Chapter 2 Part 1 6-10

6 ...On the third day of Alexei's walk in the dense forest, in this uninhabited place, an unexpected thing happened. With the appearance of the first sunlight, he woke up.The severe cold of the weather and the iciness in his body made him shiver unceasingly.He found the lighter in the pocket of his flying suit, which was given to him by the mechanic Yura from a cartridge.Somehow he had completely forgotten about it, and also about the fact that a fire could and needed to be built.He used to sleep under a pine tree, and now he took some dry pine branches covered with moss from that tree, covered it with a layer of needles, and set it on fire.From beneath the blue-gray smoke rose little red sparks, lively and dancing, and the dead resinous twigs burned swiftly and merrily.Flames shot up to the needles, fanned by the wind, and blazed with groans and howls.

The campfire crackled, hissed, and gave off useful, dry heat.Feeling more comfortable, Alexei unzipped his flying suit, took out from the pockets of his civilian uniform several frayed letters written in the same round, neat handwriting, and took out a letter from one of them. A photo of a slender girl, wearing a floral dress, sitting cross-legged on the grass.He stared at the photo for a long time, then carefully wrapped it in cellophane and put it in a letter, held it in his hand for a while thoughtfully, then packed it up and put it back in his pocket. "It's okay, it's okay, everything will be fine." He didn't know whether he said it to the girl or himself, and then he repeated calmly: "It's okay..."

He now took the boots off his feet with a motion he was accustomed to, opened the scarf in pieces, and looked at the feet carefully: they were more swollen, the toes protruded in different directions, and the feet resembled The rubber, filled with air, is darker than it was yesterday. Alexei sighed goodbye to the bonfire that was about to go out, leaned on the frozen snow with his cane, and slowly set off on the road with a creaking sound.He sometimes almost loses consciousness and has to bite his lip.His ears were so used to the sounds of the forest that he paid little attention to them, but suddenly he heard in them the sound of a distant, running motor.At first he thought it was a hallucination caused by his fatigue, but the rumbling of the motor grew louder, sometimes the sound of first gear.Sometimes it fell silent again.Apparently, it's the Germans, and they're driving down the road.Alexei immediately felt cold.

Fear gave Alexei a lot of strength. He forgot about his tiredness and the pain in his feet, turned a corner from the road, and trudged along the path where no one had gone before into a thick grove of young firs, and then quickly into a dense forest. , lying on the snow.Of course, it was difficult to spot him from the road.But the noon sun was already high above the tops of the fir-trees, and in this light he could see clearly on the road. The sound was approaching.It occurred to Alexei that his solitary footprint must have been noticeable in this deserted snow.However, it was too late to leave, and the sound of the motor of a car in front was already very close.Alexei curled up in the snow.At first a flat armored car, ax-like and plastered, passed in the middle of the grove.Its wheels creaked and jolted toward the point where Alexei's trail turned into the forest.Alexei held his breath.The armored vehicles did not stop.Behind the armored vehicle was an open off-road car. An officer wearing a top military cap sat side by side with the driver. The man hid his nose in a gray leather collar and swayed on a high stool behind him. Sitting on the ground were several automatic gunners in green coats and helmets.After a distance, another car drove over, but it was a big off-road vehicle.It snorted, its tracks rattled, and about fifteen Germans sat in a row on it.

Alexei pressed his body tightly against the snow.The car was so close that the smell of hot, burnt gasoline sprayed into his face.The hair on the back of his head twitched, and the muscles contracted into taut clumps.But the car was gone, the smell was gone, and the sound of the motor was so far away that it was almost impossible to tell where it was coming from. When everything calmed down, Alexey strenuously walked onto the main road, which was clearly marked with trapezoidal tracks left by the caterpillar tracks, and he continued on his way along these tracks.He moves forward according to equidistant distances, rests, and eats half way through the day.But now he walks like a beast, cautiously.His terrified hearing caught every slight sound, and his eyes looked here and there as if he knew that some great and dangerous beast was watching and hiding somewhere nearby.

