1926–2003
Briefly about the author
Vladimir Osipovich Bogomolov was born on July 3, 1926 in the village of Kirillovna, Moscow Region. He is a member of the Great Patriotic War, was injured, awarded with orders and medals. Fought in Belarus, Poland, Germany, Manchuria.
The first work of Bogomolov - the story "Ivan" (1957), tragic story about a boy scout who died at the hands of the fascist invaders. The story contains fundamental A New Look to the war, free from ideological schemes, from the literary norms of that time. Over the years, reader and publisher interest in this work has not disappeared; it has been translated into more than 40 languages. On its basis, director A. A. Tarkovsky created the film "Ivan's Childhood" (1962).
The story "Zosya" (1963) tells with great psychological certainty about the first youthful love of a Russian officer for a Polish girl. The feeling experienced during the war years was not forgotten. At the end of the story, her hero admits: “To this day, I still have the feeling that I really overslept something then, that in my life, indeed - by some chance - something very important did not take place, big and unique…”
There are in the work of Bogomolov and short stories about the war: "First Love" (1958), "Cemetery near Bialystok" (1963), "My heart is in pain" (1963).
In 1963, several stories were written on other topics: “Second Grade”, “People Around”, “Ward Neighbor”, “District Officer”, “Apartment Neighbor”.
In 1973, Bogomolov finished work on the novel "The Moment of Truth (In August forty-fourth ...)". In the novel about military counterintelligence officers, the author revealed to the readers the field of military activity, with which he himself was well acquainted. This is a story about how an operational-search group of counterintelligence neutralized a group of fascist paratrooper agents. The work of the command structures up to the Headquarters is shown. Military official documents are woven into the fabric of the plot, carrying a great cognitive and expressive load. This novel, like the previously written stories "Ivan" and "Zosya", is one of the the best works of our literature on the Great Patriotic War. The novel has been translated into more than 30 languages.
In 1993, Bogomolov wrote the story "In the Krieger". Its action takes place on Far East, in the first post-war autumn. The military personnel officers stationed in the “krieger” (a car for transporting the seriously wounded) hand out assignments to remote garrisons to officers who have returned from the front.
The last years of his life, Bogomolov worked on nonfiction book“Shame on both the living and the dead, and Russia ...”, which considered publications, as the writer himself said, “denigrating the Patriotic War and tens of millions of its living and dead participants.”
Vladimir Osipovich Bogomolov passed away in 2003.
moment of truth
(In August forty-fourth...)
1. Alekhin, Tamantsev, Blinov
There were three of them, those who officially, in the documents, were called the "operational-search group" of the Front's counterintelligence department.
At their disposal was a car, a battered, battered GAZ-AA lorry and a driver, Sergeant Khizhnyak.
Exhausted by six days of intensive but unsuccessful searches, they returned to the Office after dark, confident that at least tomorrow they would be able to sleep and rest. However, as soon as the head of the group, Captain Alekhin, reported their arrival, they were ordered to immediately go to the Shilovichi region and continue the search. About two hours later, having filled the car with gasoline and having received an energetic briefing by a specially called officer-miner during dinner, they drove off.
By dawn, more than a hundred and fifty kilometers were left behind. The sun had not yet risen, but it was already dawning when Khizhnyak, stopping the lorry, stepped on the footboard and, leaning over the side, pushed Alekhine aside.
The captain - of average height, thin, with faded, whitish eyebrows on a tanned, inactive face - threw back his overcoat and, shivering, sat up in the back. The car was parked on the side of the highway. It was very quiet, fresh and dewy. Ahead, about one and a half kilometers away, the huts of some village could be seen in small dark pyramids.
“Shilovichi,” said Khizhnyak. Raising the side shield of the hood, he leaned toward the engine. - Move closer?
“No,” said Alekhine, looking around. - Good.
To the left was a stream with sloping dry banks. To the right of the glosse, behind a wide strip of stubble and bushes, stretched the forest. The same forest from which some eleven hours ago there was a radio transmission. Alekhin examined him through binoculars for half a minute, then began to wake up the officers who were sleeping in the back.
One of them, Andrey Blinov, a fair-headed lieutenant of nineteen years of age, with ruddy cheeks from sleep, woke up immediately, sat down in the hay, rubbed his eyes, and stared at Alekhine without understanding anything.
It was not so easy to get another one - Senior Lieutenant Tamantsev. He slept with his head wrapped in a raincoat, and when they began to wake him up, he pulled it tight, half-asleep kicked the air twice with his foot and rolled over to the other side.
Finally he woke up completely and, realizing that he would not be allowed to sleep again, he threw away his raincoat, sat down and, looking around sullenly with dark gray eyes from under thick unibrows, asked, in fact, without addressing anyone:
- Where are we?…
“Let’s go,” Alekhin called him, going down to the stream, where Blinov and Khizhnyak were already washing. - Freshen up.
Tamantsev glanced at the stream, spat far to the side, and suddenly, almost without touching the edge of the side, rapidly tossing his body, jumped out of the car.
He was, like Blinov, tall, but broader in the shoulders, but in the hips, muscular and sinewy. Stretching and glancing around frowningly, he went down to the stream and, throwing off his tunic, began to wash.
The water was cold and clear, like a spring.
“It smells like a swamp,” said Tamantsev, however. - Note that in all rivers the water tastes like a swamp. Even in the Dnieper.
- You, of course, do not agree less than at sea! Wiping his face, Alekhin grinned.
“Precisely!.. You won’t understand this…” Tamantsev sighed, looking regretfully at the captain, and quickly turning around in an authoritative bass voice, but cheerfully exclaimed: “Khizhnyak, I don’t see breakfast!”
- Do not be noisy. There will be no breakfast,” Alekhine said. - Take a dry ration.
- Cheerful life! .. No sleep, no food ...
- Let's get in the body! Alekhin interrupted him and, turning to Khizhnyak, suggested: “In the meantime, take a walk…”
The officers climbed into the body. Alekhine lit a cigarette, then, taking it out of his clipboard, laid out a brand new large-scale map on a plywood suitcase and, trying on, made a dot above the Shilovichi with a pencil.
– We are here.
– historical place! Tamantsev snorted.
- Shut up! Alekhin said sternly, and his face became official. - Listen to the order! .. See the forest? ... Here it is. - Alekhin showed on the map. “Yesterday at eighteen zero-five, a shortwave transmitter went on the air from here.
- Is it still the same? Blinov asked not quite confidently.
- What about the text? Tamantsev inquired at once.
- Presumably, the transmission was conducted from this square, - Alekhin continued, as if not hearing his question. - We will ...
“What does En Fe think?” Tamantsev promptly managed.
It was his usual question. He almost always asked: “What did En Fe say?… What does En Fe think?… And with En Fe did you pump it?…”
“I don’t know, he didn’t exist,” Alekhine said. Let's take a look at the forest...
- What about the text? Tamantsev insisted.
With barely visible pencil lines, he divided the northern part of the forest into three sectors, and, having shown and explained in detail to the officers the landmarks, he continued:
- We start from this square - look especially carefully here! – and move to the periphery. Searches to conduct until nineteen zero-zero. Staying in the forest later - forbid! Gathering at the Shilovichi. The car will be somewhere in that undergrowth. Alekhine held out his hand; Andrey and Tamantsev looked where he was pointing. - Remove shoulder straps and caps, leave documents, do not keep weapons in plain sight! When meeting with someone in the forest, act according to the circumstances.
