p General Kozlov said goodbye to us and went off to one of his units in order to watch the offensive on the spot. We wished him luck, but even without our wishes it seemed pretty certain that luck would not turn against this peasant-general, a prudent, experienced man who had the shrewdness of a peasant and the doggedness of a soldier.

p I came out of the dugout. Our preparatory bombardment was to start in fifteen minutes. I was introduced to Second Lt. Naumov who had just come from the frontline. He’d had to crawl under enemy fire for half a kilometre or so, and his sleeves, chest and knees were stained with the bright green of crushed grass. He had brushed off the road dust, however, and 54 stood before me—a calm, smiling young officer with a smart military bearing. He was 27 years old, and until two years ago he was a schoolteacher. He’s been in the fighting from the very first days of war. His face was round, the cheeks covered with a young, golden fuzz, his grey eyes were kind, and his eyebrows had become faded in the sun. A sweet, shy smile was on his lips all the time. I found myself thinking that this young, modest teacher must have been very popular with his pupils, and that probably he was now as popular with the men to whom he explained their war tasks with the same thoroughness and patience with which he once explained arithmetic problems to his pupils. I noticed with astonishment that there was plenty of grey in his cropped fair hair where it showed under his helmet. I asked him if the war was responsible for this premature grey, and he replied with a smile that he was already grey when he joined up and that no shocks could affect the colour of his hair now.

p We sat down on the earthen bank of the dugout for a chat, but the conversation flagged. My interlocutor did not like to talk about himself, and he only livened up when I asked him about his comrades. He spoke with admiration of his friend Lt. Anashkin who was killed in recent battle. Every now and again he broke off his story to listen to our guns and the bursts of German shells somewhere behind the territory of the staff. When I tried to bring the conversation round to himself, he grimaced and said reluctantly:

p “Actually, there’s nothing to tell. Our antitank battery is doing a good job. We’ve crippled a lot of German tanks. I do what everybody does, but Anashkin—that was really something! Near the village of Luchki we went into attack in the middle of the night, and at daybreak we discovered that we had five German tanks against us. Four were running about the field, and the fifth had no more fuel and stood still. We opened fire and got all five. The Germans were firing their mortar guns, and we just could not get at their weapon emplacements. Our infantry dropped flat, and then Anashkin and Shkalev, our scout, crept to one of the German tanks and climbed in. Anashkin took a look round and saw the German mortar battery. The gun on the tank was in order, a 76mm gun it was, and there were enough shells. He trained this German gun on the Germans, smashed their mortar battery, and then started on their infantry. Anashkin was killed together with the whole crew when they were moving their gun to a new firing position.”

p Naumov’s grey eyes darkened, and his lips twitched slightly. The second time I saw his face change was when I thoughtlessly asked him if he often got letters from home. Once again his eyes darkened, and his lips twitched.

p “I wrote my wife six letters in the last three weeks, and never got an answer,” he said and, smiling shyly, asked: “When you’re back in Moscow would you please get in touch with my wife and tell her that I’m all right and also give her my new address? You see, our unit has changed its postal number, so maybe that’s why I haven’t been getting her letters.”

p I gladly agreed to carry out his request. Soon our conversation was cut short because our preparatory bombardment had begun. The earth shook from the barrage, and the single shots and salvoes merged into a deafening, continuous roar. The Germans intensified their return fire, and the bursts of their heavy shells sounded nearer and nearer. We went down into the dugout, but came up again in a matter of minutes. The sappers, I was amazed to see, had not suspended work on the dugout they were building. One of them, a middle-aged man with ginger whiskers that stuck out like a tomcat’s, was matterof-factly examining the huge pine that had just been felled, rapping the trunk with his axe, while the others were busy with their shovels and picks and the heap of bright yellow clay on which they threw the earth they dug up grew into a regular mountain right before our eyes.