He, a pilot accustomed to fighting in the air, encountered some living, unharmed enemies on the ground for the first time.Now he walked slowly along in their footsteps, a schadenfreude smile on his face.It is neither pleasant nor comfortable for them to stay here, and the land they occupy is not hospitable!Even in this primeval forest where Alexei hadn't seen a single sign of living people for three consecutive days, their officers had to drive through in such a heavily guarded manner. "It's okay, it's okay, everything will be fine!" Alexei encouraged himself, still moving forward step by step.His feet were getting more and more painful, and he himself was visibly weakening.He tried not to pay attention to these.Whether it is constantly chewing small pieces of tender fir bark, or slightly bitter birch shoots, or the soft and sticky tender linden bark that can be chewed so that it can be stretched for a long time, it can no longer deceive the stomach .

By dusk he managed to walk five distances.At night he placed some needles and dead branches on the trunk of a large half-rotted birch tree that had fallen to the ground, and lit a large bonfire.This section of the trunk was also slowly burning, not very hotly but warmly.At this time, he stretched out his limbs on the snow and fell asleep, and instinctively turned over, sometimes this side of the body, sometimes the other side, so that the whole body felt warm and alive.Every now and then he woke up to add some dead twigs to the dying fire.The flames were listless and hissing. In the middle of the night there was a blizzard.The pine trees overhead began to shake, clamoring, groaning, and rattling in terror.Powerful snow swept across the road, and rustling darkness danced above the flames.The flames whirred and sparkled.But the snowstorm did not wake Alexei, for he slept soundly and deeply, protected by the warmth of the campfire.

Fire protects against wild beasts.In such a dark night, there is no need to worry about the Germans, who dare not appear in the dense forest in the snowstorm.The weary body rested in the warmth of the smoke, but even then the ears, accustomed to the care of a beast, picked up every sound.The snowstorm stopped before dawn, and the white fog enveloped the silent land in darkness.But Alexei felt that through the noise in the tops of the pine trees, through the rustling of falling snow, he could hear distant battles, explosions, bursts of machine-gun fire, and rifle fire. "Is it the front line? Is it so fast?"

7 The morning wind swept away the thick fog, and the needle-like frost shone in the sun, and the forest, which was silvered at night, seemed to be happy with its sudden change.Birds feel that spring is approaching, so they start to cry, sing, and chirp.At that moment, however hard Alexey listened, he could not hear the sound of battle, nor the sound of gunshots, nor even the roar of cannon. The snow fell from the trees like wisps of white smoke, shining strongly in the sun.Drops of thick spring water fell softly on the snow somewhere.spring!So decidedly and resolutely for the first time on this morning she announced her coming.

There was only a pitiful scrap of food left in the can - a few pieces of meat covered with delicious fat, which Alexei decided to eat in the morning, because he felt that otherwise he would not be able to stand up.He scraped the inside of the can carefully with his fingers, scratching its sharp edges several times, but he still didn't seem to get the grease clean.He filled the empty can with snow, pushed aside the gray embers of the dying campfire, set the can on the gleaming coals, and contentedly drank the hot, slightly meaty sip. water.He decided to make tea out of the empty can, and put it in his pocket.drink hot tea!It was a pleasant discovery, and Alexei was a little refreshed as he went back on the road.

