And the dawns here are quiet
And eternal battle. Rest only in our dreams.
It doesn’t work without a scarf...
- And you send non-drinkers. Non-drinkers, and as for the female sex... - Eunuchs or what?
Shake yourself out at the disposal of headquarters!
And for you, Vaskov, I will send people who turn up their noses at moonshine and skirts more vividly than you.
— The anti-aircraft gunners, by the way, lived in huts. - So they are anti-aircraft gunners, and we are anti-aircraft gunners.
- By the way, worry about the premises. - Which room? — There are no bushes nearby.
Female military personnel are allowed to dry laundry on all fronts. Precisely for camouflage purposes.
- Otherwise, you’ve dug in here, and you’re still in command. - Who is this dug in? Was he the one who dug in? Yes, you can still count from it, there are sixteen fragments that have not been removed. Just look at his chest - cleaner than yours. More shine. Dig in!
- Why are they hitting two at once - fools. It was necessary to aim at one, at one! - Points! The girls are fighting, and you, like a cockroach, hid in a hole - a hero. You go there, to them. Why is the middle of the women splayed out? - Shut up! In war, everyone has their place.
- Hit! Got it! That's it, girls, that's it! “That’s when my work began.” - Where? - We'll take him alive.
“And at the end of the fourth grade, the bear broke my father.” -What does the bear have to do with it? - I'm the eldest. There are seven mouths around me. I had to finish my education. And they all probably have ten classes. From ten four, it will be six. It turns out that I am further behind them than I am myself. I can’t go with them, Comrade Major, send me to the front line.
- Why did you refuse the reward? — I have my own personal account.
- No, really, girls, why isn’t the commandant a man? It must be drawn by lot. “Come on, there’s a mossy stump wandering around the village, he has twenty words in stock, and even those are from the charter.” Not serious.
By the way, Comrade Senior Sergeant, I am very nervous. And I have nothing to lose!
We lived at the cordon completely alone. My father was a forester. My mother always told me: “Believe, daughter, believe. Maybe it will come tomorrow, happiness will not bypass you.”
- What, boring? - Boring. “You shouldn’t do stupid things even out of boredom.”
Believe me, Lisa, definitely believe me. Maybe it’s true that happiness is walking nearby... And it will come to you tomorrow. There is just no way back to it.
(Poems) Pass the dangerous years! They are waiting for you everywhere, but if you come out safe, then you will finally believe a miracle. And finally, you will see that happiness was not needed, that this pipe dream was not enough for half your life. That the creative cup of delight has overflowed. That everything is no longer mine, but ours, And the connection with the world has been established, - And only with a tender smile Sometimes you will remember About that childhood dream, about the unsteady one, That you used to call happiness!
- Oh, Zhenya, you are a mermaid! “Your skin is transparent, you could even sculpt it.” - Beautiful. - Pack such a figure in uniform!
In a soldier's life, a bath is the first pleasure.
— Good underwear is my weakness. “If you put on this weakness, I’ll give you an outfit out of turn.”
- Well, let's have a ball! - Let's. - Why such joy? - And not out of joy - just out of spite!
- Yes, right now there’s at least some guy lying around... - No, ladies, but tomorrow I’ll still pin the commandant in a dark place. - Yes, if she presses, all that will be left of him is a mustache. - Enough nonsense chatter. If I hear again, let it sit for a long time. - There’s no point, Ritul, let them chatter to themselves. - Let them fall in love - I won’t say a word. And so, licking in the corners - I don’t understand.
(Song) He told me: “Be you mine, And I will begin to live, burning with passion.” The charm of a smile, the bliss in the gaze They promise me the joys of paradise. He spoke so to a poor heart, He spoke so to a poor heart, But he did not love, no, he did not love, No, he did not love me!
