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

head.
Mother Nature had slacked a little when working on the lieutenant's
face, giving him unremarkable, standard features, devoid of any
individuality, a kind of Russian universality.
Still watching his own reflection, Sharagin maintained a theatrical
pause before asking casually:
"What's with senior lieutenant Chistyakov?"
Titov stood behind him, leaning against the door frame and twirling a
bunch of keys on a chain:
"The comrade senior lieutenant ordered that nobody should wake him."
"We're just about done," said the sergeant who was carrying out the
responsible duty of barber.
"What a waste of talent!" said Titov, poking fun at his comrade.
"Instead of exposing your ass to enemy fire, you would have been better off
as company barber, eh Panas?"
"Fuck off, Tit! I apologize for the bad language, comrade lieutenant,
but Tit doesn't understand anything else, otherwise he'll fucking drive you
into the ground, the way Pol Pot did with Kampuchea. Ha, ha, ha!..."
"Pay attention, comrade sergeant," snapped lieutenant Sharagin, "Be
careful when you're shaving your commanding officer!"
Unlike the large, dull and brutish junior sergeant Titov, Sharagin
detected traces of humanity in Panasyuk, which had not all faded during his
term of service. Panasyuk was from the Altai region, skinny as a Belorussian
peasant , tall as a flagpole, wiry and hardy. Panasyuk liked to joke, smoked
like a chimney, suffered paroxysms of smoker's cough, swore after every
second word, and when he laughed, deep and untimely wrinkles appeared on his
forehead and under his eyes. He usually spoke in a long, drawling voice,
like a Catholic priest's intonation: "Whatcha worrying for, comrade
lieutenant? Leave it to me - everything'll be hunky-dory."
"Somebody cleaned out the food store last night," said Sharagin,
catching Titov's shifty eyes in the mirror. "It better not be anyone from
our company - I'll beat their brains out!"
"Everyone was asleep last night, comrade lieutenant, Titov responded
earnestly.
Sergeant Panasyuk confirmed that it wasn't anyone from their company,
and wiped Sharagin's neck with a thin cotton towel:
"Done!"
Another thing lieutenant Sharagin appreciated in Panasyuk was that
although the sergeant was hard on the men, he never mocked them
deliberately, did not turn their service into a nightmare and, most
importantly, restrained the other "grandpas" to the best of his ability.

... especially louts like Titov...

thought Sharagin. "Initiation" rites such as, for instance,
"registration" during which the new recruits were beaten on their bare
backsides with leather slippers so hard that the next day they were unable
to sit down and only rub their black-and-blue buttocks, were held in deepest
secrecy. This was part of the unspoken soldiers' ritual, and with all the
will in the world the commanding officers would not be able to spot or