Two days in December and four minutes in April (start)
A little fantasy inspired by a discussion about the textbook stories, 40-degree frosts, hysteria Americans over breach of contract and other events.
Vigorously opening the canopy, the occupant of the 120 Cavalry Brigade, John Abraham entered the commander's tent and, stretched out to his chord, rapped out:
- I have important information, sir, allow me to report?
The thick steam clubs that burst from the 40-degree frost into a warm tent have not yet been scattered, but through them Abraham heard the voice of the commander:
- What the hell, John, I also forbade moving around the tents without an order, why didn’t they use the general connection?
Continuing to portray the telegraph pole, Abraham blurted out his sharp, jerky phrases as a queue from a heavy machine gun:
- I do not want, sir, to make the information available. Since the last transport, sir, 3 weeks have passed, the fuel supply for heating the tents is a maximum of two days, provided that the kitchen can be transferred to firewood At your order, sir, the fuel has been drained from all the cars, the rations have again been reduced by half, no less fuel is running out, if such a temperature lasts a few more days - we are finished. Only spare parts are in stock, weapon and ammunition, even a stock of clothes, I ordered to give the soldiers. Roads are swept, movement in our area is impossible.
- Do not say nonsense, John, we are soldiers and must fulfill an order in any weather. Besides, everyone knows this anyway.
- It's not all bad newssir
- What else?
- Food is enough for 2 of the day, reducing rations below 2000 kilocalories in our situation is suicide. In the infirmary, the 56 people are already frostbitten; after the sentries people go straight to the infirmary. 26 people died from hypothermia. The temperature in the tents 46 degrees (+ 8 C), the soldiers have not removed their clothes for three weeks.
“What are you going to do, John?”
- I issued a reserve gas generator from the warehouse, a welding machine and sent five soldiers to the oil boosters to try to start one of them and extract oil for heating, at the same time they should cut off the armor plates from the wounded Russian armored personnel carrier and try to cook the stove for the kitchen. Another 10 person is currently chopping wood for a fire.
- What kind of fire? What is welding? John, you are crazy !! You do not know that we were left without air support and the Russians are doing what they want in the sky, thank God that they have not so many planes left. BTR Russian welded aluminum, do you have argon welding? Return everyone immediately !!
- Sir, this is our only chance!
- You personally answer if anything happens. Free !!
Abraham dashed to the exit.
- No, come back! What do these slackers at headquarters say? I'm sure there in Bugulma, they have warm, hot water, clean sheets.
“I don’t know, sir, but they say that the transport to us will not pass through such snow, that almost all the snow removal equipment was destroyed by the Russians, the rest are working to ensure the attack on Sarapul. There is a terrible meat grinder.
- You are free!
- Yes, sir!
After two months of continuous fighting near Ufa, Colonel Wright’s brigade, being very battered, especially after tank Russian attacks near Neftekamsk, finally lost its mobility, lost 80% of its personnel and almost all its equipment, was sent to guard the oil-bearing area at the confluence of the Belaya and Kama rivers with a center in the village of Arlan. Prior to the arrival of reinforcements and reorganization into a full-fledged brigade, Wright was ordered to protect the desert lands with rocking horses sticking out here and there. The location of the burned base of oil products was chosen as the location. Arlan himself and Neftekamsk were so destroyed that even the crows did not fly there.
The colonel sat down at the table, took out a cigar, lit it, took out a communication headset from his pocket and typed in the call sign of the headquarters. They didn’t answer him right away, no less than 2 minutes passed, as the voice of a junior communications officer was heard in the earpiece:
- I'm listening to you, sir.
“Connect me, son, with General Hollyfeld, this is Colonel Wright.”
“I can't, sir, the general is sleeping, he has been on his feet for three days, we were strictly forbidden to bother him.”
- What is happening with you, why were we left without supplies? We will last no more than two days, after that there will be nothing to ensure the protection of the oil-bearing area in Arlan, my entire brigade will become extinct from cold and hunger!
- Sir, we also have no supplies for three weeks, our group suffered tremendous losses during the assault of Sarapul, the city is still in our hands partially and it cannot be said that we took it. The main forces of the Russians entrenched themselves on the northern outskirts and are bombarding our positions from the heights, there are assault detachments in the city that cannot be coped with, every morning the sweeps start again and again. According to the plan, we should have taken Sarapul a month ago, here a large state reserve warehouse is available from the Russians, but they seem to have managed to withdraw it, now their main forces are concentrated at the height of the military unit abandoned for 100 years ago, but the height is located so that they control the road to Izhevsk, the second road to the north to Votkinsk is also blocked by the Russians - in the prison area. The master plan for the attack on the weapons forges of Votkinsk and Izhevsk on the verge of failure, General Hollifeld has already received a warning from the committee of the headquarters commanders about the inadmissibility of delaying the offensive deadlines.
- And what about air support? When will we wait for her? Why don't helicopters fly?
“I don't know, sir.” The helicopters ordered by the command are left on the ground, they were relocated near Mendeleevsk, they will not be able to fly in such weather, after the 16 incidents with the loss of cars due to low temperature - an order: do not take off. All airfields in the occupied part of the country are destroyed, it is impossible to restore them due to such weather, weather forecasters promise at least another two weeks of cold weather, after which snowfalls will begin again.
- Where else snow, and so the 1,5 meter already !!
- This is Russia, sir, here it is normal.
- What with the snow blowers, is there really no way to break through the road?
“The snow blowers, sir, there are 4 left, they support the road from the troops to the supply bases, on the right bank of the Kama.” We do not have time to remove the wounded and bring ammunition and replenishment.
- It is clear, but where else did the 12 machines go?
- 7 units were bombed by Russian stormtroopers, 4 blew up saboteurs, one missed the road and drowned in the swamp, until spring it did not reach.
“These Russians know what matters most!” Let me know when the general can talk to me.
The colonel stretched out his hand to the tablet, opened the card. Mozhary, Novonagayevo, Novy Aktanyshbash, Novourazaevo, Shushnur - all the villages were razed to the ground, he saw what was left of them after the November offensive. Of the nearby villages, only Enaktaevo remained, there was a chance that local residents remained there.
- Sergeant Libowski to me! - commanded the colonel and, as it seemed to him, the sergeant had grown out of the ground in front of him before the end of the phrase. - Libowski, were you trained in arctic?
- Yes, sir.
- Can you make 10 pairs of snowshoes up to 15-00?
- Yes, sir. I will need help.
- Take those bastards who are now chopping wood.
- Yes, sir!
Libowski disappeared just as quickly as he had appeared.
Wearing a headset, the colonel summoned the occupant.
“Excuse me for the morning talk, John, but we shouldn’t panic.” Select the 8 people, the most prepared and savvy, provide them with a full-fledged ration and hiking uniforms. I'm going to Enaktaevo for food and fuel.
Abraham backed away, his eyes bulging.
- Sir, but this is a gross violation of the statute! We have no right to leave the area of responsibility and, moreover, we have no right to receive food from the residents of the occupied territories !!
“I know as well as you are tired, John!” And I read the orders no less carefully !! If you can't provide a brigade, I will have to do it myself. By the way, did you manage to get oil and cook the stove?
- No, sir, you were right, the rockers were all disabled, you managed to find about 150 liters of diesel fuel in a padded Russian tank, aluminum really doesn’t boil, but my guys cut several sheets and are now trying to build a furnace from them. Will I make dinner? Sir?
- Yes, and tell me to bring your lunch here too. What about diesel fuel - isn't that a violation of the charter?
- No, sir, these are trophies, I will credit him as a trophy and write off for the needs of the brigade.
“You’ll always get out, John, okay, let them serve lunch.”
Private Ramirez, shivering from the cold, for a long time could not lift the curtain of the tent with one hand and nearly dropped the tray.
After reading the prayer, the colonel took a spoon, broke off the biscuit and slowly began to slurp the broth.
- What are they doing this crap, John?
“Made of corn, sir, and chicken smell.”
