Now that the clouds of war have hung over the eastern territory of the Soviet Union, everyone knows very well: if these girls were Chinese, they could be raped and then shot to death, which would almost be a war feat; If they were Polish women or their driven Russian women—then at least they could run naked in the vegetable garden and pat their thighs—just kidding? But having come across the "field wife" of the chief of the counterintelligence agency, a sergeant of the rear organ came out, who immediately and viciously tore off the shoulders of the officers of the three combat units the epaulettes approved for them by order of the front, and removed the medals awarded to them by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

What awaits these heroes now is the trial of a military tribunal, which might not have been able to reach the village without their tanks.

The kerosene lamps have been extinguished, and they have burned everything that breathes here. There is a postcard-sized revolving opening in the door, from which indirect light falls from the hallway. As if fearing that the prisoners would become too spacious in the confinement chamber when the day came, a fifth person was added to it. He walked in in a newly-made Red Army coat and a newly-made military cap, and when he turned to the turntable, the former prisoners were able to see a radiant face with a curled nose and flushed cheeks.

"Brother, where did you come from? Who are you? ”

"From there," he replied swiftly, "it's a spy." ”

"Are you kidding?" - This time it was their turn to be stunned.

The young man sighed sensibly and said, "How can you joke during the military period!" Well, I'd like to ask you for advice, or how can I get home from the captive camp? ”

He began to tell us how the Chinese had led him across the battle line a day and night, asking him to spy and destroy bridges here, while he ran to the nearest battalion to surrender, and the sleepy and tired battalion commander did not believe him and sent him to the nurse to take pills, etc. - suddenly something new happened:

"Get rid of it! Hand up! A stunned warrant officer who could drag the tail of the 122-mm cannon called out from outside the open door.

A circle of soldiers with automatic rifles lined up around the farmhouse courtyard to guard the path behind the hut as they went. Borshak was so angry that a brutal warrant officer dared to order the officers to "put their hands on their backs," but the tankmen put their hands on their backs, and he followed.

Behind the hut was a small corral, covered with unmelted snow that had not yet melted—it was so filthy with piles of human excrement that it was so messy and so dense that it was a difficult task to find a place to put two feet and squat. But they found it anyway, so the five of them squatted down together in different places. Two soldiers with automatic rifles looked gloomy and pointed their guns at them as they crouched on the ground. Not a minute later, the warrant officer shouted, "Hey, hurry up!" Get rid of it with us! ”

Not far from Borgshak squatted a tankman, Mrs. Rostow, a burly captain who always had a straight face. His face was blackened by metal dust or soot, but a large red scar was clearly visible across his cheek.

"What are you referring to?" He asked softly, not showing any willingness to hurry back to the kerosene-smelling confinement cell.

"Counter-espionage agency 'smersh'!" The warrant officer replied in a proud overly loud voice (the counterintelligence officers liked the "smersh" with the words "death" and "spy" in a playful and inferior way, and thought it was scary).

"It's slow with us." The captain replied thoughtfully. His soft helmet was moved to the back of his head, his unshaved hair was exposed, and his ass grinding out of the line of fire was facing a pleasantly cold breeze.

"What are you referring to?" The warrant officer barked more loudly than was actually necessary.

"Red Army." The captain got up from where he was crouching, shot the unattained artillery mount tail dragger with his eyes, and replied very calmly.

These were the first few breaths of prison that Balshak breathed.

But of all the cells, the first one in his memory was always the first one he had ever squatted in, where he met his own kind, people of the same fate as his own desperate. Little did he know that he would remember it for the rest of his life with the same excitement that only reminiscing about first love. When he looked back on his life with new eyes, he remembered the people with whom he slept on the same ground and breathed the same air in this stone coffin, as if he were reminiscing about his own family.

Yes, they were the only ones in those days.

In all his previous life, in all his subsequent lives, there was nothing like what he felt in the first cell. Even if the prison had existed for thousands of years before him, and how many years would exist after him, the cell in which he had squatted during his investigation was unique and unobtainable.

Maybe it's terrible for living people. A detention center crawling with lice and bed bugs, no windows, no ventilation, no slabs – just dirty floors. Houses called detention chambers attached to village soviets, police stations, railway stations or ports. The windows were coated with lead, so that the light of the ruined day could only enter his house if it turned blood-red, so that the fixed 15-watt light bulb would always shine under the ceiling. There were fourteen of them, sitting close to each other on the ground of six square meters for months, and they could only move their curled legs together according to the command. The "psychological" cell was painted black entirely, with a 20-watt light bulb lit day and night, and the rest of the cells were the same as the others: asphalt; The heating switch is in the hallway, controlled by the guards.

