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

Young soldiers of my group reported: “The beast slept, drank, and waved his tail. Stepan checked him in the morning and left…”

Well done! I like when an army’s Grandpa, sleeps but service is carried on!

I came closer to the dog. What a joy… His tail was playing drums on the dusty ground, his tongue was licking my hands. I checked his both sides — he was healing. I looked under his belly and spotted a new bandage on the leg. Ha! Somebody yesterday suggested to put him to sleep….

I sat next to him and wanted to pull his ears, but a warning muffled roar stopped me at once. A seriously dangerous eyes warning, a slightly elevated lip, and dangerously opened teeth — all were convincing. Why? My hand dropped immediately.

The dog was huge. His resemblance to an ordinary Shepherd was minimum because ordinary Shepherds have a long but sturdy body. This one was a tall specimen with powerful backbones and wide jaws; anyway his head was too big to be an ordinary Shepherd. Definitely he was a half-breed. His body was covered with a short, dense coat, almost creamy, with brown dark stripes on the top. A tough cocky look… and now, as turns out, he is not a weak character.

I sat down blatantly and moved my hands away like a teenager on a first date, who received a slapping for an unwanted kiss. The dog put his head on my lap and looked faithfully into my eyes and moved the tail once again. What crap! Slowly I opened my palm and moved my fingers close to the red open mouth. He licked my fingers! I scratched his throat and his dark eyes softened, lips opened and, I can bet on this, this dog smiled! A strange creature, this Dusya: an appreciation for scratching but a roar for patting.

Twenty minutes later, we even did not heat up our food, two army tracks arrived with a de-mining commander and his boys. They immediately showered me with questions: “How…?” “When…?” “What…?” “Do you…?” Everything okay, dudes, relax!

All of us proceeded to Dusya.

As soon as Dusya saw his comrades, he began whining with his tail thrashing the canvas. He tried to get up but even with all our effort to hold him, he could not and kept falling back. Our guests patted him, stroked, kissed… guys in vain, but when they arrived they looked so harsh! We had a chat about Dusya…

Actually the dog’s nickname was Dick. Dusya was a soft affectionate name given by his owner Fedor who brought the dog to military service in May from a civil life somewhere near Boronezh where both of them lived. His owner, Fedor, was also wounded and yesterday was transported to a hospital. Guys said, he was lucky because he can count all his bones.

Whilst we were talking, I spotted that a military helicopter called “The Eight” started to land. Interesting, whom this beau will pick up? Who is a big dude here? It turned out that de-miners have arranged the famously established service for transportation of Dusya. Wow, this style I understand!

Towards the end of our chit-chat, I asked about some strange behavior of my patient-why he does not like patting? They all laughed.

— Say thank you! You are lucky that he did not chop off half of your fingers! No one can touch his head, except Fedor. Better not even think of doing it!

Well, we all have cockroaches in our heads…

The helicopter landed. Dick was lifted on a stretcher and loaded inside. A couple of engineers jumped on board. “The Eight” in three circles elevated from the ground, joined his second mate, formed a pair and took towards the mountains. In a few minutes it was just a dot behind the rocks.

Wish you well, Dusya…

The rotation was conducted without any necessary entertainment. We did not stay in the position of our regiment, no… we had rested on the banks of a river that was located not far from a de-mining platoon location where I know many guys…

After a good deal of oversleeping, uncounted visits to banya (see “Terminology and Glossary” — Editor), and stuffing our bellies, to the point if disgusting, with properly cooked food, one evening I decided to make a visit together with Baldy to the Corps of Sappers.

When we arrived, a familiar noise welcomed us: I have met many friends from an Autumn enlisting. All were happy that we arrived just in time for baked potatoes or marihuana cigarettes, if you wish… No desire for potatoes, neither for dope. I came to see Fedor.

But it turns out that he was transported to Kunduz, a less dangerous place, if you can say it. Well, let’s make a visit to Dick… and again — bummer! Now Dick has a new owner, the fellow who is famous for his skeptical and unfriendly character, so-called the Ensign Trubilin, nicknamed by guys as Truba in short…

He is a unique military and personal legend of the Sapper Regiment. He is a head of Military service dogs nursery, in common parlance — the kennel, and also, as I was told, a rare idiot. His nickname was chosen by his fate as well as his surname. However, this man has one good quality — he loves dogs to the Moon and back. For dogs he was a devoted teacher, nurse, doctor… well… everything, but for a human being… better not to say it.

I was told a story when after arriving to the regimen and taking the position, Truba almost killed a young soldier — Ryzhu — for serving hot food to dogs. You see, the dogs cannot eat hot food as it affects their senses. So, Truba saw that a young, newly conscripted private nicknamed Ryzhu, placed a plate of steamy food in front of a dog. Without any words, Truba grabbed a shovel and run towards poor Ryzhu. God heaven that Ryzhu spotted him in time! The whole regiment observed how for a half an hour with a roar: “Ugandoshu” (“Kill you” — Editor) Truba chased Ryzhu around the camp and enjoyed Rychu’s maneuvers and zigzag rabbit tricks! After this incident, Trubilin bluntly reported to a commander about the incident and demanded that Ryzhu must stay at least within the distance of a gun-shot from the kennel; and modestly concluded his report, pointing out that if this bastard Ryzhu will ever appear near the animals, he, Guard Ensign of the Soviet Army, in spite of serving the Constitution of the USSR, will personally rip Ryzhu apart. The incident was ended.

To make the story short, Ensign Trubilin did not give a shit about others but I decided to try my luck and for a moral support I came with a couple of guys who claimed to be friends with him.

Approaching the kennel… I saw Ensign Trubilin who was sitting and reading something in the gazebo. He reminded me of a dark thundercloud, puffed and full of anguishing words, ready to explode. He was a guy in his middle age, short but heavily built, with such a spotlessly shaved fat face that the blue color of a lower part of his face was vividly contrasted to the olive skin of his body. His facial features echoed Southern origin, not obvious but traced in his face. His heavy eyes were sharply pointed towards me and he frowned but did not put down his readings

I felt like a pioneer leader in front of a superior member of the Communist Party: “Good morning, let us appeal to your decision and allow us to do so and so… We heard about your kindness and generosity and so on…” In short, we were like little girls asking Mommy’s permission to take candies. Trubilin reluctantly asked something and we answered, and after so-called friends of his were sent back empty-handed, he and I entered the kennel.

As soon as Dick saw us, he went crazy, the poor guy. He cannot stand up on his back legs, but tried to pull all his body, neck, legs towards us. He tried stretching to us and to get as close as possible to us in a puppy style, without losing face, but he did it with dignity. However, apparently, in few minutes his fire ended. He ran out of strength. He got tired and even his breath became difficult with a stuck out tongue.