Глеб Бобров - The Torn Souls - An Anthology of Prose About the Soviet War in Afghanistan

“Watch it!” — the flight engineer F. angrily muttered and effortlessly pressed a trigger, without moving any muscles. A doubled sound of one shot — and… a feather bloody splatter glued to the windshield!

Surprised by his own result, the flight engineer F. keeps smoking in the same position. “There is a God!” — he admits. Two stunned pilots have been keeping silent for some time. After this long pause, the commander unzipped his lips:

— I got it… Please, accept my apologies!

February 12, 1987. At midday, the letters were delivered by two soldiers, who brought the mail on the way from Turagundey.

A flight engineer F. tidied his bed and was ready go to get lunch. But whilst he was closing a door, he spotted a fast approaching cloud of dust far away that moved towards his quarters from a compact duty house. In a second, the cloud took the shape of squadron engineer — major Ivanov. Waving his hand, major Ivanov was shouting something. Swearing to himself, the flight engineer F. walked towards the unexpected guest.

— The Head of Air squadron has been sacked! — heavily catching his breath, the major cracked the news.

— For what? — the flight engineer F. asked trying to guess the cause of this news.

— Do not be stupid — the major exploded. — “What do you mean what for? or why!? Because it is all bullshit, that is why! He was knocked down! In the area of Dilarama the column got involved in an ambush and the commander flew to the rescue of them. He did well with mujahedeens (see “Terminology and Glossary” — Editor). But when he started landing to pick up the wounded ones, his helicopter’s bottom was sliced up. The fuel tap and tail rotor thrust were also severely damaged. He crashed somewhere near the enemy camp. As usual, the second helicopter, “the leader”, landed to collect them all, but mujaheeens attacked both of them from the hill. Regardless of the severity of the attacks, the commander had a chance to fly away, with only one supplying tank, to Farahrudskoy Point. Over there, he is now coordinating the fire and, I bet, he will be awarded no less than the “Banner swung”, and may receive the “Hero” title (see “Terminology and Glossary” — Editor). Of course, if he will not be shot down beforehand (God forbid!). Now he is asking for help, just give him a few more guys to collect the wounded ones. Listen, — the major directed the question to me, — is your board ready?

In five minutes, a tandem of two No.10 and No.92 were flying towards the southeast, in the direction of Dilaramu. We reached the pinnacle in no time, and without descending, flew over Daulatabad.

— “What, the hell, the riot police division sits there doing nothing, why are they not helping? It is only two minutes of flying from them…” — the commander said without hiding his anger.

We passed the ridge and approached a road-crossing with bridges over the Farah River. Between the bridges, our column got jammed and kept firing back at the pursuing enemy. We spotted the battlefield by the black smoke of a burning helicopter. We reduced our altitude to three hundred, established a radio-contact with the column, and the situation became clear: our guys and their enemy were located across from each other, on the opposite sides of the road.

— While I will target the left, you do work on the right! Do it hard: we should not see their muzzles! — the commander ordered.

The flight engineer F. opened fire on the right side of the road, blurred by smoke, the enemies, swarmed into the thick dust and became almost invisible. Curved trails of a shower of bullets went down and were lost in fumes. It was not possible to see whether or not they reached their targets.

— “Air”, you have been targeted! — a warning came from the column.

— I confirm! — the commander’s voice dropped down. — Let’s do manoeuvrings!

— The right one is in full gear! — the commander order directed the helicopter into the sky, towards the sun.

From both helicopters, the bullets went down like water from cracked barrels, then both of them turned around, simultaneously working out mujahidin positions. The explosions, like a blanket of black tulips, have covered an entire right side of the road. The flight engineer kept firing into the smoke until his bullets finished.

— What the hell? — the commander suddenly asked, fidgeting knees. — Pedals are stuck! Eventually, they got us — the machine is damaged. What a death trap we caught!

The flight engineer F., who was trying to fix the receiver for a new bullet line, looked down on the helicopters’ floor. There were at least two hundred bullets that had slipped from the output socket. Most of them were hiding behind the parachutes, but a couple of them fell under the commander’s legs, and a very special one ended up under the right pedal and, therefore, jammed it.

— Give me a sec, commander — the flight engineer F. said. He bends over, stretched out his hand trying to reach this bullet and release the pedal, but the bullet was stuck to the pedal like glue.

— Move your leg! — the flight engineer F.pushed with his fist the commander’s leg. The commander pulled out his leg from the right boot. The flight engineer F.pulled out the trouble causing bullet, swept away a few more bullets with his sleeve from the floor and ordered. — Push on the gas pedal!

— Well done, thank you, God! — the commander sighed. — Lets fly, darling!

We started descending and landed on the left side near a hill. Over the hill the noise of thunder and bombing continued. We loaded the dead and wounded ones. When the loading was finished, the soldier, who was helping to carry the bodies into the helicopter, sat on the bench, and grabbed his hair with his fingers covered by blood and dirt.

— Have you been wounded, brother? — the flight engineer F. looked at the face of the soldier. But the soldier said nothing, looking straight ahead with empty eyes. A sweaty sergeant popped in and shook the soldier:

— What has happened, Serge?

He lightly slapped the soldier’s face.

— Hey, run to your comrades, — he said.

The soldier, coming to his senses, jumped and ran away.

— Thank you very much! — the sergeant shook hands with the flight engineer.

From the cockpit, the commander commented:

— God bless you, guys, but the “whistles” will be here in a minute and they do have a bad habit of wiping out everything around. Let’s hit the road, so we do not get in their way. We will be back later.

We took off at a low altitude and headed north, hiding behind the hill. Jumped over the ridge, and we landed on the point near Daulatabad where GRU (see “Terminology and Glossary” — Editor) was based. We took two more wounded and returned home.

The “whistles” were striking from the top like lightning.

— Hello, “vertical!” (see “Terminology and Glossary” — Editor).

— Keep yourself busy, doves of the peace! — the commander kindly replied. In a few minutes, the air was heavily filled with the sprawling congestion of roaring:

— Reset-r-ro-os…!

And the squadron commander with his calming voice from above:

— Not a bad job…

And the voice of the column echoed:

— Could not be done better.

We were almost exhausted. We reached the hospital, unloaded, and flew towards our parking lot.

The flight engineer F. stepped out of the helicopter and noted that it is evening. Everything around — the parking lot and the helicopters — were in red from the setting sun that send down these mysterious, almost endless, shadows…

He met Lieutenant Mukhametshin who was holding a gun together with a protective helmet in his hand and was curious why the flight engineer F. is still here so late because he was told to replace him. Now he is waiting for the another crew to fly back.