Having unbuttoned the collars of their tunics, Tamantsev and Blinov untied their shoulder straps; Alekhine dragged on and continued:
- Don't relax for a moment! Always be aware of mines and the possibility of a surprise attack. Note: Basos was killed in this forest.
Throwing away his cigarette, he glanced at his watch, got up and ordered:
- Get started!
2. Operational documents 1
Hereinafter, the vultures indicating the degree of secrecy of documents, resolutions of officials and official notes (departure time, who transmitted, who received, and others), as well as document numbers, are omitted.
In the documents (and in the text of the novel) several surnames have been changed, the names of five small settlements and the actual names of military units and formations. Otherwise, the documents in the novel are textually identical to the corresponding original documents.
Summary
“To the Chief of the Main Directorate of Troops for the Protection of the Rear of the Red Army.
Copy: to the head of the counterintelligence department Smersh2
Smersh(abbreviated from "Death to spies!") - the name of the Soviet military counterintelligence in 1943-1945. Full name: counterintelligence Smersh NPO USSR. The bodies of Smersh reported directly to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, People's Commissar of Defense I.V. Stalin.front
The operational situation at the front and in the rear of the front for fifty days from the start of the offensive (through August 11) was characterized by the following main factors:
– successful offensive operations of our troops and the absence of solid line front. The liberation of the entire territory of the BSSR and a significant part of the territory of Lithuania, which had been under German occupation for more than three years;
– the defeat of the enemy army group "Center", which consisted of about 50 divisions;
– the infestation of the liberated territory by numerous agents of counterintelligence and punitive bodies of the enemy, his accomplices, traitors and traitors to the Motherland, most of whom, avoiding responsibility, went into an illegal position, unite in gangs, hide in forests and farms;
– the presence in the rear of the front of hundreds of disparate residual groups soldiers and officers of the enemy;
– the presence in the liberated territory of various underground nationalist organizations and armed formations; numerous manifestations of banditry;
– the regrouping and concentration of our troops carried out by the Headquarters and the enemy's desire to unravel the plans of the Soviet command, to establish where and by what forces subsequent strikes will be delivered.
Related factors:
– an abundance of wooded areas, including large thickets, which serve as a good shelter for the remaining groups of the enemy, various bandit formations and persons evading mobilization;
– a large number of weapons left on the battlefields, which makes it possible for hostile elements to arm themselves without difficulty;
– weakness, understaffing of restored local bodies Soviet power and institutions, especially in the lower levels;
– a significant length of front-line communications and a large number of objects requiring reliable protection;
– a pronounced shortage of personnel in the troops of the front, which makes it difficult to obtain support from units and formations during operations to clear military rear areas.
Remaining groups of Germans
Scattered groups of enemy soldiers and officers in the first half of July strove for one common purpose: secretly or fighting moving west, go through the battle formations of our troops and connect with their units. However, on July 15-20, the German command repeatedly transmitted encrypted radiograms an order to all residual groups with walkie-talkies and ciphers not to force the crossing of the front line, but, on the contrary, remaining in our operational rear, to collect and transmit intelligence information in cipher by radio, and above all on the deployment, number and movement of units of the Red Army. To this end, it was proposed, in particular, using natural shelters, to monitor our front-line railway and highway communications, record the flow of cargo, and also capture single Soviet military personnel, primarily commanders, for the purpose of interrogation and subsequent destruction.
Underground nationalist organizations and formations
1. According to the information we have, the following underground organizations of the Polish government in exile in London operate in the rear of the front: "People's Forces Zbroine", Home Army3
Home Army(AK) - an underground armed organization of the Polish government in exile in London, operating in Poland, southern Lithuania and the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus. In 1944-1945, following the instructions of the London center, many AK detachments carried out subversive activities in the rear Soviet troops: they killed soldiers and officers of the Red Army, as well as Soviet workers, engaged in espionage, committed sabotage and robbed the civilian population. Often, the Akovtsy were dressed in the uniform of the Red Army.created in recent weeks"Nepodleglost" and - on the territory of the Lithuanian SSR, in the region of Vilnius - "Jondu's Delegation".
The core of these illegal formations is made up of Polish officers and sub-officers of the reserve, landowner-bourgeois elements and partly the intelligentsia. All organizations are led from London by General Sosnkowski through his representatives in Poland: General Boer (Count Tadeusz Komorowski), Colonels Grzegorz (Pelchinsky) and Niel (Fieldorf).
As established, the London center gave the Polish underground a directive to carry out active subversive activities in the rear of the Red Army, for which it was ordered to keep underground most detachments, weapons and all transceiver radio stations. Colonel Fildorf, who visited in June with. Vilna and Novogrudok districts, specific orders were given on the ground with the arrival of the Red Army: a) to sabotage the activities of the military and civil authorities; b) commit sabotage on frontline communications and Act of terrorism in relation to Soviet military personnel, local leaders and activists; c) collect and transmit in code to General Bur-Komorovsky and directly to London intelligence information about the Red Army and the situation in its rear.
In the intercepted on July 28 with. and the decrypted radiogram from the London center, all underground organizations are invited not to recognize the Polish Committee of National Liberation formed in Lublin and to sabotage its activities, in particular, mobilization into the Polish Army. It also draws attention to the need for active management military intelligence in the rear of the operating Soviet armies, for which it is ordered to establish constant monitoring of all railway junctions.
The greatest terrorist and sabotage activity is shown by the detachments of "Volka" (Rudnitskaya Pushcha district), "Rat" (Vilnius district) and "Ragner" (about 300 people) in the Lida district.
2. In the liberated territory of the Lithuanian SSR, armed nationalist gangs of the so-called LLA, who call themselves “Lithuanian partisans”, are operating hiding in the forests and settlements.
The basis of these underground formations is made up of “white armbands” and other active German accomplices, officers and junior commanders of the former Lithuanian army, landlord-kulak and other enemy elements. The actions of these detachments are coordinated by the Committee of the Lithuanian National Front, created on the initiative of the German command and its intelligence agencies.
According to the testimonies of the arrested members of the LLA, in addition to carrying out cruel terror against Soviet military personnel and representatives of local authorities, the Lithuanian underground has the task of conducting operational intelligence in the rear and on communications of the Red Army and immediately transmitting the information obtained, for which many bandit groups are equipped with shortwave radio stations, ciphers and German decryption notebooks.
The most characteristic hostile manifestations last period
In Vilnius and its environs, mainly at night, 11 Red Army servicemen, including 7 officers, were killed or went missing. A major of the Polish Army, who arrived on a short vacation to meet with his relatives, was also killed there.
August 2 at 4.00 in the village. The family of the former partisan, who is now in the ranks of the Red Army, Makarevich V.I., was brutally destroyed by unknown persons from Kalitans– wife, daughter and niece born in 1940
On August 3, in the Zhirmuny region, 20 km north of the city of Lida, a Vlasov bandit group fired on a car - 5 Red Army soldiers were killed, a colonel and a major were seriously wounded.
On the night of August 5, a canvas was blown up in three places railway between the stations Neman and Novoelnya.
August 5, 1944 in the village. Turchela (30 km south of Vilnius) a communist, a deputy of the village council, was killed by a grenade thrown through the window.
