, our  brigade
has  lost about thirty men to this kind of sniper fire, thus adding  to  our
special account  to be  "invoiced" to "spooks" some  day.  Amazing that  the
grunts brought this cocksucker alive.
     A few days ago, grunts from  the second battalion discovered a nest, by
all clues - female.  All was like always: a sofa or a  chair, soft drinks, a
doll and  a rifle, hidden close by. The grunts  spent all day  stalking  her
concealed, completely motionless. No piss, no  shit, no smoke.  Finally they
succeeded. What happened next  - no one  knows, but the Chechen woman took a
flight off the roof of  a nine-storey building,  but half way down her  body
burst  from a  grenade explosion. Afterwards, the grunts solemnly swore that
the woman  sensed the  stench of their unwashed bodies and  sprinted for the
roof,  and from  up  there,  dived by  herself. Everyone, of  coarse, showed
compassion,  but  still regretted that themselves couldn't  help her flight.
Nobody  believed,  however, that for her last dive  with grenade she went by
herself. Chechens never committed suicide - that is  in OUR character - fear
of  captivity,  dishonour and torture.  After  this  memorable  event, their
com-batt declared a  phrase, which  was then to become our  brigade's motto:
"Siberians do not surrender, and do not take prisoners".
     By now Com-batt poured out  Vodka and Ivan and myself settled down too.
If  anybody tells you that we  fought  here intoxicated,  - spit him in  his
face. At  war,  people  drink  for disinfection. Not often you can boil your
water or wash your hands properly. Our corpsmen's motto is: "Red  eyes never
go  yellow". As for the  drinking water, we had to  get  it from the  Sunzha
River  - a  tiny  river that  flows  thought the  whole of  Chechnya and, of
coarse, through the Grozny.  Only no one could possible tell how  many human
and  animal corpses drifted in there, which meant  we could forget about the
proper hygiene. I'm telling you, at war, nobody would drink to get shitfaced
- that would mean certain death.  Your comrades, too, would never let you do
that kind of stuff - with firearms, who knows what's on the drunk's mind?
     We lifted up  our plastic  glasses - lots  of these we  chunked at  the
"North" airport - and struck them together. There  was no ding, just rustle,
"so that our zampolit wouldn't hear", officers jested.
     - Here is to good  luck, men, - Com-batt enounced,  and, having exhaled
all air from his lungs, "capsized" half a glass.
     -  To her, the  damned,  -  I picked up and tipped my glass.  The  heat
flooded my throat, worm wave swamped my guts and halted somewhere inside the
stomach. My body suddenly  relaxed.  Then all  of us attacked  the food: who
knows  when the next  opportunity  like  this  would present  itself. Bread,
stewed  meat, pickles, tomatoes. All  vanished  in  our stomachs.  Now, Ivan
poured  out Vodka; we  toped,  with the  usual  silent rustle. Lit  up  some
smokes. I almost  pulled out mine, from home, "TU-134", but noted Ivan's and
Com-batt's Marlboro and tossed mine back.
     - Sniper's? - I inquired, reaching for one.
     - Yep, - Replied Com-batt.
     - How  is the Second Battalion  hanging?  -  Ivan  asked, taking a deep
puff.
     - Storming the hotel "Kavkaz", now we're throwing the Third Batt  in to
help  them and  some  tanks too. Ragheads are  deeply  entrenched there  and
holding it so far. Ul'yanovtsy and marines are attempting the assault on the
Minutka  Square and Dudaev's Palace. But  having no  luck there as yet, just
loosing men.
     - All of which means that we'll be sent in to help them soon - Com-batt
broke in our conversation. - It's not as  simple as  a slugfest in  a corner
bar; some thinking must be done beforehand. To save the men and complete the
task... I could never grasp the concept of the airborne troops: how is it so
that  they,  absolutely sober and voluntarily, would jump off of a perfectly
good aircraft, ha? - Palych made a joke.
     - And I  never  understood the  rangers,  -  picked up Ivan, - for four
years in college, they learnt how to use binoculars and tail behind a K-9...
I'm sensing with my heart: we'll be crunching on asphalt down there  at that
freaking Square.
     In my mind I've already made a conscious decision:  the captured sniper
wouldn't make it to my HQ. He'll die on the way back,  attempting an escape.
He's already told everything he knew.
     In  movies, agents,  working  with  "a  clapper",  try to formulate the
necessity  to give  up the information he possesses  as  well  as break  his
ideology.  Real  life,  however, is much simpler. Everything depends on your
imagination,  rancour  and  time on  hands. If time  permits and there is  a
matching desire, we can try to scrape enamel from his  teeth, with a rasping
file. Or we can use our field phone. A brown box with a side-handle. Connect
your interlocutor to it  with two stripped wires and spin the handle, having
asked him a few questions beforehand. But all this is fine  if you're housed
comfortably  and he's  to  stand  trial afterwards. This kind of questioning
will leave no marks.  Of coarse it's best to soak him in water first. As far
as the screaming is concerned,  for that you  fire up a heavy armoured truck
near by. But, again, all this is for aesthetes.
     In the trenches  it becomes even simpler. You shoot the fingers off his
feet, one by one,  with your assault rifle. There is no one human  being who
could  take  that. He'll tell you everything he knew and everything he  ever
remembered.  Feeling a little seek, ha?  During which time, you, my  reader,
celebrated  New  Years Eve, visited  your friends,  skied  shitfaced from  a
hilltop with your kids. You didn't come out on the Red  Square  demanding to
pull  our soldiers  out of that shithole.  Neither were you  collecting worm
cloths or money for those Russians who fled Chechnya. Cold soldiers in their
frozen  bunkers never got so much as a cigarette from you. Therefore, do not
look away. Listen to this truth of war.
     -  OK, let's  get the  third one over with  and we'll go take a look at
your shooter, - I said pouring out the remains of Vodka.
     We stood silently for a  few seconds, and  toped without  cheers. Third
glass - is the most important in the military. Civilians drink it "to love",
students:  to something  else, but soldiers always drink it "to the fallen",
always  standing  up and in silence. Every one sees before him  those he has
lost.  It  is a chilling toast. Although, on the other  hand,  you know  for
sure,  that  if you perish, regardless of  how many years  would pass,  some
green lieutenant,  in  a God forsaken garrison  in the Far  East, or a stale
colonel in the most prestigious headquarters, will stand up and  drink their
third glass to You.
     We toped;  I  cast another piece  of stew in my  mouth, a  few bits  of
garlic  and "the  officers  lemon" - onion. There  are no  vitamins at  war,
although your body constantly demands them. That's  why we refer to onion as
"our lemon". At war  onion  is a commonplace. The stench around  is horrible
though, but  we've no  women here, so we've grown  used  to  it by  now  and
wouldn't  even notice  anymore. Moreover, it fights the  sickening odour  of
decomposing human flesh that otherwise  turns your  stomach inside out. I've
chased the alcohol  with refection, sipped condensed  milk right  out of its
container, fished a smoke out  of the Com-bat's packet and  started  for the
exit. Com-bat and Ivan followed me.
     In about 30 yards from the basement's entrance, grunts encircled a tank
and were  having  a  loud discourse. I  also  noted  that the tank's  gun is
unnaturally cocked  upwards. As we walked closer to the  scene,  we also saw
that a stretched rope was hanging from the barrel.
     The grunts saw us coming and gave way. The view that opened up in front
of  us  was  picturesque but terrible.  At the  end of that  rope a  man was
hanging. His  face was swollen from beatings, his eyes half shut, his tongue
hanging out and his hands tied up behind him. Although, by now
     I've seen lots of stiffs, still, can't get used to them.
     Com-batt started yelling at the grunts:
     - Who did this?! You sons of bitches!  - I'll leave out the rest of the
names he  called them. Ask any line officer,  who  served in the Army for 10
years or more, to swear a little and you'll greatly increase your vocabulary
with all sorts of idiomatic expressions.
     Com-batt kept going at them, trying hard to beat the truth out of them,
although I somehow knew, looking at his sly  face, that he's not mad at them
at all.  He might've felt a bit regretful that he didn't send the bastard on
his last journey, but mostly my  presence, the HQ officer, drove him to this
theatrical performance. All of us: the grunts and  myself read it  well.  We
also realise that no one commander would ever report anything of this  kind.
All  this breezed through my mind while I was sucking on my  cigarette. It's
funny, but these cigarette  belonged to this hangman,  whose  limbs are  now
dangling before  my eyes, then to the Com-bat and now, I am smoking it while
observing this spectacle.
     Tired of the circus,  I asked  surrounding us grunts, amongst  which  I
picked Semeon and Glue:
     - What did he say, before he died?
     Out of the clear blue  sky the grunts exploded. They told, interrupting
one another, that the son  of a bitch  (the most delicate epithet they chose
for him)  squalled  that he regretted  he  only managed  to  nock  off  only
thirty-two of "your kind" (as he put it).
     In their recount the grunts especially emphasized the words "you kind".
I gathered they  were telling the truth and if he hadn't said this memorable
phrase, he might've lived a little longer.
     All of a sudden, one of the grunts announced, invigorating everyone:
     - He throttled himself, comrade Captain.
     -  With his hands  trussed, he tied the rope around his neck and leaped
off the "armour", all by himself. Right? - I choked laughing.
     Then I turned to the Com-batt:
     -  Alright, take your  hangman down. Let's write in  the report that he
couldn't take  the torture of his guilty conscience  anymore and  thus ended
his life strangling himself. - I  spewed the cigarette's butt and pressed it
into the mud. - His rifle, however, I'll take with me.
     - Nickolaich, please,  - First time the  Com-batt called  me by my full
name, - leave the rifle: every time I look at it, my body bends.
     I glanced into his praying  eyes and knew: it would be of no use to try
taking carbine away from him.
     - OK, you owe me one, and you, - I turned to Ivan, - bear witness.
     - Many thanks, Nikolaich, - Palych was violently shaking my hand.
     - Because of this moron I had to  drag  my ass all the  way down  here,
under fire. And now I have to hoof back.
     -  Take him with  you,  if you like. Tell  them he  was  shot during an
ambush or something, - Ivan tried to make a joke.
     - Go to hell, - I jested back. - Why don't you try and  drag this stiff
