Portartur. 1940

The Chinese again wondered. An old woman came out into the yard. The girls ran to the orlovtsu, they have become accustomed to it.

– What, again, wanted sugar? I will give sugar, dam, – the gunner laughed and put the children in the arba. Turning to the fanzi host, he said:

– Grandmother sit, madame sit, and then let’s go. – Konevyazov harnessed himself in a cart and drove her a few steps to the gate.

The girls laughed and waved their hands, but the Chinese did not understand anything. The seriousness with which the orlovets spoke, worried him. He looked around in bewilderment and, crouching down in the middle of the courtyard, lit a pipe.

– Tunda? – asked orlovets.

“Butunda,” the Chinese replied, and his face showed annoyance.

On the next day, the gunner remained pragmatic. Women often came out of the fanza and looked at the familiar Russian soldier who walked around the yard with an important look, guarding sacks of barley and hay bales. Around noon, the host approached the Orlovs, took his hand and led him to the corner of the fanza. A Chinese with a pale face came out to meet them; having examined the artilleryman, the stranger bowed and said in Russian:

– Hello. I came here at the request of the owner. You ask him for something, but he does not know what it is. Tell me, and I will tell him.

Ege, what a suave, thought Orlovets.

– I do not ask for anything and the Russian soldier does not need anything. Why did he stay in the village and not leave, like other peasants?

The stranger spoke with the host fanza, replied:

– He has a family secret.

– When he tells a secret, then I will give him advice.

The Chinese held a long meeting.

– The question concerns his wife. She has to give birth in a month. He has no son. We, the Chinese, cannot have a son. The oracle said: if his wife resolves under the roof of his ancestors, then they will have a son. So he waits.

– Hitch. Ancestral roof? Own home means. – Konevyazov thought. – And you tell him that the wife should give birth under the open sky. It is the roof of the ancestors. Do you understand?

The translator opened his mouth, opened his eyes, and the soldier continued with enthusiasm.

– The sky – our common roof forever and ever. Fanza host new. Therefore, his father, and even more so, his grandfather, could not be born in it. Ask.

In the eyes of the translator flashed a spark of satisfaction.

“He says father was born in the north.”

– So I knew! – exclaimed Orlovets. – Let him take his family and go away from here. Yes, that his wife must have given birth under the open sky. Then there will be a son.

The peasant, having listened to the words of the translator, happily nodded his head:

– Shango, captain!

– That’s it! – Konevyazov looked around, but the translator had already disappeared.

The owner hastily left the fanzu. Soon all the women came to the threshold and bowed to the orlovtsu.

About an hour after the departure of the translator, the thought struck:

– Why, it was a Japanese, a Japanese spy! What is I gaping. He needed information, and he took the risk. Scoundrel!..

Chapter nine

one

The sky was gloomy. It was raining. A steam locomotive puffed around the water pump station at Kinzhou. The top of Mount Samson is shrouded in a grayish cloud. On the platform is empty, but behind the station building, A little further wire barriers, noise. They stopped to rest field batteries. Fed black horses snorted and bellowed. The gunners fussed at the cannons, clearing dirt from the guns and wheels. Past south along the road were arrows.

Gunners, army soldiers, fireworks, non-commissioned officers and officers often raised their heads and looked to the left of Mount Samson. They all knew that far ahead of them were horse hunters, watchdog chains and Cossack patrols. But nevertheless, they intensely peered into that strontium, where a few days ago the enemy attacked the railway, cut the wires and blew up the bridge.

And here is the latest news: the Japanese land a Bitszyvo. Soldiers and junior officers were preparing for a serious business, and were eagerly awaiting orders to march to destroy the landing force. Cheerful mood did not leave them.

Twilight was gathering. Lit fires. Troops arrived from Arthur. On the left, on the Nanshan Mountain, looming fortifications of the Kinzhou position. She was the key to Port Arthur.

An infantryman and an artilleryman with bowlers stopped under a roof canopy. – Where we are going? The infantryman asked.

– Landing smash.

– Why was it allowed to go to the beach? You had to sink him from your cannons on the water in boats. Let go and shy.

