The story "The Dawns Here Are Quiet" written by Vasiliev Boris Lvovich (years of life - 1924-2013), was first born in 1969. The work, according to the author himself, is based on a real military episode, when, after being wounded, seven soldiers serving on the railway prevented a German sabotage group from blowing it up. After the battle, only one sergeant, the commander of the Soviet fighters, managed to survive. In this article, we will analyze "The dawns here are quiet", we will describe summary this story.

War is tears and grief, destruction and horror, madness and extermination of all life. She brought trouble to everyone, knocking on every house: wives lost their husbands, mothers - sons, children were forced to be left without fathers. Many people went through it, experienced all these horrors, but they managed to survive and win in the hardest of all wars ever endured by mankind. Let's start the analysis of "The Dawns Here Are Quiet" with short description events, along with commenting on them.

Boris Vasiliev served as a young lieutenant at the beginning of the war. In 1941, he went to the front while still a schoolboy, and two years later he was forced to leave the army due to a severe shell shock. Thus, this writer knew the war firsthand. Therefore it the best works- it is about her, about the fact that a person manages to remain a person only by fulfilling his duty to the end.

In the work "The Dawns Here Are Quiet", the content of which is war, it is felt especially sharply, since it is turned by an unusual facet for us. We are all used to associate men with her, but here the main characters are girls and women. They stood up against the enemy alone in the middle of the Russian land: lakes, swamps. The enemy - hardy, strong, merciless, well-armed, greatly outnumbers them.

Events unfold in May 1942. Depicted is a railway siding and its commander - Fedor Evgrafych Vaskov, a 32-year-old man. Soldiers arrive here, but then they start to walk and drink. Therefore, Vaskov writes reports, and in the end they send him anti-aircraft gunners under the command of Rita Osyanina, a widow (her husband died at the front). Then Zhenya Komelkova arrives, instead of the carrier killed by the Germans. All five girls had their own character.

Five different characters: analysis

"The Dawns Here Are Quiet" is a work that describes interesting female images. Sonya, Galya, Lisa, Zhenya, Rita - five different, but in some ways very similar girls. Rita Osyanina is gentle and strong-willed, distinguished by spiritual beauty. She is the most fearless, courageous, she is a mother. Zhenya Komelkova is white-skinned, red-haired, tall, with childish eyes, always laughing, cheerful, mischievous to the point of adventurism, tired of pain, war and painful and long love for a married and distant person. Sonya Gurvich is an excellent student, a refined poetic nature, as if she came out of a book of poems by Alexander Blok. she always knew how to wait, she knew that she was destined for life, and it was impossible to escape her. The latter, Galya, always lived more actively in the imaginary world than in the real one, therefore she was very afraid of this merciless terrible phenomenon, which is war. "The Dawns Here Are Quiet" depicts this heroine as a funny, never matured, clumsy, childish orphanage girl. Escape from the orphanage, notes and dreams ... about long dresses, solo parts and universal worship. She wanted to become new love Orlova.

The analysis of "The Dawns Here Are Quiet" allows us to say that none of the girls was able to fulfill their desires, because they did not have time to live their lives.

Further developments

The heroes of "The Dawns Here Are Quiet" fought for their Motherland like no one else had ever fought anywhere. They hated the enemy with all their heart. The girls always carried out orders clearly, as young soldiers should. They experienced everything: losses, worries, tears. Right before the eyes of these fighters, their good friends were dying, but the girls held on. They stood to the death to the very end, they did not let anyone through, and there were hundreds and thousands of such patriots. Thanks to them, it was possible to defend the freedom of the motherland.

Death of heroines

These girls had different deaths, as they were different life paths, followed by the heroes of "The Dawns Here Are Quiet". Rita was wounded by a grenade. She understood that she could not survive, that the wound was fatal, and that she would have to die painfully and for a long time. Therefore, gathering the rest of her strength, she shot herself in the temple. Gali's death was as reckless and painful as she herself - the girl could have hidden and saved her life, but did not. It remains only to speculate what motivated her then. Perhaps just a moment of confusion, perhaps cowardice. Sony's death was cruel. She didn't even know how the dagger blade had pierced her cheerful young heart. Zhenya is a little reckless, desperate. She believed in herself until the very end, even when she led the Germans away from Osyanina, she never doubted for a moment that everything would end well. Therefore, even after the first bullet hit her in the side, she was only surprised. After all, it was so improbable, absurd and stupid to die when you were only nineteen years old. Lisa's death happened unexpectedly. It was a very stupid surprise - the girl was dragged into the swamp. The author writes that until the last moment the heroine believed that "tomorrow will be for her."

Petty Officer Vaskov

Sergeant Major Vaskov, whom we have already mentioned in summary"And the dawns here are quiet," as a result, he is left alone in the midst of torment, misfortune, alone with death and three prisoners. But now he has five times more strength. What was in this fighter of the human, the best, but hidden deep in the soul, was suddenly revealed. He felt and experienced both for himself and for his "sister" girls. The foreman laments, he does not understand why this happened, because they need to give birth to children, and not die.

So, according to the plot, all the girls died. What guided them when they went into battle, not sparing their own lives, defending their land? Perhaps just a duty to the Fatherland, his people, perhaps patriotism? Everything was mixed up at that moment.

Sergeant Major Vaskov ultimately blames himself for everything, and not the Nazis he hates. As a tragic requiem, his words that he "put down all five" are perceived.

Conclusion

Reading the work "The Dawns Here Are Quiet" one involuntarily becomes an observer of the everyday life of anti-aircraft gunners at a bombed-out junction in Karelia. This story is based on an episode that is insignificant in the vast scale of the Great Patriotic War, but it is told in such a way that all its horrors stand before your eyes in all their ugly, terrible inconsistency with the essence of man. It is emphasized by the fact that the work is called "The Dawns Here Are Quiet", and by the fact that its heroes are girls who are forced to participate in the war.

“The Dawns Here Are Quiet” is a short story that tells with piercing sincerity about the fate of five young girls who died in the swampy Karelian forests. This book, written by Boris Vasiliev in 1969, tells the story of the military events of 1942 so truthfully and touchingly that in a relatively short period it twice managed to attract the attention of filmmakers. We will try to summarize the summary of “The Dawns Here Are Quiet” so that this work does not seem to the reader a dry presentation of facts, but makes him familiarize himself with the original.

Chapter first

There is a war going on. The action takes place in May 1942. Thirty-two-year-old Fedot Evgrafych Vaskov, with the rank of foreman, commands the 171st railway siding. Shortly before Finnish war he married, but when he returned, he found that his wife had gone south with the regimental veterinarian. Vaskov divorced her, and returned the common son, Igor, through the court and gave it to his mother to raise. A year later, the boy was gone.

Everything is calm in his part. The servicemen, looking around, begin to drink. Vaskov scribbling reports to the authorities. He is sent a platoon of girls who make fun of his timidity.

This is the main essence of the first chapter, its summary. “The dawns here are quiet” Vasiliev dedicated to those girls who served and accomplished their feat for the good of the Motherland.

Chapter Two

The commander of the first section of the platoon was a strict girl, Rita Osyanina. Her beloved husband died at the very beginning of the war. Son Albert is now being raised by her parents. Having lost her husband, Rita hated the Germans fiercely and treated the girls of her department harshly.