back. And if you ever have a misfortune taking a prisoner,  drag him to  the
HQ yourselves or waste him down  here please. Another  thing: get  something
nice  for the grunts that grabbed  him, will you? That's it. We're off. Give
us some escort for a few blocks, OK?
     We shook hands and Com-batt, sniffing, pulled out a brand new  Marlboro
packet from his inner pocket. I thanked him and sent for my grunts:
     - Semeon, Glue, let's go.
     They came up, fixing their rifles.
     - Ready? Did they feed you?
     - Yep. And a few drinks along with it, - said Semeon. - Also  restocked
on ammo and grenades for launchers.
     - Cheers men, let's run. We have to get to the HQ before the nightfall,
- I muttered, buttoning my coat and attaching new magazine to my rifle.
     I made  a  "royal mag"  by  binding two 45-round  RPK  machinegun clips
head-to-toe  with an electric  tape. This gave me  90  rounds  always at the
ready. It's a  pity though, the calibre is 5.45,  not 7.62, like before. The
5.45 bullet has some ricochet and once fired is all over the place. The 7.62
round, on the other hand, goes straight as. There is a  legend  - during the
Vietnam War, American GIs  had complained to the gunmakers that their  M-16s
wounded too many while killing very few (our AK-47 and AKM suffers from  the
same imperfection). Then, the gunsmakers came right to the trenches, studied
the  problem and began experimenting on the spot. Here's what they did: they
drilled a hole  through the bullet's  tip and soldered  a needle inside  the
hole.  These modifications  resulted  in shifting of the bullet's centre  of
gravity and when it hit  the target, it reeled on almost all of the target's
guts too. Although the rounds' stability suffered greatly and the bullet did
produce more ricochets than before, the end result was more enemy fatalities
after all.
     Soviet Army didn't produce  anything original  but  rather  copied  the
American idea and,  during the Afghan Campaign, swapped all 7.62 calibre AKs
with the 5.45 ones. Maybe fine for some, but I am personally not ecstatic.
     We geared up, jumped a few times to warm up and studied each other.
     - God help us, - I said  and turned around. The five escort grunts were
busy carrying out the same manipulations. They were getting themselves ready
to see us off.
     I looked again  where the strangled sniper was meant to be hanging, but
the tank's gun was  back to its normal state  and the rope with the dead man
on it was already gone.
     - Alright, let's move, - I ordered  and nodded to the  escorting grunts
to go first.
     Knowing the  surrounding  terrain  much better, they didn't  select the
path we had  chosen coming down,  but rather dived  into some basement first
and then took us through piled up slabs and breaches. At some stage  we even
went  down underground sewage  network and afterwards and had  to climb back
up.  I completely lost  my sense  of  direction and could  only glance at my
wrist  compass at times to see whether the overall course  was correct.  All
seemed right though. In  about  30  minutes,  the  sergeant,  who headed our
venture, halted  and lit  up  a cigarette. All of us did the  same.  Then he
enounced:
     -  That's  it. Now, from  here, it's about 7  blocks, no more, till you
reach your "boxes". Although, no more cover, only open spaces.
     I finished  off my cigarette and  shook the  sergeant's  hand.  Then, I
thanked every one of the escorting grunts and said:
     - Good luck! We all need it, don't we?
     - You guys go ahead; we'll stay here  10 more  minutes. Just in case, -
said the sergeant.
     -  Let's move, - I  ordered,  turning to  Semeon and Glue, pointing the
direction to  them. Myself  first, I popped out  from the basement, tumbled,
whirled,  finally coming up  on one knee and scanning the surroundings in my
sights. There was nothing suspicious there and I waved  to  the guys  the go
ahead. First, Semeon quickly popped out and then Glue emerged with his radio
transmitter.
     Scurrying this way during the next forty minutes, we finally touched up
with our "boxes". As we started for the home base, furious fire came down at
us from the  upper floors. I rode on the APC in the head of  our convoy. The
vehicle took  a spin  to the left and  hit the corner, then slowed down  and
finally came to a complete halt. All of us, riding atop of the "box", opened
up in bursts of suppressive fire.
     - Driver... You, screwed in the head mother! Get the hell  out of here,
- I  yelled into the hatch. Then ordered the grunts next me to start setting
up the smoke diversion.
     - One of the caterpillars is torn! - The driver shouted back at me.
     - F...ing  hell...  everyone  off the "armour", now!  Four of you start
pulling  the  track  back  on,  the rest - secure  our perimeter. I need two
GP-25s with me; second APC, load your cannon. That's all. Move it!
     Again,  the  heat  of  the  battle  consumed  me.  The  first  feeling,
naturally,  is fear.  But  after overcoming it, you begin to taste  blood in
your mouth  and suddenly find yourself feeling cool and mighty; all  of your
senses  sharpened. You note everything  around you and  your brain is like a
computer,  always  gives off the right  decision as well  as  lots  of other
possible options and combinations. I instantly leapfrogged off the  "armour"
and hopped behind  the piece of  concrete  wall  close about.  Convulsively,
trying to find the target  but so far, can't find anything  to fire at.  OK,
now  breathe... I'm ready... let's rock, men! Give them Hell! Blood  is full
of adrenaline and I'm on fire again.
     The grunts didn't have to be told twice.  They promptly pulled the pins
out of smoke  makers and our APC  was wrapped  up in  the  colourful clouds.
Russian soldier is very resourceful and, just  in case, nicks off everything
that lies  around unattended.  After we took the  Airport "North", the  lads
collected all kinds of these smoke makers. In the second APC, fellows echoed
our  little trick with the smokes. Actually, they did  it just in time.  The
"spooks",  obviously,  realised  that  it'd be too hard to  blindly mow  our
grunts off the "armour" and this time went for their RPGs.
     What is RPG? It is a  standard rocket grenade  launcher. The  toy has a
sister   too:  called  "Muha",  a  tube-like  devise  (first  versions  were
telescopic).  "Muha" is an antipersonnel weapon, whereas the  RPG is for the
anti  armour use. When a rocket-propelled grenade hits  an obstacle (usually
an armoured plate), it blasts off thin, needle-like, piss that burns through
steel  and creates a temperature of  about three  thousand  degrees  Celsius
inside  the vehicle. Obviously, tank's ammunition  detonates which, in turn,
rips off the tank's multi-tonne turret, tosses it off to about 30 meters and
tears  to pieces bodies of the crew and infantry  inside it. Many died while
they were still confined  inside  their mobile steel  traps. In  some cases,
drivers watched the road from the open hatch and were only cast out of their
vehicles by explosion, broken  and  muffled a little,  but  still alive  and
mostly in one piece.
     Now, these  sons  of bitches opened up on us  from their RPGs and added
Shmels  to the  chorus.  (AD.  Shmel" (Russian word  for bumblebee),  is  an
antipersonnel rocket Infantry flame-thrower (RPO-A, so-called bunker buster.
End of comment. AD) Although, neither  they could clearly  see us, nor could
we see them. In fact, the  whole scene  looked pretty comical. Wrapped up in
heavy, standard black smoke,  from  which  the  coloured fumes were raising,
like  geysers into the sky: blue, red and yellow. They  tangled  in the air,
mixing  up and  coming  apart again, diverting the ragheads' attention  away
from us.
     Our  second  APC's  cannon  let  off a  burst,  firing blindly  in  the
direction where the spooks' rockets came from.  Then  suddenly, somewhere in
there something blew up. May  be it  was us,  actually hitting something, or
their  RPG gunner made  a mistake in the heat of the gunfight. "Shmel", same
as "Muha",  is  just a pipe. For the total  fuckheads,  there is a direction
arrow with  the description printed on it. Anyway, no one knew what happened
up there, but the God,  evidently, was  on  our side today. As  there was no
more  gunfire  coming  from  the  spooks'  positions,  my grunts  have  gone
jubilant. Mostly they yelled out curses that could probably be understood by
soldiers of any army.
     - Shut it! - I barked at them. - Keep pulling the track on. Second APC!
Secure our perimeter. Move it!
     I rose and tried to loosen  up my back and  numb feet, I was still wary
and scrutinising the building where the shooting came from.
     Judging from the angle: third floor. In the havoc  and because  of  the
fumes, I  never got the clear picture of what took place.  Now, through  the
clearing smoke, I could see  a huge hole in the third floor's reinforcement,
blasted by the explosion. Thick black smoke was coming out of there.
     During the whole encounter, Semeon stayed next to me and  now declared,
pointing at the breach:
     - Cooked the mothers! Vechaslav Nikolaevich, can we go check?
     He was practically begging. It seemed like  his fiance  was  holding it
off for him up there. I was curious myself though.
     - Hold on,  - I  said  to him and asked the crew, labouring  near their
"armour", - How much longer?
     - Any time now, comrade Captain, maybe 5 more minutes, - coughed up one
of the grunts, forcing the busted caterpillar onto the leading wheel.
     - Semeon, Glue,  Mazur, Americanets, Picasso  -  come with me. The rest
stays here,  assisting  the repairs  and watching  our backs. If we  do  not
return in half an hour, move  forward, two blocks  to the north. Over there,
you wait  for  another half  an  hour  and then ride back to  base.  Gunnery
sergeant Sergeev will take over from me for  the time being. All  call signs
are the same.
     Now to the grunts who'd come with me:
     - OK, children, let's  move it. Picasso leads, Glue at the rear. Semeon
- right flank, Mazur, take the left one. Have your grenades on stand-by.
     - And  me? -  The skinny private  put  up  his voice.  The  chap  was a
qualified rock climber,  nicknamed "Americanets" (the American). When he was
drafted, he came into the office wearing his American flag shorts.
     - And you will walk by my side and watch your ass, - I replied in jest.
- Let's go clean them up.
     Everyone understood perfectly  what the  words  "clean up" meant.  They
meant, "take no  prisoners". "Good apache - dead  apache", -  Conquistadors'
motto was a close match in our case. What could we possible squeeze out of a
live spook? Nothing:  no maps,  no  storage hides,  no  communication system
layouts - NO-THING. Moreover, a wounded raghead would be a major pain in the
ass. First,  you'd have  to pool men  to  guard  him. Second, he'd still  be
perfectly  capable of pulling some  kind  of  shit on us.  Nor could  he  be
exchanged  for anything.  Finish him off on the spot and that's that. He too
would surely like it better than torture.