August 7 in the district with. Voitovichi was attacked from a pre-prepared ambush car of the 39th army. As a result, 13 people were killed, 11 of them were burned along with the car. Two people were taken into the forest by bandits who also seized weapons, uniforms and all personal official documents.
August 6 arrived on a visit to the village. Radun, a sergeant of the Polish Army, was abducted by unknown people on the same night.
On August 10, at 4:30 a.m., a Lithuanian gang of unknown numbers attacked the volost department of the NKVD in the town of Siesiki. 4 police officers were killed, 6 bandits were released from custody.
August 10 in with. Malye Soleshniki shot the chairman of the village council Vasilevsky, his wife and 13-year-old daughter, who tried to protect her father.
In total, in the rear of the front during the first ten days of August, 169 Red Army servicemen were killed, kidnapped and went missing. Most of the dead were confiscated weapons, uniforms and personal military documents.
During these 10 days, 13 representatives of local authorities were killed; buildings of village councils were burned in three settlements.
In connection with numerous gang manifestations and murders of military personnel, we and the army command have significantly strengthened security measures. By order of the commander, all personnel of units and formations of the front are allowed to go beyond the location of the unit only in groups of at least three people and provided that each of them has automatic weapons. The same order prohibited the movement of vehicles in the evening and at night outside settlements without proper protection.
In total from June 23 to August 11 with. 209 enemy armed groups and various bandit formations operating in the rear of the front were liquidated (not counting single individuals). At the same time, the following were captured: mortars - 22, machine guns - 356, rifles and machine guns - 3827, horses - 190, radio stations - 46, including 28 shortwave ones.
Chief of the troops for the protection of the rear of the front, Major General Lobov "
Note on HF 4
HF(exact name: HF communication) - high-frequency telephone communication.
"Urgently!
Moscow, Matyushin
In addition to No. ... of 08/07/44
The unknown radio station we are looking for in the Neman case with the call signs KAO (the interception of 08/07/44 was immediately handed over to you) today, August 13, went on the air from a forest in the Shilovichi district (Baranovichi region)5
Since September 20, 1944 Grodno, Lida and Shilovichi district– Grodno region.Reporting the groups of digits of the encrypted radiogram recorded today, I urgently ask you, given the lack of qualified cryptographers in the Counterintelligence Department of the Front, to expedite the decryption of both the first and second radio intercepts.
Egorov"
Note on HF
"Urgently!
Head of the Main Directorate of Counterintelligence
Smersh
special message
Today, August 13, at 18:05, tracking stations again recorded the going on the air of an unknown short-wave radio with the call signs of KAO, operating in the rear of the front.
The place where the transmitter goes on the air is determined as the northern part of the Shilovichi forest area. The operating frequency of the radio is 4627 kHz. A recorded intercept is a radiogram encrypted in groups of five-digit numbers. The speed and clarity of transmission testify to the high qualification of the radio operator.
Prior to this, the release of the radio with the call signs of KAO was recorded on the air on August 7 this year. from the forest southeast of Stolbtsy.
The search activities carried out in the first case did not give positive results.
It seems likely that the transmissions are carried out by agents left by the enemy during the retreat or transferred to the rear of the front.
It is possible, however, that the radio with the call signs KAO is used by one of the underground groups of the Home Army.
It is also possible that the transmissions are carried out by one of the remaining groups of Germans.
We are taking measures to find in the Shilovichi forest area the exact place where the wanted radio went on the air, to find traces and evidence. At the same time, everything possible is being done to identify information that would help identify and detain persons involved in the work of the transmitter.
All radio reconnaissance groups of the front are aimed at the operational direction finding of the radio if it goes on the air.
The operational group of Captain Alekhine is working directly on the case.
All counterintelligence agencies of the front, the head of the troops for the protection of the rear, as well as the Counterintelligence Directorate of neighboring fronts, are oriented by us to search for the radio and the persons involved in its work.
Egorov"
3. Cleaner 6
Cleaner(from "clean" - to clear the areas of the forward and operational rear from enemy agents) - slang designation for a military counterintelligence detective. Hereinafter, predominantly specific, narrowly professional jargon of military counterintelligence detectives. senior lieutenant Tamantsev, nicknamed Skorohvat
In the morning I had a terrible, downright funeral mood - in this forest they killed Leshka Basos, my own close friend and probably best guy on the ground. And although he died about three weeks ago, I could not help thinking about him all day.
I was then on a mission, and when I returned, he was already buried. I was told that there were many wounds and severe burns on the body - before his death, the wounded man was severely tortured, apparently trying to find out something, stabbed with knives, burned his feet, chest and face. And then finished off with two shots in the back of the head.
In the school of junior command staff of the border troops, for almost a year we slept on the same bunk, and his head with the two crowns so familiar to me and curls of reddish hair around his neck loomed before my eyes in the morning.
He fought for three years, and did not die in open battle. Somewhere here he was caught - and it is not known - who! - shot, apparently, from an ambush, tortured, burned, and then killed. How I hated this accursed forest! Thirst for revenge - to meet and reckon! – has taken over me since morning.
Mood is mood, but business is business - we did not come here to commemorate Leshka and not even to avenge him.
If the forest near Stolbtsy, where we searched until yesterday afternoon, seemed to have bypassed the war, then here it was quite the opposite.
At the very beginning, about two hundred meters from the edge of the forest, I stumbled upon a burnt-out German staff car. It was not knocked out, but burned by the Fritz themselves: the trees here completely blocked the path and it became impossible to drive.
Vladimir Bogomolov
moment of truth
(In August forty-fourth)
Part one
Captain Alekhin's group
To the few to whom the many owe...
1. Alekhin, Tamantsev, Blinov
There were three of them, those who were officially, in the documents, called the "operational-search group" of the Front's counterintelligence department. At their disposal was a car, shabby, battered lorry "GAZ-AA" and the driver-sergeant Khizhnyak.
Exhausted by six days of intensive but unsuccessful searches, they returned to the Office after dark, confident that at least tomorrow they would be able to sleep and rest. However, as soon as the senior group, Captain Alekhin, reported on their arrival, they were ordered to immediately go to the Shilovichi area and continue the search. Two hours later, having filled the car with gasoline and having received an energetic briefing during dinner by a specially called officer-miner, they drove off.
By dawn, more than a hundred and fifty kilometers were left behind. The sun had not yet risen, but it was already dawning when Khizhnyak, stopping the lorry, stepped on the footboard and, leaning over the side, pushed Alekhin aside.
The captain - of average height, thin, with faded, whitish eyebrows on a tanned, inactive face - threw back his overcoat and, shivering, sat up in the back. The car was parked on the side of the highway. It was very quiet, fresh and dewy. Ahead, about one and a half kilometers away, the huts of some village could be seen in small dark pyramids.
“Shilovichi,” said Khizhnyak. Raising the side shield of the hood, he leaned toward the engine. - Move closer?
“No,” said Alekhin, looking around. - Good. To the left was a stream with sloping dry banks.
To the right of the highway, behind a wide strip of stubble and shrubbery, a forest stretched. The same forest from which some eleven hours ago there was a radio transmission. Alekhin examined him through binoculars for half a minute, then began to wake up the officers who were sleeping in the back.
One of them, Andrey Blinov, a fair-headed lieutenant of nineteen years of age, with ruddy cheeks from sleep, woke up immediately, sat down on the hay, rubbed his eyes, and, not understanding anything, stared at Alekhin.