- You know, Comrade Sergeant Major, there are questions that a woman is not obliged to answer. - No, there are no women here. There are fighters and there are commanders. The war is on. And until it ends, we will all walk in the neuter gender. “That’s why your bed is still open, Comrade Sergeant Major.” - It seemed to me... - You need to be baptized if you think so!
It’s good that there weren’t any wood lice. Everyone clean their weapons and do it conscientiously!
- If an enemy is detected and something incomprehensible is detected, who can scream like an animal or like a bird? - Bow-wow! - I ask you seriously! You can't give a signal with your voice in the forest. The German also has ears. - I can. - On what? - In the donkey way: “Eeyore.” — There are no donkeys here. Okay, let's learn to quack like ducks.
Eh, women, women. For a peasant, war is like a hare’s smoke, but for you...
- What's happened? “If something had happened, then the archangels would have met you in the next world.”
There’s a quagmire here left and right—you won’t have time to call your mother.
- Is it deep there? - In some places... In general, this is the same... It will be up to your waist.
-Are there any leeches here? “There’s no one here, it’s a disastrous place, dead.”
I'm wet to the very... In general, it will be up to your waist.
- Aren't you cold? “There’s no one to warm me up anyway.” - You're about to start making steam.
- Well, Komelkova, are you warmed up? — The couple is not visible yet.
— A monk lived here, looking for silence. — There is enough silence here.
And eternal battle. Rest only in our dreams. The steppe mare flies and crushes the feather grass through the blood and dust.
It’s good to fight a German from afar. While you are twisting your carabiners, he will make a sieve out of you.
“There’s no need for me to add pieces.” Turn it up like a fighter should. - I'm making it up. “I see, she’s as thin as a spring rook.” My legs don't hold up. - My constitution is like this. - The Constitution... Over there, Brichkina has the same constitution as everyone else, but everything is with everything. There is something nice to look at.
But somehow I didn’t think about the fact that they are people too.
(Poems) Those born in the deaf years do not remember their own paths. We, children of the terrible years of Russia, are unable to forget anything. Sizzling years! Is there madness in you, is there hope? From the days of war, from the days of freedom - There is a bloody reflection in the faces.
- Don't sit on the rocks. They will cool down soon, they will begin to draw warmth out of you, lay down your overcoat. - Okay, Comrade Sergeant Major, thank you. - Still, don’t read it out loud. In the evening the air here is damp and dense, and the dawns here are quiet. And that’s why you can hear it for five miles.
- So, will you take it or dilute it? - What is this? - Potion. - Potion? Alcohol. - Alcohol. - But I won’t. - Drink! - I won’t. - Drink, no talking. I order you to drink... Drink! - Oh, mommy! - Don't breathe. Those who survive the war will have a mother. - Oh, my head is running. - It’s okay, you’ll catch up tomorrow.
Breathe more cheerfully.
In the world, even death is red.
They transgressed human laws and thereby found themselves outside all laws.
Here you have to get used to it—you have to harden your soul.
And most importantly, she could give birth to children, and they would have grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And the thread wouldn’t break... And they cut at this thread with a knife.
We're not playing tchotchkes. We need to think about the living. In war there is only this law. I order you to put on your boots.
Thank you, junior sergeant, for the second you gave me. In that second before the gravestone you are supposed to drink vodka.
As for cowardice, there was none. Cowardice, girls, is only visible in the second battle, but this is confusion, simply from inexperience. Right, fighter Chetvertak? I order you to wipe away your tears and snot.
War is not just about who will shoot whom, war is about who will change someone’s mind.
What does the charter say? After all, a commander is not only a military leader, he is also obliged to be an educator.
They are animals with two arms, two legs, fierce animals - fascists, in one word.
These are not Cossack robbers, this is war.
What kind of comrade sergeant am I to you now, sisters. I’m kind of like your brother, so call me Fedot or just Fedya, as my mother called me. My little name is not round, but it is what it is.
A grenade without a fuse is a piece of iron. Cobblestone is worth more.