        2


     With caution, we came up the third floor. In two neighbouring flats the
rag-heads made up their firing nests. In the first one  we found the "Shmel"
shooter, in the second - two of his unlucky comrades, with one RPK each. The
most disturbing thing was: they were just  kids, most probably only about 13
to 15  years old.  One of  them was still alive  and  while unconscious  was
quietly groaning. Judging from the fact that  one  of his legs was torn  off
and he was bleeding heavily, I figured he wouldn't live for much  longer. It
seemed like one of our  cannon rounds dropped into  the room  where  he  was
launching  his  rockets from  and blasted  to shit his ammunition  store.  I
looked  around,  my  good  mood  was totally gone  by  now. Of  coarse these
rag-heads tried to blow us and all but...  they're just kids for God's sake.
Damn it. I spewed  and gave another  order to my grunts: "Finish him off and
then sweep the block, someone might've got away." Although even I had doubts
that anyone of them could escape.
     My grunts,  Semeon,  Glue  and Picasso  each let off  a burst  into the
disfigured  body, one  after  another. The kid's  body flexed  out,  bullets
ripping his chest  open, some blasted his head to pieces  and it sprayed the
walls in red clots of his brain. I calmly watched this murder. Then I looked
away from the corpse, still not used to this or maybe it's just normal human
reaction?  Who can tell?  I  fetched the sniper's Marlboro packet and handed
some cigarettes to my grunts.
     -  Didn't you hear  what  I just said?  "Sweep  the block". Anyone  not
clear? - I uttered, taking a puff. The grunts left, mumbling something.
     Left alone, trying hard no to vomit, I went through the dead rag-heads'
pockets.
     Wow! An Army ID tag and  many of them, OK, let's see:  Semeonov Aleksey
Pavlovich, born 1975. Semeonov, Semeonov, Semeonov... It suddenly clicked in
my mind. Is  that the  Semeonov from the engineering  regiment,  which  went
missing after we  stormed  the Airport?  They  sent the fellow for some mine
sweeping  cord  and  he  vanished. Was  that he, shooting at us? I carefully
studied the  dead rag-heads'  faces,  matching them  to  the badly preserved
photo on the ID Tag; I even looked inside the breach in the  wall and at the
dead  "Shmel" launcher's face. No,  not him, thank God. Turned  a  few  more
pages in his  ID. Shit! Yes! Our division. Our  Semeonov. Your deaths  saved
you a  lot of trouble, assholes! Your end would've been  brutal. I  would've
dealt  with you  myself. During my adventures in the  former Soviet Union, I
learnt well how to make people talk, make them  last long and stay conscious
all the way.
     My  sadness was gone in a heartbeat. I cared about the dead boys' souls
no more.  My teeth cramped in rancour. If  needs be, I'll tear anybody apart
for  Russian soldier. I'll crush anything  just to return the youngster home
alive and in one piece.
     All of a sudden somebody was screaming from upstairs:
     - Comrade Captain, Comrade Captain, they found some guy up there on the
roof. I think one of ours! - Americanets was fretting.
     I flew up the stairs  and  felt no wheeze. On  the roof, nailed  to the
cross, a dead soldier's body was  resting, just like Jesus. His own cut  off
penis stuck in his mouth. Without even looking at his dirty face, I knew: it
was he, Semeonov. I  probably only  saw him about 10 times before  and never
even  spoke  to the man.  But suddenly tears were in  my eyes and  something
pinched in  my nose. Now I regretted that I never got the chance to properly
meet  the  lad. I think  he  wasn't even  one of the permanent  staff. Right
before the Chechen campaign, he was attached to our brigade from Abakan.
     -  They nailed  him to the cross and put it  up on  the roof. The cross
collapsed from the  explosion and that's  probably why we  didn't  notice it
before. - Picasso tried to explain something to me, feeling a little awkward
that we didn't discover the body earlier.
     - He's one of ours. - I pronounced, labouring to stay calm, - Semeonov,
of the sappers.  Disappeared off the "North" while minesweeping. I found his
ID tag on one of the shooters.
     The grunts were  like  lightning-struck;  they  fussed about  Semeonov,
removing him carefully from the cross. While doing that,  they  tried not to
hurt him, handling his body like he was  still alive, whispering not to wake
him up and  tears were falling down their  faces  complicating this chilling
job even further. I looked away, pulled out a smoke and lit it up. Thirstily
inhaling I tried to push the clog in my throat further down, glancing at the
hustling  grunts  at  times  to  see  how things  were  moving  along.  When
Semeonov's body was at last removed from the cross, lads placed  it on  some
kind of stretchers  they put together from all sorts of  rubbish  they could
collect around here. When it was all over I said:
     - Glue,  get on the "boxes".  Tell them to come closer and that we  are
coming with a "cargo 200"... Our "cargo 200".
     I was coming down  the stairs ahead of  the rest, checking for anything
suspicious along the way. My grunts were carefully  carrying the stretchers,
like the man  on them was  only wounded. At the  rear,  Glue was  struggling
under the  weight of his  radio  transmitter  and  scraps of the armoury  we
discovered at the rag-heads' nest.
     We  loaded the body  into  the infantry compartment inside  our APC and
started for the  home.  I  felt that for any "spook" that tried to stick his
nose out now, this attempt would be, for sure, his last.  Confirmation to my
thoughts was the empty and  terrifying look in my grunts' eyes, were I could
see  the  reflection of  my own  feelings. Only  the fire  of vengeance  was
blazing inside them  and nothing else. Blood;  blood;  I now only craved for
blood to drown my rage, breaking their skulls with my rifle's butt, crushing
their ribs under my boots, tearing  and  ripping  their veins with my finger
nails, looking in his, her, their eyes  and  asking: "Why, why did you shoot
at the Russian soldiers?"
     OK, hold on motherfuckers, I'm coming. No mercy for anyone, not for the
elderly, not for the children,  not  for the women - NO BODY will be spared.
Ermolov and  Stalin were both right -  these folk are not to be re-educated,
only exterminated.
     Our APCs were both speeding ahead. It seemed they were feeling our mood
too  with their  engines running absolutely  fine  now.  Periodically,  they
drenched us with their oily exhaust fumes, adding some kind of foppish gloss
to  our  black  appearance.  But our  eyeballs  were  ablaze with  mad fury,
demanding  vengeance  and  there was now no place in  our  minds  for  fear.
Probably, in this state of mind, men run at machinegun nests to save others'
lives at  the price  of their own. Desire for vengeance suddenly  grows into
care for those who are close to you and self-sacrifice for others.
     Glinting at the  surroundings I  could feel movement inside the rubbles
with my skin. Resting AK on my elbow, I pulled out other ID tags and flicked
through a few more. Petrov Andrey Aleksandrovich - Maikop Brigade. Elizariev
Evgeniy  Anatolievich  -  Internal Forces (they  and the  Rangers have their
garrison  numbers marked  with four digits and The  Army have  theirs marked
with  five). Altogether,  eight  IDs  -  eight  lives.  Where are you  boys?
Probably, no one will ever know and  your mothers will be crying tears until
the end of their  lives: their dead sons will have no graves. All of this is
awful. I finished off reading all of the remaining IDs, I was positive there
were no more grunts from our brigade  in there.  I hid them back in my inner
pocked, looked at my "cavalry" and shook my head, assuring them that none of
the remaining  IDs belonged to  anyone  of ours.  They  again  turned  away,
watching out, racing past onetime battlefields. Demolished houses, torn down
trees,  burnt  and  given up  machinery.  It  was  mostly  tanks  with  torn
caterpillars  and  their  turrets  ripped  off  and  tossed  over  to  great
distances.  APCs,  with their  thinner armour  plates, were  just blasted to
pieces. All depended on where the rockets hit and how much ammo the  "boxes"
had onboard. Some drivers were lucky, others - not so much.
     With pain I  was  looking  at the trees.  I  like nature. Humans have a
choice. They can refuse  to come  here and go to jail  for desertion or self
inflict an injury, thus buying themselves "the white" ticket  out  of  here:
crafty  Russians are capable  of anything. But the  trees  and  animals  are
helpless. Men planted them at will; others came and wiped them out. And they
can do nothing in response. Neither  trees,  nor animals can flee  or defend
themselves. Thus many died together with their owners on their porches. What
remain,  people will eat later because of  the famine. These-days people are
frequently seen  tottering  about  like shadows  amongst  the rubble. Mostly
these are elderly men or middle-aged women. Everyone, who could fire weapons
and  more  or  less  think  clearly,  escaped  into  the  mountains  seeking
vengeance. No problem, we, in turn, will take revenge on them. Thus, closing
up this vicious circle. Every one of us thinks he's right. We all believe in
our own gods,  praying them  to help us and demanding retribution for deaths
of our friends and brothers.  But God  deals  spoils  and losses equally for
everyone. OK,  so we'll fight. It would be pretty  tough to fight the  whole
nation though, as opposed to a regular army of one particular  state. That's
what  we've  been  taught  to  do.  In  an open field, busted your opponent,
occupied a town, picked up the spoils and back to  the field. Here it's more
like in Afghanistan, fight the  folk all  you want.  The whole thing  is not
even a war. According to the law, all this is a piddling policing operation,
exclusive  purpose  of  which is  reinstating of  the  constitutional order.
However, no one knows what this order  used  to be like in the  first place.
OK, while the "spooks" and us are mincing one another, someone in Moscow has
hit the jackpot. We've all seen a  lot of  that  going on. For some, war  is
like their mother. Not even one  son of a bitch went down  for all the blood
they've spilt in our spacious former Union. Not counting the Baltic States -
a couple of squealers and OMON guys went to jail, so  what? They did nothing
but avenge the deaths  of their  friends, but those who gave  them orders...
their  bellies I would twitch with  my bayonet,  looking in their  wide-open
from pain and fear  eyes, listening to their deafening screams and breathing
in smell of their blood. That would be fun.
     Yet here, people lived by penitentiary laws for four years. We fed them
with money, supplied  with weapons and taught how to use  them. Then we sent
them to fight in Osetia and Abhazia for us, - like we are not even aware  of
what's going on.  And when there was no longer need for them, they should've
been eliminated, but no, - we tried to domesticate the Chechen. Yeah, right!
He  turned against our Moscow gang.  Why, though, should  the  whole country