However, her harsh character softened after the cheerful beauty Zhenya Komelkova entered her department. Even the summary of “The Dawns Here Are Quiet” cannot ignore her tragic fate. In front of this girl, her mother, brother, sister were shot. Zhenya went to the front after their death, where she met Colonel Luzhin, who defended her. He is a family man, and the military authorities, having learned about their romance, sent Zhenya to the girls' team.

The three girls were friends: Rita, Zhenya and Galya Chetvertak - an unsightly ugly girl whom Zhenya helped to "bloom" by adjusting her tunic and building her hair.

Rita visits her mother and son at night, who live nearby in the city. Of course, no one knows about this.

Chapter Three

Returning to the unit from mother and son, Osyanina notices Germans in the forest. There were two of them. She reports this to Vaskov.

This episode in a key way determines the further summary of "The Dawns Here Are Quiet." Vasiliev arranges events in such a way that a fatal accident affects the subsequent narrative: if Rita had not run to the city to her mother and son, there would have been no whole subsequent story.

She reports what she saw to Vaskov. Fedot Efgrapych calculates the route of the Nazis - the Kirov railway. The foreman decides to go there a short way - through the swamps to the Sinyukhina ridge and already there to wait for the Germans, who, as he expected, will go along the ring road. Five girls go with him: Rita, Zhenya, Galya, Liza Brichkina and Sonya Gurvich.

Fedot tells his wards: "In the evening the air is damp here, dense, and the dawns here are quiet ...". The summary can hardly convey the tragedy of this small work.

Chapters four, five

The girls, led by Vaskov, cross the swamp.

Sonya Gurvich is from Minsk. She comes from a large family, her dad is a local doctor. What happened to her family now, she does not know. The girl graduated from the first year of Moscow University, speaks good German. Her first love - a young man with whom she attended lectures together, went to the front.

Galya Chetvertak is an orphan. After the orphanage, she entered the library technical school. When she was in her third year, the war began. When crossing the swamp, Galya loses her boot.

Chapter six

All six safely crossed the swamp and, having reached the lake, are waiting for the Germans, who appear only in the morning. There are sixteen Germans, not two, as they expected.

Vaskov sends Liza Brichkina to report on the situation.

While waiting for help, Vaskov and four girls pretend to be lumberjacks to mislead the Germans. Gradually they move to a new place.

Chapter Seven

Liza Brichkina's father is a forester. The girl could not finish school, because she took care of her sick mother for five years. Her first love is a hunter who once stopped for the night in their house. She likes Vaskov.

Returning to the junction, when crossing the swamp, Liza drowns.

Chapters eight, nine, ten, eleven

Vaskov discovers that he has forgotten the pouch, Sonya Gurvich volunteers to bring it, but she is killed by two Germans. The girl is buried.

Soon Vaskov and the girls see the rest of the Germans approaching them. Having hidden, they decide to shoot first, in the expectation that the Nazis will be afraid of an invisible enemy. The calculation turns out to be correct: the Germans are retreating.

There is a disagreement between the girls: Rita and Zhenya blame Galya for being a coward. Vaskov stands up for Galya, and together they go on reconnaissance. Sonya, screaming, betrays herself, the Germans kill her.

Fedot Evgrafych leads the enemies away from Zhenya and Rita. He understands that Liza did not reach, and there will be no help.

We have almost outlined the summary of "The Dawns Here Are Quiet." An analysis of this work, of course, cannot be carried out without knowing how it ended.

Chapters twelve, thirteen, fourteen

Vaskov returns to the girls, they are preparing for the last battle, in which they manage to kill several Germans. Rita is mortally wounded. Vaskov is looking for a safe place for her. Zhenya is killed by the Germans. Rita turns to Vaskov with a request to take care of her son and shoots herself in the temple. Vaskov buries Rita and Zhenya, goes to the location of the enemy. After killing one, he orders the remaining four to tie themselves up and takes them prisoner. Seeing his own, Vaskov loses consciousness.

Fedot Evgrafych keeps his promise to Rita and brings up her son.

This is the summary of "The Dawns Here Are Quiet." Boris Vasiliev spoke chapter by chapter about the fate of many girls of that time. They dreamed about Great love, tenderness, family warmth, but a cruel war fell to their lot ... A war that did not spare a single family. The pain inflicted then on people lives in our hearts to this day.

And the dawns here are quiet. A story that brought real fame to its author, Boris Lvovich Vasiliev. Written in 1969, it was almost immediately published in the Youth magazine. A year later, the work was transferred to the stage of the theater. In 1970, the story "The Dawns Here Are Quiet..." was filmed. In this story, the author unfolds before the reader a story about a military operation that began in one of the Russian forests. Having gone to work, the fighters, led by a foreman, discover that the Germans outnumber them.

The detachment is left without reinforcements, they are doomed to death: someone succumbs to fear, someone courageously defends their native land. But the fact is that all the fighters, except for the foreman, are women. Losing each of his "soldiers", one by one, main character story, foreman, bitterly thinks about the unnaturalness of what is happening. Women who die at the hands of the enemy should be in a completely different place, in the family, give birth and raise children. This thought, which is repeated in the work as a reprise, is main idea author.

Boris Vasiliev raises the themes of cowardice, heroism, duty, but also asks the problem of "woman and war". And this problem leads the reader to an even greater problem, because the woman in this work is synonymous with life, the successor of the family.

“And the dawns here are quiet…” summary

Replenishment

It was hot May 1942. At the 171st railway siding, the foreman Fedot Vaskov was in charge. Vaskov at the age of 32, he is lonely, as his wife ran away with her lover, and his little son died. The fighters were constantly replaced, because the place was calm, the soldiers drank moonshine and walked with local women. Fedot Evgrafych demands that non-drinkers and “non-walkers” be sent to him - in response, the authorities send a detachment of young anti-aircraft gunners.

Sergeant Major Vaskov does not know how to behave with young women, they respond to any remark with a giggle, “on all fronts” they dry clothes, or even lie down to sunbathe in what their mother gave birth to. Home in the first section of the platoon Margarita Osyanina. She was the first to marry from the class, and remained a widow on the second day of the war. Rita left a small son, Albert, whom she sent to her parents in the village two months before the war.

The death of her husband made her somehow special among the other girls, she remained the most severe among them. When Zhenya Komelkova appears among the girls, Rita's feature disappears. A year before Zhenya was here, the Germans shot her entire family. She saw it with her own eyes, from the house opposite, where her Estonian neighbor hid her. Despite the great loss, Zhenya laughs and smiles, she is very beautiful, slim, with long hair. Zhenya and Rita become friends.

Squad advances

After a while, it becomes clear that it was not in vain that Rita asked to transfer her platoon here. Every three days, Osyanina voluntarily runs away somewhere after dinner and returns at dawn. On one of these trips, in the morning, Rita sees two Germans walking into the forest. She wakes up Vaskov, he informs his superiors and decides to advance in order to hunt down the enemy: kill one of the Germans, take one prisoner for questioning. He takes with him: Zhenya, Rita, Lisa Brichkina, Sonya Gurvich and Galya Chetvertak.

The detachment advances, goes along a short path. Vaskov correctly guesses that the Germans will take a long path, and he himself leads the girls along a short road, through a swamp, to Lake Vop. Settled in ambush, the foreman and the girls are finally waiting for the Germans. But when the Germans come ashore, Fedot Vaskov must solve a big problem in his head: not two, but sixteen Germans came ashore.