It was not so easy to get another one - Senior Lieutenant Tamantsev. He slept with his head wrapped in a raincoat, and when they began to wake him up, he pulled it tight, half-asleep he kicked the air twice with his foot and rolled over to the other side.
Finally, he woke up completely and, realizing that he would not be allowed to sleep again, threw off his raincoat, sat down and, gloomily looking around his dark gray eyes from under thick unibrows, asked, in fact, without addressing anyone:
- Where are we?..
“Let’s go,” Alekhin called him, going down to the stream, where Blinov and Khizhnyak were already washing. - Freshen up.
Tamantsev glanced at the stream, spat far to the side, and suddenly, almost without touching the edge of the side, swiftly throwing up his body, jumped out of the car.
He was, like Blinov, tall, but broader in the shoulders, narrower in the hips, muscular and wiry. Stretching and glancing around frowningly, he went down to the stream and, throwing off his tunic, began to wash.
The water was cold and clear, like a spring.
“It smells like a swamp,” said Tamantsev, however. - Note that in all rivers the water tastes like a swamp. Even in the Dnieper.
“You, of course, disagree less than at sea,” Alekhin grinned, wiping his face.
“Precisely!.. You won’t understand this,” Tamantsev sighed, looking regretfully at the captain, and quickly turning around in an authoritative bass voice, but cheerfully exclaimed: “Khizhnyak, I don’t see breakfast!”
- Do not be noisy. There will be no breakfast,” Alekhin said. - Take dry rations.
- Cheerful life! .. No sleep, no food ...
- Let's get in the body! - Alekhin interrupted him and, turning to Khizhnyak, suggested: - In the meantime, take a walk ...
The officers climbed into the body. Alekhine lit a cigarette, then, taking it out of his tablet, laid out a brand new large-scale map on a plywood suitcase and, trying on, made a dot above the Shilovichi with a pencil.
– We are here.
- Historic place! Tamantsev snorted.
- Shut up! Alekhin said sternly, and his face became official. - Listen to the order! .. See the forest? .. Here it is. - Alekhin showed on the map. “Yesterday at eighteen zero-five, a shortwave transmitter went on the air from here.
- Is it still the same? Blinov asked not quite confidently.
- What about the text? Tamantsev inquired at once.
- Presumably, the transmission was conducted from this square, - Alekhin continued as if not hearing his question. - We will ...
“What does En Fe think?” Tamantsev promptly managed.
It was his usual question. He was almost always interested: “What did En Fe say?.. What does En Fe think?.. Did you pump it with En Fe?..”
“I don’t know, he didn’t exist,” Alekhin said. Let's take a look at the forest...
- What about the text? Tamantsev insisted.
With barely noticeable pencil lines, he divided the northern part of the forest into three sectors and, showing the officers and explaining in detail the landmarks, continued:
- We start from this square - look especially carefully here! – and move to the periphery. Searches to conduct until nineteen zero-zero. Staying in the forest later - forbid! Gathering at the Shilovichi. The car will be somewhere in that undergrowth. Alekhin held out his hand; Andrey and Tamantsev looked where he was pointing. - Remove shoulder straps and caps, leave documents, do not keep weapons in plain sight! When meeting with someone in the forest, act according to the circumstances.
Having unbuttoned the collars of their gymnasts, Tamantsev and Blinov untied their shoulder straps; Alekhin dragged on and continued:
- Don't relax for a moment! Always remember about mines and the possibility of a surprise attack. Note: Basos was killed in this forest.
Throwing away his cigarette, he glanced at his watch, got up and ordered:
- Get started!
2. Operational documents
"To the Head of the Main Directorate of Troops for the Protection of the Rear of the Active Red Army
Copy: Head of the Counterintelligence Department of the Front
The operational situation at the front and in the rear of the front for fifty days from the start of the offensive (through August 11) was characterized by the following main factors:
- successful offensive operations of our troops and the absence of a solid front line. The liberation of the entire territory of the BSSR and a significant part of the territory of Lithuania, which had been under German occupation for more than three years;
- the defeat of the enemy army group "Center", which included about 50 divisions;
- the contamination of the liberated territory with numerous agents of counterintelligence and punitive bodies of the enemy, his accomplices, traitors and traitors to the Motherland, most of whom, avoiding responsibility, went into an illegal position, unite in gangs, hide in forests and farms;
- the presence in the rear of the front of hundreds of scattered residual groups of soldiers and officers of the enemy;
- the presence in the liberated territory of various underground nationalist organizations and armed formations, numerous manifestations of banditry;
- by the regrouping and concentration of our troops carried out by the Headquarters and the enemy's desire to unravel the plans of the Soviet command, to establish where and by what forces subsequent strikes will be delivered.
Related factors:
- an abundance of wooded areas, including large thickets that serve as a good shelter for the remaining groups of the enemy, various gangs and persons evading mobilization;
- a large number of weapons left on the battlefields, which makes it possible for hostile elements to arm themselves without difficulty;
- weakness, understaffing of the restored local bodies of Soviet power and institutions, especially in the lower levels;
- a significant length of front-line communications and a large number of objects that require reliable protection;
- a pronounced shortage of personnel in the troops of the front, which makes it difficult to obtain support from units and formations during operations to clear military rear areas.
Remaining groups of Germans
Scattered groups of enemy soldiers and officers in the first half of July strove for one common goal: secretly or fighting moving west, to pass through the battle formations of our troops and connect with their units. However, on July 15-20, the German command repeatedly transmitted encrypted radiograms an order to all residual groups with walkie-talkies and ciphers not to force the crossing of the front line, but, on the contrary, remaining in our operational rear, to collect and transmit intelligence information in cipher by radio, and above all on the deployment, number and movement of units of the Red Army. To this end, it was proposed, in particular, using natural shelters, to monitor our front-line railway and highway communications, record the flow of cargo, and also capture single Soviet military personnel, primarily commanders, for the purpose of interrogation and subsequent destruction.
Underground nationalist organizations and formations
1. According to our information, the following underground organizations of the Polish émigré "government" in London operate in the rear of the front: "People's Forces Zbryne", "Craiova Army", created in recent weeks "Nepodlegnost" and - on the territory of the Lithuanian SSR, in the region - not mountains. Vilnius - "Jondu's Delegation".
The core of these illegal formations is made up of Polish officers and sub-officers of the reserve, landowner-bourgeois elements and partly the intelligentsia. All organizations are led from London by General Sosnkowski through his representatives in Poland, General "Bur" (Count Tadeusz Komorowski), Colonels "Grzegorz" (Pelchinsky) and "Niel" (Fieldorf).
As established, the London center gave the Polish underground a directive to carry out active subversive activities in the rear of the Red Army, for which it was ordered to keep most of the detachments, weapons and all transceiver radio stations in an illegal position. Colonel Fildorf, who visited in June with. Vilna and Novogrudok districts, specific orders were given on the ground - with the advent of the Red Army: a) to sabotage the activities of the military and civilian authorities, b) to commit sabotage on front-line communications and terrorist acts against Soviet military personnel, local leaders and assets, c) to collect and transmit intelligence information about the Red Army and the situation in its rear areas in cipher to General "Bur" - Kemerovsky and directly to London.