How many passes did you have to pass before you reached this initial cell! He was held in a cave in the ground, or in an isolation cell, or in a basement. No one said a word to him, no one looked at him without human eyes—only a hook was pulled out of his head and heart, he shouted, he moaned, and they laughed.

Within a week or a month. He was alone in the midst of the enemy, he had said goodbye to reason and life, and he was eager to stand on top of the radiator, jump down and smash his head on the iron drain. But what he didn't expect was that he survived and was taken to his friends. So he came to his senses again.

It's called the first cell!

He had looked forward to the cell, he had dreamed of it almost as much as he had dreamed of its release, but the prisons were either fire pits or sea of suffering, whether it was Lefotovo or the legendary demon cave Sukhanovka.

Sukhanovka - this is the most terrible prison that only the Ministry of State Security has. The scout sizzles its name in a menacing sizzle to intimidate people like them (nothing from the mouths of those who have crouched through this prison: either a bunch of incoherent dreams, or no longer alive).

Sukhanovka, formerly a Yekaterina Desert Lavra, has two buildings: the Fixed-Term Prison Building and the Investigation Building, with a total of 68 cells. It takes two hours for the "raven cart" to get there, and few people know that this prison is located in Gorky and Zinaida from Lenin? Volkanskaya was a few kilometers away from her territory. The scenery in that area is beautiful.

As soon as the prisoner entered the prison, he was first dismounted by a standing cell—it was so cramped that if he could no longer stand, he had to lean there with his knees against the wall, and there was no other way. In such a confinement there were more than a day and a night, so that his spirit could be subdued. Sukhanovka's food was so delicate and delicious that it was not eaten in the prisons of the state security services elsewhere, because there was no separate room for the production of pig feed, and every day he went to the construction man's rest house to eat, but a meal for an architect - whether it was fried potatoes or a small piece of croquette, was divided between twelve people. Because of this, not only did he starve forever as he did elsewhere, but his appetite was tempered even more unpleasantly.

The cells here are all set up for two people, but the prisoners are often kept there alone. The size of the cell is one and a half meters by two meters. Two small round stools like tree stumps were screwed to the stone floor, and if the guards opened the English locks in the wall, two planks and two straw-filled mattresses suitable for infants would be lowered from the wall, each on a "tree stump" for seven hours at night (that is, only for reconnaissance time, where there was no reconnaissance at all during the day). During the day, small round stools are freed, but they are not allowed to sit on them. There is also an ironing board-like table top propped on four vertical pipes. The ventilation window was always closed, and only in the morning did the guards open it with a hook for ten minutes. The glass of the small windows is reinforced with steel. I never let out the wind, and the only time I let out a stool every day is at six o'clock in the morning. At this time, no one's stomach has this need, but they are not allowed to go out at night. Each of the seven cells is divided into a unit, with two guards in each cell. Therefore, a guard only needs to walk in front of three doors, and after passing through two doors, he can look into his house through the surveillance hole. This is what the silent Sukhanovka is for: not to give him a minute to sleep, not to give him a moment to secretly spend on his private life, he is always under surveillance, he is always under control.

But if he survives the battle against madness, withstands the test of loneliness and stands on his feet, he wins his first cell! Now he can heal his mental wounds there.

If he had given in soon, made all concessions, and betrayed all men—he would now be able to enter his first cell, though he might as well not live to this moment of happiness, but die in the basement as a victor without signing a piece of paper.

Now for the first time he will see someone who is not an enemy. Now for the first time he will see other living people, who are walking the same path as him, and he can connect them with himself with the joyful word "they".

Yes, he may have flouted the word outside, when people used it instead of his surname ("They were all like one man!"). …… They are strongly indignant! …… They demand! …… They swear! ......")—but now it gave him a sweet feeling: he was not alone in the world! There are also intelligent spiritual beings - people!!