- I caught myself thinking that it would be great to fry a thick, huge steak on a barber in my garden and eat it with my hands without a knife and fork under California red with greens.
- Do not poison the soul, sir. I can hardly understand what we are doing here, only Russians can live here, and the last 500 years could be fought with them with one result.
- How?
- The armies entering Russia had a choice of two options: to die or to flee in disgrace.
- Who told you this nonsense, Abraham, do you understand what you are saying?
- I read archival books at the university, literally several months before they were seized and burned. They were forbidden to digitize. There was a lot written about Russian. Reading these books, I firmly believed that you can not fight with them. It didn’t fit in with what we learned in school, what was shown in the movies and what filled cyberspace. Wisdom left our president, he believes that if you burn books that contradict his opinion, then everything that is written in them will disappear along with the paper. Somewhere I have already heard what the ruler ended, first making fires from books, and then attacking Russia.
- Are you talking about Napoleon Buonaparte?
- No, sir, he did not burn the books, I'm talking about Schicklgruber.
- John, if not for us, the Russians would not have won that war, you speak as a leftist propagandist, do you know what happened to them on the eve of the war? They were seated on electric chairs.
- Everything is very similar, sir, but the Russians would have won without our help, maybe a couple of years later, but they would still have won, and our help is politics, they were all very afraid that the Russians would not have time to slow down and skip all of Europe , stop looking around somewhere in London, and even in Reykjavik.
Do you remember what kind of meanness the Gonzalez administration was going to push through the law on advertising, after which all the independent media either went bankrupt or began to repeat, as it was established that war with Russia was inevitable?
- Yes, today I understand why my grandfather said that the fashion for colored presidents would ruin America! And you are a dangerous man, John, with your conversations you can fall into the police dungeons.
- Sir, I appreciate your opinion and I understand that it is your duty to follow the official ideological doctrine, but believe me, in my position, you can tell the truth without fear of consequences. I already have one foot in the grave. In a few days, I would be shot by rebellious soldiers who will have nothing to feed and will have nowhere to warm.
All our equipment and electronics are inedible, and a person remains a person, he must eat, drink, sleep, otherwise he will turn into an animal and will kill his own kind.
- Come on, John, we've been killing our own kind without this for the third month already. Do not pessimism. If I manage to reach the headquarters, I will talk with my classmate from West Point, General Hollifeld, I will try to persuade him to help us.
In 14-58, Sergeant Liebowski reported on the availability of 10 snowshoes.
The colonel put on his polar jumpsuit, checked the weapon, assembled the necessary navigation devices, glasses and went out into the cold. The first sigh on the 40 degree frost caught his breath and the colonel cleared his throat with difficulty. In front of him were 9 fighters led by Libowski.
- We have to go through deep snow at least 10 kilometers and check for food and fuel Enaktaevo. First of all, pay attention to tractors, bulldozers, snow blowers, and secondly, to shops and warehouses.
Libowski, exit through 20 minutes, development of the route and the order of following you, waiting for a report through 15 minutes. Going into the tent, the colonel thought with horror that he would spend at least 10 hours in the cold, on which he could not breathe normally even for 2 minutes.
Libowski appeared before the colonel suddenly. Bravo saluting, he said:
- Sir, the route and order are entered into the tablets, it remains to approve them.
The colonel trusted this warrior. Libowski did not understand subtle matters, but the war was his element, he fought from early youth, and he knew this craft like no other.
On the first halt, after crossing the Shanshu River, they had to leave two fighters who fell into the wormwood, broke snowshoes and soaked their feet. They had no chance to reach them, the colonel ordered to send a rescue team for them from the base. (The fate of these two was unenviable, quickly losing the ability to perceive reality normally from overcooling, they wandered off in different directions, making loops and describing intricate circles. having requested data from the satellite, they managed to find two frozen corpses by the soldier’s personal sensors, but by this time they managed to get exhausted and began to freeze in the wind in an open field.)
The thinning group stopped on the outskirts of Enaktaevo.
Sergeant Libowski literally pounded everyone, but it was the only way to save people from frostbite, already at the first stop the sweeping fighters seriously froze for 20 minutes of rest, so it was impossible to stop for the second time.
The 15 seconds that the imager's battery had had enough power for him turned out to be quite experienced by Liebovsky to locate a house that was warm. The front door lasted exactly two blows, one hand, the other shoulder. The soldiers rushed to the furnace, stuck it all over, trying to press against the life-giving heat with the maximum surface of the body. In the darkness in the corner, some ugly, overgrown beard and long hair creature covered with a quilt began to stir.
- Brigiz mene, ikmak, brigiz mene, ikmak! - the monster muttered and pulled a hand to the colonel.
- What is he saying, Howard? - the colonel addressed to the translator.
- I do not understand, sir, he speaks some Turkic dialect, I can assume that ikmak is bread. Judging by the gestures, he asks for bread.
- Is he a non-Russian? Ask, does he understand Russian?
“Brigiz mene, ikmak,” the creature replied.
- Do not take us by the nose, you're all Russian. If you want to live, answer in Russian.
When the translator finished, the creature subsided for a while, and then in not very clean Russian, it said:
- You speak like skinheads Russian Natsik in 2044 year. Praise be to Allah that the Russians themselves managed to reason and disperse them then, by the way, the same thing awaits you.
The colonel turned on the panoramic lantern and set it on the table. In the corner on the bed, wrapped in a blanket, sat an old man of years 80-ti, not shaved and shaved for a long time.
Despite the untidy look of the owner, the house was clean and there was no musty smell.
Yusuf, in his 82 of the year, managed to prick his life, repent, sit in prison, then start a family and live to old age pious Muslim, 5 once a day performing namaz and setting on the path true young Tatars and Bashkirs who were looking for their vision of the world. Being in the distant 2013 year, the young 17-year-old restless jerk, having heard the Wahhabi sermons and became infected with the idea of a world caliphate, Yusuf first rushed to the Caucasus, where he was identified on the mountain base of training. He didn’t have time to come there, as the general rush job was announced, the base departed for an hour and a half and rushed along mountain serpentines towards Georgia. When the last car wrapped around the first turn from the base, the empty platform was covered with a volley. One of the field commanders had a relative in the Russian headquarters, and he sold information about the time of the raid.
They threw the cars, divided into groups, walked through the mountains for several days, then put them on a plane and landed at a military airfield on the border of Turkey and Syria, near Gaziantep. On the basis of their training in explosives, handling weapons and guerrilla tactics.
In the very first battle in Syria, Yusuf received a contusion, multiple injuries to his hands and feet, and was sent to Russia, where, after treatment in the Kurgan clinic, he was literally put on his feet, having increased 15, see the bones of his right leg. Leaving the hospital, Yusuf went to prison for various misdeeds that accompanied a trip to Syria: illegal possession, intersection, participation, etc. After leaving the prison already a mature man, having seen enough of the abominable relationship between non-free people divided into castes, Yusuf moved into religion, got a family and organized his own farm. On the very first day of the war, Yusuf came to the military enlistment office and asked for several trucks to be sent to the army for the 2000 sheep he kept. Yusuf understood that he would not be able to protect his herd from marauders and just wanting to profit at the expense of others, so it’s better to hand it over to the state, maybe it will be reckoned and he will be able to redeem his grandson from the army in a year when 18 will be fulfilled. The sheep were loaded, but several were missing, who, seeing a crowd of people, fled through a ravine to a summer camp, where there was no highway. Yusuf later caught them and brought them home. During the fall, he ate three of them, leaving two sheep with whom lambs were born. The hand did not rise to cut the sheep that had become snagged, and Yusuf was starving, eating bran and eggs that miraculously survived the two chickens.
“Tell me, officer, is your last name Wright?” - Yusuf turned to the colonel.
The colonel shuddered. Some petty reptile grabbed him with a death grip in the area of the solar plexus from the inside.
- Why are you so rotten? The colonel asked himself, trying to calm down, but the little creature in her stomach squealed in hysterics. - How does this dense old man know my name?