In the intercepted on July 28 with. and the decoded radiogram from the London center, all underground organizations are invited not to recognize the Polish Committee of National Liberation formed in Lublin and to sabotage its activities, in particular, mobilization into the Polish Army. It also draws attention to the need for active military intelligence in the rear of the active Soviet armies, for which it is ordered to establish constant monitoring of all railway junctions.
The greatest terrorist and sabotage activity is shown by the detachments "Wolf" (Rudnitskaya Pushcha district), "Rat" ( mountains. Vilnius) and "Ragner" (about 300 people) in the region of the mountains. Lida.
2. In the liberated territory of the Lithuanian SSR, armed nationalist bandit groups of the so-called "LLA", who call themselves "Lithuanian partisans", are operating hiding in the forests and settlements.
The basis of these underground formations are the "white armbands" and other active German accomplices, officers and junior commanders of the former Lithuanian army, the landowner-kulak and other enemy elements. The actions of these detachments are coordinated by the “Committee of the Lithuanian National Front”, created on the initiative of the German command and its intelligence agencies.
According to the testimonies of the arrested members of the "LLA", in addition to carrying out cruel terror against Soviet military personnel and representatives of local authorities, the Lithuanian underground has the task of conducting operational intelligence in the rear and on communications of the Red Army and immediately transmitting the information obtained, for which many bandit groups are equipped with shortwave radio stations, ciphers and German deciphering notebooks.
The most characteristic hostile manifestations of the last period (from August 1 to August 10 inclusive):
In Vilnius and its environs, mainly at night, 11 Red Army servicemen, including 7 officers, were killed or went missing. A major of the Polish Army, who arrived on a short vacation to meet with his relatives, was also killed there.
August 2 at 4.00 in the village. The family of the former partisan, who is now in the ranks of the Red Army, Makarevich V.I., was brutally destroyed by unknown people of Kalitany - wife, daughter and niece, born in 1940.
On August 3, in the Zhirmuny area, 20 km north of the city of Lida, a Vlasov bandit group fired on a car - 5 Red Army soldiers were killed, a colonel and a major were seriously wounded.
On the night of August 5, the railway bed between the Neman and Novoelnya stations was blown up in three places.
August 5, 1944 in the village. Turchela (30 km south of Vilnius) a communist, a deputy of the village council, was killed by a grenade thrown through the window.
On August 7, near the village of Voitovichi, a motor vehicle of the 39th Army was attacked from a pre-prepared ambush. As a result, 13 people were killed, 11 of them were burned along with the car. Two people were taken into the forest by bandits who also seized weapons, uniforms and all personal official documents.
August 6 arrived on a visit to the village. Radun, a sergeant of the Polish Army, was abducted by unknown people on the same night.
On August 10, at 4:30 a.m., a Lithuanian gang of unidentified numbers attacked the volost department of the NKVD in the town of Siesiki. Four police officers were killed, 6 bandits were released from custody.
On August 10, in the village of Malye Soleshniki, the chairman of the village council Vasilevsky, his wife and 13-year-old daughter, who tried to protect her father, were shot.
In total, in the rear of the front during the first ten days of August, 169 Red Army servicemen were killed, kidnapped and went missing. Most of the dead were confiscated weapons, uniforms and personal military documents.
During these 10 days, 13 representatives of local authorities were killed; buildings of village councils were burned in three settlements.
In connection with numerous gang manifestations and murders of military personnel, we and the army command have significantly strengthened security measures. By order of the commander, all personnel of units and formations of the front are allowed to go beyond the location of the unit only in groups of at least three people and provided that each of them has automatic weapons. The same order prohibited the movement of vehicles in the evening and at night outside settlements without proper protection.
In total, from June 23 to August 11, inclusive, 209 enemy armed groups and various bandit formations operating in the rear of the front were eliminated (not counting single individuals). At the same time, the following were captured: mortars - 22, machine guns - 356; rifles and machine guns - 3827, horses - 190, radio stations - 46, including 28 shortwave ones.
Head of the troops for the protection of the rear of the front
Major General Lobov.
1926–2003
Briefly about the author
Vladimir Osipovich Bogomolov was born on July 3, 1926 in the village of Kirillovna, Moscow Region. He is a participant in the Great Patriotic War, was wounded, awarded orders and medals. Fought in Belarus, Poland, Germany, Manchuria.
Bogomolov's first work is the story "Ivan" (1957), a tragic story about a scout boy who died at the hands of the fascist invaders. The story contains a fundamentally new view of the war, free from ideological schemes, from the literary standards of that time. Over the years, reader and publisher interest in this work has not disappeared; it has been translated into more than 40 languages. On its basis, director A. A. Tarkovsky created the film "Ivan's Childhood" (1962).
The story "Zosya" (1963) tells with great psychological certainty about the first youthful love of a Russian officer for a Polish girl. The feeling experienced during the war years was not forgotten. At the end of the story, her hero admits: “To this day, I still have the feeling that I really overslept something then, that in my life, indeed - by some chance - something very important did not take place, big and unique…”
There are also short stories about the war in Bogomolov's work: "First Love" (1958), "Cemetery near Bialystok" (1963), "My Heart Pain" (1963).
In 1963, several stories were written on other topics: “Second Grade”, “People Around”, “Ward Neighbor”, “District Officer”, “Apartment Neighbor”.
In 1973, Bogomolov finished work on the novel "The Moment of Truth (In August forty-fourth ...)". In the novel about military counterintelligence officers, the author revealed to the readers the field of military activity, with which he himself was well acquainted. This is a story about how an operational-search group of counterintelligence neutralized a group of fascist paratrooper agents. The work of the command structures up to the Headquarters is shown. Military official documents are woven into the fabric of the plot, carrying a great cognitive and expressive load. This novel, like the previously written stories "Ivan" and "Zosya", is one of the best works of our literature about the Great Patriotic War. The novel has been translated into more than 30 languages.
In 1993, Bogomolov wrote the story "In the Krieger". Its action takes place in the Far East, in the first post-war autumn. The military personnel officers stationed in the “krieger” (a car for transporting the seriously wounded) hand out assignments to remote garrisons to officers who have returned from the front.
In the last years of his life, Bogomolov worked on a publicistic book “Shame on both the living and the dead, and Russia ...”, which examined publications, as the writer himself said, “denigrating the Patriotic War and tens of millions of its living and dead participants.”
Vladimir Osipovich Bogomolov passed away in 2003.
(In August forty-fourth...)
1. Alekhin, Tamantsev, Blinov
There were three of them, those who officially, in the documents, were called the "operational-search group" of the Front's counterintelligence department. At their disposal was a car, a battered, battered GAZ-AA lorry and a driver, Sergeant Khizhnyak.
Exhausted by six days of intensive but unsuccessful searches, they returned to the Office after dark, confident that at least tomorrow they would be able to sleep and rest. However, as soon as the head of the group, Captain Alekhin, reported their arrival, they were ordered to immediately go to the Shilovichi region and continue the search. About two hours later, having filled the car with gasoline and having received an energetic briefing by a specially called officer-miner during dinner, they drove off.
By dawn, more than a hundred and fifty kilometers were left behind. The sun had not yet risen, but it was already dawning when Khizhnyak, stopping the lorry, stepped on the footboard and, leaning over the side, pushed Alekhine aside.
The captain - of average height, thin, with faded, whitish eyebrows on a tanned, inactive face - threw back his overcoat and, shivering, sat up in the back. The car was parked on the side of the highway. It was very quiet, fresh and dewy. Ahead, about one and a half kilometers away, the huts of some village could be seen in small dark pyramids.