– The authorities know what to do. For the time being, you should not frighten off… Lure and rivet.

– Still strange.

– Clear picture. If our fleet had not been treacherously blown up, they would have been cracked into the sea, but now cunning and caution are needed until they repair our warships.

“Yet it would have been more convenient for the enemy to destroy the sea.” The boat is full of people, the wave shakes, and then bang shrapnel – and all to the bottom. And we, the infantry, it would be easier to kill those who reached the coast.

The infantryman thought his own thought: five or six miles of artillery should not allow the enemy to the infantry, and the shooters only need to secure the positions left by the enemy. The soldier believed it. He liked guns, horses – fire, and gunners – hefty guys and, you see, dodgers.

– Do not perish – grinned Gunner. – Look, what kind of artillery we have and what position?.. But the commanders know how best to finish off the enemy. Now, mate, everything is cleverly invented. Your head is spinning, and they have everything to the point… We shot at an invisible goal on the doctrine. The officer commands: the target is such and such, the level is so and such, the angle is so much! The gunner twirls there different screws, the steel stands at the protractor turns. Aims in one direction, and the barrel of a gun at another looks. I lit it. The projectile flew over the mountain and hit the target. I saw it myself… Twenty shells per minute can be released. But this is to the extreme. If many consecutive shoot, the gun perekalitsya. We, brother, in the whole calculation and arithmetic. The figure means beats. You do not understand in numbers – and in the artillery is impossible.

Rain stopped. The northwest wind blows. Smell the sea. The sound of the surf was heard. Officers gathered at the station. Soon after inspecting the fortifications of Kinzhou, General Fock and Colonel Tretyakov were to arrive. Brilliant epaulets of junior commanding officers gleamed in the reflections of the burning dawn.

– Tell me, please, gentlemen, what are the differences between the division commander and Colonel Tretyakov? – asked the staff captain Dwight, who arrived at the station a few hours ago from Bitszyo, where the Japanese troops landed successfully.

“Our general doesn’t quite agree with the Qinzhou defense plan developed by the commission in the twentieth of January, and the colonel protects him, since he himself is a member of this commission, – said Captain Stempkovsky. “The general demands the descent of a line of trenches to the base of the fortification and the construction of new trenches protecting the approaches to Battery No. 15 and preventing the bypass of our left flank along the shore of Qinzhou Bay. Admittedly, we have paid very little attention to the line of the sea surf.

The captain fell silent and lit a cigarette.

“You worked there, tell me more,” the commander of the border guards Boutiques entered into the conversation.

The dispute was big. The commission noted that the left flank was completely inconvenient for an attack. And most importantly, experts said, in the presence of batteries of the ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth and fifteenth, even thoughts about the possibility of movement of enemy chains and columns along the coast should not be allowed. The main danger is from the side of the railway and the spurs of Mount Samson.

– The irrefutable truth. The Japanese will not turn up along the shore of Kinzhou Bay, we will destroy them in any quantity! – the ensign Tsvetkov exclaimed, blushing. – Do not forget our land mines.

“All this is so until serf guns are shot down,” Stempkovsky chuckled.

“You, like General Fock, do you not believe in the inaccessibility of Kinzhou?” – interviewed staff captain Dwight.

– It’s not just the fortifications, but also the people. I don’t think that the Japanese launched an attack right away without preparing their artillery. And we must fear that they will achieve much.

– But why? – polled the ensign.

“The heights that, with the tight laying of Kinzhou, will be in their hands, dominate the fifty-three Nanshan Mountain.” This is the first. We must assume that they will bring here hundreds of two guns of the new model with devices for bombing an invisible target. Next – their artillery park is unthinkable without mortars.

– You still tweak support fleet? – put the staff captain of the High.

– Consider, consider everything, – the captain calmly answered. – Our fleet is wounded, and, most importantly, in the head.

“Yes, after the death of Makarov, the Japanese became impudent at sea,” said midshipman Shimanovsky. “Most of the guns here are old, piston, and Cana’s cannons, brought recently, are still not installed.

