Читать книгу A Loss: The Story of a Dead Soldier Told by His Sister - Olesya Khromeychuk - Страница 9

For months, my Facebook page was advertising dating sites, maternity clothes, theater performances and army boots. Size 8. The algorithms must have thought that I was a single woman of childbearing age, keen on theater and army outfits. They must also have thought that I have pretty big feet.

I didn’t blame Facebook. I had spent days looking at army surplus sites hunting for a pair of army boots. Following my brother’s request, I was determined to get a pair that would be lightweight, waterproof, black and size 8. I soon realized that army surplus sites sell just that: surplus supplies. That meant that the most popular sizes—8 included—were very hard to find. I considered getting police boots, because they were super light, and I could get them in the right size and color, but they were not waterproof. I found a pair of army boots that were waterproof, black and size 8, but they were heavy, and the last thing you want when crossing the muddy, black-earth fields of eastern Ukraine is boots that weigh a ton even before the mud piles onto them.

After a week or so of inspecting hundreds of pairs of army boots on my laptop screen and not finding what I needed I started to despair. Every day I checked the main sites to see if they had any new additions, but with no luck. And then, suddenly, there they were: a shining pair of Gore-Tex Pro Combat British Army boots. I couldn’t believe my eyes! They were waterproof, black, a bit on the heavy side, but, most importantly, size 8! But wait, what’s that? The label said: “Size 8 medium.” ”Oh, God!” I thought: “Is ‘medium’ good? What are the other options?” I couldn’t face having to give them up and continuing to look for another pair. Luckily, there were no other options available anyway and I thought that “medium” must be better than “large” or “small,” so I bought them. The special bonus for all my hard work was the fact that they were not “pre-owned,” like most of the other pairs I had looked at. They were brand new. I was very happy: my brother would have a brand-new pair of proper army boots, the envy of the whole company and maybe even the whole battalion! No one else would have such fine boots.

My order arrived pretty quickly. I was glad to learn that the boots were not too heavy. I gave them a wipe, stroked them gently, whispered “good luck” to them, put them back in the shoebox and put the box in a bag. The bag already contained a full army uniform, a couple of army caps, army socks, t-shirts, a lightweight waterproof suit, a lightweight jacket and trousers, a helmet liner, a bivvy bag, a genuine British army issue poncho, a few other pieces of army clothing as well as medical supplies, a Celox sachet (the stuff that stops heavy bleeding), water purifying tablets, dry food survival packs, and lots of chocolates and flapjacks. Basically, all the stuff that the Ukrainian army didn’t bother to give to its soldiers. There was also an MP3 player with my favorite music. I hadn’t been asked for it. I put it there on my own initiative. My mum added a few little crosses to the leather threads: “Maybe he’ll give them out to his friends and keep one for himself,” she said.

Apart from the boots, which were a total pain in the neck, none of these items were particularly hard to get. My friend, Kolya, had made a list of the necessary items and the companies that supplied them. Other friends who had been volunteering for some time suggested a few websites that sold these items. So, the process of obtaining all these army supplies was remarkably straightforward. There was only one article that evaded me: I was also hoping to get a bulletproof jacket, but that task proved to be beyond my ability. Bulletproof jackets are, predictably, not so easy to find online. But, all in all, looking at the large khaki bag stuffed with all these items I felt quite proud of myself for accomplishing my own military mission: getting everything necessary to keep my brother warm, dry and safe.

My mother and I took the bag to a man with a van who would then transport it to Ukraine and pass it on to Kolya in Lviv. Before the war, I had only encountered the services provided by the man with the van when my parents sent gifts to my numerous cousins in the Carpathian mountains and they, in return, sent us dried mushrooms, honey and all those other delicacies from the old country one misses when one gets a bit homesick.

I wondered how the man with the van felt about expanding his trade to include army provisions. Maybe he liked it that he could do his bit for the country this way. He certainly didn’t charge us much for the bag. Maybe he felt inadequate that, rather than buying these items for himself and driving his van to the front line, he carried on in his job as a messenger between peace and war. Maybe he hadn’t given this any thought at all. Not everyone thinks of this war, and, maybe, that’s fine. When we handed our bag over to him on a sunny afternoon on a west London side street, we felt like we were letting go of someone we might never see again.