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

He stretched himself on the tiled floor, lying down in this position for a while; then he popped-up, rolled over on his back and stared at the bright stars. Again and again, he was diving, then surfacing, coming out of water, lying on the wet floor, smoking, and listening how a chained common Indian monitor made a noise in his little house…

This was an operation on the cleaning of the western kishlaks (see “Terminology and Glossary”) of Herat. Returning from the action, the board No 33 contained five holes from bullets on the right side and the bottom. Normally, before imposing any patches, technicians, like as surgeons, provided a thorough check: they should remove all bullets stuck in the body of a helicopter and trace the bullet trajectories and fix all damaged units and pipelines. This job should be carried out until the last bullet will be found.

The fifth bullet on board No. 33 was a mystery one, and all staff have been looking for it for several days. Four bullets were found, but the fifth one just evaporated, despite her obvious mark of ricocheting from shutters and heading towards the hatch of a fodder machine gun. The hatch has no damage.

— Be honest, — the engineer Ivanov tried to find out the truth from the flight mechanic Tarabrin, — tell me that the hatch was opened and the bullet fell into it, am I right?

— I opened nothing! — the lieutenant Tarabrin lazily replied. — My machine gun was not even loaded, why would I need to stick the gun out?

— You should take it out; maybe then, you would not have the holes at the tail! — the engineer was getting angry. — Our fathers and grandfathers did it with Il-2, and you are too lazy to pull out your own real machine gun!

— The shooting was on the left, and my machine gun is on the right, they would not see it anyway, — the flight mechanic answered with an imperceptible yawning.

— Find this bullet then! — the engineer ordered, — I am allowed to hold the helicopter on the ground for a day but no longer!

The flight engineer F. was present during the conversation. He came to try on a denim suit which the flight mechanic Tarabrin had bought in Herat, but later on, he found out that it was a little bit too small for him.

— What is your problem?! — the flight engineer F. asked him as soon as the engineer walked away. — Shoot a hole somewhere — and you will have the fifth bullet’s entrance, that is all! Even better — to screw a hole somewhere so it will look like a trace of this bullet.

— You know, we looked for this bullet everywhere; — the lieutenant Tarabrin waved desperately with his hands, — and found nothing, but what will be if the bullet got stuck inside of some vital parts of a helicopter?

The flight engineer F. lowered his head and saw a mercury brilliant trace of a ricochet on the pulling lock; he looked towards the fodder hatch. A black Kalashnikov, strapped to a wall over the closed hatch, was looking directly at his face.

— You know, Alexey, — the flight engineer F. said with a tinge of doubt in his voice, — in physics, a movement of antiparticles can be described through an equation of the movement of the particle turned back in time?

— What are you talking about? — Tarabrin asked melancholically.

The flight engineer F. did not answer. He approached the machine gun, lifted it with handles and shook.The armor-piercing bullet of caliber 7.62 rolled out on his palm, or to be exact, it was a core of the bullet, not rumpled at all, just scratched a little bit.

— What a smart bullet, — said Tarabrin validly. — It is smarter than we are!

— Yes, indeed, — the flight engineer F. snapped, — Definitely, it is smarter than you… And because of it, you will give me a good discount for a denim suite I want to buy from you.

The Divisional Commander has been brought to Gerishk. We were sitting in the country near the road and saw how he arrived.

The sun is still high in the sky. It is an unbearable heat. The pilots are walking to a small river, leaving their helicopters under the APCs’ (see “Terminology and Glossary”) protection. The soft white dust rises to their knees like cement, sticking to the army pants. The river bank is steep; the huge gray stone seems to be curved with a fancy decor. A bit closer to the river, old stone slabs with numerous holes are looking like old gigantic trees with mini pools in their holes. The peacefulness and silence have been interrupted only by a light sound of reeds growing on the opposite bank of the river. We do not want to think that there can be someone except the egrets. Nevertheless, our weapons and military uniforms are placed in a close proximity, and one of us is taking turn to guard the place with a gun in his hands. First, what the pilots do — is bathe in this small hot river with its stony and slightly rough bottom; then they are washing their uniforms; after that — they dry it for several minutes on the heated stones. Plunging into the river one more time, they imprisoned their bodies into these hot uniforms and drag their feet to a dining room to have lunch.

The Divisional commander together with the local infantry major waited for them near the helicopters.

— Listen here, guys, — the commander said. — Here is someone who is asking you for help. The enemy hidden in the mountain, fired at our column a hundred kilometers to the north from here. Our guys cannot get them. If we do not remove them before darkness — they will leave. Rise your machines in the air and destroy them from above.

We took the major aboard and departed. In a few minutes of the fight, we saw an enormous mass of gigantic rocks sticking out in the middle of the desert. When we came closer, we spotted two of our cars burning at the bottom of the mountain, and next to them a tank and two APCs that were standing with trunks lifted up.

— This is what I called an afternoon erection, — the commander cracked the joke. — What stupidity! Leave the APCs for interception, drive the tank far away and shoot.

— The enemy is on a northern slope! — the major shouted. — Do not come closer, hit on that terrace, they are in caves, you aim at them directly! Eh, it is a pity, our tanks do not fly!

The pair of the crocodiles (see “Terminology and Glossary”) passed the rock, drove for two kilometres more and turned back getting ready to release a volley of bombs. But being in a hurry there was one problem that we did not consider.

— Damn it! — the commander swore. — The sun is on the enemies’ side!

The crown of the sun spread its rays over a half-sky and was shining over the top of the mountains. The brightness of the sun shot us directly with its full-steam heat and attacked us with its hot yellow fog, filling our cabins with unbearable temperature and light.

The flight engineer F. regretted that he had not put on his helmet with the light filter. But it was too late to be sorry for that.

— “Air”, quickly, they are shooting at your forehead! — a warning comes from the “land”.

The flight engineer F. aimed slightly below the sun and pressed the trigger. He moved his trunk in all directions trying to cover the sector of rocks as wide as possible. The foreign land and its roads jumped into his eyes but the horror was that we could not see either the tracks, nor those who were on them, everything was filled with this endless sun.

The flight engineer F. kept pressing his trigger, and by bending down to the machine gun, he tries to avoid this incredible glare. Of course, it will be very sad, even, let’s say, it will not be fair to have a meeting with the bullets coming from this solar fog. One bullet — and everything is in silence. And you are not here anymore… The end.