Page 22 - Excerpts from the diary

The front is very far from here now. The rumble of guns can no longer be heard. They say our troops are already thirteen kilometers from
Nikolaev. For the moment, the front has essentially halted at the Bug.

I stopped in a house on the edge of the village. There is a very young girl here, born in 1928—almost a child, though already grown.
Pretty, but still innocent in matters of love. She looks and looks at me in silence, as though trying to understand what kind of man I am.
She gazes endlessly with her beautiful blue eyes. Sweet little creature! A pity I am not your age, or I would show you what love is.

01.05.1944
All yesterday, all night, and even part of this morning a cold, driving rain fell. I slept sitting up, covered by my overcoat. It became
soaked through and heavy, and water collected beneath me as well. By morning the water had reached my underwear and my body. I was
drenched, as they say, “to the skin.” Only around my stomach and chest was there a dry patch: there the overcoat did not press tightly
against me, and in that “bosom” I kept my Party card and other documents.

Now I am more or less dry. The trench, two bayonets deep, is full of water; only the place where I sit is fairly dry, and I have put my bag
under me as well. My feet are wet and cold, while my hands and cheeks are burning.

Toward evening the horizon cleared. The sun, giving almost no warmth, and the wind briefly pleased the eye. But my overcoat and
footcloths still did not have time to dry completely.

The village is nearby, about three hundred meters from here. The front line is fifty meters away.

Today I went to Parkhomenko. He says he will do nothing yet to get me back into a mortar company. I told him that if he wants to test my
courage, he should give me an individual assignment. In the evening he wrote me a stupid order that left me dumbfounded: alone, I am to
cross to the other side through flooded anti-tank-rifle positions, enter the village, and destroy a pillbox with a heavy-machine-gun
embrasure, either with grenades or by some other means. I signed that I had read the order, but I am hardly going to carry it out unless it
can be done without senseless risk. I am a commander, a middle-ranking officer, and he gives me assignments like this.

In the village roosters crow and dogs bark. Between us are flooded meadows, and beyond them dry ground. The village stands on a
rounded height like a burial mound, only larger. The houses and streets are plainly visible, but not a single German shows himself
outside.
I wrote letters to Mother, Lyalyushka, Father, Aunt Anya—with the poem “Odessa”—a note to Tretyak, and a letter to Lapin.

23.05.1944
The first extraordinary event at the front: parcels. For the first time in my service in the Red Army I was fortunate enough to receive a
proper parcel from peaceful Soviet citizens: a piece of lard, biscuits, and writing paper. It had been sent by residents living near Hospital
No. 34 in Odessa. I answered them with a letter.

But of course not everything the people of Odessa had sent remained in the parcels. In today’s batch there was nothing at all except paper
and soap. The first parcels, though already opened, at least still had their sacks. Yesterday’s did not even have sacks; the wrapping paper
was torn. It was obvious that the sacks or bags in which the parcels had been sent had been opened and half their contents, if not more,
stolen. They had been opened so crudely that the bags could no longer hold together, and the bastards in the rear had been forced to patch
them up with paper. Even that had been opened repeatedly; everything was torn and the contents were falling out.

With difficulty I managed to make six more or less decent parcels out of nine and hand them to the soldiers. One parcel contained a note
mentioning socks and handkerchiefs sent to a soldier. Naturally, none of that was there—only paper, envelopes, and soap. This is how
rear-area personnel rob our riflemen of their last pleasure, diversion, and joy: they shamelessly plunder even parcels. Some parcels
contained shaving brushes and soap dishes, but the razor blades and razors themselves were gone, and so on and so forth.

Zabortsev also picks through everything in his company, taking whatever he can. On the first day he felt awkward doing it in front of
others. He sent away all the runners and everyone who had carried in the parcels, saying that only he and the Party organizer—that is,
me—should remain. Under the pretext of distributing them, he opened every parcel and took handkerchiefs, pocket mirrors, combs,
sweets, matches, pencils, toilet soap, toothbrushes and tooth powder, toothpaste, and whatever else had survived the thieves in the rear. I
felt terribly uncomfortable witnessing it, but I could do nothing. There was nowhere to complain either. He tried to buy me off with a
pocket mirror, paper, pencils, and so on, but I took nothing. In the end I did accept one pocket mirror from his hands; otherwise he would
simply have given it to some other scoundrel like himself.

Today he decided not to call me at all. But from the soldiers, from the appearance of the parcels, and from his own conversation, I
understood that he had rummaged through all of them again. More have just been brought in. If only I had the opportunity to receive the
parcels myself, at least for the regiment! Sixteen parcels in two days could be reduced, even without sorting them, to five and a half—and
after his sorting, even less remains.

The second emergency, no less important, was a German landing on the right flank in the defensive sector of [...] battalion, which put the
whole 8th Company to flight. Careless men slept through it and allowed the Germans onto the bank; on top of that they proved cowards
and ran. Two anti-tank-rifle soldiers who remained at their posts have been recommended for the Order of Glory. The fight ended with
two wounded on our side and two among the Germans.