However, what awaited him was an extremely disappointing thing: the road was completely buried by the blizzard at night, and the blizzard blocked the road with snowdrifts with crooked peaks, and the flickering light blue light hurt his eyes.His feet were stuck in the soft snow that had not yet frozen, and it took a lot of effort to pull them out.The cane also sank, and there was nothing I could do. It was almost noon, the shade of the trees had turned black, and the sun was shining through the treetops to look at the road in the forest.By this time Alexei had only walked nearly 1,500 steps in total, but he was so exhausted that he had to have enough willpower to take each step down.He was so tired that he swayed, as if the ground was about to slide off the soles of his feet.He often fell, and sometimes lay still for a while on the snowdrift, pressing his forehead against the creaking snow, and then stood up and moved forward a few steps.He really wanted to sleep, he wanted to lie down and doze off for a while, not thinking about anything, not moving a muscle.Let everything take its course!He was in a daze, staggered from side to side, and often stopped. Later, he bit his lip sorely to wake himself up, and took a few more steps with difficulty pulling his foot out. At last he felt that it was impossible to have any strength to move him any longer, and that if he sat down now he would never be able to stand up again.He looked around sadly. There was a young pine tree with lush branches beside the road. With the last of his strength, he walked up to the small tree and fell on top of it, resting his chin in the branch of the treetop.There is less weight on the bad foot, and the person feels much more relaxed.He lay on the elastic branch, enjoying the peace.He wanted to lie down more comfortably, so he leaned his chin against the branch of the pine tree and pulled his feet back one by one.Since they do not bear the weight of their bodies, they can easily break free from the snowdrift.At this moment, another idea flashed into Alexei's mind. Not bad!Wouldn't it be possible to cut down this little tree and make a stick with a fork from it.First move the cane forward, rest the chin on the fork, shift the weight of the body onto it, and then, as you are doing now, move the foot forward.Too slow?Yes, it is slow, but it will not be so tiring, and you can continue on your way without waiting for the snowdrift to sink and harden. So he knelt down, and with his dagger hewed the sapling, removed the branches, and, wrapping the branches in his handkerchief and bandages, tried to go on his way.First move the cane to the front, then put the chin and hands on it, and move one or two steps; move the cane again, then put the chin and hands on it, and move one or two steps again.As he walked, he counted his steps and set himself a new movement quota. If someone saw from the side that he used such an inexplicable method to drive in the dense forest, it took such a long time from sunrise to sunset to travel only five kilometers, and the speed was like a beetle, he would probably feel very strange.But there was no one in the forest, and no one noticed him except the magpie.Even the magpie has been convinced for the past few days that this bizarre, three-legged, inflexible creature is not dangerous, and does not fly away when he approaches, but just reluctantly jumps away from the road, tilting his head, She smiled at him with curious black bead-like eyes. 8 Moved the stick to the front, leaned on it again, and then moved his feet to it... In this way, he dragged two more on the snowy road.My feet were already so stiff that I couldn't feel them at all, but every time I took a step, my body felt severe pain.The hunger no longer tormented him, and the cramping and cramping in his stomach stopped and gave way to a constant dull ache, as if the empty stomach had hardened, turned over in boredom, and squeezed his internal organs. When he was resting, Alexei always peeled off the young bark of pine trees with the dagger, and fed on these bark, young shoots of birch and linden trees, and soft moss, which was dug from under the snow. from.He boiled them in boiling water.It was a joy to him to brew tea from young, like-painted clusters of leaves gathered where the snow had melted.The hot water filled his body with warmth, and he even had the illusion of being full.Alexei drank the hot soup, which smelled of smoke and twigs, and seemed completely at ease, and did not feel that his journey was so long and terrible. For the sixth night, he arranged to stay under a leafy fir tree, and built a bonfire on an old tree stump surrounded by a lot of resin.According to his calculations, this old stump should burn all night.It was still dark, and an invisible squirrel was busy on the pine branch. It ate pine cones on the pine