Biographical information. Central city children's library

The author of the story “Youth Army” Grigory Ilyich Miroshnichenko was born in 1904 on the Don into the family of a railway worker. He has already been working as a cleaner at a station in Pyatigorsk for ten years. During the civil war, sixteen-year-old Grigory Miroshnichenko, commander of a youth cavalry regiment, participates in battles with gangs of white generals Shkuro and Pokrovsky in the North Caucasus. Together with the Red Army, he traveled from Kuban to the borders of Iran.

“Youth Army” is an autobiographical story, it truthfully and fascinatingly tells how during the Civil War, working youth fought for the power of the Soviets, how, during the days of the White Guard terror in the Kuban, teenagers, sons of railway workers - Andrei and Senka, Grishka and Vaska, Gavrik and Sashka - under the leadership of the communists - the Red Army soldier Porfiry and the battery commander - Sabbutin, organized a partisan detachment.

The author of the story and a group of comrades were detained by the White Guards and sentenced to death. Only courage and resourcefulness saved them from death. And when the Red Army liberated the station, the guys went to the front to defend the gains of October. Grigory Miroshnichenko participates in the battles for Grozny, Baladzhary, Baku, Astara, Lenkoran.

After the civil war, Grigory Miroshnichenko works as a mechanic in the depot at the Nevinnomysskaya station. Here in 1922 he joined the Komsomol, and then the party. Here, at the depot, he creates a Komsomol organization and participates in special units to combat banditry.

Acquaintance with Alexei Maksimovich Gorky decided the fate of Grigory Ilyich Miroshnichenko. In 1928, he arrived in Leningrad and firmly took the path of a writer. All these years Grigory Ilyich has been studying. He graduated from the Komvusz University, and in 1935 from the Military-Political Academy named after V.I. Lenin. During these same years, Miroshnichenko worked with Alexei Maksimovich Gorky to create a series of books on the history of factories and factories, edited the magazine “Literary Contemporary”, which published literary and artistic scripts by A. Kapler “Lenin in October” and “Lenin in 1918” .

The first books by Grigory Miroshnichenko were published in the early thirties: “Rifles”, “Steep Banks”, “Youth Army”, which received high praise from Alexei Maksimovich Gorky and the French writer Romain Rolland.

The first books were followed by the stories: “Sailor Nazukin” - about Ivan Nazukin, who worked on orders from V.I. Lenin and was shot by enemies in Feodosia in 1920, “In the Name of the Revolution” - about the hero of the civil war Natalya Sheburova and “Tankman Dudko” - about Hero of the Soviet Union tankman Fyodor Dudko.

In the very first days of the Great Patriotic War he went to the front. Throughout the war until the last day, regimental commissar Grigory Ilyich Miroshnichenko worked as deputy head of the task force of writers at the military council of the Baltic Fleet, and was the head of the literary department in the newspaper “Red Banner Baltic Fleet”.

In besieged Leningrad, Grigory Ilyich writes a new book, “Guard Colonel Preobrazhensky,” about Baltic sailors defending Leningrad in stubborn battles.

The writer’s books are widely known to readers, such as “Baltic Stories”, “White Bird”, “Missing in Action”, “Sons of the Fatherland”, “Tales of War Years”.

After the war, Grigory Ilyich fulfilled his long-standing dream - to write a historical novel about the glorious past of the Russian people. In 1949, the first book of this novel, “Azov,” was completed and published. The book is read with great excitement and interest. The writer continues to work on this large canvas.

In 1960, the second book, “The Siege of Azov,” was published. Currently, Grigory Ilyich is preparing the third book - “The Glory of Azov”, ending the heroic Azov epic. At the same time, the writer is working on a documentary story about the defenders of Leningrad “In the Name of Life” and on the second book of the story “Youth Army”.