suffer? We even came here from Siberia to break up the dogs. China is closer
to us than Chechnya. Then  men  from ZabVO, DalVO and TOF were dragged  down
here too.  They can  walk  to  the States or  Japan. One  thing  isn't clear
though. Why  is it so that  the rag-heads left the  oil refinery intact? We,
too, were strictly ordered not so much as  touch it. Here is our  Air Force,
happily bombing the city's living quarters, but as for the Staropromyslovsky
part - no way.
     All of  which means: the plant is somebody's property. Somebody who can
hush our Defence Minister and tell him specifically to leave it alone, - you
can  level the whole town  to the ground,  but  don't you  dare ruining  the
refinery. Of coarse, when Russian soldier is in rage, he's very difficult to
hold  back, so too  the  rag-heads, not  all  are  aware  of  the refinery's
importance. They naively think that they are actually fighting for their own
fucking freedom and don't get it, morons, that we are all simply taking part
in an ordinary criminal quarrel, very  big though. One  little baron decided
to screw The Big  Daddy and start his own business. Then, Big Daddy sent his
own hood, the Russian Army,  over, to bang the little  fellow. But the baron
was a  smart chap; he squalled with  independence  and sent  his "bulls" in.
That's how  the quarrel has begun.  Now, no one  can remember why the  whole
thing  started in the first place.  The hoods are  busy taking vengeance  on
each  other;  meanwhile,  their  barons  are  making big bucks expropriating
salaries and pensions. The little  one is pulling in Islamic World now, with
his cheap religious mottos. God, help us and forgive!
     My  APC took a sharp U-turn,  which  nearly  cast me off the  "armour".
That's right,  moron, your business  is to keep  your teeth  from  clapping:
you'll break  your neck one day, falling off the "armour" or  a sharpshooter
snaps  you. Your  COs are there  to think for  you and  supply  you with the
ready-made decisions. Your objective is  to  survive and complete the  task.
All else is shit. Take  Andrei Petrov,  former mortar  platoon commander. He
had principles, right? He demanded that he be given two weeks to prepare his
men, considering the fact that  his grunts were only drafted in November and
have only seen their rifles once before - during the oath. He was dismissed,
made an example, like a coward, a deserter. Replaced with a raw lieutenant -
two-year-termer  college graduate.  Where is that  lieutenant  now  with his
mortar  platoon?  During the  Airport assault he lost  almost all of his men
and, himself, perished too. You see? They draft too many morons in The Army.
Some of them you have to stand for two years, others for twenty-five.
     We tried to reason with our multi-star commanders that we are not ready
for any  war,  not  technically,  not  logistically.  Men  are not  prepared
physically. Then, in December, when the order came to load the gear onto the
locomotives  and  step  out, the weather was freezing  cold. As it is always
done in our  Army, the diesel fuel, that  vehicles  were filled with, was of
the  summer kind and rather depicted a tomato sauce. So, some smart ass from
our garrison came up with the  idea to mix this  "sauce" with kerosene. Yep!
You guessed it. One of  the APCs blew up right in  the parking lot  with its
full  ammo  complement onboard;  by  some weird luck nobody was hurt. Second
burst while loading onto cars. And again God was on  our side. And, as it is
customary in The  Army,  these events were  used  to write  off much of  the
property, just like  Suvorov  described in  his "Saviour".  According to the
official documents, those  APCs had  on board:  not less  than fifty uniform
coats,  twenty-five night-vision devices, no fewer  than  a hundred pairs of
shoes and BDUs. When the papers were to be signed by  the HQ representative,
he read that  masterpiece and pronounced: "Add one more parka plus one  more
BDUs, for me". Supplies XO added each of them  by one and the General signed
the papers with his eyes shut.
     Now  this  general  is here  somewhere. Thank  God,  he's  just signing
papers. "Material battle losses" is probably his credo.
     For now, my mind was occupied by thoughts of the dead sniper. What do I
tell at the HQ? How did it happen  that  he  didn't make here?  I knew well,
that  no one would be breathing in my face with  his honourable  anger, only
with   disappointment  that   they  couldn't  hank   his  guts   themselves.
Particularly, the GRU  and  recon guys will be sad.  It's  their cup of tea,
just let them  play with the fellow, they'd make him  talk.  We  can do that
too, quick and simple, but they handle it gracefully. Liquor can't  kill the
mastery.
     Suddenly  something  moved in the rubble, twinkling  with  rays of  the
setting sun.  My mind  hasn't even  produced a  thought  yet, but  my  hands
already responded, quickly raising my AK, finger  clung to the  trigger. And
only then  my judgement kicked in  - I saw our artillery spotters,  the lads
constructed their positions in one of the remaining pieces of a house by the
road. They too met us with their rifle barrels.  All of us, however, managed
to  keep our  cool and hold  fire.  Moreover, they just began to wind  their
"Shilka" in our direction. It is  a  large  calibre  anti-aircraft gun (ZSU)
with  four barrels. It would've chopped us  to chips for  sure. Alright,  at
least we identified each other in time. We shouted merrily something to each
other for greetings. This meant  the HQ is near.  Yep,  there is the blazing
fire-fountain from the breached gas pipe. 200 or so yards and we're  "home".
Now we can relax a little.
     - Hey,  radioman, - I said  to Glue, - Let them know  we're  coming, or
they'll shoot us to hell.
     Glue tattled something in his headset and nodded to me that  we were OK
to go.  Talking or rather shouting through  roaring diesels seemed senseless
and inappropriate with the dead  man onboard our APC. Everyone felt a little
guilty for  some strange reason, although, on the other hand, knew well that
he, himself, could've been down there in his place.
     Cars  retarded  a bit  and, manoeuvring this way, we passed  a  virtual
labyrinth  of  remaining concrete  blocks  and  bricks. Soldiers  watched us
through their sights from behind every  corner. Their faces were all covered
with dust and, from  that, seemed made of  stone. They all looked exhausted,
with their dog-tired red eyes. The lads greeted us with smiles and gestures,
lowering their guns. We greeted  guards the  same way. I knew, our  officers
and men  would be  betting  on  me delivering  the  sniper  alive  and well.
Personally, I wouldn't put my money on his safe journey.
     Lucky,  we  returned  before the daybreak.  Some  smarty-pants  in  the
defence ministry  invented a new password  system for us. Before, everything
was  nice  and  simple, but  now, the thing is  a brain surgery, without ten
years  of high school  or  lots  of liqueur,  impossible  to translate.  For
example,  before,  the  password  was  "Saratov"  and  the reply  to it  was
"Leningrad", even a moron could understand that. Some grunts can barely read
or  write: outcomes of the "perestroika". The core of the new system is  the
number: say thirteen. The guard, seeing a silhouette in the dark, calls out:
"Stop! Password - seven!" Now, you have to instantly take  away seven out of
thirteen  and quickly yell  back: "Reply - six!". After all  this, the guard
must add his "seven" and your "six",  get "thirteen" and  then let you pass.
But, if any one of you can't  count well enough or has something else on his
mind, then, according to the Statute  of the armed  guard service, the guard
can, and will, shoot you on the spot without any further  investigation. And
no  one prosecutor would  lift his finger to pursue  this issue any further.
You, moron, should've been learning your math back in  high school. Fine, if
you are not completely deaf and  the grunt on  duty can actually  count, but
some  smart  asses  call out fractions and negative numbers. That's when you
recall all of  his relatives, and your  math skills, while you're at it. For
all this, some shithead got promoted back in Moscow, or maybe,  even a medal
on his chest. Those snakes are capable of anything.
     Thinking this way, we stopped  near the partly demolished kindergarten,
where  our brigade's HQ was  now situated. I jumped  off  the APC, rubbed my
stalled and frozen feet and started for the entrance dragging my stiff legs.
I had to see our  HQ's CO, Lieutenant Colonel, Alexandr Alexandrovich Bilich
first.  All of us called him San Sanych. Already on  my  way,  I ordered  my
grunts:
     - Start offloading our hero, carefully.
     Grunts nodded understandingly.
     San Sanych  was  about  1.75m tall with broad  shoulders  and  constant
sparks in his blue eyes. Or were the sparks just a fruit of our imagination?
San Sanych  was  somehow different from all the officers in our Brigade.  He
was  actually well mannered. At  first, it seemed superficial, but  the more
you got to know him the  more you  were convinced  that  it is really in his
nature. It seemed, he should've been born in times of chivalry, high society
and duels, definitely  not in our mad century. Even now, when we are more or
less bottled in OK and started hammering our opposition, when the war, maybe
only at times for now, but  has taken a  proper shape of the trench warfare,
every day our lieutenant colonel Bilich has found the time for brief morning
exercises.
     Every morning, if  it was possible to catch any sleep at all  at night,
we crawled out of our cellars  shacking from the  cold. Because it's winter,
may be southern, but still a winter. As a rule, there was no  water, and our
old unshaven whiskers were no longer rough, but  felt rather fuzzy. However,
looking at your CO, you, unwillingly, pick  yourself  up  and find the time,
the water and the razor. Although, many officers, some superstitious or some
just plane  lazy,  grew beards and  moustaches. Some even looked  great like
that. The only one who looked exactly like a Chechen, was, our recon platoon
leader,  Hlopov Roman,  naturally possessing  dark  skin and having  grown a
dense  beard. This way, during the Station siege, he was nearly  shot by his
own grunts.  Luckily,  he put on  a helmet and his armoured west; otherwise,
our sporty protectors would've definitely done him. Since  then, Hlopov - we
called him Hlop - developed a habit to shave every morning no matter what.
     About one and a half weeks ago, when he and the reconnaissance CO broke
through  to the  Airport "North", the allied commander's HQ, on the way back
they  ran into  an ambush.  Their APC was blasted by  RPG fire from  a point
blank range. Hlop died instantly, the CO had a bad concussion. For two days,
skirmishing along the  way,  their grunts were  slowly  sneaking home.  They
brought back the Hlop's mutilated  body  and  the severely concussed, almost
deaf and blind, reconnaissance CO, Captain Stepchenko Sergey Stanislavovich.
As they  recounted  afterwards,  the days  they spent in  basements  and  at
nights,  risking the bullet from  Chechens or  from  us, they crept  back to