- Do not remember, we did not intersect, your grandfather, I believe, taught me in Turkey. You look so much alike that I wondered if old Wright had risen from the grave.
- My grandfather has never been to Turkey, he was a military man, but he did not go farther than Colorado.
- And it does not matter! Give some bread.
- Libowski, give him a biscuit and send soldiers to check the village.
“Already gone, sir.” The village is almost completely abandoned, on the opposite edge there is a house where the stove is fired. All other buildings are destroyed, non-residential, vegetable stocks are frozen, there are no animals.
“Check out this house and see what's in the barn here,” the colonel ordered.
From the gadgets of the general connection, there was a swearing of soldiers who moved through the ruins of houses. When he reached the second apartment building, Private Konihito looked in at the door and a shot from the old shotgun sounded immediately. The lead bullet of the 12 caliber did not penetrate the helmet, but Konihito’s head threw back on his back, then on his chest from a huge impulse, after which the rank and file fell on the floor and subsided, looking back at him over the shoulder. The privates who followed him jumped into shelters and opened hurricane fire from all trunks, and after the second return shot, Libowski threw a grenade launcher from his back and smashed the house into pieces. The fire from the explosion was much more powerful, it exploded barrels and gas canisters, which were stored in the barn near the house. In total, Rashida-Apa had about a ton of gasoline, diesel fuel and a full cellar of vegetables, which she collected in the autumn in the cellars of destroyed and abandoned houses. If someone returned from the forest, Rashida planned to settle them in her home, but when she saw people with weapons, she took them for thugs who tried to rob her several times, therefore, without hesitation, she shot from the double barrel left of her husband.
“You shouldn't have killed Apu, we didn't even get along with her, she was baptized, she had a lot of food and gasoline,” said Yusuf, looking bitterly at how awkwardly they carve his sheep carcasses right in his house.
Orphaned lambs ran under their feet and called mothers. Layers already cooked in the oven. Having eaten chickens, after drinking broth, the soldiers laid out the meat in backpacks, packed everything they could find and headed back. They carried Private Konihito out of the village, and hung him up at a height of 2 meters in a rope cradle so that when they returned, pick him up and send him home, as the charter prescribed. Much cheering after the meal at Yusuf, the soldiers quickly reached the first halt by the river, but there they were in for an unpleasant surprise. On the approach they were fired by a long line - judging by the sound of an American rifle. The shooter in a hysterical voice shouted curses to the commanders, the Russians, the US president, the fat cats on Wall Street, the winter, the cold, and everything that came to mind. Coming from warm Mexico, Private Ramirez was behind the group and could not stand alone in this cold and frightening darkness with a howling wind. Ramirez swiftly threw the shop and opened fire again, swinging his rifle like a hose during a party pouring water over it. After the 2 store, the colonel whispered to Libowski, who was lying next to him:
- Calm him, and then he will do things.
For a second, Liebovsky raised himself out of a snowdrift and shot Ramirez's hand in one shot. He fell into the snow and fell silent. He died from fear, from cold, from hopelessness and from painful shock. Having marked on the map the place where they left Ramirez, the group moved on.
“Great, Colonel, this is enough for one more meal,” said the quartermaster, looking at lean, lean lamb, “and if I prepare the dish not according to the instructions,” rubbing his hands literally purred Abraham.
- Go ahead, John, refer to me.
Dead, tired Colonel fell into a tent and without undressing fell on the bed in an attempt to ward off dark thoughts and fall asleep at least for several hours.
It was at that moment that he received a call from headquarters.
- Well, Henry, I, of course, will help you, wait tomorrow for the plane from Gyumri, nowhere closer, turn on the beacon on the frequency of distress, you will drop supplies and fuel, besides this, there will be a pair of snowmobiles and camping equipment. - The general wished good luck and did not listen to thanks, put the phone down.
The colonel fell asleep as a baby and nothing could darken his happy dream.
Yusuf took off the skin of sheep's heads, thrown in the corner, gathered edible giblets and set to cook the stew in the oven. His stomach gurgled happily, anticipating a meal, for almost a month he had not eaten his fill, if he had eaten anything at all. Yusuf himself was gloomy and focused. He understood that now he was doomed to starvation. Having written some meaningless phrases of gratitude to everyone I knew, especially Mulla Ise, pointing out the places where he and Rashida buried the villagers and two Russian soldiers, sealed the bottle with wax and hung it on a tree in the backyard. On the way back, he dug a pile of firewood from under the snow, scattered it and pulled out MANPADS, a machine gun and two grenades, which he picked up during the battles.
In late autumn, serious battles took place near Neftekamsk. The coalition was supposed to push the Russians away from the crossing of the Kama in Naberezhnye Chelny to the north to the Sholinsky forests, not allowing them to cross to the right bank of the Kama. In part, they succeeded, but most of the troops and the population managed to cross the bridge in Kambarka, after which it was blown up. On the left bank there were only parts that provided cover.
They did not have time to prepare the defense of Neftekamsk, the remnants of the 136-th tank regiment, coming from under Ufa, stopped at Enaktaevo. They were given the task of striking the flank on the road from Dyurtyuli to Neftekamsk. It was impossible to mask the tanks on a bald area like a bride’s knee, and the tankers hid in barns and stables. They were discovered by the coalition intelligence drone, and three pairs of helicopters flew from the base near Mendeleevsk. By this time, not far from the house of Yusuf, the UAZ stopped, from which two soldiers jumped out. One was long and thin, he carried a MANPADS pipe, the other on the contrary, a tight little man, with a pack of ammunition hanging on his back. UAZ immediately left and wagged over the freezing field in the direction of the forest belt.
“A straw and a bubble, defenders,” thought Yusuf with a snide.
Having run into the dilapidated building of the boiler room, the soldiers quickly loaded MANPADS, a thick peer into the horizon through binoculars. The pinwheels appeared unexpectedly from behind, they turned on the combat course for the attack. Thin threw up the pipe and, slightly releasing the turntable, pressed the trigger. The host's car jerked, spun in the rhythm of the waltz, after which, scattering debris of blades, tail, clods of earth, spun, going to the lower break, finally for some instant the helicopter stump stopped in a rack on the tail debris and fell, igniting. On the other side of the village another missile fell and hit a second car. The rest, releasing thermal grenades, rushed into the loose, but after a minute they again lined up in battle order and went to attack. Their fire control systems already had launch points for MANPADS missiles, and they had the highest priority. At that moment, when the fire operator was firing off the trigger for launching rockets, the group was again hit by MANPADS, but not from the village, but from the forest belt, to the west. A volley of three rockets shattered the first car into which two shells fell at once, and damaged the third one. The operator of the fire slave in the first pair hardly found the open trigger and reported: “The position of the MANPADS is ready!” He was not alone, he was very afraid that after a few seconds or minutes he would smell mercaptans in the cockpit, because he managed to do it when the Russians attacked, he knew how ridiculous such warriors became. Usually they shot a bullet in the forehead, unable to bear the bullying.
- The fire! - He heard in the earpiece and frantically pulled the trigger.
“Don't worry, Paul,” said the earpiece in the voice of the commander. - If we get out of this mess, it will remain our secret. I myself was nearly done! ..
At that moment, a machine gun line hit the car, the trapezoid control mechanism clanked, oil from the hydraulic systems flew in all directions. The uncontrollable helicopter spent a long time writing out concentric circles, until finally it burned the fuel and landed on the ice. White was already frozen in the sleeves, but the thickness of the ice was very small, and the flow created irregularity, which made the local people have a bad reputation for the deceit of ice on Belaya.
“Well, let's wash ourselves!” - the helicopter commander had time to think when fragments of ice jumped around. The car failed halfway and got stuck. Trying to shoot the doors off, the fire operator only aggravated the situation, the doors did not open, but only withdrew from the hermetic lock, there was nothing to breathe from the powder gases in the cabin, and water began to flow.