We are waiting for reinforcements

Lisa Brichkina is sent back to the village to inform her superiors that reinforcements are urgently needed. Liza, the forester's daughter, runs, thinking of her past life, which passed in the care of a sick mother, and a feeling for foreman Vaskov. She misses the right place, stumbles and dies in the swamp. At this time, the foreman and the rest of the girls do not yet know about it. They have to play for time: pretending to be lumberjacks, they burn fires, cut down trees.

When the fighters moved on, Vaskov discovers that he forgot his tobacco pouch. Cheerful Sonya decides to return for him, especially since they have already passed this path twice. To her misfortune, Sonya meets the Germans, who kill her. The foreman and Zhenya track down two Germans and avenge Sonya. Soon they fire at the enemy detachment, but only one is wounded.

During the shelling, Galya a quarter, a former student of a library technical school, who ended up at the front because of romantic ideas, succumbs to fear. She is horrified by Sonya's death, but Vaskov does not see this. He takes her with him, puts her in an ambush, and when the right moment comes to shoot the enemy, Galya gives herself away, the Germans kill her. The foreman leads the Germans behind him to save the survivors Zhenya and Rita. Vaskov is wounded in the hand. He finds a hut, an enemy camp, kills another German. On his way, near the swamp, he notices Brichkina's skirt and realizes that the girl is bogged down in the swamp, there will be no help.

Last Stand

The surviving Zhenya and Rita meet Fedot on the shore as sisters and brothers. They hug, cry, the foreman tells the girls about Lisa's death and what awaits them. last Stand, you can not let the enemy near the railroad. The girls are ready for it. In an unequal battle, the Germans first wound Rita, and while Vaskov hides her, Zhenya dies. Rita understands that she will not survive and confesses to Vaskov where she ran at night: not far from the junction, her mother lives in the city, with Rita's little son. The woman asks Fedot to take care of the baby. Not wanting to die in agony, Rita shoots herself in the temple.

Vaskov, left alone, first buries Rita and Zhenya. And then he goes to the hut, the parking lot of the Germans. He kills one German, and the other four surrender. The enemy simply could not imagine that the foreman was alone. And the foreman himself, tying the last German, bitterly promised to kill everyone, for the five girls they killed. The story ends with a life-affirming epilogue. Many years pass. Old Fedot Evgrafych and Albert Fedotovich bring a marble slab to Rita's grave.

“The Dawns Here Are Quiet” is a dramatic work that takes the reader back to the time of the Great Patriotic War. It introduces the courage and strength of ordinary Russian soldiers, among whom fate entrusted to be not only men, but also very young girls. The selflessness and strength of mind of five young people, led by a young commander, arouse admiration and pride in the reader, mixed with deep sorrow and sadness. This is a novel in which not all heroes are destined to survive in the war, protecting their mothers, children and homeland. "The Dawns Here Are Quiet" by Boris Vasilyev can be downloaded for free in fb2 format or read online.

The history of the creation of the work

The book "The Dawns Here Are Quiet", which you can download from our website, was first published in 1969 in the Soviet magazine "Youth". The story aroused great reader interest and was on the bestseller list for 10 years. Performances on Taganka were repeatedly played on it and feature films were made, receiving heartfelt feedback from the touched spectators about the work. The events of the Great Patriotic War stirred the hearts, and the still warm memory of past troubles made Boris Vasiliev's story especially dramatic.

According to the author, the book is based on heroic story seven Soviet soldiers who served at one of the key stations of the Kirov railway and were able to neutralize the saboteurs german army who wanted to undermine an important section of the tracks. Only the sergeant who commanded the group survived, who later received a military award. The writer immediately starts working on the plot, but after writing seven pages, he realizes that there are no fundamentally new things in history. storylines and decides to make changes.

He recalls the women who happened to fight and admits that few people write about their exploits, unfairly forgetting the strength and courage they showed in the war. The author decides to make fragile young girls subordinate to the hero and easily builds an action-packed story line, closely intertwining the destinies different people. “The Dawns Here Are Quiet” is a genre of military drama, its text is written with piercing pain and a feeling of boundless love for the Motherland, helping the soldiers not to give up and go into battle again.

The tragic plot of the work leaves a deep mark on the soul of the reader, who, together with the characters, plunges into the hardships of war, finds himself alone in the face of death, when he has to find the strength to move on. Almost every book review is a reader's confession of empathy and tears. A review written by one reader will certainly find a repetition in another review text, since the emotions about the book are unanimous.

"The Dawns Here Are Quiet": plot description

The main characters are 6 extraordinary, brave personalities with different life stories and social status, who were destined to meet and, despite the circumstances, go forward together to win. Among them:

1. Fedot Vaskov - foreman of a group of anti-aircraft gunners.
2. Liza Brichkina is a young 19-year-old daughter of a forester, who until the height of the war lived in one of the military cordons in the middle of the Bryansk forests.
3. Sonya Gurvich is a young, intelligent girl from a family of doctors who, after two semesters of the university, went to the front.
4. Zhenya Komelkova is a 19-year-old girl whose family was shot by German soldiers in front of her eyes.
5. Rita Osyanina - the girl got married early, her border guard husband dies at the very beginning of the war, leaving an heir. Rita gives the child to her mother and goes to the front.
6. Galya Chetvertak is a dreamy girl from an orphanage who went to war deeply convinced of the romanticism of her act.

The story opens in 1942, where the reader is shown the life of the 171st railway siding, located in the epicenter of hostilities, with a couple of barely surviving yards. The relatively calm, quiet rhythm of life in this area allowed the soldiers to abuse alcohol, as well as to be tempted by the attention of the female half. The commandant of the junction, Vaskov, regularly wrote reports with a request to send non-drinking soldiers to the unit, but with enviable constancy, history repeated itself again until the male anti-aircraft gunners were replaced by women.

With the arrival of the girls, life at the junction became very calm and cheerful at the same time, despite the hardships of the time. Young ladies often made fun of Vaskov, who felt awkward in the company of new anti-aircraft gunners and was a little embarrassed by his lack of education, since he graduated from only 4 grades of school. Sometimes the foreman was indignant at the behavior of the girls, who, in his perception, worked "not according to the charter."

Rita is appointed commander of the anti-aircraft gunners. After the loss of her husband, her temper became severe, and her nature closed. She treated her comrades-in-arms quite strictly, but Zhenya Komelkova managed to soften her character, who survived the loss of all her loved ones, but managed to remain an open and cheerful person. Secretly from everyone at night, Rita goes to visit her mother and child, who live near the junction.

A friendship develops between Rita and Zhenya, to which Galya joins, reputed to be an ugly girl. Komelkova finds her a tunic, fixes her hair, and the unsightly girl is noticeably transformed.

One day, Rita went into the forest without permission. Upon returning, she notices two people in camouflage gear who are armed and carrying some kind of packages. Osyanina immediately reports what he saw to Vaskov. The commander concludes that she met with the saboteurs of the German army, who were moving towards the railway junction, and decides to intercept the enemy.

Vaskov receives 5 anti-aircraft gunners in command and they are sent to carry out an interception plan. On the way, Vaskov tries to be optimistic, often joking, wanting to cheer up his female fighters. The characters decide to take German soldiers at Vop-lake, to which they go by the shortest route through forests and swamps. Passing through the swamp, Galya Chetvertak stumbles, finding herself up to her neck in water.