p One of the officers said to me, indicating with a nod a soldier who lay on the grass not far away: “Would you like to have a talk with one of our best scouts? He’s been behind enemy lines, he only came back this morning and brought some very important information.”

p I said I’d be delighted, and the officer yelled in order to be heard above the roar of the cannonade: “Comrade Belov!”

p The man sprang to his feet in a quick, smooth movement, and came towards us, pulling his tunic straight as he walked.

p Suddenly there was silence. The officer glanced at his watch, sighed and said: “Our men have gone into attack now.”

p There was something feline in Belov’s gliding walk. I noticed that not a twig cracked under his feet, and yet the ground was cluttered with pine branches and twigs. He seemed to be walking on sand for all the noise his footfall made. It was much later when I learnt that he hailed from one of the villages near Murom—a country of impenetrable forests—that I understood how he got the hunter’s knack of walking on soft, noiseless feet not to scare off game.

p The same thing happened as in the conversation I had with Second Lt. Naumov. This man, too, was reluctant to talk about himself, yet eagerly praised his comrades. Modesty, I discovered, is an essential quality of all heroes, fearlessly fighting for their Motherland.

p Belov studied me closely with his sharp brown eyes for quite a long moment.

p “It’s the first time I’m seeing a writer in the flesh,” he said with a grin. “I”ve read your books, I’ve seen portraits of different writers, but I’ve never seen a live writer before.”

p As curiously I studied this exceptionally brave and resourceful man who had been behind enemy lines sixteen times and who risked his life every day. He was also the first scout I had ever met.

p He was slightly round-shouldered and had long arms. He smiled rarely, but when he did his whole face lit up like a child’s, and one could see his white teeth, set fairly wide apart. His chocolate-coloured eyes were perpetually screwed up. Like a night bird he seemed to fear daylight and screened his eyes with his thick eyelashes. I had a feeling he could see perfectly in the dark. I found myself staring at the palms of his hands: they were completely covered with fresh and healed abrasions. I guessed that he got his hands skinned because he so often had to crawl on the ground. His shirt and trousers were stained with green, but his natural camouflage was so good that if he were to lie prone on autumn faded green grass you would not see him five feet away. He took his time telling his story, and as he talked he kept biting at a blade of grass with his strong teeth.

p “I was a machine-gunner at first. Our platoon was cut off by the Germans. They were everywhere, wherever we tried to go. A friend of mine, another gunner, offered to go and scout. I went with him. We crawled to the motor road and lay low near a bridge. We lay there for a long time. We counted the German lorries that passed us, and wrote down what cargo they carried. Then a passenger car came along and stopped near the bridge. A German officer climbed out, a tall chap in a tall cap. He got the field telephone, climbed under his car, and lay there talking into the phone. He had two soldiers keeping watch, and there was the driver at the wheel of the car. My friend—a devil of a fellow—winked at me and got out a hand grenade. I did the same. We rose on our elbows and both threw at the same time. We killed all the four Germans and wrecked the car. We rushed to the dead men, pulled the map 57 case off the officer’s shoulder, took out a map with some sort of signs on it, collected some of their weapons, and just then we heard a motorbike. We dropped into the ditch again. The moment the German on that motorbike slowed down near the wrecked car we threw a third grenade. It killed the German, the motorbike turned over twice and the engine was silenced. I ran to the motorbike—it was as good as new. My friend was a heroic fellow but he didn’t know how to drive a motorbike. I didn’t either, but it was a pity leaving it there. So we wheeled it along,” Belov grinned at the memory. “My arms were all numb as I wheeled that damned thing through the forest, but we brought it to our people safely anyway. We broke out of encirclement the next day, and took the motorbike along. Our signaller rides it now, and does he send the dust flying! I thought scouting was great fun, and so I asked my company commander to transfer me to the scouts. I’ve been over to visit the Germans lots of times. Sometimes you walk, sometimes you crawl on your belly, and there are also times when you hug the ground and lie there without stirring for several hours running. It’s all in the day’s work for us. We mostly go out in the night to try and nose out where the Germans have their ammunition stores, radio stations, airfields, and other such stuff.”

