"Mikhail Evstafiev. Two Steps From Heaven " - читать интересную книгу автора

Kabul, hoping to flee this city and this country...

It also seemed as if

...the distant stars were fragments of broken souls, scattered
throughout the cosmos; winking in the moonlight, still hoping for
something...

Back in the command barracks, he spent a long time turning from side to
side, bed springs creaking. When drowsiness finally began to muddle his
thoughts about family and slide into sleep, a shot sounded practically under
the window and broken glass seemed to cry out.
Zhenka Chistyakov was off his bunk and on the floor even before the
bullet which smashed the window became embedded in the wall.
Guessing at once that this was no enemy shot and that there would be no
more, he raced outside as he was, in sateen drawers, hastily shoving his
feet into sneakers.
"Bastards!" he yelled. "They want to kill me!"
By the time Sharagin and the other officers emerged and a mob of
soldiers, also awakened by the shot gathered nearby, Zhenka had managed to
give the sentry a good thrashing. The unsuccessful suicide did nothing to
shield himself from the blows. Dressed in helmet and bullet-proof vest, he
tried to explain between punches that it had been an accident, he hadn't
been intending to fire, but simply tripped. He lied, sweated, and tried to
justify himself.

...probably decided to shoot himself in the hand, then got scared at
the last moment...

Muddled thought reflected on the army-tried features of the soldier.
"Far as I'm concerned, it would be better if you'd killed yourself!"
grated Chistyakov, continuing to beat up the soldier. "Only quietly and
further from the barracks. But no, you had to go and do it under my window,
you sonofabitch! `'

...the "grandpas" must have really gotten at him...or he doesn't want
to serve in Afghanistan...

thought Sharagin, yawning.

...hope they don't drive Myshkovsky over the line ... I'll have to
answer for him, after all...

whispered a voice in his head.

The sentry looked very much like Myshkovsky, and Sharagin experienced
an ambivalent feeling of pity and irritation. The soldier looked awkward,
was obviously not too bright and clumsy.
The helmet had fallen off his head, and his ears stuck out funnily -
like two halves of a broken plate, which someone had pasted to his head. He