The company successfully reaches its destination. The commander, knowing about the numerical superiority of his group, counts on a quick reprisal against the enemies, but decides to play it safe and chooses a path for a possible retreat. While waiting for the Germans to appear, the girls manage to have lunch, after which Vaskov gives a combat order to detain the saboteurs and the heroes take up combat positions.

Galya catches a cold after falling into a swamp, she is covered with chills. The team spends the whole night waiting for the saboteurs. Toward morning, the Germans appear, but contrary to expectations, instead of two people, they number sixteen. Vaskov decides to send Liza on a road trip to tell about what happened and bring help. Brichkina loses her landmarks and loses a conspicuous pine tree, which means the right turn to pass the swamp. Moving through the swamp, she stumbles and, getting stuck in a quagmire, dies.

Meanwhile, the commander and anti-aircraft gunners, wanting to scare off the German soldiers and force them to take a detour, play a scene. Vaskov and the girls give the impression that lumberjacks are working in the forest. They begin to conduct a loud roll call, burning fires. Fedot cuts down trees, and the resourceful Zhenya goes for a swim, pretending not to notice the presence of enemies. The unsuspecting Germans leave.

The commander understands that the hidden enemy can turn out to be insidious and does not exclude the threat of an attack on his squad. Together with Osyanina, he goes to reconnaissance. Having found out that the saboteurs settled down for a halt, Vaskov decides to change the location of the team and sends Rita for the girls. Fedot remembers that he forgot his pouch and gets upset. Noticing his mood, Sonya decides to return for the loss.

The commander did not have time to stop Gurevich, who had run away for the pouch. Shots are fired. Sonya dies from the bullets of two German soldiers. The upset group buries the girl. Vaskov takes off her boots and hands them to Galya, who lost hers in the swamp, noting that he must take care of the living.

Saying goodbye to Sonya, the commander and anti-aircraft gunners begin a furious pursuit of the Germans, wanting to avenge the death of a comrade-in-arms. They overtake the enemy and, sneaking up unnoticed, Vaskov kills one of them, but he has no strength for the second. At this moment, Zhenya is nearby and, having killed the saboteur with a butt, saves the life of the commander. The Germans are retreating. Realizing the perfect deed, Komelkova is tormented by oppressive thoughts for what she has done. The foreman tries to justify her decisive step by talking about the inhumanity and ruthlessness of the enemy.

Shocked by Sonya's death, the dreamy Galya throws her rifle aside during the oncoming battle and falls to the ground. The girls begin to accuse her of cowardice, but Vaskov justifies Chetvertak with inexperience and confusion. For educational purposes, the foreman takes Galya with him for reconnaissance.

Inspecting the surroundings of the forest, the scouts notice the corpses of the Germans. It was estimated that there were still 12 German soldiers left. The foreman and Galya hide in ambush, ready to shoot at the approaching saboteurs. Unexpectedly, Chetvertak leaves the hiding place and, mad with horror, betrays himself, receiving a machine-gun burst from the Germans.

Vaskov decides to take the enemy away from the place where Zhenya and Rita remained. Until the very night, he tried to create noise in the forest, shot at enemy figures flashing between the trees, shouted and tried to lure saboteurs closer to the marshy place. Having been wounded in the arm, he takes refuge in the swamp until the morning.

At dawn, the wounded commander gets out on land and notices on the water a black skirt worn by Lisa Brichkina. Vaskov realizes that the girl has died, and the last hopes for help turn to dust. Dejected by heavy thoughts about the lost "his war", Vaskov goes in search of German soldiers.

In the forest, he meets an abandoned hut, which turned out to be a refuge for saboteurs. Hidden, the foreman watched the Germans, who hid the explosives. Then the whole group leaves for reconnaissance, leaving one soldier to guard the hut. Fedot kills the enemy, takes the weapon and goes to the bank of the river where they once played a scene in front of the saboteurs. There he tells the remaining anti-aircraft gunners about the death of Galya and Liza, saying that soon they will have to accept their last, probably, battle.

Saboteurs appear on the shore, a terrible battle ensues. Vaskov fought relentlessly, defending his homeland and not allowing the enemy detachment to cross the river. Rita receives a severe shrapnel wound in the stomach. The wounded Zhenya continues to shoot back, leading the Germans behind her and not noticing the wounds received. The girl shot to the last bullet, sparing no effort and hitting the enemy with her courage. The Germans shoot the unarmed Komelkova point-blank.

The dying Osyanina tells the foreman about her son Albert and asks to take care of the baby. Vaskov, tormented by thoughts of the loss of the entire team, shares with Rita his feelings about what happened and asks himself: was the death of young girls worth giving her away for trying to block the road to the Germans? Rita replies that they defended their homeland and did everything right. How could they do otherwise and allow the enemy to undermine the road? No.

Vaskov rises and follows the Germans again. He hears a shot and returns to Rita, who shot herself, not wanting to torture herself or the foreman. Having buried both girls, with the last of his strength, Fedot moved forward, where the German hut was located. He bursts inside, where he kills one of the saboteurs and takes four more prisoners. In a semi-delirious state, wounded and exhausted, he leads the Germans to the siding line. Realizing that he reached the place, the foreman loses consciousness.

In the epilogue of the book, the author talks about a letter from a tourist written many years after the war. It tells about a gray-haired old man who came to the lake, who did not have an arm, and a rocket captain named Albert Fedotych. On the shore they installed a marble slab. The tourist says that together with the arrivals he goes in search of the graves of the anti-aircraft gunners who once died here. And he notes how "the dawns here are quiet."

Description of the book "The Dawns Here Are Quiet..."

"And the dawns here are quiet..." Many of them just finished school yesterday. They loved poetry and dreamed of love ... But the war came, and fragile girls took up arms. May 1942 In the Karelian forests, five anti-aircraft gunners under the command of foreman Vaskov are forced to confront a detachment of German saboteurs. Sixteen well-trained professionals - against five girls ... And they will not pass. "He was not on the lists" On June 21, 1941, Lieutenant Pluzhnikov arrived at the duty station. And at dawn, the Brest Fortress was the first to take the blow of the fascist invaders ... They fought to the end. And Pluzhnikov, the only surviving fighter, for nine months alone led an underground struggle against the Nazis. The last defender of the unconquered fortress... He can be killed. But you can't win. "Encounter battle" After the victory, dying is especially insulting. It is terrible to see the death of comrades when the whole world is already rejoicing... On that day the war ended. BUT tank corps took his...

“And the dawns here are quiet…” - plot

May 1942 Countryside in Russia. There is a war with Nazi Germany. The 171st railway siding is commanded by foreman Fedot Evgrafych Vaskov. He is thirty two years old. He has only four grades. Vaskov was married, but his wife ran away with the regimental veterinarian, and his son soon died.

It's quiet on the road. Soldiers arrive here, look around, and then begin to "drink and walk." Vaskov stubbornly writes reports, and, in the end, he is sent a platoon of “non-drinking” fighters - anti-aircraft gunners. At first, the girls laugh at Vaskov, but he does not know how to deal with them. Rita Osyanina is in command of the first squad of the platoon. Rita's husband died on the second day of the war. She sent her son Albert to her parents. Soon Rita got into the regimental anti-aircraft school. With her husband's death, she learned to hate the Germans "quietly and mercilessly" and was harsh with the girls in her squad.