Born in 1904 on the Don in the family of a railway worker. He has already been working as a cleaner at a station in Pyatigorsk for ten years. During the civil war, sixteen-year-old Grigory Miroshnichenko, commander of a youth cavalry regiment, participates in battles with gangs of white generals Shkuro and Pokrovsky in the North Caucasus. Together with the Red Army, he traveled from Kuban to the borders of Iran.
“Youth Army” is an autobiographical story, it truthfully and fascinatingly tells how during the Civil War, working youth fought for the power of the Soviets, about how, during the days of the White Guard terror in the Kuban, teenagers, sons of railway workers, Andrei and Senka, Grishka and Vaska, Gavrik and Sashka - under the leadership of the communists - the Red Army soldier Porfiry and the battery commander - Sabbutin, organized a partisan detachment.
The author of the story and a group of comrades were detained by the White Guards and sentenced to death. Only courage and resourcefulness saved them from death. And when the Red Army liberated the station, the guys went to the front to defend the gains of October. Grigory Miroshnichenko participates in the battles for Grozny, Baladzhary, Baku, Astara, Lenkoran.
After the civil war, Grigory Miroshnichenko works as a mechanic in the depot at the Nevinnomysskaya station. Here in 1922 he joined the Komsomol, and then the party. Here, at the depot, he creates a Komsomol organization and participates in special units to combat banditry.
Acquaintance with Alexei Maksimovich Gorky decided the fate of Grigory Ilyich Miroshnichenko. In 1928, he arrived in Leningrad and firmly took the path of a writer. All these years Grigory Ilyich has been studying. He graduates from the Komivsk Higher Educational Institution, and in 1935 from the Military-Political Academy named after V.I. Lenin. During these same years, Miroshnichenko worked with Alexei Maksimovich Gorky to create a series of books on the history of factories and factories, edited the magazine “Literary Contemporary”, which published literary and artistic scripts by A. Kapler “Lenin in October” and “Lenin in 1918” .
The first books by Grigory Miroshnichenko were published in the early thirties: “Rifles”, “Steep Banks”, “Youth Army”, which received high praise from Alexei Maksimovich Gorky and the French writer Romain Rolland.
The first books were followed by stories: “Sailor Nazukin” - about Ivan Nazukin, who worked on instructions from V.I. Lenin and shot by enemies in Feodosia in 1920, “In the Name of the Revolution” - about the hero of the civil war Natalya Sheburova and “Tankman Dudko” - about the Hero of the Soviet Union tankman Fyodor Dudko.
In the very first days of the Great Patriotic War he went to the front. Throughout the war until the last day, regimental commissar Grigory Ilyich Miroshnichenko worked as deputy head of the task force of writers at the military council of the Baltic Fleet, and was the head of the literary department in the newspaper “Red Banner Baltic Fleet”.
In besieged Leningrad, Grigory Ilyich writes a new book - “Guard Colonel Preobrazhensky”, about Baltic sailors defending Leningrad in stubborn battles.
The writer’s books are widely known to readers, such as “Baltic Stories”, “White Bird”, “Missing in Action”, “Sons of the Fatherland”, “Tales of War Years”.
After the war, Grigory Ilyich fulfilled his long-standing dream - to write a historical novel about the glorious past of the Russian people. In 1949, the first book of this novel, “Azov,” was completed and published. The book is read with great excitement and interest. The writer continues to work on this large canvas.
In 1960, the second book, “The Siege of Azov,” was published. Currently, Grigory Ilyich is preparing the third book - “The Glory of Azov”, ending the heroic Azov epic. At the same time, the writer is working on a documentary story about the defenders of Leningrad “In the Name of Life” and on the second book of the story “Youth Army”.

Grigory Miroshnichenko

ROMAIN ROLLAM ABOUT THE STORY “YUNARMIA”

Your little book, which I read with the greatest interest, is very touching. I must say that even though this is a children's book, it is one of the most moving I have read about the civil war that took place in your country (of course, I only know of books on this topic that have been translated into French, so I can judge very incompletely). This small book shows us once again how a new humanity, conscious and free, is being created in your country. The last pages, where you talk about what happened next to your comrades and to yourself, who wanted to “move forward,” gave me the greatest pleasure.

I shake your hand, dear comrade, and wish you successful work, health and strength.

Romain Rolland

THE ECHELONS ARE GONE

On the main railway line, almost right at the platform, an orange light flashed, cracked and sank in a cloud of brown smoke. The explosion hit loudly and dully. Stones and sand fell, and station windows crunched.

Over the roof of the station, another three-inch shell sang shrilly and even somehow strangely. He crashed on the other side of the station, at the Kondratievs' inn. Another one struck behind him... More. And further. How many of them! They fell one after another, and in the thick smoke, which was already covering dozens of houses and barns, lights instantly flashed, reminiscent of a thunderstorm that had broken out at night.