This helicopter stood so until the spring, inside the cabin were visible two dead bodies, frozen to the waist in the ice.
Bony and short, watching the slaughter, which they and their comrades staged, lost their vigilance and caution, jumped out of the boiler room and, bouncing like children, showed the Russian version of the indecent gesture, hitting the left hand with a raised right arm. The rocket hit the wall of the boiler room two meters away.
Considering that six helicopters would easily cope with nine uncovered tanks, the coalition command did not strengthen the right flank of anti-tank units.
Tankers, realizing that they were found, without waiting for the command, rolled the car into battle order and rushed to the attack. Three minutes later, coalition artillery, just in case, covered Yaktakaevo with a triple volley of jet mortars. Only two houses and two people survived. Russian tanks were considered destroyed.
The attack of tankers in Russian is desperate and fearless, at full speed they crashed into the right flank of the coalition forces, shot several columns of equipment and soldiers, crushed the advanced units and shot down a dozen tanks that did not have time to turn around for hiking. But the forces were unequal, having spent the already incomplete ammunition, tankers crushed everything that came their way, and the commanders, leaning out of the hatch, shot the fleeing enemies from machine guns.
In the end, the rescued infantry fighting vehicles with anti-tank systems and grenade throwers shot at unarmed tanks at close range. The latter, having lost the caterpillar on the edge of the field, got up, got a shot from a grenade launcher tangentially into the tower charm, causing the tower to jam. Tankers, jumping out of the hatches, tried to escape towards the ravine, but the dense fire of the infantry interrupted their escape.
Colonel Wright, circling the position of his already battered brigade, was gloomy and laconic. It was a disaster. Accepting reports of casualties in men and vehicles, the colonel bade farewell to a rise in rank, awards, fame from a successful commander, and he clearly understood that his brigade would now be sent to reshape or guard the rear, which in the conditions of the coming cold winter was not the most rosy prospect.
The pride of cavalry - the 120-I brigade - was only ground in the millstones of war in just four weeks, and having failed to win a classic victory directly in battle. The Russians, having inflicted serious losses on the attackers, each time managed to withdraw and regroup in new positions. The few ambusions they left tormented the troops on the march, disrupting all the company's plans. The saboteurs deprived of sleep and rest.
Yusuf went to his house for the last time, carrying an armful of hay to set it on fire.
Striking a match, he saw movement in the weak light under the table. Outbred bitch named Yulduz, who lived with Rashida and recently brought puppies, breastfed lambs. The lambs periodically bodded Yulduz in the stomach and twisted their tails merrily. Trying to adopt the usual posture for feeding, Yulduz lay on her side, but the lambs could not suck her like that, cheerfully butting and poking her legs, forced her to stand up. She did not mind.
At night, when Yulduz returned from hunting to the house of Rashid, smoldering ashes remained there. Whimpering in fright, she walked around the courtyard several times. No one answered her. Her lair was behind barrels and canisters in a barn. All puppies died instantly. Not wanting to believe it, Yulduz lay down on the snow in front of the house and decided that she would not leave until her children responded. A few hours later, her udder began to break off with milk and, losing her mind, began to fidget and jump, but the last drop that tore her off was the smell of a warm meat soup that flew like a blast wave.
Having run through the open door, Yulduz ate sheep guts scattered on the floor, and already wanted to run out to eat some snow, as in the dark someone softly pushed her in the side from below and immediately began to suck, after a moment the same thing happened from the other side. Thinking badly of what was happening, Yulduz with incredible relief gave herself to her invisible hijackers. She did not experience greater bliss in her life.
Looking at the lambs, eagerly sucking milk, Yusuf was surprised that he could not hold back a tear, he did not shed a single drop when he and Rashida were burying fellow villagers, relatives and soldiers who died during the shelling. At first, they cursed because Rashid baptized the departed, and Yusuf read Muslim funeral prayers. He was very worried that people had to be put into the grave without taharat (ablution), without kafan (shroud). It was impossible to identify the majority of the dead, so Yusuf and Rashid agreed for this case that at first she would pass and baptize everyone, and then Yusuf would read Janazu (funeral prayer). After the funeral, Yusuf asked the grace of Allah for a long time, because he allowed him to baptize the faithful and read Takbir Janaza who did not believe in Allah during his lifetime.
It began to get light, the frost intensified, the air cooled down to –44 S. Yusuf took down the hunting skis from the attic, threw a pack of missiles and remnants of food on his shoulders, the MANPADS pipe, reached for the machine gun, but realized that this was already an overload. After removing the horn, Yusuf wrapped the machine with a film and tied the 3x with a meter-long rope to his belt by the trunk in order to drag it with a drag.
“You remain the mistress,” he said, smiling at Yulduz.
The snow crunched loudly under the skis, and the echoes scattered and returned, bumping into the wall of cold. Moving a few hundred meters away from the village, Yusuf came across a cradle where ordinary Konihito's body hung. In the silence that followed, he heard quick breathing and the rustle of snow behind. A flock of feral dogs, led by a neighbor of the Polkan named Malai pursued him. It was too late to deploy the machine, throwing a grenade - suicide. With a sharp movement Yusuf untied the knot of the rope on the cradle, and the body rolled into the snow. Retreating sideways in the field, Yusuf pulled the machine gun towards him.
- What are you, Malay, but fucking lousy, haram! Here I am for you!
Malay braked for a second, but the testosterone leader and hunger pushed him forward.
When the store snapped into the nest, Malai was already trotting back to the tree, because the flock wisely decided to profit by what they had and not to get involved in living prey.
Having reached the track of the group of colonel to the river, Yusuf decided to take a break and sat down on a snow knoll. To his surprise, something metallic stuck into his buttock. Carefully looking at the face of the dead man, he could not understand whether this soldier was with him tonight or not. Turning Ramirez's body over so that he could sit down, Yusuf otkovyryal the last pieces of meat from a sheep's skull, and put the bone back into the satchel. In the side pocket of the satchel was sticking a corner of the pamphlet.
“For so many years, almost nothing has changed,” Yusuf thought with surprise, putting the instructions back. The rising sun began to heat the air, the dense fog gradually began to lift off the ground and rise into the sky, forming low clouds.
In the morning, Colonel Wright woke up more happy than ever. He was not embarrassed by the cold and darkness in the tent, he was not disturbed that, left without officers, the soldiers, exhausted by frost and hunger, stopped observing the charter, set fires on guard, did not clean their weapons, turned off personal monitors, fought and killed each other -for food, stole fuel for heating tents. He was no longer worried that at night the kitchen from a stupidly built wood-burning stove burned down, that the weather forecasters changed the forecast and reported severe frosts for another three weeks. The main thing is that today this nightmare must end, today salvation is already flying towards him on the mighty wings of a transport plane. He refused breakfast and, ordering all those capable of preparing to leave for the collection of containers, sat down in front of his tablet and clamped on the emergency warning console.
When a point slowly moving in a straight line appeared on the tablet’s map, the colonel’s heart pounded, a drop of sweat hung on his nose, and blood pulsed in his temples.
Until Arlan left 10 kilometers, the tablet automatically increased the scale. The plane flew 500 meters north of the base and when the point reached the Neftekamsk road, the colonel pressed a button.
“There is a signal, sir, 26 milliseconds, the codes are confirmed, I am correcting route corrections for a reset,” the co-pilot reported.
- Mechanic, willingness to reset the 8 minutes, equalize pressure, discharge of stretch marks on the team, go to the turn!
Realizing that the flight will be in the zone of the long-range Russian air defense, the pilots deliberately walked at low altitude. Shaving the upper edge of dense low clouds, they slipped unnoticed to the radar, but for the U-turn it was necessary to gain more 250-300 meters of height. The commander added revolutions to the engines, after a few minutes the plane tilted on the left wing, then on the right and began to describe a giant arc, gradually decreasing. At the end of the turn, the plane shook its whole body, as when hitting a curb, the right engine spat out the fragments of turbines with a roar and, gradually falling apart, caught fire, and then released a thick black smoke tail.