tree, and occasionally threw down the empty and cracked pine cones.Alexei was starving at this time, so he was also very interested in what the little animal found in the pine cone to eat.He picked up a pine cone, peeled off the intact scales, and found a single-lobed kernel the size of a millet inside, like a small fir nut.He bit it open with his teeth, and there was a good taste of cedar oil in his mouth. Alexei immediately collected a few intact wet pine cones around, put them by the fire, and added more branches to the campfire.When the hairs of the pine cones stood on end, he picked out the kernels, rubbed them in the palm of his hand, blew off the thin coat, and threw the small kernels into his mouth. The forest hummed softly.The stump, with many resins, was lightly burning, and there was a puff of smoke, which was fragrant like incense, but not pungent.The flames were sometimes blazing and sometimes dim, and the golden pine trunks and silver birch trunks also appeared in the illuminated range from the noisy darkness for a while, and retreated into the darkness for a while. From time to time Alexei added twigs to the fire, and then pine cones.The smell of cedar oil awakened his memory, a long-forgotten childhood scene... a small room full of familiar things, a table under a chandelier.Mother was dressed in festive clothes, and when she came back from evening prayers, she solemnly took out a paper bag from the cupboard and poured the fir nuts in it into a small basin.The whole family—mother, grandmother, two older brothers and his youngest, Alexei—sat around the table and solemnly began peeling the nuts (a festive delicacy).Everyone is silent.The grandmother digs with a hairpin, the mother digs with a brooch, nibbles through the hard nuts, scoops out the kernels and makes a small heap, gathers them in the palm of her hand, and sends them all at once to whoever child's mouth.Then the lucky one could feel the smell of strawberry soap emanating from her hands, hardworking, tireless hands, rough on her mouth. Kamyshin... Childhood!How good it was in a little cottage in a country street! The forest was noisy, and his face was hot, but there was a biting cold hitting his back.An owl cooed in the dark, and several foxes hooted.A man who was hungry, sick, and terribly sleepy was the only person in this wild forest.Huddled by the campfire, he gazed thoughtfully at the dying coals, which seemed to be winking with each other.An unknown road full of unexpected dangers and horrors stretched out in the darkness before his eyes. "It's okay, it's nothing, everything will be fine!" said the man suddenly.His cracked lips could be seen in the crimson afterglow of the campfire smiling at his distant reveries. 9 Only on the seventh day of the Long March did Alexei know where the sounds of distant battles he heard came from during that snowstorm night. Exhausted, he dragged his feet slowly along the thawing forest road, stopping every now and then to rest in order to continue walking.Spring no longer smiles in the distance, but walks into this forbidden forest, with gentle winds and strong sunlight that washes away the snow on the mounds and hills through the branches. , with the melancholy crows of crows only in the evening, with the plump rooks moving slowly on the dark brown soil in the road, with the honeycomb-like porous moist snowballs, with the Dazzling puddles with a strong smell of home-brewed ale that delightfully intoxicates all living things. Alexei has loved this season since he was a child, and even now he greedily inhales the moist intoxicating fragrance, even though he is dragging his wet, swollen long suit in the puddles. Bad feet in boots, and hunger and a feeling almost lost from pain and fatigue.He cursed the flood and the sticky snow and the mud of early spring.He no longer knew the way, did not go around the puddles, fell all the way, fell to the ground, stood up again, leaned heavily on the cane, stood there unsteadily to gather strength, and then moved the cane forward And move as much as you can, continuing to walk east slowly. Here the road in the woods turns sharply, turning to the left.Here he stopped and froze.There was a place where the road was so narrow that it was crowded with thick groves, and it was there that he had seen the German cars that had passed him a few days earlier.Two thick pine trees blocked their way.Next to the two trees is the armored car that looks like an axe, and its radiator is stuck in the middle of the two trees.But it was no longer white with polka dots like it used to be, it was purple, and it stood low on the hoop because its tires had been burned off; the turret was lying on the snow under the trees , like a strange mushroom.Beside the armored vehicle lay three dead bodies (its occupants), all in oily black jackets and cloth hoods. Two