I order all the soldiers and myself personally to hold the front! To hold, even when there is no strength, still to hold. There is no land for the Germans on this side. Because we have Russia behind us, the Motherland, to put it simply.
B. Vasilev. “And the dawns here are quiet.” Retelling + quotes from their text. Chapters 4-6.
Chapter 4.
Vaskov decided to lead the group to Bittern Lake, he was sure that the Germans did not know the road to it (he himself discovered it back in Finnish). This way the fighters had to get ahead of the Germans.
On the way, Vaskov got into conversation with Sonya Gurvich and learned that before the war their family lived in Minsk. She was in Moscow, preparing to go to college. Sonya knew nothing about the fate of her relatives, but she hoped that they “ Maybe they managed to leave...”
The sergeant decided to check how attentive his soldiers were. According to the agreed sound - a crack - he collected them and asked what they saw unusual. Rita noticed a broken branch, and Lisa noticed dew knocked off a bush. The foreman was pleased, and he himself noticed traces of German boots.
Ahead is a swamp. The path was dangerous. “ Leaning with all their weight on the poles, the girls could hardly stretch their legs out of the sucking cold swamp.”
We crossed the swamp with difficulty. Galya Chetvertak lost her boot in it.
“Even though they are female, they are young and have some strength, but they are there. If only they wouldn’t get sick: the water is ice...” thought Vaskov .
We rested, washed, washed, ate and moved on. Gale Vaskov built a “chunya”: “I wrapped a spare footcloth around the top of two woolen socks (his handicraft and a gift from the hostess) and made a box for the foot from fresh birch bark.”
By evening we reached the desired place, chose places for positions, and began to wait for the Germans.
Chapter 5.
The author talks about Vaskov.
Since childhood, Fedot felt like the eldest; from the age of 14, “he was the only man left in the family - the breadwinner, the water provider, and the earner.”
“In the summer I was a peasant, in the winter I killed animals,” then there was military service. And in the army he was a sergeant-major, also a senior. “... and he looked at the girls he had to command as if from another generation.”
Vaskov was pleased that they had chosen a good position. Since, according to calculations, the Germans would have to wait another 3-4 hours, Vaskov allowed him to prepare dinner. It was important that there be a fire without smoke, he taught the girls how to do it, what kind of dead wood to collect. After dinner - formation.
Vaskov clearly formulated the task: to prevent the two Germans from reaching the Kirov Railway and the White Sea-Baltic Canal named after Comrade Stalin. It is advisable to take one German prisoner. He appointed Osyanina as his deputy, and if she fails, Sofya Gurvich. He further instructed how to conduct during the battle, how to listen to his orders.
While waiting for the Germans, Vaskov did not notice how he fell asleep. And he had a dream. “And I saw Mama: nimble, little, who had been sleeping for many years in fits and starts, in some pieces, as if stealing them from her peasant life.”
Suddenly Osyanina woke him up: Germans! She was joking.
Vaskov began to bypass the positions. I talked with Zhenya, she asked about the family, Vaskov deceived him, said that he was married, that his wife was waiting for him at home, but the child died.
Sonya Gurvich read poetry:
Those born in the year are deaf
They don’t remember their own paths.
We are children of the terrible years of Russia -
I can't forget anything.
Vaskov carefully asked her not to sit on the cold stones. He also asked her not to read out loud: “In the evening the air here is damp and thick, and the dawns here are quiet, and therefore can be heard as far as five miles away.”
Then Vaskov approached Brichkina and smiled: how thoroughly she had settled down. After talking, he learned that Lisa was the daughter of a forester. She helped her father and worked on the collective farm. Vaskov remembered a song about Lisa, the girl also wanted to sing another one, but Vaskov said that they would sing after the task.
Next, Vaskov approached Gala Chetvertak , but she was all hot and sick (“Here it is, the boot lost by a soldier...”) The foreman forced Galya to drink some alcohol and covered her with his overcoat.
