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

Ever since H had been on duty I had been unable to take my eyes off a black hump that was sticking
up on the allotment about ten paces away. It was like the head of a man crouching on the ground. I was
very sorry I hadn't asked the previous guard, a student from the farming institute, whether he had noticed
that hump. Suddenly the hump seemed to move and creep nearer. Shivering, I poked the barrel of my
rifle through the barbed wire and was just about to fire, when I stopped myself. Suppose it was not a
man at all! It might be a ball of weed blown about by the wind? Or a heap of potato-tops? Or simply a
pile of earth that someone had left after digging up their potatoes?
What then?... Then I should look a fool. The chaps would never let me forget it. My first dangerous
post and I made a boob! They'd say I'd lost my nerve. . .
The wind blew and the iron roof above me made a harsh whistling sound. That wasn't someone
walking over the roof, was it?... Craning my neck, I peered up under the eaves of the shed expecting to
see the black head of a bandit pop out at any moment. He could easily have jumped from the roof of the
house on to the barn.
Suspicious thumping noises sounded overhead. Surely they weren't footsteps?... I stood on tip-toe.
Faint sounds reached my earsтАФa knocking in Kishinev Street, a rustling on the allotment, the creak of
weathercock on the roof. My head swam from looking up at the mass of stars glittering above me in the
cold frosty air.
The thumping noises on the roof grew louder. I took a firm grip on my rifle and pointed it in the
direction of the noise. A distant star glinted at me from behind a tall chimney-pot.
"Ears like axes!" Polevoi had said as he marched us to our posts. "You are guarding the arms store
for the Communists and Komsomol members of the whole district!
Special Detachment stores are a very tempting target for capitalist spies."
 And even if he hadn't said that, we all knew what a responsible job it was to be guarding Special
Detachment Headquarters. In the cellars there was a lot of dynamite, TNT, and ammunition. And we
were guarding it all for the first time.
"Ears like axes! Ears like axes!" I repeated Polevoi's favourite saying to myself and my frozen ears
began to feel as if they were growing longer and longer and getting as thin and sharp as axe-blades.
The roof was quiet again.
That noise must have been the wind romping with a loose sheet of iron. But wait! Where was that
black hump?
I had forgotten about it... I searched for the black shape that had made me so uneasy. It was still
there on the allotment and hadn't moved an inch.
... I paced slowly to and fro along the shed, trying to laugh at my fears. II reflected that dawn was
near and soon I should have nothing to worry about. Why should anything special happen during my
watch? Plenty of watches passed without anything happening at all. It would be the same with mine. But
no one would be able to make fun of me for being the youngest in the group. And they didn't even know
I had put an extra year on my age just to get accepted for the Special Detachment! Now I would come
back off my watch a real fighting man, and for long afterwards I should be proud of having stood guard
at post No. 3. They wouldn't have put a slacker here, however much he asked!
When he brought me to the post, Polevoi had said briefly and simply: "If you see anyone on the
allotment, just let him have it! There's no chance of a passer-by or a drunk wandering in here..."
"Just let him have it!" There was something grim and terrible in that order.
...Again the wind began to howl in the bare, icy branches of the trees; last year's weeds and
potato-tops rustled against the barbed wire; the iron rumbled on the roof; the weathercock creaked
behind the wall of the house.
And suddenly, in a fresh gust of wind, I caught the sound of Sasha's voice:
"What do you want?... Halt!... Halt! ... Hands... Hey, this way, chaps!"
For a moment everything was quiet, then I heard a piercing whistle. Doors banged in the guard-room.
On the other side of the shed, men were running about the yard... Then I heard Sasha shouting again:
"There!... Over there!... Catch him.. ."