their home base. They slept in turns, using parts of the poor Hlop's body as
pillows.
     Maybe after his concussion or maybe after hiding in basements with  the
corpse,  Sereoga  Stepchenko  started  having problems. We almost cured  his
sight and hearing with liquor, but he couldn't stand closed and tight spaces
anymore.  Mostly he's  OK,  working  and fighting,  but sometimes he's  just
mumbling  something completely out of this  world. Our  brigade's Commander,
Colonel  Bahel  Alexandr Antonovich,  placed an order to  dismiss Stepchenko
from his post, and  watch him  so he doesn't make any trouble.  There was no
chance  to  medivac  the man as  even  our wounded  were lying  in  bunkers:
choppers  couldn't land. He  was, temporarily, replaced by senior lieutenant
Krivosheev Stepan. Bilich San Sanych was taking care of Stepchenko, not just
him though, of everyone  around him. He arranged for the grunts that brought
him and the Hlop's body back,  to  be  awarded each by  the Hero  Of  Russia
Medal. But for now, the papers were kept in Chiefs of Staff's safe.
     Out of his principles, Bilich didn't recognised physical methods during
conversations  with  the  enemy  or  cursing  with  his  own  men.  But  the
interesting part was, I knew  from my own  personal experience, that  if you
yell cursing at somebody, everything is done more quickly and clearly.
     And now I had to explain to this gentleman that I failed to deliver the
sniper because grunts' thin patience wore off and they hung him off a tank's
barrel. Trying a few combinations  in  my mind that could spare San Sanych's
delicate hearing and let the Com-Batt and Ivan off the  hook,  I entered the
HQ. On  the way in  I met  our Supplies XO,  Kleymeonov  Arkadi Nikolaevich.
Everybody was  describing  him with Suvorov's words: "...we  can comfortably
hang any  supply officer in one  year  time...". Looking at the  well-shaped
figure  of our "rear XO", you  knew  that the  Generalissimos was absolutely
right: in his time, Kleimeonov  would've being dangling off the tree by now.
His personal luggage has  been growing in size by the day, regardless of the
heavy fighting.
     - Ah, Slava, how was the trip? Got the sniper?
     - No  such  luck,  Arkadiy  Nikolaeich, he  passed  away,  -  I  made a
compassionate face, my eyes were telling a different story  though  and  the
rear XO picked up on my game.
     -  Really?  - Kleymeonov made  a puzzled  face and  asked me,  sounding
surprised.
     - Weak heart, - I smiled,  -  he was wounded too, so didn't survive the
departure.  Now I have to  delicately  explain it  to San Sanych.  He'll  be
really sad.
     - He's too busy for  that now. By the way,  nobody believed you'd bring
him anyway. Il'in and yourself  could've thrown  him harakiri  over there on
the spot.  It is a petty though;  we had people queuing up to  converse with
him, - Kleymeonov shone his teeth.
     - They were betting, weren't they? - I asked.
     - Sure, but mostly on your failure.
     - By the way, I also brought a soldier  with me, Semeonov,  disappeared
during  the "North"  siege; my grunts are offloading  him now. What else  is
new?
     -  You  were only  gone  for four  hours.  Oh, yeah, - his voice turned
gloomy, - Chief of Staff of the Second Battalion was wounded.
     It seemed that the walls around us swayed.
     - Sashka Pahomenko? - I asked.
     -  Himself. They  are trying  to break  through to the hotel  "Kavkaz".
There are  as many rag-heads there as there are demons in hell, so he caught
a bullet in  his chest. Medics couldn't get up there. Sargent patched him up
for  now. Now we're  getting a  storm group ready, made of scouts. Under the
cover of dark, they'll try to get him out of there, - I could see Kleymeonov
was pretty sad, telling me all that.
     Captain Pahomenko Alexandr Il'ich was loved by all in our brigade. Very
tall fellow, open-minded, he loved having fun. He knew countless gags, funny
stories and practical jokes, never malicious. The  main thing  about him was
his  openness and honesty.  It always  deeply affected people who knew  him.
While  taking  to him, in about ten minutes  you felt like you had known the
man  since your college years. With all that he was  never a layabout or  an
idler. He  was always the first  one where it was the hardest, always rushed
in to help everyone. Our officers and men liked  him  unmeasurably. He could
help with his words  or action, he could also swear like hell  - was a  real
virtuoso in that field. He could get behind the steering wheel of an APC, in
freezing cold fix an engine or give soldiers  a good lecture. Well, the very
type of  officer  that our information sources were always pounding us with.
Detesting his enemy, never  hiding  his genuine feelings, never  refusing to
give a helping hand. A bit loud at  times, but you get  used to it in  time.
That's what he's been to  us, Sashka Pahomenko, who always asked to call him
"simply Il'ich". Strange, but at  war, these  little, long  forgotten things
are suddenly surfacing in your  mind.  And  now this young man was lying  in
some basement with a hole in his chest. God help him.
     - OK,  Arkadiy Nikolaevich, I'm off to see San  Sanych,  - I nodded and
headed off along the corridor.
     - He's in there with an Allied HQ  representative. Bahel  is out in the
Third  Battalion's HQ,  meanwhile this clean-cut chap  is stamping  Sanych's
brain. They'll probably  throw  us in  to  push  somewhere, where our  elite
forces shitted themselves. It's always like that, they get to receive medals
and  fire  at the parliament palace  in Moscow and we,  Siberian  mahra,  to
crunch asphalt in winter. For that, we get to go home and they will pose for
cameras and tell stories to girls, - he spewed and wondered off.
     The corridor was full of officers and soldiers. Some were smoking, some
taking  a snooz, leaning against  walls riddled by bullets and  shrapnel and
raising their heads time to time from close explosions.
     We paid one hell  of a price for this kindergarten. In his time, Dudaev
announced that Chechnya  does need scientists but needs warriors. Thus, boys
should go to school for three years and girls for only one. Since women stay
at home at all  times anyway,  kindergartens became  obsolete. Then, people,
close to his government, some with bribes, some with force, has claimed them
all. This one too was rebuilt as a villa and belonged to one of the Dudaev's
bandits. The owner and his gang fought for it with ferocity.
     We were busting these snakes out of here for 12 hours straight and when
finally broke  in,  learnt that he  maintained  a pretty good live style  in
here: all floors were covered in carpets, not the cheap stuff but  handmade.
Design  furniture,  crystal  and  china,  appliances  we  only ever  saw  in
brochures. Left around photos had all  his family pictured.  We lacked women
here,  that's  for sure,  but  I have never  seen a pretty  Chechen, not  on
pictures, not in real life. All had small faces, narrow eyes, hooklike noses
and thin lips. Just like  rats, if you ask me. Everyone has different tastes
though.  As  we say, -  "there are no  ugly women, there is just not  enough
liquor, but I couldn't drink that much..."
     Occupied by  this kind of thoughts I entered  the main HQ's room in the
basement. I  pushed  the door  covered  up by a  raincoat-tent and  felt the
warmth coming from  the army  camping  heater in  the  corner. I guess these
heaters are only still alive in the Army. As long as the army exists they'll
always  be there on  manoeuvres  and at  war, to  offer  soldiers warmth and
comfort.
     - Comrade Lieutenant Colonel,  captain Mironov, reporting back to duty,
- I  reported, looking  at Bilich, who was leaning at the map. Next to  him,
bent over the map, were my partner or, as we called  each other, "henchman",
major Ryzhov Yuri Nikolaevich and some other officer.
     - We've  been waiting for  you, Vechaslav Nikolaevich. Did  you pick up
the sniper? - The Chief of staff asked me, inquisitively looking in my eyes.
- Here  is your mate, - he nodded  at  Ryzhov,  - was betting  a six-pack of
cognac that you won't.
     -  If  I  had  only  known about the cognac, Alexandr  Alexandrovich, I
would've brought back at least  his head. But the dog  died from his  wounds
and probably from some kind of heart condition. The son of a bitch was, from
his  own words, our compatriot, from Siberia. Thirty-two slashes I  found on
his rifle's butt and a fine Japanese scope too.
     - Where is the rifle? - Took interest in our conversation Ryzhov.
     - I left it back there. They show it to the grunts for ferocity and not
a bad feed for themselves too.
     - Yeah right, "feed". We  all need only one  feed  now -  air  support,
probable  enemy  positioning  and  where  the  bustards  are  getting  their
resupplies from.  They were  not ready  for this war  for sure and  prepared
nothing: no arms, no ammunition and no food.
     - That's  not all,  - I interrupted Bilich,  - on the way  back we were
fired upon and took on the rag-heads. After the counterattack, destroyed our
enemy and  found these on  the corpses... -  I reached my hand  out with the
dead soldier's ID tag. - One of ours. Semeonov.
     Again a clog was stuck  in  my  throat, making it difficult to  talk or
breath. I pulled my cigarettes  out. Bilich wouldn't object, realising  what
state I was in, although himself was a  non-smoker. After a few deep gasps I
felt the clog disappearing and continued:
     - The snakes,  probably,  were torturing him  for some time, and likely
while  he was still alive,  cut his  penis off. Then nailed  him to a cross,
like Jesus. Penis  stuck in  his mouth. We brought him  back; my  grunts are
probably offloading him now. Here is some more, - I fetched the  rest of the
IDs, - them too I got off the dead "spook". No more of ours though.
     San Sanych  carefully listened to  me,  looking straight  into my eyes,
then,  took  the  ID tags, briefly  flicked  through them,  noting only  the
garrison numbers,  added them up in a little  pyramid  and  handed it to the
unfamiliar officer.
     - By the way, let me  introduce you, - he  turned to the major, - Major
Karpov Vechaslav Viktorovich, Allied HQ representative,  General Command  HQ
officer.  And  this,  -  he said pointing  at me,  -  Captain  Mironov,  our
Brigade's HQ senior officer, an adventurer and  a  warrior. Still  can't get
accustomed to  the  fact  that he is  a  HQ officer now not a combat company
commander, - San Sanych somewhat fatherly lectured me.
     I was  a  bit  stunned by  the fact  that my CO would speak  of  me  so
heartily. I reached out and shook the major's hand.
     - Vechaslav, - he introduced himself.
     Namesake. We'll see, what kind of bird you are and what the hell you're
here for. I figure, one of  the  big boys, since was sent  to us. They might
want  us softened up  before giving some suicidal task or  maybe find out in
what state of affairs the brigade is in and then fire the CO. These fat cats
from Moscow love this kind of tricks.
     I  looked at him  a bit more carefully  this  time. The face definitely
