On a pub walls, here and there, - paintings are sticked. They are: "The Tree Bears", "Pierced (by a spear) Knight". At the table, one alone, - a captain vodka drinks. "May I?" I asked. - "You may!" "Have mine!" the captain put forth his. - "No. “Kazbek” I don’t smoke. Thanks." - "O’key. Let’s, drink! Where is your flask?" - "Don’t waist your time." - "Drink! I say! Your health!" - "Thanks. I will!" "And, so", said the captain in wine. "Good gulp you have, Boy! But! Did you touch gun machine or stroke the tank? Did you go, I’d say, to a battle attack? In the nineteen forty third in the Battle of Kursk... I was a sergeant. Behind my back there were a lot of... I cannot say what It was. It’s - for your life... for you, to have peace in your life". He scolded and drunk, about my father he asked. He cried, dull looking at dish. "My life. I gave it for yours heck. And you fire your life, you are Judas. May be give you a shotgun? And sent to front line? But, you drink vodka much here, with me". Sitting before him, I was like in trench, within Battle of Kursk, where the captain was a sergeant... He got more and more drunk, I was hard behind him. Only at the end of the talk I abused him, I told: "Never will you be the sergeant, Major!"
© ?. Translation, 2020