“Shilovichi,” said Khizhnyak. Raising the side shield of the hood, he leaned toward the engine. - Move closer?
“No,” said Alekhine, looking around. - Good.
To the left was a stream with sloping dry banks. To the right of the glosse, behind a wide strip of stubble and bushes, stretched the forest. The same forest from which some eleven hours ago there was a radio transmission. Alekhin examined him through binoculars for half a minute, then began to wake up the officers who were sleeping in the back.
One of them, Andrey Blinov, a fair-headed lieutenant of nineteen years of age, with ruddy cheeks from sleep, woke up immediately, sat down in the hay, rubbed his eyes, and stared at Alekhine without understanding anything.
It was not so easy to get another one - Senior Lieutenant Tamantsev. He slept with his head wrapped in a raincoat, and when they began to wake him up, he pulled it tight, half-asleep kicked the air twice with his foot and rolled over to the other side.
Finally he woke up completely and, realizing that he would not be allowed to sleep again, he threw away his raincoat, sat down and, looking around sullenly with dark gray eyes from under thick unibrows, asked, in fact, without addressing anyone:
- Where are we?…
“Let’s go,” Alekhin called him, going down to the stream, where Blinov and Khizhnyak were already washing. - Freshen up.
Tamantsev glanced at the stream, spat far to the side, and suddenly, almost without touching the edge of the side, rapidly tossing his body, jumped out of the car.
He was, like Blinov, tall, but broader in the shoulders, narrower in the hips, muscular and wiry. Stretching and glancing around frowningly, he went down to the stream and, throwing off his tunic, began to wash.
The water was cold and clear, like a spring.
“It smells like a swamp,” said Tamantsev, however. - Note that in all rivers the water tastes like a swamp. Even in the Dnieper.
- You, of course, do not agree less than at sea! Wiping his face, Alekhin grinned.
“Precisely!.. You won’t understand this…” Tamantsev sighed, looking regretfully at the captain, and quickly turning around in an authoritative bass voice, but cheerfully exclaimed: “Khizhnyak, I don’t see breakfast!”
- Do not be noisy. There will be no breakfast,” Alekhine said. - Take a dry ration.
- Cheerful life! .. No sleep, no food ...
- Let's get in the body! Alekhin interrupted him and, turning to Khizhnyak, suggested: “In the meantime, take a walk…”
The officers climbed into the body. Alekhine lit a cigarette, then, taking it out of his clipboard, laid out a brand new large-scale map on a plywood suitcase and, trying on, made a dot above the Shilovichi with a pencil.
– We are here.
- Historic place! Tamantsev snorted.
- Shut up! Alekhin said sternly, and his face became official. - Listen to the order! .. See the forest? ... Here it is. - Alekhin showed on the map. “Yesterday at eighteen zero-five, a shortwave transmitter went on the air from here.
- Is it still the same? Blinov asked not quite confidently.
- What about the text? Tamantsev inquired at once.
- Presumably, the transmission was conducted from this square, - Alekhin continued, as if not hearing his question. - We will ...
“What does En Fe think?” Tamantsev promptly managed.
It was his usual question. He almost always asked: “What did En Fe say?… What does En Fe think?… And with En Fe did you pump it?…”
“I don’t know, he didn’t exist,” Alekhine said. Let's take a look at the forest...
- What about the text? Tamantsev insisted.
With barely visible pencil lines, he divided the northern part of the forest into three sectors, and, having shown and explained in detail to the officers the landmarks, he continued:
- We start from this square - look especially carefully here! – and move to the periphery. Searches to conduct until nineteen zero-zero. Staying in the forest later - forbid! Gathering at the Shilovichi. The car will be somewhere in that undergrowth. Alekhine held out his hand; Andrey and Tamantsev looked where he was pointing. - Remove shoulder straps and caps, leave documents, do not keep weapons in plain sight! When meeting with someone in the forest, act according to the circumstances.
Having unbuttoned the collars of their tunics, Tamantsev and Blinov untied their shoulder straps; Alekhine dragged on and continued:
- Don't relax for a moment! Always be aware of mines and the possibility of a surprise attack. Note: Basos was killed in this forest.
Throwing away his cigarette, he glanced at his watch, got up and ordered:
- Get started!
2. Operational documents
Summary
“To the Chief of the Main Directorate of Troops for the Protection of the Rear of the Red Army.
Copy: to the head of the counterintelligence department Smersh front
The operational situation at the front and in the rear of the front for fifty days from the start of the offensive (through August 11) was characterized by the following main factors:
– successful offensive operations of our troops and the absence of a continuous front line. The liberation of the entire territory of the BSSR and a significant part of the territory of Lithuania, which had been under German occupation for more than three years;
– the defeat of the enemy army group "Center", which consisted of about 50 divisions;
– the infestation of the liberated territory by numerous agents of counterintelligence and punitive bodies of the enemy, his accomplices, traitors and traitors to the Motherland, most of whom, avoiding responsibility, went into an illegal position, unite in gangs, hide in forests and farms;
– the presence in the rear of the front of hundreds of scattered residual groups of soldiers and officers of the enemy;
– the presence in the liberated territory of various underground nationalist organizations and armed formations; numerous manifestations of banditry;
– the regrouping and concentration of our troops carried out by the Headquarters and the enemy's desire to unravel the plans of the Soviet command, to establish where and by what forces subsequent strikes will be delivered.
Related factors:
– an abundance of wooded areas, including large thickets, which serve as a good shelter for the remaining groups of the enemy, various bandit formations and persons evading mobilization;
– a large number of weapons left on the battlefields, which makes it possible for hostile elements to arm themselves without difficulty;
– weakness, understaffing of the restored local bodies of Soviet power and institutions, especially in the lower levels;
– a significant length of front-line communications and a large number of objects requiring reliable protection;
– a pronounced shortage of personnel in the troops of the front, which makes it difficult to obtain support from units and formations during operations to clear military rear areas.
Remaining groups of Germans
Scattered groups of enemy soldiers and officers in the first half of July strove for one common goal: secretly or fighting moving west, to pass through the battle formations of our troops and connect with their units. However, on July 15-20, the German command repeatedly transmitted encrypted radiograms an order to all residual groups with walkie-talkies and ciphers not to force the crossing of the front line, but, on the contrary, remaining in our operational rear, to collect and transmit intelligence information in cipher by radio, and above all on the deployment, number and movement of units of the Red Army. To this end, it was proposed, in particular, using natural shelters, to monitor our front-line railway and highway communications, record the flow of cargo, and also capture single Soviet military personnel, primarily commanders, for the purpose of interrogation and subsequent destruction.
Underground nationalist organizations and formations
1. According to the information we have, the following underground organizations of the Polish government in exile in London operate in the rear of the front: "People's Forces Zbroine", Home Army , created in recent weeks by "Nepodlegnost" and - on the territory of the Lithuanian SSR, in the region of Vilnius - "Jondu's Delegation".
The core of these illegal formations is made up of Polish officers and sub-officers of the reserve, landowner-bourgeois elements and partly the intelligentsia. All organizations are led from London by General Sosnkowski through his representatives in Poland: General Boer (Count Tadeusz Komorowski), Colonels Grzegorz (Pelchinsky) and Niel (Fieldorf).