looks familiar, but where I saw him before, I, for now, couldn't recall. OK,
we'll figure that one out later. The  fact that he was from Moscow and  from
the General Command HQ,  immediately made me, like  any  other  line  combat
officer, dislike him.  All grievances  come from them. They are all bastards
and voracious rats. All soldiers knew  this axiom, watching them do  nothing
but  drink themselves stupid at every inspection and then departing for home
with  generous  gifts. Human garbage, from first to last. It's  their  fault
we're here in the  first place. Moscow has planned the first and this Grozny
assaults. 25<sup>[th]</sup> of November and 1<sup>[st]</sup> of January will
both be black pages in the Russian Army's History Book.
     I thought about it while  I was shaking  the Moscow officer's hand  and
squeezing out of my face some kind of smile. Although, I think,  my  parched
face reflected all my thoughts pretty well. But I couldn't send this coxcomb
to hell right here, in front of San Sanych, whom I respected too much.
     - Vechalsav, - I introduced myself back to this Moscow rooster.
     -  Major  Karpov, take  these IDs to the HQ  please, let them  work out
which regions the soldiers are from and notify their families,  - San Sanych
passed the tags to him.
     The rep  nodded,  took the  IDs and without even  looking or  counting,
dropped  them  into one  of  his parka's outer  pockets. Any  normal officer
would've at least counted them respectful of the dead.
     I was  a bit disturbed by this and asked  the son of a bitch with badly
hidden irritation:
     - Aren't  you  going  to loose them like this, my honourable man? Human
lives are behind them.
     Spotting the rage in my voice, San  Sanych and Ryzhov looked at the guy
like he was an enemy of the state. He  must've understood his lapse, mumbled
something and  placed the IDs in  one  of  his  flank jacket inner  pockets,
meanwhile giving me  a very expressive look, like he wanted to grind me into
dust. Alright, my boy, look all you want, I can chill a drunken soldier with
my look, as for you, dandy ass, I can bring you down to your knees. I calmly
stood  the look of  his  watery eyes.  He  even seemed flimsy. About a meter
seventy in hight, may be less,  skinny  and with small head. All blond, like
albino,  except his  eyes, they weren't  red,  but  rather  colourless.  His
appearance was just repulsive, and his quiff, that he was fixing constantly,
was even adding  something female to  it. Maybe he's  gay: a  funny  thought
breezed  through  my mind.  The General Command HQ Officer is  a  homo. That
would make a lot of noise. Well, I heard,  in Moscow,  it's very fashionable
these  days - alternative sexual lifestyles. I don't  think I'll be sleeping
next to him. Though,  I think he's just lifeless, like  a jellyfish. I might
offer  to paint this queer orange,  for fun. Would make  snipers' job easier
too.
     For a second, I  imagined the major painted  in red colour and  a smile
stretched  my lips. Karpov studied himself nervously  - something wrong with
his dress? Having ensured that his uniform was intact and finally  realising
that I'm just laughing at him, he stared at me angrily in response.
     Knowing my wild character  and to relieve  the tension in  the air, San
Sanych declared, talking to everyone at the same time:
     - Let's stop plotting against each other for  now and go see Semeonov's
corpse. We'll  fill  in the paperwork  and  you, Vechaslav Viktorovich, - he
looked at Karpov, - would have  to take him with you to the airport and send
home.
     We  all moved for the exit.  Officers  and men  were already out in the
yard. The corpse was carefully placed on the rolled out canvas, hands folded
on  his chest.  Nail holes in  the  wrists were  clearly seen,  his face was
thoughtfully  covered with a soldiers'  handkerchief. Hats off,  all present
were just standing around in silence. What was on their  minds could only be
read on  their tight-lipped faces. Lucky for the sniper, he was dead.  Here,
he would've lived a long time, to his distress.
     Bilich came over to the diseased, lifted up the handkerchief, looked at
his dirty face with forever frozen mask of terror on it, sighed and, turning
toward standing next to him Kleymeonov, gave him an order:
     - Arkadiy Nikolaevich, fill in the ID report and prepare the body to be
sent home. The HQ representative will take it with him.
     - Sure, Alexandr Nikolaevich, - and then to the surrounding him grunts,
- Take the  man inside.  It's warmer in there. Call for the bookkeeper; tell
him  to write  up the ID Act,  the death notification  and  whatever else is
needed.
     Everyone suddenly went active. Bilich announced, talking to Ryzhov, the
Moscow dandy and me:
     - Let's go eat.
     I had, of coarse, nothing against throwing something  in my stomach and
tipping a nip or two, but not in  the company of this faceless  shit, that's
why I politely refused his offer:
     - Thank you  so much, comrade  Colonel, but  I'd rather do it later.  I
have to  wash off the  dust first and  get the sniper and Semeonov's reports
out of the way. Other paperwork can't wait for too long either.
     - As  you  wish. But at  2100, please be  here at my meeting.  Com-brig
should be too back by then, - carefully looking  at me, said  San Sanych. It
seemed that he figured out what the real reason for my refusal was.
     They went inside. I  watched the grunts carrying away all that remained
of  Semeonov, then  turned  around  and  wandered off  to  my  truck.  Every
brigade's HQ officer  had his own truck. With  Yurka Ruzhov, between the two
of  us,  we  shared GAZ-66  with  a plywood  cab.  Although,  most  officers
preferred to spend those few minutes of rest in basements, we loved our cab.
We  also had  a personal driver,  Harin Pashka, one meter and seventy  tall,
with broad  bone, big and  always twinkly face,  little eyes  but  red hair,
short, almost  shaved, hairdo at the back,  according to  soldiers' fashion,
and always waving long quiff. Naturally, Pashka was a  crook and a worm, but
I repeatedly observed him in gunfights: many times  he pulled out the truck,
with us, from under fire, for that  we cared for  him and  trusted  him.  In
peacetime  Pashka was  a  leave abuser, bitter  disciplinary  offender,  big
liquor  fan and a womaniser. His pregnant fiance  was  waiting for  him back
where we  came from.  He had  another year to serve before discharge. Pashka
knew practically everything that was  going on  in the brigade thanks to his
friendship with  the  grunts from the HQ, communications hub and canteen. He
supplied us with news, some of which he found out significantly earlier than
we did, receiving his information from the comms operators. All of this gave
us  more  time to think about  it and then come forward with good advice and
initiatives during the  Sanych's or  Com-brig's meetings, while  others were
only  chewing  on  the  newly  received information.  For that our superiors
regarded us highly as competent officers. Although, we've always been on top
as it is, the head start was never a burden.
     Walking up to our truck I noticed with satisfaction that Pashka managed
to fill up the sandbags and enclosed  the truck with them. Now we can breath
almost freely. There was a thin puff of  smoke  rising from the pipe meaning
that we've got heat, hot water and dry cigarettes. I came up to the door and
called out without opening:
     - Pashka! Where are you?
     - I'm here, comrade Captain. Guarding.
     Pashka's figure emerged  from the dark;  I glanced at  the position, he
has chosen for his guard and noted to myself that he did it rather cleverly.
     -  All right,  my lovechild, what've you got to make your father happy?
Did you behave? - I asked him jokingly.
     - Everything's  fine, Vechaslav Nikolaevich.  Enclosed  the  truck with
sand, got some food too.
     Food  was   a  problem,  same  as   matrasses,  linen  and  the   BDUs.
Reinforcement  columns were left  behind at  the airport; it  made  no sense
dragging them down with us under fire. Only the tankers, carefully  guarded,
carried  over  fuel for vehicles  and  power  generators.  Of  coarse, every
officer and soldier had reserves in  their  tanks and APCs: canned  stew and
meat kasha containers.  But that's no  real  food,  a paved road  to stomach
ulcer. That's why everyone was constantly busy hounding for nutrition.
     During the assault on  this  nice  kindergarten,  in its basements,  we
found  a decent  supply  of food and beverages.  Much of  that we've already
eaten and  drunk, but we all knew who amassed most of it and  using  Pahka's
personal charm or  his cheeky character, periodically expropriated some from
the comms operators.
     - Sonny, -  talking  to Pashka, I worked my  way  into  the cab, - What
kinds of  entree and oversees brandy do  you have  to soften up your old and
sick father?
     - Dutch ham, roasted lamb, sardines, I think French, and two bottles of
cognac, judging from the labels, also French.
     - Got the hot water? - I inquired taking off  my rifle,  coat and other
apparel.
     - Yep, full kettle, -  reported  Pashka, throwing  the rifle behind his
back.
     - Let's go, flush some on to me and then have dinner,  - I have already
comfortably  settled in the warm atmosphere of  the cab and  now unwillingly
stepped out into the night cold undressed.
     I scrubbed myself slowly and carefully, huffing  and spitting out  dirt
and dust that clogged my nostrils  and mouth. We had no steamer here so far;
for  that reason  we  gathered a lot  of fresh towels  and some cheap polish
fragrance in the airport and periodically, stripping naked, rubbed ourselves
with them. Our underwear we just chucked, putting on new pairs each time.
     I  got back into the cab, put some cloths on and was wiping up my rifle
with a piece of cloth. Meanwhile, Pashka cut up the ham and smelly lamb ribs
and  opened up a can of sardines.  In the  centre of the table he set up the
sealed bottle of cognac "Hennessey". I opened  it and smelled the  contents.
Not bad  at all. Poured  out some of it into plastic glasses, a bit more for
myself. I  lifted  the  glass, looked though  it at the  light, shook it and
smelled once more, I definitely liked the aroma.
     - So, Pavel, to good luck.
     We cheered and tipped the glasses.
     - Vechaslav Nikolaevich, what happened to the sniper?
     -  Don't  you know  already?  Glue,  Semeon, Americanets and the others
must've told you all about it by now.  He died from  the heart condition and
his wounds; the  rest is none of your business. Now give me the  news. Isn't
the war over yet?
     - Not by a long shot, - pronounced Pashka, - on the contrary, the order
came through,  to speed  up  the assault of  the hotel  "Kavkaz".  They even
promised us air support. And then the brigade will be thrown in to storm the
Minutka Square with the Dudaev's Palace.
     - That's where we'll all drop dead, because it is an obvious suicide to
attack a structure of this kind with only one brigade. What else?
     - The second  batt's Chief of  Staff was wounded and  some artist is up
there stuck with them. Shevchuk from "DDT". Ever heard of him?