– The misfortune of fortresses is that their guns are somewhat outdated technically against the guns of the attackers.

– What to do? – exclaimed infantry officers.

– To create more favorable conditions for the infantry, on which the head of our division insists.

“There are contradictory rumors about him,” the artillery officer told the infantry in a whisper. – Many consider him flighty.

– Soldiers love him. He is a little crazy. And we will learn about his fighting qualities. He cares about soldiers and officers and does not want them to perish in vain.

– They say he is a supporter of the rare placement of soldiers in the trenches.

– Although this is against the charter, it is not without meaning.

“Statutory provisions are aging,” hurried to insert the infantry lieutenant.

The command “quietly” was distributed. The officers looked at themselves and pulled themselves up. Generals Kondratenko and Fock approached the station, followed by Colonel Tretyakov. Having greeted the officers, Fock stopped at the edge of the apron and, turning his face to the north, looked along the way. When Colonel Tretyakov approached him, he continued the interrupted conversation and said:

– I also because against the trenches at the top of the mountain, against your swallow nests, that there is a great concentration of enemy fire.

– At the foot of the mountain a large radius, the length of the trenches is increasing. To fill them will require new groups of shooters – objected Tretyakov.

“You, Colonel, of course, are happy to plant your regiment under the very sky.” But what is the use of it? What good is I asking? The top will be shrouded in dust and projectiles. And suddenly, right in front of you, the enemy.

– A breathless enemy, Your Excellency.

– Wrong conclusion. The height of Nanshan is fifty-three fathoms. Although the western and eastern slopes are steep enough, they can still be skipped fully armed all the way to the top.The northern slope of the fortified mountain comes to naught and you can ride in a wheelchair at a trot right up to the cannons, as if on a highway. And then Samson, with its spurs, as ticks, covers our fortifications. Additional trenches are needed, so even with visors from shrapnel bullets.

– Every extra hundred sazhen trenches will require new shooters, and they are needed to repulse the flank movements.

– I will not give extra soldiers, because I consider it harmful.

– Our arrows are not fired, most of them are recruits and spare… We will scatter them twenty steps apart, and they will feel lonely, and in difficult times will be beyond the moral influence of the boss.

“This is an outdated opinion, Colonel,” General Fock objected with fervor. – Do you think the soldiers slaughter?

– No, you, Your Excellency! But still, with closer contact, each in the hope of comradely support.

– You can not fill the trenches of people! – screamed Fok.

General Kondratenko turned and looked at the group of officers, in the middle of which Fock was waving his hands.

“He always argues,” Kondratenko sighed wearily. – Is it up to disputes now, when things are in the throat, when there should be cohesion, when, the enemy is hanging on the collar? Heavy. Events unfold, and we are like children. However, who is to blame for all unpreparedness, all the confusion?.. And then there is also this Easter egg – Far… Expensive toy, but you have to quit!”

The general sighed and ran his hand over his forehead. Everyone saw that he was very tired. Detour positions, conversations, dissatisfaction with the erected fortifications, passive actions of the northern army upset him.

“Unclear! – mentally exclaimed Kondratenko, – No movement from the north. It means that they have still greater immobility and unpreparedness.”

The general took a sheet of paper from a side pocket and made some notes.

“Why brew porridge? – he thought. – Why hammer millions on Far Far? Why was the entire fleet pushed into the Port Arthur puddle? Would sit in Vladivostok, and here left small barriers”. Kondratenko shook his head, shoved Stoessel’s order in which he made notes, and approached General Fok.

– It is necessary to distinguish cowardice from feelings of self-preservation, feelings inherent in every living organism, – Fock was excited. “Without this feeling, all living things would die, but the extreme is harmful in everything, so nature, as opposed to it, gave people a feeling of love, and society developed a concept of duty. The so-called brave does not notice this, and, having escaped from the misfortune, into which he climbed without reasoning, he acquired the nickname of the desperate. All cowards should be divided into two categories. Underwear, minority underpowers lose their ability to think; they cannot give an account of their own actions. Some individuals of this category have an automatism of the primitive man, who, owning only a cudgel, hoped for his feet in case of danger, simply fleeing away. Fortunately, we do not have such. Many of the lower ranks often show strange activity in case of fear that has seized them, for example, they try to stick several cartridges at once into the bolt or begin to take things out of their bag and pack them again. There are even those who, under the influence of danger, as if numb, fall and try to get into the ground, working hard with their knees. – Ek, enough! – Kondratenko frowned. The rest of the listeners looked at each other.

