Page 18 - Excerpts from the diary

I have just written a letter to Olya. That makes three letters. For Mushnyan I wrote a letter to the editorial office asking about his family.

The lice are eating me alive. Out of spite, the sergeant major gave me an old, rotten shirt and underpants when I exchanged my linen. It
was dark when I changed, so I did not notice immediately.

Party meeting. Long after midnight. I am going to the secretary.

17.01.1944
Night of January 17. We have all just been roused and ordered to prepare. It appears the enemy is advancing again.

The matches, as bad luck would have it, are damp. I struck half a box, but nothing helped. Then I struck two groups of five matches one
after another, and finally a flame appeared. The splinter of celluloid from an aircraft that I had used for kindling was gone. I managed to
get the stove going, but then there was no paper. I burned an entire newspaper and still could not start the fire. Then...
Then I grabbed some straw and a reed—hardly any of it here—and managed to light the stove. I blew on it for about ten minutes, and I
am still blowing now. It is fortunate that nothing happened. In the dark I would have lost a great deal if we had suddenly had to move out.

I threw away the porridge.

04.02.1944
Konstantinovka. We are standing one kilometer from the village. After our “rest,” tired and exhausted, we were sent back toward the
front. Mud, slush, and rain on the road seemed determined to finish us off altogether. Walking was unbelievably hard; standing still was
freezing. In the villages chosen for overnight stops, there was no room for us, and they would not even let us into the attics. [...] Add to
that the lack of food.

We climbed into apartments and attics by force, ignoring the women owners’ crying. Somehow we kept ourselves fed by exchanging
blankets and other things.

But here things became completely desperate. For three days we did not see a piece of bread. We found a way out. We went hungry the
first day; on the second we killed a horse wounded by the Germans and finished off a dying mare that had also been struck by a German
shell. We ate horsemeat the whole day. Another day we survived on raw corn, then found potatoes hidden in straw and ate those too.

Today Rudnev brought bread.

Shells are raging. Gorelenko, Ivashchenko, Solovyov’s mortar men, the sergeant major, and others have been wounded.

The dugout is useless. It is cold. The conditions are vile. I am depressed. But at least I can write, although it is dark and I am writing by
touch. Rudnev and Zasypko are with me. Shells are falling on both sides, and in my mind I keep begging them to look for some place
farther away.

I neither write letters nor receive any.

01.03.1944
Annovka. I did not sleep all night. I sat on a chair because there was nowhere to lie down, and I could not even doze sitting up: my legs
froze and people were packed all around. Rymar, Major Rostovtsev, and the sergeant majors collapsed in the dugout. There was no place
for me.

Today I received bread for two days—a loaf. I had two tins of canned food in my pocket: one contained fish; I did not even know what
was in the other. I decided to go and look for somewhere to stay.

There was no room in Zeleny Gai. I almost ended up in ill-fated Dudchino, which a lieutenant colonel had told me at the crossing was
where the division was located. In Zeleny Gai I happened to meet a civilian woman. There were only four civilian families there
altogether. She told me Dudchino was nearby; I had already reached the edge of Zeleny Gai adjoining that village. From there I went
straight to Annovka.

The enemy was shelling the road. I went down and made my way along the bank over the floodplain. Along the road I inspected German
dugouts. In the last one I examined, I decided to have a bite to eat. I took out bread and a tin of fish, ate, rested, and went on.

The road felt fresh and springlike. Grass is already showing everywhere. Everything is thawing. Around midday the sun came out and
smiled gently into my face.

I had my wound dressed. Major Suslin was at the dressing station and recognized me at once. He is back in position. Pichugin is the
agitator; I know nothing about Dozhurnov.

Today, on the outskirts of one village, I found the body of Senior Lieutenant Kiyan. The Germans had evidently finished him off after he
was wounded. What horror! What shame and reproach upon all those petty, miserable people who failed to carry him away from the
battlefield. Perhaps all of them together were not worth Senior Lieutenant Kiyan. Yes, these people like receiving ranks and awards, yet
they are ready to abandon a friend and comrade—especially a commander—to die while worrying only about saving their own skins.