        3


     - No, never heard of him before. What's he doing up there anyway?
     - Nothing really. He came to Grozny for a concert and then asked for  a
ride to the front  line. Left all his musicians at the airport and popped up
over here. Who could predict that the second batt would be then screwed like
this? So now he's stuck there.  Lads said on the radio he's  pretty  snappy,
not scared at all and even rushing into battle.
     - Yep, now they'll throw our reserves in there to get him out and maybe
even take the hotel for once. Finally medivac all our wounded to the airport
and then go home.
     - The Moscow  officer was going around taking to  grunts. What's  up in
the brigade and how they're coping?
     -  You should've told him  to go  screw himself and  that's that.  They
won't send you any further than here. We've got our own zampolit to do this.
We've all  seen him  in  action; he's  not hiding behind grunts'  backs  and
doesn't crunch on his rations under the bed. And never throws any theatrical
shit  either. OK, I'll figure out  later  what  to  do with that  dick. It's
killing me that I can't remember where I saw him before, but I did for sure.
     -  He says he was  in  the Prednestrovie at some stage.  Something like
this went down there.  You were  there too, weren't you? May be that's where
you met the man?
     - May be so. Only I can tell you, Pashka, Pridnestravie of coarse was a
lot of fun,  but compared  to Chachnya all that was like an innocent walk in
the park. Over there, the war  was more of a classic trench style, although,
Bendery and Dubosary did change hands a few times. But overall,  compared to
this madhouse - boy-scout camp "Sunrise".

     Now I noticed that Pashka was wearing a rifle bullet on a piece of rope
around his neck - an  ancient soldiers' amulet;  supposedly this very bullet
was  meant  for you. If it  was  only  so!  These  "charms"  only  relax you
unnecessarily and flatten your sense of vigilance. I smirked:

     -  You  better  hang  a hand-grenade there by  its safety pin, and I'll
fetch it, or  a mine.  How about artillery round? How do  you know that this
bullet was cast  for  you?  Not shrapnel or a concrete block? Go ahead, hang
everything on your neck, it might be useful.  Remember  that grunt  from the
tank battalion? They found him strangled by this very rope with bullet, just
like yours. It didn't save him. Thus, don't be a moron - take it off and use
the bullet as intended

     Gabbing this  way, I slowly wiped  out the food on the table  and leant
back. Lighting up a sniper's cigarette I took a puff. The packet  was  a bit
wet though, possibly from my sweat or humidity.

     - Pashka, got dry cigarettes?
     - Yep, - he handed me a packet of "Palmira", or, as we call it, "Bum in
the  mountains". Because the  packet depicted some kind of hobo with a stick
over  his shoulder,  wearing  vocational panama and  jellaba  (just  like  a
"spook") and  a  mountain gorge  on  the  background.  -  Please,  Vechaslav
Nikolaevich. I've got more drying out on the heater. Give me yours; I'll fix
them up too.

     I took the packet,  twirled it, then lit up and stashed it in one of my
pockets.

     - Give me paper, will you. I'll start on the sniper's report.

     Pashka gave me paper and sat down near:

     -  Kozaks arrived, asking to let  them fight.  Even submitted letter of
recommendation  from the  Commander  in Chief, -  Pashka said  softly  while
cleaning up the remainders of my dinner.  Meanwhile I was finishing  off the
report.
     - Well, if they are so anxious to fight for mother Russia - let them do
it.  In  Moldova  they  fought  pretty  well,  even  captured   weapons  for
themselves, - said I without raising my head.
     - Bahel said  the same thing and sent them to the  recon guys. All five
of them.
     - I suppose I should go and meet them at some stage.