Vigorously opening the canopy, the occupant of the 120 Cavalry Brigade, John Abraham entered the commander's tent and, stretched out to his chord, rapped out:
- I have important information, sir, allow me to report?
The thick steam clubs that burst from the 40-degree frost into a warm tent have not yet been scattered, but through them Abraham heard the voice of the commander:
- What the hell, John, I also forbade moving around the tents without an order, why didn’t they use the general connection?
Continuing to portray the telegraph pole, Abraham blurted out his sharp, jerky phrases as a queue from a heavy machine gun:
- I do not want, sir, to make the information available. Since the last transport, sir, 3 weeks have passed, the fuel supply for heating the tents is a maximum of two days, provided that the kitchen can be transferred to firewood At your order, sir, the fuel has been drained from all the cars, the rations have again been reduced by half, no less fuel is running out, if such a temperature lasts a few more days - we are finished. Only spare parts are in stock, weapon and ammunition, even a stock of clothes, I ordered to give the soldiers. Roads are swept, movement in our area is impossible.
- Do not say nonsense, John, we are soldiers and must fulfill an order in any weather. Besides, everyone knows this anyway.
- It's not all bad newssir
- What else?
- Food is enough for 2 of the day, reducing rations below 2000 kilocalories in our situation is suicide. In the infirmary, the 56 people are already frostbitten; after the sentries people go straight to the infirmary. 26 people died from hypothermia. The temperature in the tents 46 degrees (+ 8 C), the soldiers have not removed their clothes for three weeks.
“What are you going to do, John?”
- I issued a reserve gas generator from the warehouse, a welding machine and sent five soldiers to the oil boosters to try to start one of them and extract oil for heating, at the same time they should cut off the armor plates from the wounded Russian armored personnel carrier and try to cook the stove for the kitchen. Another 10 person is currently chopping wood for a fire.
- What kind of fire? What is welding? John, you are crazy !! You do not know that we were left without air support and the Russians are doing what they want in the sky, thank God that they have not so many planes left. BTR Russian welded aluminum, do you have argon welding? Return everyone immediately !!
- Sir, this is our only chance!
- You personally answer if anything happens. Free !!
Abraham dashed to the exit.
- No, come back! What do these slackers at headquarters say? I'm sure there in Bugulma, they have warm, hot water, clean sheets.
“I don’t know, sir, but they say that the transport to us will not pass through such snow, that almost all the snow removal equipment was destroyed by the Russians, the rest are working to ensure the attack on Sarapul. There is a terrible meat grinder.
- You are free!
- Yes, sir!
After two months of continuous fighting near Ufa, Colonel Wright’s brigade, being very battered, especially after tank Russian attacks near Neftekamsk, finally lost its mobility, lost 80% of its personnel and almost all its equipment, was sent to guard the oil-bearing area at the confluence of the Belaya and Kama rivers with a center in the village of Arlan. Prior to the arrival of reinforcements and reorganization into a full-fledged brigade, Wright was ordered to protect the desert lands with rocking horses sticking out here and there. The location of the burned base of oil products was chosen as the location. Arlan himself and Neftekamsk were so destroyed that even the crows did not fly there.
The colonel sat down at the table, took out a cigar, lit it, took out a communication headset from his pocket and typed in the call sign of the headquarters. They didn’t answer him right away, no less than 2 minutes passed, as the voice of a junior communications officer was heard in the earpiece:
- I'm listening to you, sir.
“Connect me, son, with General Hollyfeld, this is Colonel Wright.”
“I can't, sir, the general is sleeping, he has been on his feet for three days, we were strictly forbidden to bother him.”
- What is happening with you, why were we left without supplies? We will last no more than two days, after that there will be nothing to ensure the protection of the oil-bearing area in Arlan, my entire brigade will become extinct from cold and hunger!
- Sir, we also have no supplies for three weeks, our group suffered tremendous losses during the assault of Sarapul, the city is still in our hands partially and it cannot be said that we took it. The main forces of the Russians entrenched themselves on the northern outskirts and are bombarding our positions from the heights, there are assault detachments in the city that cannot be coped with, every morning the sweeps start again and again. According to the plan, we should have taken Sarapul a month ago, here a large state reserve warehouse is available from the Russians, but they seem to have managed to withdraw it, now their main forces are concentrated at the height of the military unit abandoned for 100 years ago, but the height is located so that they control the road to Izhevsk, the second road to the north to Votkinsk is also blocked by the Russians - in the prison area. The master plan for the attack on the weapons forges of Votkinsk and Izhevsk on the verge of failure, General Hollifeld has already received a warning from the committee of the headquarters commanders about the inadmissibility of delaying the offensive deadlines.
- And what about air support? When will we wait for her? Why don't helicopters fly?
“I don't know, sir.” The helicopters ordered by the command are left on the ground, they were relocated near Mendeleevsk, they will not be able to fly in such weather, after the 16 incidents with the loss of cars due to low temperature - an order: do not take off. All airfields in the occupied part of the country are destroyed, it is impossible to restore them due to such weather, weather forecasters promise at least another two weeks of cold weather, after which snowfalls will begin again.
- Where else snow, and so the 1,5 meter already !!
- This is Russia, sir, here it is normal.
- What with the snow blowers, is there really no way to break through the road?
“The snow blowers, sir, there are 4 left, they support the road from the troops to the supply bases, on the right bank of the Kama.” We do not have time to remove the wounded and bring ammunition and replenishment.
- It is clear, but where else did the 12 machines go?
- 7 units were bombed by Russian stormtroopers, 4 blew up saboteurs, one missed the road and drowned in the swamp, until spring it did not reach.
“These Russians know what matters most!” Let me know when the general can talk to me.
The colonel stretched out his hand to the tablet, opened the card. Mozhary, Novonagayevo, Novy Aktanyshbash, Novourazaevo, Shushnur - all the villages were razed to the ground, he saw what was left of them after the November offensive. Of the nearby villages, only Enaktaevo remained, there was a chance that local residents remained there.
- Sergeant Libowski to me! - commanded the colonel and, as it seemed to him, the sergeant had grown out of the ground in front of him before the end of the phrase. - Libowski, were you trained in arctic?
- Yes, sir.
- Can you make 10 pairs of snowshoes up to 15-00?
- Yes, sir. I will need help.
- Take those bastards who are now chopping wood.
- Yes, sir!
Libowski disappeared just as quickly as he had appeared.
Wearing a headset, the colonel summoned the occupant.
“Excuse me for the morning talk, John, but we shouldn’t panic.” Select the 8 people, the most prepared and savvy, provide them with a full-fledged ration and hiking uniforms. I'm going to Enaktaevo for food and fuel.
Abraham backed away, his eyes bulging.
- Sir, but this is a gross violation of the statute! We have no right to leave the area of responsibility and, moreover, we have no right to receive food from the residents of the occupied territories !!
“I know as well as you are tired, John!” And I read the orders no less carefully !! If you can't provide a brigade, I will have to do it myself. By the way, did you manage to get oil and cook the stove?
- No, sir, you were right, the rockers were all disabled, you managed to find about 150 liters of diesel fuel in a padded Russian tank, aluminum really doesn’t boil, but my guys cut several sheets and are now trying to build a furnace from them. Will I make dinner? Sir?
- Yes, and tell me to bring your lunch here too. What about diesel fuel - isn't that a violation of the charter?
- No, sir, these are trophies, I will credit him as a trophy and write off for the needs of the brigade.
“You’ll always get out, John, okay, let them serve lunch.”
Private Ramirez, shivering from the cold, for a long time could not lift the curtain of the tent with one hand and nearly dropped the tray.
After reading the prayer, the colonel took a spoon, broke off the biscuit and slowly began to slurp the broth.
- What are they doing this crap, John?
“Made of corn, sir, and chicken smell.”