Very close to the station, on the military tracks, emaciated, scabby horses were hastily led into freight cars along wooden planks. The horses snorted, neighed, stamped their hooves and, looking around fearfully, walked into the carriages.

Cannons, kitchens, and gigs were loaded onto open platforms.

At the station itself, a shell with a whistle tore out a rail, uprooted loose earth and a blackened piece of sleeper.

At this time, the station manager jumped out of the office. He looked at the signal and, clutching his head in his hands, ran back to the office. The sleeper turned over in the air and flew down. She fell near the station master's office, tightly blocking the heavy door.

The Red Army soldiers were loading hay. Two or three of them grabbed the unruly bales and angrily squeezed them onto the platform.

- Oh, the devil, how it itches! - said the Red Army soldier, winding the winding.

“Smoke, brother,” the neighbor suggested to him, taking a tobacco shag from his pocket. - Smoke! Front is front, and since the time has come, smoke.

“How wonderful you are,” said another Red Army soldier, “how brave you are, you apparently smoke at night!”

- Do you smoke at the outpost?

- I smoke. Only I’m wearing my sleeve, but not under my overcoat. I can't live without smoking. At that moment, take your head off, even if you cut it, I’ll light a cigarette.

Suddenly a shell fell right on the site near the trains. The Red Army soldiers stuck to the ground. The shell exploded. The horses neighed.

- Oh, you bastards! - said the Red Army soldier, rising to his feet.

- They are hiding, brother... If we had twenty shells, we would...

“Yes, if only we had...” said the neighbor and immediately fell onto the stones. The cigarette fell out of his hand.

The Red Army soldier looked intently at the body of his comrade, then silently lifted him onto his shoulders, like a bale of hay, and carried him into the ambulance car.

On the platform, about twenty Red Army soldiers were looking for the station chief and could not find him for a long time. They waved their arms wildly like sabers.

The station master stuck his long face into the door glass. Seeing the Red Army soldiers, he quickly jumped back.

- Stop! – the high-cheeked Red Army soldier shouted loudly. -Where are you going, your soul? Stop!

The station master returned.

“You see,” he said slyly, stopping at the door, “the sleeper blocked the road.” I wanted to go out to you through another door.

“It’s not true,” the tall Red Army soldier in the Budenovka uniform said calmly, pushing aside the sleeper with his foot.

– Do you know that you have no right to detain trains?

“If only he could move it his way, he’d fix the tracks in no time!”

But the little man in the red cap just shrugged his shoulders and repeated the same thing:

- Comrades, I cannot send military trains. All the roads are clogged. The semaphore was torn apart by shells. What can I do?..

Then the chief of the echelons, covered in criss-crossed frayed belts, came out from around the corner. Red Army soldiers to him.

– The station workers are causing sabotage, comrade commander! They don't send! - the Red Army soldiers said almost simultaneously.

- Why aren’t they sending this? – the commander asked quietly and busily.

“They don’t want to,” said the tall one in Budenovka.

- How can we send it?.. All the railway tracks are already clogged. “Everyone is packed,” the station manager muttered again.

And indeed, at the semaphore, in the direction where the trains had to be sent, as luck would have it, there were six freight cars standing by the turned-out rails.

– Why haven’t the artisans been called yet?

- They don’t listen to me... They’ve lost the habit... I don’t know.

“Well, I know,” the commander said, not sharply, but loudly. - The artisans will help us!

“Well, try it if you like,” said the station master, squinting one eye. - Will it just work? There, at the semaphore, the rail was torn out by a shell, the freight train got stuck... Here it’s still nothing, but there...

“And it’s no wonder,” a young worker suddenly said from the crowd.

He had been standing next to the station chief for a long time and listening to the conversation.

“First you need to lower the cars down the slope - those that stick out at the semaphore, and then call the road foreman. And I will call the workers. The rails need to be changed. Otherwise nothing will work.

He turned abruptly and ran somewhere.

The station manager looked at the foreman with a frown.

“Where did he run off to, this artisan?” - the Red Army soldiers said worriedly. – Will he come again or not?

“He will come,” the commander answered, but it was clear that he himself doubted it.

Shells began to fall near the water pump. At first they flew over and fell not far beyond the railway village, but then they began to lie down right next to the wall of the cement pumping station.

- Lip no fool! Look what you want! - said the commander, showing the Red Army soldiers to the water pump.

- A complete fool! Why a water pump? – asked the Red Army soldier.

“And then our observer at the water pumping station was noticed.”