     All of a sudden, somewhere close by, a furious skirmish broke out. Both
of us  flew out of the cab  at once. Shivering, I pulled on my  coat; my mag
pouch  with a  few  extra clips was dangling  on my shoulder. In case of  an
attack on the HQ, every officer and soldier knew his area of responsibility.
That's why without any extra fuss we  sprinted for our  little foxhole,  dug
about by Pahka a few days ago.

     Somebody  was  discharging long  bursts, meaning that the contact was a
close one. Someone was yelling from the dark:

     -   North-east,   white  five-story  house.   Discovered  an   infantry
detachment, about ten men in all, could be a diversion of some kind.

     Not  much could  be  seen  in  the settling dark, except  a few blurred
silhouettes.  Somebody  started  launching  flares.  Pashka  too  launched a
couple. Then, in about  thirty  yards, I noticed  rag-heads, crawling toward
us. They were all dressed in nice Turkish camouflage of significantly better
pattern and quality than ours. If I catch a "spook"  of my size - definitely
strip  him. Back in  Prednistrovie, we caught a "policeman"  once, in  May's
excruciating heat. My  feet were  boiling  and  this guy was  wearing  these
really cool boots. Back then  they were a rarity, light afghan type with the
reinforced base, especially for mountaineering. So I got  them off him. Back
then  we  didn't kill  prisoners; they were kind of the same as us, fighting
because of morons politicians. Now I have been wearing them for three years,
although they  lost  their  attractive looks but nobody  makes them anymore.
Maybe, someone will pull them off me just like I did, perhaps alive or maybe
dead. God alone knows.

     I touched Pashka's elbow and showed him the rag-heads.

     - Let's go, - I whispered.

     We opened up in short bursts. In flares'  light we could see the little
geysers of  mud  and  snow. The  rag-heads  realised  that  they  have  been
discovered and fired back at us.  They  were definitely in a worse situation
and thus were letting off long bursts, crawling backwards. Someone opened up
from his under barrel launcher cutting them off. Suddenly a machinegun fired
from behind us. Did they plan to encircle us?

     No freaking way, assholes! I felt my fatigue beginning to disappear and
again, intoxicating rush of the gunfight was consuming me, the flow of blood
thrusting into my head forcing out remainders of the grogginess.

     - Pashka,  cover  me, I'll do them  from  my launcher,  - I yelled with
excitement, getting the weapon ready.
     - Come-on my darling, don't let me down, -  I muttered, shoving grenade
into its black trunk.

     "Bang", said my  launcher, spitting the grenade towards the  rag-heads.
Too high, I  noted correcting. Another one. Gotcha. The  grenade burst right
in the middle of the group of crawling "spooks". Two of them whirled around,
obviously wounded; the third got up on his knees  holding his head and  then
dropped face down in the mud.

     -  That one's cooked, -  I yelled  in intoxication, meanwhile  spotting
another target. But  the rest  of  the reg-heads managed  to hide behind the
rubble and  began to gush at us  from their  rifles. Now, the  flares worked
against us, clearly giving away our positions.

     A  grenade  exploded right  behind  us.  Looks  like they too  have the
launchers. "Issued from the same warehouse?" I thought, bitterly grinning at
my sad idea.

     I switched to automatic  now, trying to spot where  the enemy fire  was
coming from. Somebody was running  at  us from behind, heavily treading.  We
turned around sticking our  rifle barrels into the dark, ready to open up at
any moment. That was Yurka Ryzhov.

     -  Shit, man,  you scared the devil out of us, - said I getting back to
business.
     - Yep, it's definitely more fun  over here than with that Moscow creep.
Ragging  and ragging constantly.  This  is not  right; that document is  not
correctly filled in. Do not write down  that the man was captured  prisoner;
indicate  that  he  is being unlawfully  detained by the illegitimate  armed
formations. He also recommended that we speed up the hotel "Kavkaz" assault,
ourselves, take it in the shortest possible time and then proceed toward the
Minutka Square and storm it on the march, - he stopped for a second and then
added: - head on.
     -  Stuff that. They can storm it themselves if need it so much.  As for
us,  we  need  more  air support, - I  yelled angrily, firing back into  the
night. After the Yurka's news I went  frantic  and  was hammering  with long
bursts,  -  you see, I just took  one out,  the  other  two are  over  there
whirling, probably wounded.

     Judging from  the  shooting, we figured the reg-heads  were not leaving
just like that.  Somewhere from behind our backs we  heard "Shilka" talking,
the one  that was set up this morning.  Well, now  it'll chop them  up  like
salad  with its  rapid fire  and calibre. Yurka  together with us, was, with
excitement, picking at the rag-heads with long  bursts, keeping the bastards
from raising their heads.

     - Slava, the Moscow shithead says he saw you before in Kishineov.

     All of a sudden, it became  crystal clear. Now I remembered everything.
When back in Kishineov, without any ID papers,  we were transferred over the
front line back and forward; this  degenerate was there in the Staff Office.
Then his Office  was  reassigned to the Moldova Republic. Although he stayed
there in the same department and  rank. Our  personal folders then fell into
the Moldovans' hands. At the end, all of us were pronounced war criminals. I
came  to him asking to return my folder, but  he bluntly refused, motivating
that I am, in fact, a war criminal and he wouldn't want to be my accomplice.
Then he suggested I leave immediately or he'd call the guards and  arrest me
on the spot. The  son of a  bitch changed  colours quickly,  but apparently,
eventually had to run  for his life  too. In  a few months, they declared an
amnesty and I am, for now, not a criminal anymore.

     The  rag-heads started  hammering our  positions  with  renewed energy.
Somebody  screamed from  behind us after the next burst. Shit,  someone  was
hit. We saw a  flash in the dark and redirected  our fire over there.  In  a
couple of minutes somebody in there screamed and something made a noise.

     For a  few more minutes,  in excitement, we kept going  in  the enemy's
direction,  but there  was no response.  Apparently the  rag-heads retreated
having  got enough. We had no particular  desire to go  and  check the area.
We'll find out when the sun rises.

     - Apparently the original owner came for his liquor, - jested Yura.
     - The moron must've forgotten what Karl Marks wrote in his "Capital" on
the second page first paragraph.
     - What did  he write, Vechaslav Nikolaevich? - Pashka enquired from the
dark.
     - A  very simple phrase - was yours, now is  ours. Expropriation of the
expropriators. If they hadn't screwed  around, we wouldn't have come here in
the first place.
     - Anything left to drink? - Ryzhov wondered.
     -  Sure, don't you worry; haven't  you  had a  drink  with the faceless
shit? - I replied.
     -  We have, but he  is too fussy.  We didn't offer him  any cognac  but
rather had Vodka. The son of a bitch wondered if we,  by any chance, had any
spoils left.
     - Moscow motherfucker, - I spewed  into the mud, meanwhile, in complete
darkness, filling up empty magazines,  feeling the rounds with my fingers. -
All  seems quiet. Let's  go  back. I still have my report  to finish and San
Sanych's meeting to attend.
     - OK. Pashka you stay here and guard, if you spot  anything - call out,
we'll come and rescue you form the evil Chechen, - Yura jested.

     We  got out  of the foxhole  and,  shaking off the dirt from  our BDUs,
started for the cab.  Around us in the  darkness, officers were  walking, to
their trucks to prepare for the meeting.

     - Hey people, who was shot? - I yelled into the night.
     -  The comms  driver,  Larionov.  He's  OK  though. The  shrapnel  only
punctured the skin but the bones are fine. He is in  the  sickbay now. He'll
live,  -  a  voice answered  me  from  the dark, sounded  like  the  Arms XO
Cherepkov Pavel Nikolaevich.
     - Soon, there won't any more room in the sickbay to put the wounded. We
should try  to break out the  blockade and ship them  all out, or we'll lose
them, - said loudly Yura, returning to the cab.
     - We should look  into  it and discuss with our COs, -  I picked up his
idea.
     - Let's have a drink and then go listen to the rant of the Moscow pimp,
- said Yurka, casting his rifle in the corner, - for  I am sick of doing  it
alone.  According to  their perception, we can't fight for shit; we have  to
inspire men, make them imagine that all  this is  the Berlin assault and the
Dudaev's Palace is  the  Reichstag. Bloody paranoia. If it were up to  them,
these  bastards  would lay  us down  like  rails  for  their  cheap glorious
speeches, - Yurka was heating up more and more, that however didn't keep him
from pouring out Vodka and opening sardines cans.
     - Alright, Yurok, stop  it.  Let's drink  up and later  on the meeting,
we'll bonk the  asskisser. Don't worry too  much. Whatever  they cook up, we
are the ones who will be carrying it  out.  With the present air support and
artillery back up, we're stuffed anyway. He can go and  screw himself. OK, -
I lifted the glass  to  my eye level and looked at the colours play, - let's
go, to us, the good guys, and death to the morons.
     - Yeah right, start holding your  breath, -  Yurka  just wouldn't  cool
down  and, it  seemed,  was boiling even more. -  Fight them  all  you  want
they'll win anyway. It  looks like  they  are intentionally working  for the
Chechens, to kill as many our men as possible.
     - OK, Yura,  stop  yelling,  we  have  to think of the  way to  get the
wounded  out  of here. They won't give us a break until we  step out anyway.
And  during the assault  we'll  take in more casualties for sure, now you do
the maths. If you ask  me,  tomorrow morning we have to fetch the recon guys
from the third battalion with whatever they still have that we can  ride on,