The Germans kill the carrier, instead they send Zhenya Komelkova, a slender red-haired beauty. In front of Zhenya a year ago, the Germans shot her loved ones. After their death, Zhenya crossed the front. She was picked up, protected "and not that he took advantage of defenselessness - Colonel Luzhin stuck to himself." He was family, and the military authorities, having found out about this, the colonel "took into circulation", and sent Zhenya "to a good team." Despite everything, Zhenya is "sociable and mischievous." Her fate immediately "crosses out Rita's exclusivity." Zhenya and Rita converge, and the latter "thaws".

When it comes to transferring from the front line to the patrol, Rita is inspired and asks to send her squad. The junction is located near the city where her mother and son live. At night, Rita secretly runs into the city, carries her products. One day, returning at dawn, Rita sees two Germans in the forest. She wakes up Vaskov. He receives an order from the authorities to "catch" the Germans. Vaskov calculates that the route of the Germans lies on the Kirov railway. The foreman decides to go a short way through the swamps to the Sinyukhina ridge, stretching between two lakes, along which you can only get to the railway, and wait for the Germans there - they will certainly go by the roundabout. Vaskov takes Rita, Zhenya, Lisa Brichkina, Sonya Gurvich and Galya Chetvertak with him.

Lisa is from Bryansk, she is the daughter of a forester. For five years, she took care of her terminally ill mother, because of this she could not finish school. A visiting hunter, who awakened her first love in Liza, promised to help her enter a technical school. But the war began, Liza got into the anti-aircraft unit. Liza likes Sergeant Major Vaskov.

Sonya Gurvich from Minsk. Her father was a local doctor, they had a large and friendly family. She herself studied for a year at Moscow University, knows German. A neighbor from lectures, Sonya's first love, with whom they spent only one unforgettable evening in the park of culture, volunteered for the front.

Galya Chetvertak grew up in an orphanage. It was there that she met her first love. After the orphanage, Galya got into the library technical school. The war caught her in her third year.

The path to Lake Vop lies through the swamps. Vaskov leads the girls along a path well known to him, on both sides of which there is a quagmire. The fighters safely reach the lake and, hiding on the Sinyukhina ridge, are waiting for the Germans. Those appear on the shore of the lake only the next morning. There are not two of them, but sixteen. While the Germans have about three hours left to go to Vaskov and the girls, the foreman sends Lisa Brichkin back to the siding - to report on a change in the situation. But Lisa, crossing the swamp, stumbles and drowns. No one knows about this, and everyone is waiting for help. Until then, the girls decide to mislead the Germans. They portray lumberjacks, shouting loudly, Vaskov felling trees.

The Germans retreat to Lake Legontov, not daring to go along the Sinyukhin ridge, on which, as they think, someone is cutting down the forest. Vaskov with the girls moves to a new place. He left his pouch in the same place, and Sonya Gurvich volunteers to bring it. Hurrying, she stumbles upon two Germans who kill her. Vaskov and Zhenya are killing these Germans. Sonya is buried.

Soon the fighters see the rest of the Germans approaching them. Hiding behind bushes and boulders, they shoot first, the Germans retreat, fearing an invisible enemy. Zhenya and Rita accuse Galya of cowardice, but Vaskov defends her and takes her on reconnaissance for "educational purposes". But Vaskov does not suspect what mark Sonya's death left in Gali's soul. She is terrified and gives herself away at the most crucial moment, and the Germans kill her.

Fedot Evgrafych takes the Germans on himself to lead them away from Zhenya and Rita. He is wounded in the hand. But he manages to get away and get to the island in the swamp. In the water, he notices Lisa's skirt and realizes that help will not come. Vaskov finds the place where the Germans stopped to rest, kills one of them and goes to look for the girls. They are preparing to take the final stand. The Germans appear. In an unequal battle, Vaskov and the girls kill several Germans. Rita is mortally wounded, and while Vaskov is dragging her to safety, the Germans kill Zhenya. Rita asks Vaskov to take care of her son and shoots herself in the temple. Vaskov buries Zhenya and Rita. After that, he goes to the forest hut, where the five remaining Germans sleep. Vaskov kills one of them on the spot, and takes four prisoners. They themselves tie each other with belts, because they do not believe that Vaskov is "all alone for many miles." He loses consciousness from pain only when his own, Russians, are already coming towards him.

Many years later, a gray-haired, stocky old man without an arm and a rocket captain, whose name is Albert Fedotovich, will bring a marble slab to Rita's grave.

Story

According to the author, the story is based on a real episode of the war, when seven soldiers who, after being wounded, served at one of the junction stations of the Kirov railway, did not allow a German sabotage group to blow up the railway in this section. After the battle, only a sergeant survived, the commander of a group of Soviet fighters, who after the war was awarded the medal "For military merit". “And I thought: this is it! A situation when a person himself, without any order, decides: I won’t let him in! They have nothing to do here! I started working with this plot, I have already written seven pages. And suddenly I realized that nothing would come of it. It will just be a special case in the war. There was nothing fundamentally new in this story. Work is up. And then it suddenly came up - let my hero have not men, but young girls as subordinates. And that's it - the story immediately lined up. Women have the hardest time in war. There were 300 thousand of them at the front! And then no one wrote about them.”

Series "100 major books"

Photos used in the binding design: Anatoly Garanin, Oleg Knorring, S. Alperin, Yaroslavtsev / RIA Novosti; Archive RIA Novosti

Photo of sniper Roza Shanina on the spine: Fund GBUK "Arkhangelsk local history museum»

© Vasiliev B.L., heirs, 2015

© Design. Eksmo Publishing LLC, 2015

* * *

And the dawns here are quiet...

1

At junction 171, twelve yards survived, a fire shed and a squat, long warehouse built at the beginning of the century from fitted boulders. During the last bombing, the water tower collapsed, and trains stopped stopping here. The Germans stopped the raids, but circled over the siding every day, and the command, just in case, kept two anti-aircraft quads there.

It was May 1942. In the west (on damp nights the heavy rumble of artillery came from there), both sides, having dug into the ground two meters, finally got stuck in trench warfare; in the east, the Germans bombed the canal and the Murmansk road day and night; in the north there was a fierce struggle for sea ​​routes; in the south, besieged Leningrad continued a stubborn struggle.

And here was the resort. From silence and idleness, the soldiers were thrilled, as in a steam room, and in twelve courtyards there were still quite a few young people and widows who knew how to get moonshine almost from a mosquito squeak. For three days the soldiers slept and watched; on the fourth, someone's name day began, and the sticky smell of the local pervach no longer vanished over the junction.

The commandant of the junction, the gloomy foreman Vaskov, wrote reports on command. When their number reached ten, the authorities rolled another reprimand to Vaskov and replaced the half-platoon swollen with fun. For a week after that, the commandant somehow managed on his own, and then everything was repeated at first so exactly that the foreman eventually got around to rewriting the previous reports, changing only numbers and names in them.

- You are doing nonsense! thundered the major, who had arrived according to the latest reports. - The scripture was torn apart. Not a commandant, but some kind of writer!

“Send the non-drinkers,” Vaskov stubbornly repeated: he was afraid of any loud-voiced boss, but he babbled his own like a sexton. - Non-drinkers and, this ... That, then, about the female sex.

- Eunuchs, or what?

“The authorities know better,” the sergeant-major said cautiously.