– But it does not last long. Suddenly, someone shouts: “I was scared.” And laughs. You look, everyone comes to their senses and begin to work in the new environment, and quite calmly and rationally, as before the appearance of danger. I personally succumbed to the same fear as everyone else, but then immediately the thought came – did anyone notice my fear? I look at others, I see – no one noticed. I was usually amazed at the amazing calm and simplicity of all the lower ranks around me. No matter how hard I tried to be calm, I felt that I was far from being calm. Gentlemen officers are more sensitive and do not come to their senses so soon. But between them there are those who make a brilliant exception. Between the lower ranks of such exceptions I have not seen. Maybe this is because of them, no one thinks to stand out. Consequently, one cannot count on any particular moral influence that many officers think of. It’s good if the officer himself comes to time and starts to fulfill the tasks assigned to him by the situation. This should be firmly remembered by gentlemen officers.

“Inappropriate speeches,” Kondratenko wanted to say, but he resisted. Fok paused and looked around. The officers stood, heads bowed.

– What do you say on this issue, Roman Isidorovich? – addressed Fock to Kondratenko.

Kondratenko did not like Fock. He was tired, he wanted to rest and think about the situation.

“There is no help, no help from the north,” spun in the head of the general. “A huge area, innumerable values are concentrated on a small dusty barren peninsula… What to rant?.. Act, act!”

“What are you talking about, General?”

– On the duties of officers, on their moral impact on the soldiers.

– This was said and said. We need a well-developed and trained soldiers’ masses, dedicated and understanding the honor of the nation. But if one or another military unit flinches and turns to flight, then I will completely blame the officers. You need to love the soldiers entrusted to you, and then in battle we will get exceptional examples of stamina.

The generals went into the station.

“We listened to an impressive teaching,” said Dwight ironically. – But the old man is right. In the heat of anger, we must not bear the soldiers. Their mistakes are our mistakes.

2

During dinner, Kondratenko looked at Fok for a long time. The slouching figure of an army general was not in harmony with his impetuous, angular movements. The straight and long nose on the haggard old face seemed too thin and transparent. The sideburns and the boring gaze of the deep-seated eyes emphasized the paleness of the skin.

“I think,” Kondratenko began the conversation, “in addition to the trenches dug in your direction, Alexander Viktorovich, we will instruct the engineer-captain von Schwartz to lower the trenches only on the Eastern front.” As for the other slopes of Nanshan, then we will work on them later. Let’s strengthen the most vulnerable places more reliably.

– And how, loopholes and visors along the edges of the trenches?

– Colonel Tretyakov seems to be against the loopholes, but they are useful, you are absolutely right.

– Experience has shown that the visors are fully justified. The Japanese do not know about them yet and they will run. – Fock, with shoulders up, smiled smugly. “But you shouldn’t make them from long boards, otherwise one projectile will cause a lot of damage.”

“The two tiers of the trenches are very good, but you need to have more soldiers,” said Colonel Tretyakov, who entered.

– The lower tier is good for flat shooting, but for firing ravines should keep the shooters at the Verkov position. The case will show itself, Roman Isidorovich, “Fock continued, referring only to Kondratenko. – Neither you nor I would like to keep the trenches empty during the battle. But, I repeat, I am against cohesion in the trenches when they are pelted with cores and showered with shrapnel.

The generals fell silent. The cheeks of the youthful face of Kondratenko dropped. He had thoughtful, round eyes. Thick mustache and wedge made the face of Roman Isidorovich dry and stern. – Loafers! – swore, wry smile, Fock.

“What are you talking about, Your Excellency?”