“That’s it…” said the Red Army soldier, only now noticing the observer.

Cannon shots were heard louder and closer. Shrapnel exploded in the air.

The driver looked gloomily out of the windows of the locomotive and cursed:

- Damn it! The locomotive is standing still, but you can’t leave...

At this time, a sweating mechanic emerged from around the corner of the station. A grey-haired, broad-shouldered man quickly walked behind him - it was the road foreman Leonty Lavrentievich - and several other workers. The workers carried picks, crowbars, and wrenches.

- Comrade commander, give us people! – the road foreman said as he walked.

The commander looked at the Red Army soldiers and quickly counted out fifteen. The Red Army soldiers and craftsmen ran to the semaphore. They ran, stumbling over rails and stones.

“We could leave on foot,” the commander said to the road foreman, catching up with him, “but I have half a train of typhus patients and wounded, and abandoning them to the mercy of the enemy is a crime.” I can not.

- How can you! If the gang gets to them, they will cut them all,” said Leonty Lavrentievich, wiping the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.

- It’s okay, we’ll send it. “If only the carriages could be removed,” the mechanic responded from behind.

We ran up to the semaphore. The road foreman commanded abruptly:

- Unscrew the bolts! Take away the pads! Replace the sleeper!

The workers unscrewed the bolts, raked out the rubble with rusty shovels, and dragged the pieces of rails from the embankment. Two, three, six had difficulty throwing the fragments of the rails far down the steep slope. They worked in silence.

Suddenly a shell landed right next to the carriages. It was the White Guards who brought artillery fire onto the canvas.

Grigory Miroshnichenko

ROMAIN ROLLAM ABOUT THE STORY “YUNARMIA”

Your little book, which I read with the greatest interest, is very touching. I must say that even though this is a children's book, it is one of the most moving I have read about the civil war that took place in your country (of course, I only know of books on this topic that have been translated into French, so I can judge very incompletely). This small book shows us once again how a new humanity, conscious and free, is being created in your country. The last pages, where you talk about what happened next to your comrades and to yourself, who wanted to “move forward,” gave me the greatest pleasure.

I shake your hand, dear comrade, and wish you successful work, health and strength.

Romain Rolland

THE ECHELONS ARE GONE

On the main railway line, almost right at the platform, an orange light flashed, cracked and sank in a cloud of brown smoke. The explosion hit loudly and dully. Stones and sand fell, and station windows crunched.

Over the roof of the station, another three-inch shell sang shrilly and even somehow strangely. He crashed on the other side of the station, at the Kondratievs' inn. Another one struck behind him... More. And further. How many of them! They fell one after another, and in the thick smoke, which was already covering dozens of houses and barns, lights instantly flashed, reminiscent of a thunderstorm that had broken out at night.

Very close to the station, on the military tracks, emaciated, scabby horses were hastily led into freight cars along wooden planks. The horses snorted, neighed, stamped their hooves and, looking around fearfully, walked into the carriages.

Cannons, kitchens, and gigs were loaded onto open platforms.

At the station itself, a shell with a whistle tore out a rail, uprooted loose earth and a blackened piece of sleeper.

At this time, the station manager jumped out of the office. He looked at the signal and, clutching his head in his hands, ran back to the office. The sleeper turned over in the air and flew down. She fell near the station master's office, tightly blocking the heavy door.

The Red Army soldiers were loading hay. Two or three of them grabbed the unruly bales and angrily squeezed them onto the platform.

- Oh, the devil, how it itches! - said the Red Army soldier, winding the winding.

“Smoke, brother,” the neighbor suggested to him, taking a tobacco shag from his pocket. - Smoke! Front is front, and since the time has come, smoke.

“How wonderful you are,” said another Red Army soldier, “how brave you are, you apparently smoke at night!”

- Do you smoke at the outpost?

- I smoke. Only I’m wearing my sleeve, but not under my overcoat. I can't live without smoking. At that moment, take your head off, even if you cut it, I’ll light a cigarette.

Suddenly a shell fell right on the site near the trains. The Red Army soldiers stuck to the ground. The shell exploded. The horses neighed.

- Oh, you bastards! - said the Red Army soldier, rising to his feet.

- They are hiding, brother... If we had twenty shells, we would...

“Yes, if only we had...” said the neighbor and immediately fell onto the stones. The cigarette fell out of his hand.