As established, the London center gave the Polish underground a directive to carry out active subversive activities in the rear of the Red Army, for which it was ordered to keep most of the detachments, weapons and all transceiver radio stations in an illegal position. Colonel Fildorf, who visited in June with. Vilna and Novogrudok districts, specific orders were given on the ground with the arrival of the Red Army: a) to sabotage the activities of the military and civil authorities; b) commit acts of sabotage on frontline communications and terrorist acts against Soviet military personnel, local leaders and activists; c) collect and transmit in code to General Bur-Komorovsky and directly to London intelligence information about the Red Army and the situation in its rear.
In the intercepted on July 28 with. and the decrypted radiogram from the London center, all underground organizations are invited not to recognize the Polish Committee of National Liberation formed in Lublin and to sabotage its activities, in particular, mobilization into the Polish Army. It also draws attention to the need for active military intelligence in the rear of the active Soviet armies, for which it is ordered to establish constant monitoring of all railway junctions.
The greatest terrorist and sabotage activity is shown by the detachments of "Volka" (Rudnitskaya Pushcha district), "Rat" (Vilnius district) and "Ragner" (about 300 people) in the Lida district.
2. In the liberated territory of the Lithuanian SSR, armed nationalist gangs of the so-called LLA, who call themselves “Lithuanian partisans”, are operating hiding in the forests and settlements.
The basis of these underground formations is made up of “white armbands” and other active German accomplices, officers and junior commanders of the former Lithuanian army, landlord-kulak and other enemy elements. The actions of these detachments are coordinated by the Committee of the Lithuanian National Front, created on the initiative of the German command and its intelligence agencies.
According to the testimonies of the arrested members of the LLA, in addition to carrying out cruel terror against Soviet military personnel and representatives of local authorities, the Lithuanian underground has the task of conducting operational intelligence in the rear and on communications of the Red Army and immediately transmitting the information obtained, for which many bandit groups are equipped with shortwave radio stations, ciphers and German decryption notebooks.
The most characteristic hostile manifestations of the last period
In Vilnius and its environs, mainly at night, 11 Red Army servicemen, including 7 officers, were killed or went missing. A major of the Polish Army, who arrived on a short vacation to meet with his relatives, was also killed there.
August 2 at 4.00 in the village. The family of the former partisan, who is now in the ranks of the Red Army, Makarevich V.I., was brutally destroyed by unknown persons from Kalitans– wife, daughter and niece born in 1940
On August 3, in the Zhirmuny region, 20 km north of the city of Lida, a Vlasov bandit group fired on a car - 5 Red Army soldiers were killed, a colonel and a major were seriously wounded.
On the night of August 5, the railway bed between the Neman and Novoelnya stations was blown up in three places.
August 5, 1944 in the village. Turchela (30 km south of Vilnius) a communist, a deputy of the village council, was killed by a grenade thrown through the window.
August 7 in the district with. Voitovichi was attacked from a pre-prepared ambush car of the 39th army. As a result, 13 people were killed, 11 of them were burned along with the car. Two people were taken into the forest by bandits who also seized weapons, uniforms and all personal official documents.
August 6 arrived on a visit to the village. Radun, a sergeant of the Polish Army, was abducted by unknown people on the same night.
On August 10, at 4:30 a.m., a Lithuanian gang of unknown numbers attacked the volost department of the NKVD in the town of Siesiki. 4 police officers were killed, 6 bandits were released from custody.
August 10 in with. Malye Soleshniki shot the chairman of the village council Vasilevsky, his wife and 13-year-old daughter, who tried to protect her father.
In total, in the rear of the front during the first ten days of August, 169 Red Army servicemen were killed, kidnapped and went missing. Most of the dead were confiscated weapons, uniforms and personal military documents.
During these 10 days, 13 representatives of local authorities were killed; buildings of village councils were burned in three settlements.
In connection with numerous gang manifestations and murders of military personnel, we and the army command have significantly strengthened security measures. By order of the commander, all personnel of units and formations of the front are allowed to go beyond the location of the unit only in groups of at least three people and provided that each of them has automatic weapons. The same order prohibited the movement of vehicles in the evening and at night outside settlements without proper protection.
In total from June 23 to August 11 with. 209 enemy armed groups and various bandit formations operating in the rear of the front were liquidated (not counting single individuals). At the same time, the following were captured: mortars - 22, machine guns - 356, rifles and machine guns - 3827, horses - 190, radio stations - 46, including 28 shortwave ones.
Chief of the troops for the protection of the rear of the front, Major General Lobov "
Note on HF
"Urgently!
Moscow, Matyushin
In addition to No. ... of 08/07/44
The unknown radio station we are looking for in the Neman case with the call signs KAO (the interception of 08/07/44 was immediately handed over to you) today, August 13, went on the air from a forest in the Shilovichi district (Baranovichi region) .
Reporting the groups of digits of the encrypted radiogram recorded today, I urgently ask you, given the lack of qualified cryptographers in the Counterintelligence Department of the Front, to expedite the decryption of both the first and second radio intercepts.
Note on HF
"Urgently!
Head of the Main Directorate of Counterintelligence
Smersh
special message
Today, August 13, at 18:05, tracking stations again recorded the going on the air of an unknown short-wave radio with the call signs of KAO, operating in the rear of the front.
The place where the transmitter goes on the air is determined as the northern part of the Shilovichi forest area. The operating frequency of the radio is 4627 kHz. A recorded intercept is a radiogram encrypted in groups of five-digit numbers. The speed and clarity of transmission testify to the high qualification of the radio operator.
Prior to this, the release of the radio with the call signs of KAO was recorded on the air on August 7 this year. from the forest southeast of Stolbtsy.
The search activities carried out in the first case did not give positive results.
It seems likely that the transmissions are carried out by agents left by the enemy during the retreat or transferred to the rear of the front.
It is possible, however, that the radio with the call signs KAO is used by one of the underground groups of the Home Army.
It is also possible that the transmissions are carried out by one of the remaining groups of Germans.
We are taking measures to find in the Shilovichi forest area the exact place where the wanted radio went on the air, to find traces and evidence. At the same time, everything possible is being done to identify information that would help identify and detain persons involved in the work of the transmitter.
All radio reconnaissance groups of the front are aimed at the operational direction finding of the radio if it goes on the air.
The operational group of Captain Alekhine is working directly on the case.
All counterintelligence agencies of the front, the head of the troops for the protection of the rear, as well as the Counterintelligence Directorate of neighboring fronts, are oriented by us to search for the radio and the persons involved in its work.
3. Cleaner Senior Lieutenant Tamantsev, nicknamed Skorokhvat
In the morning I had a terrible, downright funeral mood - Leshka Basos, my closest friend and probably the best guy on earth, was killed in this forest. And although he died about three weeks ago, I could not help thinking about him all day.
I was then on a mission, and when I returned, he was already buried. I was told that there were many wounds and severe burns on the body - before his death, the wounded man was severely tortured, apparently trying to find out something, stabbed with knives, burned his feet, chest and face. And then finished off with two shots in the back of the head.
In the school of junior command staff of the border troops, for almost a year we slept on the same bunk, and his head with the two crowns so familiar to me and curls of reddish hair around his neck loomed before my eyes in the morning.
He fought for three years, and did not die in open battle. Somewhere here he was caught - and it is not known - who! - shot, apparently, from an ambush, tortured, burned, and then killed. How I hated this accursed forest! Thirst for revenge - to meet and reckon! – has taken over me since morning.