“All right, Vaskov,” the major said, inflamed with his own severity. - There will be non-drinkers for you. And as for women, it will be as expected. But look, sergeant major, if you can't even deal with them...

“That’s right,” the commandant agreed woodenly.

The major took away the anti-aircraft gunners who could not stand the temptation, promising Vaskov once more in parting that he would send those who would turn their noses up more lively from skirts and moonshine than the foreman himself. However, fulfilling this promise was not easy, since not a single person arrived in two weeks.

“It’s a complicated question,” the sergeant-major explained to his landlady, Maria Nikiforovna. - Two squads - that's almost twenty people who do not drink. Shake up the front, and then I doubt ...

His fears, however, turned out to be unfounded, since already in the morning the hostess announced that the anti-aircraft gunners had arrived. Something harmful sounded in her tone, but the foreman did not understand from sleep, but asked about what was disturbing:

- Have you arrived with the commander?

“It doesn’t look like it, Fedot Evgrafych.

- God bless! - The foreman was jealous of his commandant position. “The power to share is worse than nothing.

“Wait a minute to rejoice,” the hostess smiled enigmatically.

“We will rejoice after the war,” Fedot Evgrafovich said reasonably, put on his cap and went out into the street.

And he was dumbfounded: two lines of sleepy girls stood in front of the house. The sergeant-major thought that he was half asleep, blinked, but the tunics on the soldiers still briskly stuck out in places not provided for by the soldier's charter, and curls of all colors and styles impudently climbed out from under the caps.

“Comrade foreman, the first and second squads of the third platoon of the fifth company of a separate anti-aircraft machine-gun battalion have arrived at your disposal to guard the facility,” the elder reported in a dull voice. - Sergeant Kiryanova reports to the platoon commander.

“So-so,” the sergeant-major drawled, not at all according to the charter. - Found, then, non-drinkers ...

All day long he pounded with an ax: he built bunks in the fire shed, since the anti-aircraft gunners did not agree to stay with the hostesses. The girls dragged boards, held them where they ordered, and crackled like magpies. The foreman gloomily remained silent: he was afraid for his authority.

“Not a foot from the location without my word,” he announced when everything was ready.

“Even for berries?” the plump woman asked timidly: Vaskov had long noticed her as the most intelligent assistant.

“There are no berries yet,” he said. - Cranberries, maybe.

- Can sorrel be collected? Kiryanova asked. “It’s hard for us without welding, comrade foreman. We emaciate.

Fedot Evgrafych looked doubtfully at the tightly pulled tunics, but permitted:

Grace came at the junction, but this did not make the commandant feel better. The anti-aircraft gunners turned out to be noisy and cocky girls, and the foreman every second felt like he was visiting his own house: he was afraid to blurt out the wrong thing, to do it wrong, and even to enter where without knocking, now there could be no question, and if he when he forgot about it, the signal screech immediately threw him back to his previous positions. But most of all, Fedot Evgrafych was afraid of hints and jokes about possible courtship, and therefore he always walked around staring at the ground, as if he had lost his allowance for the last month.

“Don’t be afraid, Fedot Evgrafych,” said the hostess, observing his communication with his subordinates. “They call you an old man among themselves, so look at them accordingly.

Fedot Evgrafovich turned thirty-two this spring, and he did not agree to consider himself an old man. On reflection, he came to the conclusion that all these words were only measures taken by the hostess to strengthen her own positions: she still melted the ice of the commandant's heart on one of the spring nights and now, naturally, sought to strengthen herself on the conquered frontiers.

At night, anti-aircraft gunners recklessly thrashed German planes with all eight barrels, and during the day they made endless laundry: some rags were always drying around the fire shed. The foreman considered such decorations inappropriate and briefly informed Sergeant Kiryanova about this:

- unmasks.

“But there is an order,” she said without hesitation.

- What order?

- Corresponding. It says that female military personnel are allowed to dry clothes on all fronts.

The commandant said nothing: well, these girls, to hell with them! Just get in touch - they will giggle until autumn ...

The days were warm, windless, and mosquitoes spawned in such numbers that you couldn’t take a step without a twig. But a twig is still nothing, it is still quite acceptable for a military man, but the fact that soon the commandant began to wheeze and cackle at every corner, as if he really was an old man - that was absolutely useless.

And it all started with the fact that on a hot May day he turned behind a warehouse and froze: his eyes splashed so violently white, so tight and even eight times multiplied by the body that Vaskov was already thrown into a fever: the entire first squad, led by the commander, junior sergeant Osyanina sunbathing on a government tarpaulin in what the mother gave birth. And even if they squealed, or something, for decency, but no: they buried their noses in the tarpaulin, hid, and Fedot Evgrafych had to back away like a boy from someone else's garden. From that day on, he began to cough at every corner, like whooping cough.

And he singled out this Osyanina even earlier: strict. He never laughs, he just moves his lips a little, but his eyes remain serious as before. Osyanina was strange, and therefore Fedot Evgrafych carefully made inquiries through his mistress, although he understood that this assignment was not at all for joy.

“She is a widow,” Maria Nikiforovna reported, pursing her lips a day later. - So it is completely in the female rank: you can flirt with games.

The sergeant-major said nothing: you still can't prove it to a woman. He took an ax, went into the yard: there is no better time for thoughts, how to chop wood. A lot of thoughts have accumulated, and it was necessary to bring them into line.

Well, first of all, of course, - discipline. Okay, the fighters don’t drink, they don’t be nice to the residents - that’s all right. And inside - a mess: “Lyuda, Vera, Katenka - on guard! Katya is a breeder.

Is this a team? Divorce of guards is supposed to be done to the fullest extent, according to the charter. And this is a complete mockery, it must be destroyed, but how? He tried to talk about this with the eldest, with Kiryanova, but she had one answer:

“We have permission, comrade foreman. From the commander. Personally.

Laughing, damn...

- Are you trying, Fedot Evgrafych?

He turned around: a neighbor looked into the yard, Polina Egorova. The most dissolute of the entire population: she celebrated her name day four times last month.

“Don’t bother too much, Fedot Evgrafych. You are now the only one left with us, sort of like a tribe.

Laughs. And the gate is not fastened: she dumped charms on the wattle fence, like rolls from the oven.

- Now you will walk around the yards like a shepherd. A week in one yard, a week in another. This is what we, the women, have an agreement about you.

- You, Polina Egorova, have a conscience. Are you a soldier or a lady? So behave accordingly.

“The war, Yevgrafych, will write everything off. Both from soldiers and from soldiers.

What a loop! Should be evicted, but how? Where are they, civil authorities? But she is not subordinate to him: he ventilated this issue with a screaming major.

Yes, there were two cubic meters of thoughts, no less. And with each thought it is necessary to deal with it in a special way. Absolutely special.

Still, a big hindrance is that he is a person with almost no education. Well, he can read and write and he knows how to count within four grades, because right at the end of this fourth grade, his father's bear broke him. Here the girls would have laughed if they knew about the bear. Well, this is necessary: ​​not from gases to the world, not from a blade to Civil, not from a kulak sawn-off shotgun, not even by his own death - the bear broke. They, go, only saw this bear in the menageries ...

From a dense corner you, Fedot Vaskov, crawled out into the commandants. And they - do not look that ordinary - science. “Preemption, quadrant, drift angle ...” There are seven classes, or even all nine: you can see from the conversation. Subtract four from nine - five remains. It turns out that he lagged behind them more than he himself has ...