The Red Army soldier looked intently at the body of his comrade, then silently lifted him onto his shoulders, like a bale of hay, and carried him into the ambulance car.

On the platform, about twenty Red Army soldiers were looking for the station chief and could not find him for a long time. They waved their arms wildly like sabers.

The station master stuck his long face into the door glass. Seeing the Red Army soldiers, he quickly jumped back.

- Stop! – the high-cheeked Red Army soldier shouted loudly. -Where are you going, your soul? Stop!

The station master returned.

“You see,” he said slyly, stopping at the door, “the sleeper blocked the road.” I wanted to go out to you through another door.

“It’s not true,” the tall Red Army soldier in the Budenovka uniform said calmly, pushing aside the sleeper with his foot.

– Do you know that you have no right to detain trains?

“If only he could move it his way, he’d fix the tracks in no time!”

But the little man in the red cap just shrugged his shoulders and repeated the same thing:

- Comrades, I cannot send military trains. All the roads are clogged. The semaphore was torn apart by shells. What can I do?..

Then the chief of the echelons, covered in criss-crossed frayed belts, came out from around the corner. Red Army soldiers to him.

– The station workers are causing sabotage, comrade commander! They don't send! - the Red Army soldiers said almost simultaneously.

- Why aren’t they sending this? – the commander asked quietly and busily.

“They don’t want to,” said the tall one in Budenovka.

- How can we send it?.. All the railway tracks are already clogged. “Everyone is packed,” the station manager muttered again.

And indeed, at the semaphore, in the direction where the trains had to be sent, as luck would have it, there were six freight cars standing by the turned-out rails.

– Why haven’t the artisans been called yet?

- They don’t listen to me... They’ve lost the habit... I don’t know.

“Well, I know,” the commander said, not sharply, but loudly. - The artisans will help us!

“Well, try it if you like,” said the station master, squinting one eye. - Will it just work? There, at the semaphore, the rail was torn out by a shell, the freight train got stuck... Here it’s still nothing, but there...

“And it’s no wonder,” a young worker suddenly said from the crowd.

He had been standing next to the station chief for a long time and listening to the conversation.

“First you need to lower the cars down the slope - those that stick out at the semaphore, and then call the road foreman. And I will call the workers. The rails need to be changed. Otherwise nothing will work.

He turned abruptly and ran somewhere.

The station manager looked at the foreman with a frown.

“Where did he run off to, this artisan?” - the Red Army soldiers said worriedly. – Will he come again or not?

“He will come,” the commander answered, but it was clear that he himself doubted it.

Shells began to fall near the water pump. At first they flew over and fell not far beyond the railway village, but then they began to lie down right next to the wall of the cement pumping station.

- Lip no fool! Look what you want! - said the commander, showing the Red Army soldiers to the water pump.

- A complete fool! Why a water pump? – asked the Red Army soldier.

“And then our observer at the water pumping station was noticed.”

“That’s it…” said the Red Army soldier, only now noticing the observer.

Cannon shots were heard louder and closer. Shrapnel exploded in the air.

The driver looked gloomily out of the windows of the locomotive and cursed:

- Damn it! The locomotive is standing still, but you can’t leave...

At this time, a sweating mechanic emerged from around the corner of the station. A grey-haired, broad-shouldered man quickly walked behind him - it was the road foreman Leonty Lavrentievich - and several other workers. The workers carried picks, crowbars, and wrenches.

- Comrade commander, give us people! – the road foreman said as he walked.

The commander looked at the Red Army soldiers and quickly counted out fifteen. The Red Army soldiers and craftsmen ran to the semaphore. They ran, stumbling over rails and stones.

“We could leave on foot,” the commander said to the road foreman, catching up with him, “but I have half a train of typhus patients and wounded, and abandoning them to the mercy of the enemy is a crime.” I can not.

- How can you! If the gang gets to them, they will cut them all,” said Leonty Lavrentievich, wiping the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.

- It’s okay, we’ll send it. “If only the carriages could be removed,” the mechanic responded from behind.

We ran up to the semaphore. The road foreman commanded abruptly:

- Unscrew the bolts! Take away the pads! Replace the sleeper!

The workers unscrewed the bolts, raked out the rubble with rusty shovels, and dragged the pieces of rails from the embankment. Two, three, six had difficulty throwing the fragments of the rails far down the steep slope. They worked in silence.