- I caught myself thinking that it would be great to fry a thick, huge steak on a barber in my garden and eat it with my hands without a knife and fork under California red with greens.
- Do not poison the soul, sir. I can hardly understand what we are doing here, only Russians can live here, and the last 500 years could be fought with them with one result.
- How?
- The armies entering Russia had a choice of two options: to die or to flee in disgrace.
- Who told you this nonsense, Abraham, do you understand what you are saying?
- I read archival books at the university, literally several months before they were seized and burned. They were forbidden to digitize. There was a lot written about Russian. Reading these books, I firmly believed that you can not fight with them. It didn’t fit in with what we learned in school, what was shown in the movies and what filled cyberspace. Wisdom left our president, he believes that if you burn books that contradict his opinion, then everything that is written in them will disappear along with the paper. Somewhere I have already heard what the ruler ended, first making fires from books, and then attacking Russia.
- Are you talking about Napoleon Buonaparte?
- No, sir, he did not burn the books, I'm talking about Schicklgruber.
- John, if not for us, the Russians would not have won that war, you speak as a leftist propagandist, do you know what happened to them on the eve of the war? They were seated on electric chairs.
- Everything is very similar, sir, but the Russians would have won without our help, maybe a couple of years later, but they would still have won, and our help is politics, they were all very afraid that the Russians would not have time to slow down and skip all of Europe , stop looking around somewhere in London, and even in Reykjavik.
Do you remember what kind of meanness the Gonzalez administration was going to push through the law on advertising, after which all the independent media either went bankrupt or began to repeat, as it was established that war with Russia was inevitable?
- Yes, today I understand why my grandfather said that the fashion for colored presidents would ruin America! And you are a dangerous man, John, with your conversations you can fall into the police dungeons.
- Sir, I appreciate your opinion and I understand that it is your duty to follow the official ideological doctrine, but believe me, in my position, you can tell the truth without fear of consequences. I already have one foot in the grave. In a few days, I would be shot by rebellious soldiers who will have nothing to feed and will have nowhere to warm.
All our equipment and electronics are inedible, and a person remains a person, he must eat, drink, sleep, otherwise he will turn into an animal and will kill his own kind.
- Come on, John, we've been killing our own kind without this for the third month already. Do not pessimism. If I manage to reach the headquarters, I will talk with my classmate from West Point, General Hollifeld, I will try to persuade him to help us.
In 14-58, Sergeant Liebowski reported on the availability of 10 snowshoes.
The colonel put on his polar jumpsuit, checked the weapon, assembled the necessary navigation devices, glasses and went out into the cold. The first sigh on the 40 degree frost caught his breath and the colonel cleared his throat with difficulty. In front of him were 9 fighters led by Libowski.
- We have to go through deep snow at least 10 kilometers and check for food and fuel Enaktaevo. First of all, pay attention to tractors, bulldozers, snow blowers, and secondly, to shops and warehouses.
Libowski, exit through 20 minutes, development of the route and the order of following you, waiting for a report through 15 minutes. Going into the tent, the colonel thought with horror that he would spend at least 10 hours in the cold, on which he could not breathe normally even for 2 minutes.
Libowski appeared before the colonel suddenly. Bravo saluting, he said:
- Sir, the route and order are entered into the tablets, it remains to approve them.
The colonel trusted this warrior. Libowski did not understand subtle matters, but the war was his element, he fought from early youth, and he knew this craft like no other.
On the first halt, after crossing the Shanshu River, they had to leave two fighters who fell into the wormwood, broke snowshoes and soaked their feet. They had no chance to reach them, the colonel ordered to send a rescue team for them from the base. (The fate of these two was unenviable, quickly losing the ability to perceive reality normally from overcooling, they wandered off in different directions, making loops and describing intricate circles. having requested data from the satellite, they managed to find two frozen corpses by the soldier’s personal sensors, but by this time they managed to get exhausted and began to freeze in the wind in an open field.)
The thinning group stopped on the outskirts of Enaktaevo.
Sergeant Libowski literally pounded everyone, but it was the only way to save people from frostbite, already at the first stop the sweeping fighters seriously froze for 20 minutes of rest, so it was impossible to stop for the second time.
The 15 seconds that the imager's battery had had enough power for him turned out to be quite experienced by Liebovsky to locate a house that was warm. The front door lasted exactly two blows, one hand, the other shoulder. The soldiers rushed to the furnace, stuck it all over, trying to press against the life-giving heat with the maximum surface of the body. In the darkness in the corner, some ugly, overgrown beard and long hair creature covered with a quilt began to stir.
- Brigiz mene, ikmak, brigiz mene, ikmak! - the monster muttered and pulled a hand to the colonel.
- What is he saying, Howard? - the colonel addressed to the translator.
- I do not understand, sir, he speaks some Turkic dialect, I can assume that ikmak is bread. Judging by the gestures, he asks for bread.
- Is he a non-Russian? Ask, does he understand Russian?
“Brigiz mene, ikmak,” the creature replied.
- Do not take us by the nose, you're all Russian. If you want to live, answer in Russian.
When the translator finished, the creature subsided for a while, and then in not very clean Russian, it said:
- You speak like skinheads Russian Natsik in 2044 year. Praise be to Allah that the Russians themselves managed to reason and disperse them then, by the way, the same thing awaits you.
The colonel turned on the panoramic lantern and set it on the table. In the corner on the bed, wrapped in a blanket, sat an old man of years 80-ti, not shaved and shaved for a long time.
Despite the untidy look of the owner, the house was clean and there was no musty smell.
Yusuf, in his 82 of the year, managed to prick his life, repent, sit in prison, then start a family and live to old age pious Muslim, 5 once a day performing namaz and setting on the path true young Tatars and Bashkirs who were looking for their vision of the world. Being in the distant 2013 year, the young 17-year-old restless jerk, having heard the Wahhabi sermons and became infected with the idea of a world caliphate, Yusuf first rushed to the Caucasus, where he was identified on the mountain base of training. He didn’t have time to come there, as the general rush job was announced, the base departed for an hour and a half and rushed along mountain serpentines towards Georgia. When the last car wrapped around the first turn from the base, the empty platform was covered with a volley. One of the field commanders had a relative in the Russian headquarters, and he sold information about the time of the raid.
They threw the cars, divided into groups, walked through the mountains for several days, then put them on a plane and landed at a military airfield on the border of Turkey and Syria, near Gaziantep. On the basis of their training in explosives, handling weapons and guerrilla tactics.
In the very first battle in Syria, Yusuf received a contusion, multiple injuries to his hands and feet, and was sent to Russia, where, after treatment in the Kurgan clinic, he was literally put on his feet, having increased 15, see the bones of his right leg. Leaving the hospital, Yusuf went to prison for various misdeeds that accompanied a trip to Syria: illegal possession, intersection, participation, etc. After leaving the prison already a mature man, having seen enough of the abominable relationship between non-free people divided into castes, Yusuf moved into religion, got a family and organized his own farm. On the very first day of the war, Yusuf came to the military enlistment office and asked for several trucks to be sent to the army for the 2000 sheep he kept. Yusuf understood that he would not be able to protect his herd from marauders and just wanting to profit at the expense of others, so it’s better to hand it over to the state, maybe it will be reckoned and he will be able to redeem his grandson from the army in a year when 18 will be fulfilled. The sheep were loaded, but several were missing, who, seeing a crowd of people, fled through a ravine to a summer camp, where there was no highway. Yusuf later caught them and brought them home. During the fall, he ate three of them, leaving two sheep with whom lambs were born. The hand did not rise to cut the sheep that had become snagged, and Yusuf was starving, eating bran and eggs that miraculously survived the two chickens.
“Tell me, officer, is your last name Wright?” - Yusuf turned to the colonel.
The colonel shuddered. Some petty reptile grabbed him with a death grip in the area of the solar plexus from the inside.
- Why are you so rotten? The colonel asked himself, trying to calm down, but the little creature in her stomach squealed in hysterics. - How does this dense old man know my name?
