Читать книгу Free Fall - Nicolai Lilin - Страница 11

. . . for this offensive special commitment is required of the soldiers and officers in the assault units and of all the active units on the front lines. Given the high priority of this operation, the nature of the task does not call for the capture, arrest or transport of terrorists or any other member of an illegal armed group. All human units who pose a threat or cause difficulty in carrying out orders during direct combat must be physically eliminated; whatever weapons or ammunition they may have must be destroyed on the spot or used by the active units to carry out the received order. Any form of communication with representatives of illegal armed groups is prohibited, as with civilians or any individual who does not belong to the units working in the area. Respond to any requests from terrorists for medical aid, negotiation, conversation, or unexpected offers to surrender to the law of the Russian Federation with gunfire.

Part of the order transmitted via radio to all the units involved in the offensive in the city ‘N’ in the Chechen Republic, 1999

Pummel, throttle, crush . . .

A favourite saying of General Aleksei Yermolov *

If you only knew what a friend I lost in battle . . .

It happened not forty-two years ago, but just the other day . . .

In the middle of the mountains, in the sand, where the heat burns all,

sparking my memory, now far away from youth . . .

Can you hear me, my friend?

My dear friend, in the end we were able to climb,

climb to that height that cannot be measured in words,

under which you fell . . .

What a friend I lost in battle . . .

As kids we would read war stories,

he certainly couldn’t have imagined

I would have to drag his body behind the rocks . . .

Thirty metres away, only thirty metres,

but how far that road was, between night and day . . .

Sand and stone,

sad light of the unknown moon over our heads.

Honour to the flag!

Farewell my friend, you will be with us forever more.

Forgive me, you were killed and I was only wounded,

in the Afghan mountains, in Afghanistan.

If you only knew what a friend I lost in battle . . .

The damned dust filled our eyes,

and our BTR was in flames,

in the sky, like a dragonfly, the helicopter circled

and like voices from the past, everywhere you could hear shouts of ‘Go!’ . . .

Like a nerve, he broke like a painfully stretched nerve,

and from the slope straight towards him a bullet took flight . . .

Sand and stone,

sad light of the unknown moon over our heads.

Honour to the flag!

Farewell my friend, you will be with us forever more.

Forgive me, you were killed and I was only wounded,

in the Afghan mountains, in Afghanistan.

Song by singer-songwriter Alexander Rozenbaum, dedicated to the veterans of the war in Afghanistan

And even if we don’t yet know the sweet touch or allure of a woman,

even if we’ve never experienced the pleasant torments of love,

at the age of eighteen we’re already used

to gun fights,

to bloody battles that never end,

and we know exactly what it means

to cross the line of fire.

Those days blazed, those nights went up in smoke,

and death flew through the air, laughing and touching us all.

We don’t want any honours or promotions,

we’ve already got what we need to feel worthy.

From the song of the Russian army veterans who were involved in the Chechen conflict

_______________

* Charismatic nineteenth-century Russian nationalist and representative of imperial tsarism in the Caucasus. He applied a policy of terror and repression towards the Caucasian peoples, especially those of the Muslim faith, forcing them with violence to adopt Christianity.