Suddenly a shell landed right next to the carriages. It was the White Guards who brought artillery fire onto the canvas.

The shells, one after another, fell very close. The fragments shuffled along the roadway and on the roofs of the cars standing at the semaphore.

The road foreman hurried the workers. He uncoupled the cars himself, and turned out a piece of the stuck rail himself.

“Don’t be timid, guys,” he said calmly. - While they take aim there, we will disassemble and assemble the road.

- We'll collect it! - picked up the flushed young worker, turning out stones with a shovel.

“It’s a common thing,” agreed another, hitting the rail hard with a sledgehammer.

The heavy sledgehammer fell forcefully onto the steel, ringing and bouncing. A fragile sound rolled along the rails far away.

Finally the path was cleared. The workers leaned their shoulders on the cars, and they crawled down heavily.

Not reaching the middle of the dismantled track, the cars fell on their sides and, turning over like wooden boxes, flew downhill.

Shrapnel blazed from above - as if sprinkled with peas. Behind her is the second, third. The commander and the road foreman rubbed their eyes covered with sand. The Red Army soldiers and craftsmen silently pushed the last remaining cars on the tracks.

Everything is back together again.

We crept into the garden and quickly grabbed all the rifles and revolvers. Carefully, from tree to tree, we made our way through the garden and went out into the street.

There were no passers-by. We sneaked under the fences: bending down to the ground, we ran across the road.

Finally we reached our house. I opened the gate and looked into the yard. Ours were already asleep - the windows were dark.

We quietly opened the door to Vaska's barn. They entered and locked themselves. Andrei lit match after match and shone it for us, and we hid our rifles under the straw near the back wall. The revolvers were shoved under the tiles on the roof.

Well, we’ve finished,” Mishka sighed heavily. - I completely lost it.

“Touch me,” said Ivan Vasilyevich. - Look how I broke into a sweat.

It’s okay, you’ll dry out,” Andrey said.

We sat in the barn for a long time and talked in whispers.

What's that going on in your commandant's office? - Vaska asked Andrey.

And it was Volodka who immediately grabbed two pairs of rifles and flew with them,” Andrey said.

“I almost hit my head with the front sight,” said Volodka.

The next day, from very early morning, we all gathered in our arsenal. Bear Archonik, red and sweaty, was straining himself, turning out the wooden floor in the barn.

The work was caught on the conscience,” he said, prying up the boards with a crowbar.

Yes, honestly! Our whole barn was torn apart,” Vaska whined. - What will happen to me now if they find out?

Well, if they find out, then we’ll all cry together with you,” said Andrei and with a crash he turned out the last board.

When the floor was raised, I, Gavrik and Volodka took shovels and began to dig a hole. They dug with difficulty. The earth under the barn was heavy, wet, clayey, mixed with stones.

You’ll be busy here until the next morning and won’t be able to dig an inch,” Volodka said, clearing his shovel of greenish sticky soil. - And is it really possible to keep rifles in such dampness? After all, they will all rust.

But we won’t put them in the ground. “We put them in a box,” said Ivan Vasilyevich, picking out broken bricks from the ground with a crowbar. - We'll put them in a coffin like this. Let's go, Andrey, to do some carpentry.

He handed Mishka Archonik the crowbar, and he went with Andrei and Vaska to a nearby barn to make a box for rifles.

We continued to dig a hole. They took turns resting—or rather, they didn’t rest, but stood guard at the door of the barn.

The pit was almost ready.

Mishka, groaning, broke off huge blocks of earth with a crowbar. Gavrik and I barely had time to shovel them out.

Soon Andrei, Ivan Vasilyevich and Vaska entered the barn. They were dragging a box made of dirty, unplaned boards. Gavrik threw out a few more shovels of earth and silently crawled out of the hole. We carefully turned around the huge pile of straw piled up against the back wall, pulled out the rifles from there and put them in a box.

Eh, Porfiry will be happy! He'll praise you! “Well, guys!” “he will say,” Vaska repeated, patting the lid of the coffin with his hand.

Andrei silently pulled out a couple of nails and a hammer from his pocket and lightly hammered on the lid.

It’s just like we’re burying a person,” said Volodka Garbuzov.

Together we lifted the box loaded with rifles and lowered it into the pit. Then they covered it with earth and laid a plank floor on top. Vaska's barn was in order again.

Well, now Grishka, Vaska and I are going to Porfiry,” said Andrey.