Thoughts were gloomy, and from this Vaskov chopped firewood with special fury. And who is to blame? Unless that impolite bear ...

Strange thing: before that, he considered his life lucky. Well, it’s not that it’s completely twenty-one, but it’s not worth complaining about. Still, with his incomplete four classes, he graduated from the regimental school and rose to the rank of foreman ten years later. There was no damage along this line, but from other ends, it happened that fate laid flags around and twice hit point-blank from all trunks, but Fedot Evgrafych still resisted. Resist…

Shortly before the Finnish, he married a nurse from the garrison hospital. A living woman got caught: she would have to sing and dance and drink wine. However, she gave birth to a baby. Igorkom was named: Igor Fedotovich Vaskov. Then the Finnish war began, Vaskov left for the front, and as he returned back with two medals, he was shocked for the first time: while he was bent there in the snow, his wife completely spun with the regimental veterinarian and departed for the southern regions. Fedot Evgrafych divorced her immediately, demanded the boy through the court and sent him to his mother in the village. A year later, his boy died, and since then Vaskov smiled only three times: to the general that he was awarded the order, to the surgeon who pulled a fragment from his shoulder, and to his mistress, Maria Nikiforovna, for ingenuity.

It is for this fragment that he received his current post. Some property remained in the warehouse, sentries were not set, but, having established a commandant's position, they instructed him to observe that warehouse. Three times a day, the foreman went around the object, tried the locks, seals, and in the book, which he himself started, made the same entry: “The object was inspected. There are no violations." And inspection time, of course.

Quietly served foreman Vaskov. Quiet to this very day. And now…

The foreman sighed.

2

Of all the pre-war events, Rita Mushtakova most vividly remembered the school evening: a meeting with the heroic border guards. And although there was no Karatsupa at this evening, and the dog’s name was not Hindu at all, Rita remembered him as if that evening had just ended and the shy Lieutenant Osyanin was still walking along the echoing wooden sidewalks of a small border town. The lieutenant was not yet a hero, he got into the delegation by accident and was terribly shy.

Rita was also not a lively one: she sat in the hall, did not participate in either greetings or amateur performances, and would rather agree to fall through all the floors to the rat cellar than to be the first to speak to any of the guests under thirty. It was just that he and Lieutenant Osyanin happened to be next to each other and sat, afraid to move and looking straight ahead. And then the school entertainers organized a game, and they again fell out to be together. And then there was a common phantom: to dance a waltz, and they danced. And then they stood at the window. And then ... Yes, then he went to see her off.

And Rita terribly cheated: she led him on the farthest road. But he was still silent and only smoked, each time timidly asking her permission. And from this timidity, Rita's heart fell right to her knees.

They didn’t even say goodbye by the hand: they just nodded to each other, that’s all. The lieutenant went to the outpost and wrote her a very short letter every Saturday. And every Sunday she answered long. This went on until the summer: in June he came to the town for three days, said that it was restless at the border, that there would be no more holidays, and therefore they should immediately go to the registry office. Rita was not at all surprised, but bureaucrats were sitting in the registry office and refused to register the marriage, because she was five and a half months short of eighteen. But they went to the commandant of the city, and from him to her parents, and yet they got their way.

Rita was the first of their class to get married. And not for anyone, but for the red commander, and even the border guard. And a happier girl in the world simply could not be.

At the outpost, she was immediately elected to the women's council and enrolled in all circles. Rita learned to bandage the wounded and shoot from all types of weapons, ride a horse, throw grenades and defend against gases. A year later, she gave birth to a boy (they named him Albert, Alik), and a year later the war began.

On that first day, she was one of the few who did not lose her head, did not panic. She was generally calm and reasonable, but then her calmness was explained simply: back in May, Rita sent Alik to her parents and therefore could save other people's children.

The outpost held out for seventeen days. Day and night, Rita heard distant gunfire. The outpost lived, and with it lived the hope that the husband was safe, that the border guards would hold out until the approach of the army units and, together with them, would answer blow for blow - at the outpost they loved to sing so much: “The night has come, and the darkness hid the border, but no one he will cross over, and we will not allow the enemy to stick his snout into our, Soviet, garden ... ”But days passed, and there was no help, and on the seventeenth day the outpost fell silent.

They wanted to send Rita to the rear, and she asked to fight. She was persecuted, stuffed by force into the wagons, but the stubborn wife of the deputy head of the outpost, Senior Lieutenant Osyanin, reappeared at the headquarters of the fortified area a day later. In the end, they took me as a nurse, and six months later they sent me to the regimental anti-aircraft school.

And senior lieutenant Osyanin died on the second day of the war in the morning counterattack. Rita found out about this already in July, when a border guard sergeant miraculously broke through from the fallen outpost.

The authorities appreciated the unsmiling widow of the border guard hero: they noted it in orders, set it as an example, and therefore respected the personal request - to send her to the site where the outpost stood, where her husband died in a fierce bayonet battle, after graduation from school. The front then backed away a little: it caught on the lakes, covered itself with scaffolding, climbed into the ground and froze somewhere between the former outpost and the town where Lieutenant Osyanin once met with the student of the ninth "A" ...

Now Rita could consider herself satisfied: she had achieved what she wanted. Even the death of her husband went somewhere in the farthest corner of her memory: Rita had a job, duties and very real goals for hatred. And she learned to hate quietly and mercilessly, and although her calculation has not yet succeeded in shooting down an enemy plane, she still managed to flash a German balloon. He flared up, cringed: the spotter threw himself out of the basket and flew down like a stone.

Shoot, Rita! Shoot! shouted the anti-aircraft gunners.

And Rita waited, not removing the crosshairs from the falling point. But when the German pulled the ring just before the ground, throwing out the parachute, she smoothly pressed the trigger. A burst of four barrels cut the black figure cleanly, the girls, screaming with delight, kissed her, and she smiled with a glued smile. She was shaking all night. Kiryanov, assistant commander of the platoon, soldered tea, consoled:

- It will pass, Rita. When I killed the first one, I almost died, by golly. The moon was dreaming, bastard ...

Kiryanova was a fighting girl: even in Finnish she crawled with a sanitary bag for more than one kilometer of the front line, she had an order. Rita respected her for her character, but did not particularly get close.

However, Rita generally kept to herself: in the department she had completely Komsomol girls. Not that younger, no: just green. They knew neither love, nor motherhood, nor grief, nor joy; they chatted excitedly about lieutenants and kisses, and Rita was now annoyed by this.

- Sleep! - She briefly threw, after listening to another confession. “I’ll hear more about stupid things - you’ll insist on the clock to your heart’s content.”

“In vain, Ritukha,” Kiryanova lazily blamed. - Let them talk to themselves: amusing.

- Let them fall in love - I won’t say a word. And so, licking in the corners - I don’t understand this.

- Show me an example, - Kiryanova grinned.

And Rita immediately fell silent. She could not even imagine that this could ever happen: men did not exist for her. One was a man - the one that led to the thinned bayonet outpost at the second dawn of the war. Lived, tightened with a belt. Tightened to the very last hole.