off-road vehicles were also burnt, dark red and charred inside.They clung to the armored car, parked on snow blackened with soot, ash, and char.On both sides of the road, in the bushes beside the road, and in the ditches, there were dead bodies of German soldiers lying here and there.From this it can be seen that the soldiers were running about in fright, not even realizing what was happening, not realizing that Death, hidden by the slowness of the blizzard, was peeping from behind every tree and bush. them.The body of an officer in uniform but no trousers, tied to a tree, had a note pinned to his green double-breasted jacket with a black collar, which read: "What I deserved."A little below is a large "dog" filled in black pencil, in another person's handwriting. Alexey looked at the place of fierce battle for a long time, looking for something to eat.In one place he found dry rusks, which had been eaten by birds, had been stored for a long time and had begun to mold, and had been trampled into the snow.He took the bread to his mouth, greedily inhaling the sour taste of the black bread.He wished he could stuff the whole piece of dry rusk into his mouth, and chew, chew, chew this big, delicious piece of bread.But Alexey divided it into three, kept two deep in his trouser pocket, crumbled one into pieces, and then sucked the crumbs like rock candy, trying to prolong the enjoyment. He circled the battlefield again.At this moment, he suddenly had an idea: the guerrillas should be somewhere here, nearby!Aren't the dark snow around the woods in the bushes their footprints!Perhaps they had spotted him wandering among the corpses, perhaps a partisan scout was watching him from atop a pine tree, or from behind a bush, or from behind a snowdrift.Alexey put his hands to his mouth and shouted with all his might: "Hey, hello! Guerrillas! Guerrillas!" What surprised him was how weak the sounds he made were.The echo from the dense forest echoed his cry, returning his cry intermittently reflected by the trees, and even this echo seemed louder than his voice. "Guerrillas! Guerrillas! Hey, hey!" Alexei yelled, sitting on the snow among the blackened cars and the silent corpses of the enemy. He shouted and listened intently.He shouted at the top of his lungs.He already understood that the guerrillas had completed their mission, collected the loot, and left long ago—besides, why should they stay in this deserted jungle!But he kept on shouting, hoping for a miracle, and for some bearded beards (he had heard a lot about them) to come out of the bushes at once and pick him up and carry him away.He can even rest for a whole day or an hour, everything is arranged by others, he doesn't have to worry about anything, and he doesn't have to worry about where to go. Only the forest answered him with staccato loud echoes.All of a sudden, Alexei heard a low and dense cannonade through the melodious and deep sounds of the taiga, which was clearly distinguishable at one moment, and completely silent at another.Maybe it's because of being too nervous to feel this way?He cheered up, as if a friendly call had come to him from a distance in his deserted forest.But he didn't believe his hearing, and sat with his neck craning for a while longer. No, he was not deceived.A damp wind from the east brought another burst of gunfire that was now clearly discernible, and it was not the languid, sparse sound of gunfire, as it had been in recent months when armies on both sides had been battling fortified ground. The defense line digs trenches and builds fortifications, throwing bombs that harass each other in a leisurely manner, but there are frequent and continuous ringing, as if someone is rolling a pile of heavy pebbles, or is constantly hitting oak with his fists. The bottom of the barrel. Got it all!It's an intense battle.Judging from the sound of the guns, the front line was about ten kilometers away, and there was some fighting happening there. Some people were attacking, and some were desperately shooting in self-defense.Tears of joy streamed down Alexey's cheeks. He looked to the east, and although the road turned sharply in the opposite direction here, and there was a vast expanse of snow in front of him, but that was where the calling he heard came from, the footprints of the guerrillas on the snow. It leads there, and the footprints have become a series of long black puddles.Somewhere in the woods live these brave woodlanders. Alexey murmured: "It's okay, it's okay, comrades, everything will be fine." At the same time, he stuck his stick firmly in the snow and moved his feet with difficulty but resolutely to the snowdrift.He turned a corner from the road and walked on the snow where no one had walked. 