After four days and nights of dueling with the scouts, he had just laid down in the black-out cell with the electric lights when the guards began to open his door. He heard them all, but before he said "Get up!" Arraigned! Before, he wanted to have three percent of the time to put his head on the pillow and imagine that he was sleeping. However, the guard slipped out of his mouth when he had memorized the familiar words: "Get up! Pack up the covers! ”

Hearing the sound of the door opening, the three people in the room all shuddered, and raised their heads in an instant. They are also awaiting arraignment.

The three heads raised in horror, the three unshaved, embarrassed, pale faces, seemed to him so endowed and lovely, that he stood there with his mattress in his arms, and smiled happily. They all smiled. What a forgotten expression! It's only been a week in total, though!

"From outside?"

He replied, "No." ”

What they mean is that he must have been arrested not long ago, so he came from outside. After ninety-six hours of investigation, he did not think that he had come "from the outside" in any way, so was he not a tried prisoner? …… But he's from outside, after all! So, a little beardless old man with a pair of vivid black eyebrows asked him about military and political news at that time. It's amazing! Although it was already the end of February. But they did not know anything about the Berlin Conference, about the outflanking of El Alamein, about the new offensive of the Red Army and the Germans from mid-January, or even about the war between China and Yuben. According to the regulations, they should not know anything about the outside world, so they don't know anything.

His bed had been set, and he should have begun to speak (lying down and whispering, of course, lest he be immediately sent into confinement from this comfortable place), but their third fellow prisoner, a middle-aged man, who had grown white hair stubble on the top of his shaved head, looked at him with dissatisfaction, and said with the stern look that colored the countenance of the northerners: "More on tomorrow." The night is for sleeping. ”

This is the most sensible opinion. Any one of them could be dragged out for interrogation at any time and stay there until six o'clock in the morning, when the investigators were going to sleep, and sleep was forbidden.

A night's undisturbed sleep is more important than anything else in the world!

They turned around, blindfolded themselves with handkerchiefs to cover the two hundred watts of light, wrapped a towel around the frozen arm that had been lying on top of the quilt, hid the other arm like a thief, and fell asleep.

The next day, the scouts were wandering around, and no one was called for investigation. In the silence, one could hear someone protesting something. He was pulled out of his cell and taken into the isolation cell (they could sense the location of all the doors by hearing), the door of the isolation cell was open, and he was beaten there for a long time. In the silence, every blow was clearly audible on the body and on the mouth that was too anxious to speak.

On this day, Moscow fired thirty gun salutes, which meant another victory. Through their windows and the space above the windows of the other cells in the Lubyanka and all the prisons in Moscow, they, the prisoners of the past and the soldiers of the front, also looked at the sky of Moscow, which was bursting with fireworks and piercing by searchlights.

Boris? Gamerov was a very young anti-tank fighter who was discharged from the army and demobilized due to severe disability (an incurable wound to his lungs) and is now being arrested and imprisoned along with a group of university students. That evening, he crouched in a large Butirka cell, half of which was made up of prisoners and front-line soldiers. He raised his head and squinted at the cage:

"Oh, salute." As he spoke, he lay down again.

At this time, the impassioned voice of the Supreme Leader came from the loudspeaker:

"Comrades! Citizens! Brothers and sisters! Our Army and Navy soldiers! ”

"My friends, I speak to you now!"

"The odious Chinese, since yesterday, have launched a treacherous military offensive against our great motherland! Although the Red Army put up a heroic resistance, and although the enemy's elite divisions and their elite air units had been routed and buried on the battlefield, the enemy brought in fresh forces to the front and continued to advance. Enemy aircraft are also expanding their bombing areas, and our Motherland is in serious danger! ”

"How could our glorious Red Army allow the barbaric squadrons to occupy our cities and regions? Could it be that the brutal squadrons are really an invincible army, as their braggart propagandists constantly boast about? Of course not! History shows that an invincible army does not exist now, and it has been surrendered in the past. Napoleon's army, which was considered invincible, was defeated by the Russian, British, and German armies. During the First Imperialist War, William's German [***] army was also considered invincible, but this army was defeated several times at the hands of the Russian [***] team and the British and French armies, and was finally defeated by the British and French armies. We should also say the same about the now savage squadron! ”

"This army has yet to meet with significant resistance on the Asian continent. It is only on the territory of our country that it meets significant resistance. Since, as a result of this resistance, the elite divisions of the barbaric squadron [***] have been routed by our Red Army. That is to say, just as the armies of Napoleon and William were once routed, the barbaric squadron can be routed, and will be defeated! ”

(To be continued)