p I asked him to tell me about his last visit to the Germans.

p “There’s nothing interesting to tell, Comrade writer,” he said. “A whole platoon of us went the day before yesterday. We crawled over some German trenches, and quietly knifed one German so he couldn’t raise an alarm. After that we walked for a long time through the forest. Our orders were to blow up a bridge which the Germans had just built. That was about forty kilometres into enemy country. We had some other things to find out besides. We covered about eighteen kilometres that night, and then my platoon commander sent me back with a message. I went along a narrow path, and suddenly I saw the fresh imprints of a horse’s hooves. I took a close look and saw that they were German horseshoes, not ours. Next I saw footprints: four men must have walked behind that horse. One of them had a limp in his right leg. The prints were recent. I caught up with the Germans, followed them for a long time, and then made a detour around them and continued on my own way. I could have shot them all, but I had no right to get into a fight, I had that envelope on me and couldn’t risk losing that. I waited for nightfall quite near the German trenches, and was over on our side before morning. That’s all.”

p He fell silent. With his eyes wrinkled up against the light he sat deep in thought, twirling a dry blade of grass in his fingers, and then, speaking as though in answer to his own thoughts, said:

p “What I think, Comrade writer, is that we’ll beat the Germans. It takes a lot to make our people angry, they’re not really angry yet, but once they get properly angry, it’ll be all up with the Germans. We’ll squash them, that’s for sure.”

p As we walked to the car, we caught up with a wounded soldier. He was shuffling to the ambulance, swaying drunkenly every few steps. His head was bandaged, but the blood seeped through the dressing. There were trickles of dried blood on the lapels and skirts of his greatcoat, and even on his boots. There was blood on his hands and his sleeves up to the elbow, and his face had that peculiar chalky transparency which means a large loss of blood.

p We wanted to help him to the ambulance, but he declined and said he’d get there himself. He told us he had been wounded an hour ago. His head was bandaged down to the eyes, and he had to raise it high in order to see who he was talking to.

p “A shell splinter wounded me. My helmet saved me, else my head would have been blown to bits,” he said in a low voice and even attempted to smile with his blue, bloodless lips. “That splinter pierced the helmet, I clutched my head with my hands, and the blood came pouring.” He peered at his hands, and dropped his voice even lower: “I gave my rifle, my cartridges and two hand grenades to a friend, and crawled to the casualty station.” Suddenly he turned his face to the west whence came the noise of shell bursts and the rattle of machinegun fire, and said in a strong, loud and firm voice: “I”ll come back. They’ll fix me up a bit, and I’ll come back to my company. I’ve an account to square with the Germans.”

p His head was raised high, his eyes glinted from under the bandage, and his simple words sounded as a solemn oath.

p We entered the forest. There were auburn leaves on the ground—the first sign of approaching autumn. These leaves looked like bloodstains, like wounds on the body of my Motherland, desecrated by the German invaders.

p “What remarkable people there are in the Red Army!" one of my companions said in a low voice. “Take Major Voitsekhovsky who died like a hero a short while ago. He was in the attic of one of the buildings not far from here, correcting the fire of our guns. Sixteen German tanks tore into the village 59 and stopped near this building. Without a moment’s hesitation he picked up his telephone and ordered the gunners: ’Aim at me, quick. German tanks here.’ He insistently repeated his order. All the sixteen tanks were destroyed, the threat to our defence was averted.”

p We walked on in silence. Each one was busy with his own thoughts, but all of us emerged from that forest feeling confident that whatever the trials that might beset our country, it was unconquerable. It was unconquerable because millions of ordinary, modest and courageous people had stood up in its defence, and they would not spare their blood nor even life itself in the struggle against the brown-shirted enemy.

1941