10 That day, he hadn't even walked a hundred and fifty paces on the snow, and dusk stopped him.He chose another old tree stump, placed dead branches on it, took out the cartridge lighter that he had treasured for a long time, turned the wheel with a click, and clicked again—his heart was half cold : The gasoline in the lighter is gone!He shook it, blew on it, tried to force out the remaining gas, but in vain.It was dark, and the sparks falling from under the wheel were like tiny lightning bolts, pushing away the darkness around his face in an instant.The flint is worn out, but the fire is still not finished. He had no choice but to grope and crawl to the front of a dense pine forest, curled up into a ball, put his chin between his knees, put his hands around his knees, and just listened to the rustling in the forest without moving.That night Alexei might well have felt pessimistic and hopeless, but in the sleeping forest the sound of the guns was heard more clearly, and he even thought he could distinguish short shots from muffled explosions. In the morning, just waking up from inexplicable feelings of fear and sadness, Alexei immediately wondered what happened?Was it a nightmare?He remembered that there was something wrong with the lighter.But now the sun was warm and everything around—the dull grainy snow, the trunks of the pine trees and the needles themselves—was shiny and shimmering, so it didn't feel like a big bad thing.What was worse was another thing: after stretching out his swollen feet, he felt unable to stand up. After several attempts, he failed to stand up. Instead, he broke the cane with the limbs and fell to the ground with a plop like a sandbag. .To restore his numb joints to normal, he rolled over on his back and looked up at the bottomless blue sky through the needles of the pine branches, watching the fluffy white clouds fringed with golden lotus leaves rushing across the sky. floating.Gradually I felt more comfortable, but something was wrong with my feet, and they couldn't stand up at all.Alexei grabbed a pine tree and tried to get up again, and this time he did.But as soon as he tried to move his foot to the root of the tree, he fell down immediately, because he was too weak, and there was a strange, unprecedented sharp pain in his foot. Is it all over?Must he die here, under the pine tree, where no one will find him, where no one will bury his bone that the beast gnawed on?Weakness forced him to cling to the ground.But the sound of artillery in the distance was booming, there was a battle over there, and there were people of our own over there.Can't find the strength to walk the last eight to ten kilometers anymore? The sound of the cannon attracted him, inspired him, continually called him, and he answered the call.He propped himself up on all fours and crawled eastward like a beast.At first, lured by the sound of distant battles, he crawled instinctively.Later he realized that it was easier to move in the forest like this than with a cane, because there was no weight on the feet at this time, so the pain in both feet was relieved a lot.He realized that he could move faster by crawling like a beast, so he consciously crawled like this.He was so happy that something rose up in his chest and went straight to his throat.He spoke aloud, not at all as if talking to himself, but as if trying to persuade another man who was depressed and doubted the feasibility of such a course of action: "Nothing, my lord, everything is all right now!" After climbing for some distance, warming his numb wrists in his armpits, he climbed up to a young pine tree, and cut off squares of bark from it, and from a birch tree long A strip of white bast and broken fingernails.He took out some sheep towels from his boots, wrapped them around the backs of his hands, bound them up, put a piece of bark in the shape of a shoe sole, bound it with birch bark, and wrapped them with the bandages in his first aid bandage kit. wrapped up.In this way, there is a very convenient and loose fingerless glove on the right hand.As for the left hand, it can only be bandaged with the teeth, so the bandage does not seem to be very successful.But now that the "shoes" are on both hands, Alexei feels much more relaxed when he climbs forward again.When it came time for the next break, he also tied a piece of bark to each knee. When it was almost noon, the weather began to warm up significantly, and the number of steps Alexei "walked" with his hands was already considerable.Was it because he was getting closer to the place where the cannon was fired, or was it because of an illusion of sound that he felt that the roar of the cannon was more powerful.The weather was very warm, so he had to unzip the zipper on the flight suit and open the clothes. In a mossy swamp some green mounds peeked out from under the snow. , When he crawled through here, the god of fate prepared him another gift: on the gray, damp soft moss, he found