"Vladimir Belayev - The Old Fortress 3 -The Town By The Sea" - читать интересную книгу автора (Belayev Vladimir)

"How did you get here so quick?" Polevoi asked us. He had no rifle, but a revolver hung at his side,
over his wadded jacket.
"We were out for a walk," Petka began, "and suddenly we heard. . ."
"The other chaps must be still running!" Sasha chimed in complacently.
Komsomol members from our schoolтАФthe "Polevoi Guard," as the chaps in other groups called
usтАФbegan to appear in the room. They were all hot and red in the face and their coats and jackets were
undone. Beads of sweat gleamed on their foreheads.
"Well done!" said Polevoi, glancing over the new-arrivals. "A quick turn-out... But where's Tiktor?"
Everyone looked round for Tiktor. "Tiktor's been seen drinking, Comrade Polevoi," a factory school
trainee called Furman began.
But just at that moment Polagutin appeared in the doorway and called sharply for attention.
The room grew quiet at once.
"This is the situation," said Polagutin. "The Petlura gangs that Pilsudski and the Rumanian boyars have
been sheltering across the border are getting active again. They were seen in daylight today approaching
our frontier. . . It is quite likely, comrades, that those gangs will be sent over our side tonight. It is your
job and that of the frontier guards to give them a proper reception..." And raising his voice to a sharp
tone of command, Polagutin said: "All except those from the factory-training school, fall in! Commander
of the factory school group, report to me!"
We crowded back from the door. Holding their rifles high, the chaps from the town groups filed past
us. As the room emptied, my heart sank. "What about us? What are we going to do? They'll go out of
town to patrol the forests on the border, but just because we're a bit younger we'll be kept behind as
usual to guard hay at the food stores, or else we'll have to stay right in town to guard the fortress bridge,
in case some spy or other tries to blow it up. What fun was there in guarding a lot of wooden barns full of
hay or lying in ambush where everyone could see you, on the busy brightly-lit fortress bridge!
An elderly special in a railwayman's cap ran into the room and shouted: "All present and correct,
Comrade Commander! The district secretary's arrived."
"Kartamyshev here already?" Polagutin exclaimed joyfully. He turned to Polevoi and shook his hand
firmly: "Good luck! Keep a sharp look-out, you've got a big responsibility. . . Good-bye, comrades!"
And he walked out of the room.
"We're staying here. It will be our job to guard the headquarters and stores of the Special
Detachment," Polevoi announced solemnly. "Fall in!"




A DANGEROUS POST

In front of me stands a line of posts with barbed wire stretched tight between them. Beyond the
barbed wire are allotmentsтАФa big stretch of lumpy frozen ground, most of it hidden in darkness. Some
distance away, near the road, there is another line of barbed wire, but you can't see it from here. All the
time I keep thinking that distant barbed-wire fence has been cut and bandits are creeping towards me
across the black, frozen earth. My ears are cold, very cold, but so as to hear better I purposely keep my
collar down, and my fingers gripping the rifle are stiff and frozen.
So this is post No. 3 that I've heard so much about from chaps who have stood guard here before!
Behind me rises the cold brick wall of the shed that stands between me and the inner yard. The
projecting edge of the roof sticks out just above my head. The narrow passage for the sentry with barbed
wire on one side runs along the shed wall for about thirty paces. It comes to a dead-end at the high brick
wall of the next house, which joins that of the shed at right angles.
"The chicken run"тАФthat's what the Special Detachment men call post No. 3. A sentry on duty here
feels cut off from his comrades, cut off from the whole world...