Come on! - Vaska shouted and slammed the barn door.

We climbed into the hayloft. It was stuffy there with damp, rotten hay. Andrey did not immediately cross the threshold. He stomped around on the landing, looked inside and only then stepped out.

Porfiry sat hunched over in the corner. But he was not at all like Porfiry. He was wearing a wrinkled canvas coat soaked in fuel oil with a bulging hood at the back, and on his head was a tattered red cap with a peeling varnish visor.

Now Porfiry looked either like a forest guard or a village ataman coachman.

Why are you dressed like that? - Vaska asked scared.

And what? Not good?

“You were better off in the Red Army,” said Vaska

Maybe it’s better, but it’s calmer this way. Leonty Lavrentievich rented this robe to me. “Wear it,” he says, “until the Reds arrive, but only then don’t forget to return it.” Well, how are you guys doing?

Rifles! - Vaska thumped and choked.

What? - Porfiry even stood up.

We got our rifles. They stole it from right under the commandant’s nose.

What is he talking about? - Porfiry turned to Andrey.

Andrey pushed Vaska with his shoulder:

You always drop by. Without you, they would have really told me.

What happened there?

Andrey leaned over to Porfiry and began to tell him what happened yesterday. He spoke in a whisper, but sometimes he broke down and switched to a full voice, hoarse and excited.

Porfiry frowned and rubbed his chin. Only when Andrei told how we put out the lantern in the square did Porfiry’s face smooth out. He laughed quietly and swore, but then became even darker.

When Andrei finished, Porfiry sat for a long time with his head down, as if from that moment he didn’t want to look at us. We realized that we had done something wrong. Vaska blinked his eyes as if he was about to cry, and Andrey and I stood confused in the middle of the attic and didn’t know where to turn.

Our Red Army soldier, whom we ourselves had found and for whom we were ready to go through fire and water, now sat like a stranger, not looking at us. And he looked completely alien - in this dirty tarpaulin and his cap pulled down over his eyebrows.

Finally he spoke:

You guys are in the wrong place. This is not business, but pampering. Do you think this is how it will go? No, brothers, you will get it for this. If it doesn't happen to you, it will fall on others. Do you think you weren't tracked? Yes, I suppose they’ve already gone to your apartment to pick you up.

“We didn’t go,” Andrey said. - Apparently, you think, Porfiry, that we are completely fools, right? No, we cleaned up the matter. A sentry was placed on every corner. And the rifles were buried in such a way that no devil would ever find them. Let them demolish the entire village without getting to the rifles.

Andrei looked at us like a hero again.

But Porfiry immediately besieged him:

It's a shame, boy, you think a lot about yourself. You were right when you said that the village will be demolished. They will now take workers into circulation. Yours, the depot ones. And who should go to the wall... Oh, you Gaydamak... Well, now go home and keep quiet.

Andrei wanted to answer something, but waved his hand and went to the door. We're behind him.

When we crawled down the stairs, Vaska said quietly:

They must have found the rifles. Now my father will be hanged.

He cried and ran forward.

Vaska! Vasya! Where are you going? - Andrei shouted in confusion and rushed after him.

At the switchman's booth he caught up with him and grabbed him tightly by the shoulders. Vaska was twitching all over and could not utter a word.

“Come on, Vasya,” Andrey said decisively. “If they take your father, then I myself will appear to the commandant and say: I did it.”

Two days later, the entire village knew that the rifles had disappeared from the commandant’s office. Guards were posted at all corners. A hundred Cossacks galloped from the village. The Cossacks cordoned off the station and the village.

Orders appeared on the fences:

“The village and the railway village are declared to be under siege. Those who appear on the street after six o'clock in the evening are immediately detained and sent to the commandant and ataman of the village.

Commandant of the Glukhov station.

Ataman of the village of Konorezov."

It was a cold and bright day.

I hung out in the yard and waited for Vaska. Every day he and I took breakfast to the workshops for our fathers. In my hands I had a red bundle with bread, lard and several lumps of sugar.

Vaska did not go. Already at the depot the whistle sounded, but we had not yet gotten out. I walked up to Vaska’s apartment and knocked.

Now! - Vaska shouted and jumped out with a small green chest in his hands. Vaska always carried breakfast in it for his father.

Why are you fiddling around like some kind of wimp? “I always have to wait for you,” I told Vaska. -Move quickly! We'll be late!