Mood is mood, but business is business - we did not come here to commemorate Leshka and not even to avenge him.
If the forest near Stolbtsy, where we searched until yesterday afternoon, seemed to have bypassed the war, then here it was quite the opposite.
At the very beginning, about two hundred meters from the edge of the forest, I stumbled upon a burnt-out German staff car. It was not knocked out, but burned by the Fritz themselves: the trees here completely blocked the path and it became impossible to drive.
A little later I saw two corpses under the bushes. More precisely, the fetid skeletons in half-decayed dark German uniforms are tankers. And further on, on the overgrown paths of this dense, thicket forest, I kept coming across rusted rifles and machine guns with the bolts taken out, dirty red bandages and cotton wool stained with blood, abandoned boxes and packs of cartridges, empty cans and scraps of papers, Fritz's backpacks with reddish calfskin tops and soldier's helmets.
Already in the afternoon, in the thicket itself, I discovered two grave mounds about a month old, which had time to settle, with hastily knocked together birch crosses and inscriptions burned in Gothic letters on light crossbars:
When retreating, they most often plowed up their cemeteries, destroyed them, fearing abuse. And here, in secluded place, marked everything with a rank, obviously hoping to return again. Jokers, nothing to say...
In the same place, behind the bushes, lay a sanitary stretcher. As I thought, these Fritzes only ran out here - they were carried, wounded, tens, or maybe hundreds of kilometers. They didn't shoot me, as they used to, and they didn't abandon me - I liked that.
During the day, I met hundreds of all kinds of signs of war and a hasty German retreat.
There was not in this forest, perhaps, only what we were interested in - fresh, daily prescription, traces of a person's stay here.
As for the mines, the devil is not as terrible as he is painted. All day I came across only one, German anti-personnel.
I noticed a thin steel wire flashing in the grass, stretched across the path about fifteen centimeters from the ground. If I hit it, my intestines and other remains would hang on trees or somewhere else.
Anything happened during the three years of the war, but I myself had to defuse the mines a few times, and I did not consider it necessary to waste time on this one. Marking it on both sides with sticks, I moved on.
Although I came across only one during the day, the very idea that the forest was mined in places and that at any moment you could fly into the air, all the time put pressure on the psyche, creating some kind of foul internal tension that I could not get rid of.
In the afternoon, going out to the stream, I took off my boots, spread my footcloths in the sun, washed my face and had a snack. I got drunk and lay for about ten minutes, resting my raised legs on the trunk of a tree and thinking about those whom we were hunting.
Yesterday they went on the air from this forest, a week ago - near Stolbtsy, and tomorrow they can appear anywhere: beyond Grodno, near Brest, or somewhere in the Baltic states. Wandering walkie-talkie - Figaro here, Figaro there ... Finding an exit point in such a forest is like finding a needle in a haystack. This is not your mother's melon, where every kavun is familiar and personally likable. And the whole calculation that there will be traces, there will be a clue. The trait of a bald man - why should they inherit? ... We didn’t try under Stolbtsy? ... We dug the earth with our nose! Five of us, six days! .. What's the point? ... As they say, two cans plus a hole from the steering wheel! And this array is bigger, quieter and pretty clogged.
I would like to come here with an intelligent dog like the Tiger that I had before the war. But it's not on the border for you. At sight service dog it becomes clear to everyone that someone is wanted, and the authorities do not favor dogs. The authorities, like all of us, are concerned about conspiracy.
By the end of the day, I again thought: we need a text! In it, you can almost always catch at least some information about the area where the wanted people are located and what interests them. From the text and should dance.
I knew that the decryption went wrong and the interception was reported to Moscow. And they have twelve fronts, military districts and their affairs to the eyeballs. You can't tell Moscow: they are their own bosses. And the soul is taken out of us. It's like giving a drink. Old song: die, but do it!..
Hereinafter, the vultures indicating the degree of secrecy of documents, resolutions of officials and official notes (departure time, who transmitted, who received, and others), as well as document numbers, are omitted. In the documents (and in the text of the novel) several surnames, the names of five small settlements and the actual names of military units and formations have been changed. Otherwise, the documents in the novel are textually identical to the corresponding original documents.
Smersh (short for "Death to spies!") - the name of the Soviet military counterintelligence in 1943-1945. Full name: counterintelligence Smersh NPO USSR. The bodies of Smersh reported directly to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, People's Commissar of Defense I.V. Stalin.
The Home Army (AK) is an underground armed organization of the Polish government in exile in London, operating in Poland, southern Lithuania and the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus. In 1944-1945, following the instructions of the London center, many AK detachments carried out subversive activities in the rear of the Soviet troops: they killed soldiers and officers of the Red Army, as well as Soviet workers, engaged in espionage, committed sabotage and robbed civilians. Often, the Akovtsy were dressed in the uniform of the Red Army.
Cleaner (from "clean" - to clear the areas of the forward and operational rear from enemy agents) - the slang designation of a military counterintelligence detective. Hereinafter, predominantly specific, narrowly professional jargon of military counterintelligence detectives.
Collective reading.
To be honest, for a long time I have not read such an action-packed work, a detective of the highest standard about the events of the Great Patriotic War ... Of course, the topic is now very popular " invisible front": on television, we observe all sorts of variations on this topic from pro-American action movies to the experiments of Japanese anime people. But all these products of the modern film industry are far from Bogomolov's book written at the end of the last century (to my great regret, I have not seen the film adaptation, so I focus directly on the book and on my meager imagination).
The title of the book, of course, is explained by the professional jargon of counterintelligence officers, but, I think, it can be interpreted in another way ... Truth, artistic truth - that's what Bogomolov is primarily interested in. Open a folder labeled "top secret", show the average reader life brave people, "a few, to whom very many are indebted" - this is what the author strives for in his book. That's why I smiled at the name of the series, which includes "The Moment of Truth": "The Library of Adventure and Science Fiction" ... There is some irony in this. If one can still agree with the adventurous genre (although, again, our entertainment at leisure is not the primary goal of the writer), then to science fiction this book is irrelevant. In order to achieve authenticity, "realness" of the events described in the book, Bogomolov introduces numerous documentary facts, combines various types of narration, giving the right to vote first to one hero, then to another, and thereby achieving maximum objectivity of the narration. All this allows us to fully immerse ourselves in everyday life secret Soviet secret services and see their activities from the inside.
But ... if the author had stopped there, the book would hardly have had such artistic value and, of course, would not remain interesting a wide range readers to this day. For me, the masterful characterization of the characters turned out to be decisive in this novel: insecure and deeply suffering from his inferiority - first of all, from professional inexperience than from a physical defect - Blinov, who by the end of the book finally receives the well-deserved recognition of his comrades; the gruff Tamantsev, whose professionalism, nevertheless, evokes involuntary respect; Captain Alekhine is my favorite character - in whose deep nature we see a clash of qualities and duties of a leader, whose duty is an impeccable service that does not tolerate any emotions, and, at the same time, a mixture of suffering and compassion seething in his soul ... Finally, the mother hen of our trio is "En Fe". Through the efforts of the writer, these fictional heroes came to life on the pages of his book... With their humanity, strength and weaknesses, they inspire me more confidence than the current fantasy invulnerable "superheroes" "promoted" by the media for the sake of material gain...