- Do not remember, we did not intersect, your grandfather, I believe, taught me in Turkey. You look so much alike that I wondered if old Wright had risen from the grave.
- My grandfather has never been to Turkey, he was a military man, but he did not go farther than Colorado.
- And it does not matter! Give some bread.
- Libowski, give him a biscuit and send soldiers to check the village.
“Already gone, sir.” The village is almost completely abandoned, on the opposite edge there is a house where the stove is fired. All other buildings are destroyed, non-residential, vegetable stocks are frozen, there are no animals.
“Check out this house and see what's in the barn here,” the colonel ordered.
From the gadgets of the general connection, there was a swearing of soldiers who moved through the ruins of houses. When he reached the second apartment building, Private Konihito looked in at the door and a shot from the old shotgun sounded immediately. The lead bullet of the 12 caliber did not penetrate the helmet, but Konihito’s head threw back on his back, then on his chest from a huge impulse, after which the rank and file fell on the floor and subsided, looking back at him over the shoulder. The privates who followed him jumped into shelters and opened hurricane fire from all trunks, and after the second return shot, Libowski threw a grenade launcher from his back and smashed the house into pieces. The fire from the explosion was much more powerful, it exploded barrels and gas canisters, which were stored in the barn near the house. In total, Rashida-Apa had about a ton of gasoline, diesel fuel and a full cellar of vegetables, which she collected in the autumn in the cellars of destroyed and abandoned houses. If someone returned from the forest, Rashida planned to settle them in her home, but when she saw people with weapons, she took them for thugs who tried to rob her several times, therefore, without hesitation, she shot from the double barrel left of her husband.
“You shouldn't have killed Apu, we didn't even get along with her, she was baptized, she had a lot of food and gasoline,” said Yusuf, looking bitterly at how awkwardly they carve his sheep carcasses right in his house.
Orphaned lambs ran under their feet and called mothers. Layers already cooked in the oven. Having eaten chickens, after drinking broth, the soldiers laid out the meat in backpacks, packed everything they could find and headed back. They carried Private Konihito out of the village, and hung him up at a height of 2 meters in a rope cradle so that when they returned, pick him up and send him home, as the charter prescribed. Much cheering after the meal at Yusuf, the soldiers quickly reached the first halt by the river, but there they were in for an unpleasant surprise. On the approach they were fired by a long line - judging by the sound of an American rifle. The shooter in a hysterical voice shouted curses to the commanders, the Russians, the US president, the fat cats on Wall Street, the winter, the cold, and everything that came to mind. Coming from warm Mexico, Private Ramirez was behind the group and could not stand alone in this cold and frightening darkness with a howling wind. Ramirez swiftly threw the shop and opened fire again, swinging his rifle like a hose during a party pouring water over it. After the 2 store, the colonel whispered to Libowski, who was lying next to him:
- Calm him, and then he will do things.
For a second, Liebovsky raised himself out of a snowdrift and shot Ramirez's hand in one shot. He fell into the snow and fell silent. He died from fear, from cold, from hopelessness and from painful shock. Having marked on the map the place where they left Ramirez, the group moved on.
“Great, Colonel, this is enough for one more meal,” said the quartermaster, looking at lean, lean lamb, “and if I prepare the dish not according to the instructions,” rubbing his hands literally purred Abraham.
- Go ahead, John, refer to me.
Dead, tired Colonel fell into a tent and without undressing fell on the bed in an attempt to ward off dark thoughts and fall asleep at least for several hours.
It was at that moment that he received a call from headquarters.
- Well, Henry, I, of course, will help you, wait tomorrow for the plane from Gyumri, nowhere closer, turn on the beacon on the frequency of distress, you will drop supplies and fuel, besides this, there will be a pair of snowmobiles and camping equipment. - The general wished good luck and did not listen to thanks, put the phone down.
The colonel fell asleep as a baby and nothing could darken his happy dream.
Yusuf took off the skin of sheep's heads, thrown in the corner, gathered edible giblets and set to cook the stew in the oven. His stomach gurgled happily, anticipating a meal, for almost a month he had not eaten his fill, if he had eaten anything at all. Yusuf himself was gloomy and focused. He understood that now he was doomed to starvation. Having written some meaningless phrases of gratitude to everyone I knew, especially Mulla Ise, pointing out the places where he and Rashida buried the villagers and two Russian soldiers, sealed the bottle with wax and hung it on a tree in the backyard. On the way back, he dug a pile of firewood from under the snow, scattered it and pulled out MANPADS, a machine gun and two grenades, which he picked up during the battles.
In late autumn, serious battles took place near Neftekamsk. The coalition was supposed to push the Russians away from the crossing of the Kama in Naberezhnye Chelny to the north to the Sholinsky forests, not allowing them to cross to the right bank of the Kama. In part, they succeeded, but most of the troops and the population managed to cross the bridge in Kambarka, after which it was blown up. On the left bank there were only parts that provided cover.
They did not have time to prepare the defense of Neftekamsk, the remnants of the 136-th tank regiment, coming from under Ufa, stopped at Enaktaevo. They were given the task of striking the flank on the road from Dyurtyuli to Neftekamsk. It was impossible to mask the tanks on a bald area like a bride’s knee, and the tankers hid in barns and stables. They were discovered by the coalition intelligence drone, and three pairs of helicopters flew from the base near Mendeleevsk. By this time, not far from the house of Yusuf, the UAZ stopped, from which two soldiers jumped out. One was long and thin, he carried a MANPADS pipe, the other on the contrary, a tight little man, with a pack of ammunition hanging on his back. UAZ immediately left and wagged over the freezing field in the direction of the forest belt.
“A straw and a bubble, defenders,” thought Yusuf with a snide.
Having run into the dilapidated building of the boiler room, the soldiers quickly loaded MANPADS, a thick peer into the horizon through binoculars. The pinwheels appeared unexpectedly from behind, they turned on the combat course for the attack. Thin threw up the pipe and, slightly releasing the turntable, pressed the trigger. The host's car jerked, spun in the rhythm of the waltz, after which, scattering debris of blades, tail, clods of earth, spun, going to the lower break, finally for some instant the helicopter stump stopped in a rack on the tail debris and fell, igniting. On the other side of the village another missile fell and hit a second car. The rest, releasing thermal grenades, rushed into the loose, but after a minute they again lined up in battle order and went to attack. Their fire control systems already had launch points for MANPADS missiles, and they had the highest priority. At that moment, when the fire operator was firing off the trigger for launching rockets, the group was again hit by MANPADS, but not from the village, but from the forest belt, to the west. A volley of three rockets shattered the first car into which two shells fell at once, and damaged the third one. The operator of the fire slave in the first pair hardly found the open trigger and reported: “The position of the MANPADS is ready!” He was not alone, he was very afraid that after a few seconds or minutes he would smell mercaptans in the cockpit, because he managed to do it when the Russians attacked, he knew how ridiculous such warriors became. Usually they shot a bullet in the forehead, unable to bear the bullying.
- The fire! - He heard in the earpiece and frantically pulled the trigger.
“Don't worry, Paul,” said the earpiece in the voice of the commander. - If we get out of this mess, it will remain our secret. I myself was nearly done! ..
At that moment, a machine gun line hit the car, the trapezoid control mechanism clanked, oil from the hydraulic systems flew in all directions. The uncontrollable helicopter spent a long time writing out concentric circles, until finally it burned the fuel and landed on the ice. White was already frozen in the sleeves, but the thickness of the ice was very small, and the flow created irregularity, which made the local people have a bad reputation for the deceit of ice on Belaya.
“Well, let's wash ourselves!” - the helicopter commander had time to think when fragments of ice jumped around. The car failed halfway and got stuck. Trying to shoot the doors off, the fire operator only aggravated the situation, the doors did not open, but only withdrew from the hermetic lock, there was nothing to breathe from the powder gases in the cabin, and water began to flow.
This helicopter stood so until the spring, inside the cabin were visible two dead bodies, frozen to the waist in the ice.