– Yes, here’s a telegram from the headquarters of the commander in chief.

Chapter ten

one

The next morning, the second battery and the regiment marched north along the Bitzvy road. We drove slowly and carefully. Shooting chains moved in front. Along the long elevation, from its southern side, our horse rides were visible. The battery commander stopped at the edge of the road and let all the tools pass by him. After the show, he and the senior fireworker galloped forward. It was felt that the Japanese were close, that the battle was about to begin.

Podkovin looked at the hill, behind which there was an enemy, and thought: “So, the Japanese are not yet visible. We are going openly, as if in a parade.”

No matter how Calming himself, Podkovin reassured himself, but he could not restrain a nervous tremor.

About three o’clock in the afternoon the battery stopped. Dry plowed fields stretched to the right and to the left, and Mount Samson towered above them. The western slope of the massif was illuminated by the warm April sun. In the sky – not a cloud. On the right, on the road from the ravine, a group of horsemen rose up on the hill. They drove up to the battery. That was General Fok with his orderlies. Colonel Laperov, prancing on his horse, approached him.

– Before the evening, you need to find out the situation and decide how to act. The Japanese are advancing by superior forces. – Fock shrugged. – Requires extreme caution. Push the battery a little more to height. Let one of your officers get up on that hill. Give me as an orderly for your gunner, but please, well-educated.

“Call Podkovina,” the battery commander ordered the sergeant-major.

“Damn, son of a damn thing, how it goes into people,” thought the sergeant-major.

“Come to the general,” said the battery commander when Podkovin came to him.

Podkovin made a half turn and, taking a peak, stood in front of Fock.

“I have the honor to appear, Your Excellency.”

– Ordinary? That’s what, brother, you will go with me, you will have to write down orders for your battery. Can you? Briefly and clearly?

– Yes sir!..

The general rode ahead. Soon the rider appeared, galloping full speed. Fock spurred his horse. The horse hunter, having caught up with the general, handed him a package.

– Great, brother. Tell me what you saw?

– The Japanese are moving regiments, and with them artillery.

Fock waved his unopened letter, looked it up into the light, and handed it to the adjutant. The hunter’s horse stood, legs splayed, and breathed heavily. Again we moved forward and drove into the hollow. Soft soil all the time crumbled under the hooves of horses. Having dismounted, we went up to the very crest of the hill dissected by a ravine. Clouds of dust rose from the far end of the unfolding valley.

“The Japanese, Your Excellency,” said the hunter, “We have seen them more than once, but we are not shooting.” Such an order to force to find out. They are moving to Samson.

Look! Again their chief on a white horse jumped out onto the tide.

Podkovin heard the hunter, but did not see the enemy rider.

General Fock took off his cap and, stretching his neck, looked out of the ravine.

– Yes, moving there. Lieutenant, what is written in the report?

– On the thirteenth of April morning, the Japanese went on the offensive along the Bitzvoekoy road, and at 11 hours 50 minutes the battalion of the 15th regiment took Tojialin and advanced on the village of Shimmynzy. But, owing to the superior forces of the enemy, our units moved to the village of Ig-dian.

Ahead Podkovina – overgrown with bushes mound.

“A grave or a field altar? Get to it, see what’s going on there.”

Podkovin, with a horse, approached a group of officers and, stopping five steps away from them, shifted from foot to foot.

The officers talked among themselves and did not pay attention to him.

“Your Honor…”

– you what? – wearily asked Podkovina captain with glasses.

“Allow me to crawl to that tubercle.” From there you can well consider them.

The officers looked at each other.

– Do you want to crawl under the bullets?

– The Japanese are far away, they will not see beyond the hill.

– Go. Just what are you without binoculars? Take the binoculars, – and the captain, smiling, gave the Podkovin his binoculars. “And give the horse to our messenger.”

Climbing crawling on a mound, Podkovin froze. A battery galloped right through the trough to the right.

“One, two, three, four,” he gasped. – Ten guns! But the infantry!.. The white horse on the knoll on the left… What is the distance? Perhaps five miles away. That would be to move them now. See ours or not?