Before May, the calculation got it: for two hours they fought with nimble "Messers". The Germans came in from the sun, dived into quadruplets, pouring fire heavily. They killed the carrier - a snub-nosed, ugly fat woman who always chewed something on the sly, and lightly wounded two more. The commissar of the unit arrived at the funeral, the girls roared loudly. They gave a salute over the grave, and then the commissioner called Rita aside:

- You need to fill up the department.

Rita was silent.

- You have a healthy team, Margarita Stepanovna. A woman at the front, you know, is an object of close attention, so to speak. And there are times when they don't.

Rita was silent again. The commissar stamped his feet, lit a cigarette, and said in a muffled voice:

- One of the staff commanders - a family one, by the way - got himself, so to speak, a girlfriend. A member of the Military Council, having learned, took the colonel into circulation, and ordered me to put this girlfriend, so to speak, to the point. To a good team.

“Come on,” Rita said.

The next morning I saw and admired: tall, red, white-skinned. And the eyes of children: green, round, like saucers.

- Fighter Yevgeny Komelkov at your disposal ...

That day was a bathhouse, and when their time came, the girls in the waiting room looked at the new one as if at a miracle:

- Zhenya, you are a mermaid!

- Zhenya, your skin is transparent!

- Zhenya, you only have to sculpt a sculpture!

- Zhenya, you can walk without a bra!

- Oh, Zhenya, you need to go to the museum! Under glass on black velvet...

“Unfortunate woman,” Kiryanova sighed. - Packing such a figure into uniforms is easier to die.

“Beautiful,” Rita corrected carefully. Beautiful people are rarely happy.

Are you referring to yourself? Kiryanova smiled.

And Rita fell silent: no, her friendship with the platoon commander Kiryanova did not work out. Didn't come out at all.

And she left with Zhenya. Somehow by itself, without preparation, without probing: Rita took it and told her her life. I wanted to reproach in part, and in part - to show and brag by example. And Zhenya in response did not begin to regret or sympathize. She said briefly:

“So you have a personal account, too.”

It was said that Rita, although she knew everything about the colonel, asked:

- And you too?

- And I'm alone now. Mom, sister, brother - they all laid down with a machine gun.

Was there a shooting?

- Shot. The families of the command staff were captured and - under the machine gun. And the Estonian hid me in the house opposite, and I saw everything. All! The sister was the last to fall: they finished off on purpose ...

“Listen, Zhenya, what about the colonel? Rita asked in a whisper. How could you, Zhenya?

- But she could! Zhenya shook her red hair defiantly. - Now you will start to educate or after lights out?

Zhenya's fate crossed out Rita's exclusivity, and - a strange thing! - Rita seemed to have thawed a little, as if she had trembled somewhere, softened. She even laughed sometimes, even sang songs with the girls, but by herself she was only alone with Zhenya.

Red-haired Komelkova, despite all the tragedies, was extremely sociable and mischievous. Either for the amusement of the entire squad, he will bring some lieutenant to numbness, then during a break to the girlish “la-la” he will dance the gypsy according to all the rules, then suddenly he will start telling a novel - you will listen.

- You should take the stage, Zhenya! Kiryanova sighed. - Such a woman is gone!

And so ended Ritino's carefully guarded loneliness: Zhenya shook everything up. In the department they had one slut, Galya Chetvertak. Thin, pointed-nosed, tow braids and a flat chest, like a boy's. Zhenya scrubbed her in the bathhouse, made her hair, adjusted her tunic - Jackdaw Chetvertak blossomed. And the eyes suddenly sparkled, and a smile appeared, and breasts, like mushrooms, grew. And since this Jackdaw did not leave Zhenya a single step, they now became three together: Rita, Zhenya and Galka.

The news of the transfer from the front line to the object of anti-aircraft gunners was met with hostility. Only Rita kept silent, ran to the headquarters, looked at the map, asked questions and said:

Send my department.

The girls were surprised, Zhenya raised a rebellion, but the next morning she suddenly changed: she began to agitate for the departure. Why, why - no one understood, but they fell silent: it means that it is necessary - they believed Zhenya. Conversations immediately subsided, began to gather. And as soon as they arrived at the 171st junction, Rita, Zhenya and Galka suddenly began to drink tea without sugar.

Three nights later, Rita disappeared from the location. She slipped out of the firehouse, crossed the junction like a shadow, and melted into the dew-drenched alder. On a stalled forest road, she got out onto the highway, stopped the first truck.

“Going far, beauty?” - asked the mustachioed foreman: at night, cars went to the rear for supplies, and they were accompanied by people who were far from the drill and charters.

- Will you give me a lift to the city?

Hands were already reaching out from the body. Without waiting for permission, Rita got on the wheel and instantly found herself at the top. They sat me down on a tarpaulin and threw on a quilted jacket.

- Take a nap, girl, an hour.

And in the morning she was there.

- Lida, Raya, - in the outfit!

No one saw, but Kiryanova found out: they reported. She didn't say anything, she just smiled.

- Got someone, proud. Let her, maybe, thaw.

And Vaskov - not a word. However, none of the girls were afraid of Vaskov, and Rita was the least afraid. Well, a mossy stump wanders along the siding: there are twenty words in reserve, and even those from the charters. Who will take him seriously?

But a uniform is a uniform, and especially in the army. And this form demanded that no one, except for Zhenya and Galka Chetvertak, knew about Rita's night travels.

Sugar, biscuits, millet concentrate, and sometimes cans of canned meat migrated to the town. Crazy from luck, Rita ran there two or three nights a week: she turned black, haggard. Zhenya reproachfully hissed in his ear:

- You've gone too far, mother! If you run into a patrol or whichever commander is interested, you will burn out.

- Shut up, Zhenya, I'm lucky!

Her own eyes glow with happiness: can you talk seriously with such a person? Zhenya was only upset:

- Oh, look, Rita!

The fact that Kiryanova knows about her travels, Rita quickly guessed from the looks and grins. These smiles burned her, as if she really betrayed her senior lieutenant. She darkened, wanted to answer, pull up - Zhenya did not give. Grabbed, dragged to the side.

“Let Rita, let her think what she wants!”

Rita came to her senses: right. Let him compose any dirt, as long as he keeps quiet, does not interfere, he would not inform Vaskov. It will torment you, you will drink it - you will not see the light. An example was: the foreman caught two girlfriends from the second squad across the river. For four hours - from lunch to dinner - I read morality: I quoted the charter by heart, instructions, instructions. He brought the girls to the third tears: not only across the river - they swore to leave the yard.

But Kiryanova remained silent for the time being.

There were windless white nights. Long - from dawn to dawn - twilight breathed a thick infusion of pouring herbs, and anti-aircraft gunners sang songs near the fire shed until the second cocks. Rita now hid only from Vaskov, disappeared in two nights on the third shortly after supper and returned before getting up.

Rita loved these returns the most. The danger of catching the eye of the patrol was already over, and now it was possible to calmly spank with bare feet in the cold to the point of dew, throwing boots tied with ears behind their backs. Spanking and thinking about the date, the mother's complaints, and the next AWOL. And because she could plan the next date herself, not depending or almost not depending on someone else's will, Rita was happy.

But there was a war, disposing of human lives at its discretion, and the fates of people were intertwined in a bizarre and incomprehensible way. And, deceiving the commandant of the quiet 171st patrol, junior sergeant Margarita Osyanina did not even know that the directive of the imperial SD service No. C219 / 702 with the stamp “ONLY FOR COMMAND” had already been signed and accepted for execution.