Bony and short, watching the slaughter, which they and their comrades staged, lost their vigilance and caution, jumped out of the boiler room and, bouncing like children, showed the Russian version of the indecent gesture, hitting the left hand with a raised right arm. The rocket hit the wall of the boiler room two meters away.
Considering that six helicopters would easily cope with nine uncovered tanks, the coalition command did not strengthen the right flank of anti-tank units.
Tankers, realizing that they were found, without waiting for the command, rolled the car into battle order and rushed to the attack. Three minutes later, coalition artillery, just in case, covered Yaktakaevo with a triple volley of jet mortars. Only two houses and two people survived. Russian tanks were considered destroyed.
The attack of tankers in Russian is desperate and fearless, at full speed they crashed into the right flank of the coalition forces, shot several columns of equipment and soldiers, crushed the advanced units and shot down a dozen tanks that did not have time to turn around for hiking. But the forces were unequal, having spent the already incomplete ammunition, tankers crushed everything that came their way, and the commanders, leaning out of the hatch, shot the fleeing enemies from machine guns.
In the end, the rescued infantry fighting vehicles with anti-tank systems and grenade throwers shot at unarmed tanks at close range. The latter, having lost the caterpillar on the edge of the field, got up, got a shot from a grenade launcher tangentially into the tower charm, causing the tower to jam. Tankers, jumping out of the hatches, tried to escape towards the ravine, but the dense fire of the infantry interrupted their escape.
Colonel Wright, circling the position of his already battered brigade, was gloomy and laconic. It was a disaster. Accepting reports of casualties in men and vehicles, the colonel bade farewell to a rise in rank, awards, fame from a successful commander, and he clearly understood that his brigade would now be sent to reshape or guard the rear, which in the conditions of the coming cold winter was not the most rosy prospect.
The pride of cavalry - the 120-I brigade - was only ground in the millstones of war in just four weeks, and having failed to win a classic victory directly in battle. The Russians, having inflicted serious losses on the attackers, each time managed to withdraw and regroup in new positions. The few ambusions they left tormented the troops on the march, disrupting all the company's plans. The saboteurs deprived of sleep and rest.
Yusuf went to his house for the last time, carrying an armful of hay to set it on fire.
Striking a match, he saw movement in the weak light under the table. Outbred bitch named Yulduz, who lived with Rashida and recently brought puppies, breastfed lambs. The lambs periodically bodded Yulduz in the stomach and twisted their tails merrily. Trying to adopt the usual posture for feeding, Yulduz lay on her side, but the lambs could not suck her like that, cheerfully butting and poking her legs, forced her to stand up. She did not mind.
At night, when Yulduz returned from hunting to the house of Rashid, smoldering ashes remained there. Whimpering in fright, she walked around the courtyard several times. No one answered her. Her lair was behind barrels and canisters in a barn. All puppies died instantly. Not wanting to believe it, Yulduz lay down on the snow in front of the house and decided that she would not leave until her children responded. A few hours later, her udder began to break off with milk and, losing her mind, began to fidget and jump, but the last drop that tore her off was the smell of a warm meat soup that flew like a blast wave.
Having run through the open door, Yulduz ate sheep guts scattered on the floor, and already wanted to run out to eat some snow, as in the dark someone softly pushed her in the side from below and immediately began to suck, after a moment the same thing happened from the other side. Thinking badly of what was happening, Yulduz with incredible relief gave herself to her invisible hijackers. She did not experience greater bliss in her life.
Looking at the lambs, eagerly sucking milk, Yusuf was surprised that he could not hold back a tear, he did not shed a single drop when he and Rashida were burying fellow villagers, relatives and soldiers who died during the shelling. At first, they cursed because Rashid baptized the departed, and Yusuf read Muslim funeral prayers. He was very worried that people had to be put into the grave without taharat (ablution), without kafan (shroud). It was impossible to identify the majority of the dead, so Yusuf and Rashid agreed for this case that at first she would pass and baptize everyone, and then Yusuf would read Janazu (funeral prayer). After the funeral, Yusuf asked the grace of Allah for a long time, because he allowed him to baptize the faithful and read Takbir Janaza who did not believe in Allah during his lifetime.
It began to get light, the frost intensified, the air cooled down to –44 S. Yusuf took down the hunting skis from the attic, threw a pack of missiles and remnants of food on his shoulders, the MANPADS pipe, reached for the machine gun, but realized that this was already an overload. After removing the horn, Yusuf wrapped the machine with a film and tied the 3x with a meter-long rope to his belt by the trunk in order to drag it with a drag.
“You remain the mistress,” he said, smiling at Yulduz.
The snow crunched loudly under the skis, and the echoes scattered and returned, bumping into the wall of cold. Moving a few hundred meters away from the village, Yusuf came across a cradle where ordinary Konihito's body hung. In the silence that followed, he heard quick breathing and the rustle of snow behind. A flock of feral dogs, led by a neighbor of the Polkan named Malai pursued him. It was too late to deploy the machine, throwing a grenade - suicide. With a sharp movement Yusuf untied the knot of the rope on the cradle, and the body rolled into the snow. Retreating sideways in the field, Yusuf pulled the machine gun towards him.
- What are you, Malay, but fucking lousy, haram! Here I am for you!
Malay braked for a second, but the testosterone leader and hunger pushed him forward.
When the store snapped into the nest, Malai was already trotting back to the tree, because the flock wisely decided to profit by what they had and not to get involved in living prey.
Having reached the track of the group of colonel to the river, Yusuf decided to take a break and sat down on a snow knoll. To his surprise, something metallic stuck into his buttock. Carefully looking at the face of the dead man, he could not understand whether this soldier was with him tonight or not. Turning Ramirez's body over so that he could sit down, Yusuf otkovyryal the last pieces of meat from a sheep's skull, and put the bone back into the satchel. In the side pocket of the satchel was sticking a corner of the pamphlet.
“For so many years, almost nothing has changed,” Yusuf thought with surprise, putting the instructions back. The rising sun began to heat the air, the dense fog gradually began to lift off the ground and rise into the sky, forming low clouds.
In the morning, Colonel Wright woke up more happy than ever. He was not embarrassed by the cold and darkness in the tent, he was not disturbed that, left without officers, the soldiers, exhausted by frost and hunger, stopped observing the charter, set fires on guard, did not clean their weapons, turned off personal monitors, fought and killed each other -for food, stole fuel for heating tents. He was no longer worried that at night the kitchen from a stupidly built wood-burning stove burned down, that the weather forecasters changed the forecast and reported severe frosts for another three weeks. The main thing is that today this nightmare must end, today salvation is already flying towards him on the mighty wings of a transport plane. He refused breakfast and, ordering all those capable of preparing to leave for the collection of containers, sat down in front of his tablet and clamped on the emergency warning console.
When a point slowly moving in a straight line appeared on the tablet’s map, the colonel’s heart pounded, a drop of sweat hung on his nose, and blood pulsed in his temples.
Until Arlan left 10 kilometers, the tablet automatically increased the scale. The plane flew 500 meters north of the base and when the point reached the Neftekamsk road, the colonel pressed a button.
“There is a signal, sir, 26 milliseconds, the codes are confirmed, I am correcting route corrections for a reset,” the co-pilot reported.
- Mechanic, willingness to reset the 8 minutes, equalize pressure, discharge of stretch marks on the team, go to the turn!
Realizing that the flight will be in the zone of the long-range Russian air defense, the pilots deliberately walked at low altitude. Shaving the upper edge of dense low clouds, they slipped unnoticed to the radar, but for the U-turn it was necessary to gain more 250-300 meters of height. The commander added revolutions to the engines, after a few minutes the plane tilted on the left wing, then on the right and began to describe a giant arc, gradually decreasing. At the end of the turn, the plane shook its whole body, as when hitting a curb, the right engine spat out the fragments of turbines with a roar and, gradually falling apart, caught fire, and then released a thick black smoke tail.
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