Vaskov began to worry that the Germans still did not appear, and if they did not appear here at all, suddenly he was mistaken. Suddenly they will not be able to carry out the orders of their superiors. But then I calmed myself and Osyanina down and realized that the Germans had also decided to rest at night - it was hard for them to walk behind enemy lines, “through unfamiliar terrain. Yes, scared of every bush.”
Early in the morning, from the cry of birds, Vaskov realized that the Germans were coming. Everyone was waiting.
“That mysterious moment has come when one event turns into another, when cause gives way to effect, when chance is born. In ordinary life, a person never notices it, but in war, where nerves are strained to the limit, where the primitive meaning of existence again comes to the fore at the first moment of life - to survive - this minute becomes real, physically tangible and long to infinity.”
It turned out that there were 16 saboteurs!
Chapter 6.
The chapter begins with the author’s reasoning that Vaskov always carried out orders “quickly and with pleasure, because it was in this punctual execution of someone else’s will that he saw the meaning of his own existence,” and his superiors valued him for his diligence. “He was a transmission gear of a huge, carefully adjusted mechanism: he spun and spun others, not caring where this rotation began, where it was directed and how it ended.”
Vaskov had to urgently report that the situation had changed, that they needed help. He sent Lisa Brichkin to report on the stop and the need for reinforcements. He reminded her of the road in detail, especially asking her to be careful in the swamp . (“You will report the situation to Kiryanova. We will circle the Fritz here a little, but we won’t hold out for long, you understand.”).
“The saboteurs were very close - you can see their faces.”
He gathered the girls and told them about the situation: “So there are sixteen of them. “The foreman tried to speak calmly and therefore felt every word. – Sixteen machine guns is strength. You can't stop someone like that head-on. And it’s also impossible not to stop.”
Help will arrive only at night, but they cannot “get involved” in the battle yet. (“...we can’t hold out. We can’t hold out in any position, because they have sixteen machine guns.”) There is only one thing left - to force the Germans to go around Lake Legontovo in order to stall for time and wait for their own. But how to do that?
Vaskov tried to be calm and did not show his excitement to the girls. He made everyone eat, he even shaved himself, but he kept thinking: what to do. He understood that the Germans were afraid that they would not be discovered. Therefore, it is necessary that “they saw him (the enemy) , but he didn’t seem to notice them.”)
Then the girls suggested that they play the role of lumberjacks. “...you never know how many souls there are in the woods, where they are, what kind of connection they have...”)
Vaskov ordered to light fires, talk loudly, call to each other.
“They shouted, felled trees, shouted, lit fires. The foreman also sometimes shouted so that the man’s voice could be heard, but more often, hiding, he sat in the willow tree, vigilantly peering into the bushes on the other side.”
“- Raya, Vera, go swim!.. - Zhenya shouted loudly and went straight to the water, breaking the bushes.”
And Zhenya sang:
Apple and pear trees bloomed,
Fogs floated over the river...
“Oh, she was good just now, it’s a miracle how good she was! Tall, white-bodied, flexible - ten meters from the machine guns. She stopped the song, stepped into the water and, screaming, began splashing noisily and merrily. The spray sparkled in the sun, rolling down the elastic, warm body..."
When Zhenya came ashore and sat down on a stone, Vaskov saw “that she was smiling, and her eyes, wide open, were filled with horror, as if with tears. And this horror is alive and heavy, like mercury.”
“Then they laughed. Then, when they found out that the Germans had left. They laughed at the hoarse Osyanina, at Gurvich for burning her skirt, at the grimy Chetvertak, at Zhenya, how she deceived the Fritz, at him, Sergeant Major Vaskov. They laughed until they cried, until they were exhausted..."
All we have to do is wait for Liza Brichkina to reach her people and for help to arrive. They even drank for this: “Let’s drink, girls, to her fast legs and to your bright heads!..”
And the foreman thought, “The worst is behind us...”.