a few thin, pointed stems with few petals. And the shiny young leaves, on the mound in the middle of the leaves, there are some cranberry moss berries. They are purple-red, the skin is slightly wrinkled, and the pulp is still a lot.Alexey lowered his head towards the mound, and directly picked the berries one by one from the moss with his mouth. The bitter moss was soft and warm, exuding the moisture of the swamp. His stomach convulsed from the comforting sweet-sour taste of the berries beneath the snow, from eating real food for the first time in days.However, he didn't have the willpower to stop and wait for the sharp, knife-like pain to pass before eating. Instead, he crawled along the mossy mound like a bear, collecting these sweets with his tongue and mouth. Sour and tangy berries.He cleaned up a few moss mounds in this way. At this time, he couldn't feel anything except a slightly sweet and astringent sour taste in his mouth and a very comfortable feeling in his stomach.Whether it's cold, wet spring water squeaking in your boots, burning pain in your feet, or tiredness... He threw up.But he couldn't help picking berries again.He took off the homemade "shoes" in his hands, collected the fruits in the canning bucket, and in the flight hat, fastened the hat to the belt with an elastic band, struggling to restrain the heavy drowsiness that filled his body, and then crawled forward. He crawled under an old canopy-like pine tree, ate a few berries, chewed some bark and pine-cone kernels, and prepared to spend the night.He fell asleep in fear, several times feeling someone approaching him quietly in the dark.He opened his eyes, and his vigilant ears began to roar, so he drew his pistol and sat there in a daze. would surprise him. He was not sound asleep until near dawn.When it was daylight, he found many small and lacy fox footprints around the tree where he was resting. In the snow among the fox footprints, he could see a thin trail drawn by the drooping tail. long traces. It turned out that they wouldn't let him sleep!According to the track, a fox walked back and forth beside and near him, and often squatted down and sat for a while before walking.An ominous thought flashed through Alexei's mind at that time: According to the hunter, the vigilant beast can foresee the death of a person and will start to follow the doomed person.Was it not this omen that drew the cowardly beasts to him? "Nonsense, what nonsense! Everything will be all right..." he encouraged himself, and started crawling, crawling, trying to get out of here as quickly as possible. His luck was good again that day.On a fragrant juniper bush he plucked dull blue-gray berries from the tree and ate them.Here again he saw a strange-looking mass of dead leaves.He touched it with his hand, but the dead leaves were heavy and did not fall apart.He set about picking the leaves at once, but the needles protruding through the leaves pricked his hands.He understood: this is a hedgehog.A very big old hedgehog burrowed into the bushes for the winter.To keep warm, it covers itself with dead autumn leaves.Alexei's heart was filled with joy.All through his sad journey he had dreamed of killing a beast or a bird.Several times he drew his pistol, or took aim at a magpie, or a jay, or a rabbit, and each time it was with great difficulty that he suppressed the urge to fire.There were only three bullets left in the pistol, two for the enemy and one for himself if necessary.He forced himself to put away the pistol, he had no right to risk it. But now a piece of meat was delivered to him by himself.According to superstition, hedgehogs are considered to be unclean animals, and he didn't take this into account, and quickly tore off the scaly leaves from the little animal.The thorns do not wake up, do not stretch the body, it looks like a soybean that looks funny and has spikes.Alexei killed the hedgehog with a single blow of the knife, unfolded him, clumsily peeled off the yellow skin from his belly, removed the protective shell of long spines, cut him into pieces, and then happily used the mouth to bite the steaming meat.The flesh was tile-gray, with many tendons, tightly attached to the bones.The hedgehog was eaten up very quickly, and Alexei chewed up all the small bones and swallowed them.It was just that after that he felt an unpleasant smell of dog meat in his mouth, but this smell was nothing compared to a full stomach.Because I was full.The whole body is filled with satisfaction, warmth and comfort. He checked again, sucked every bone, and lay down on the snow, enjoying the warmth and peace.He might even have fallen asleep if the cautious cry of the fox from the woods had not alarmed him.He was alert, and over the muffled cannonade (which had been coming from the east) he suddenly discerned the short rattle of machine-gun fire. Immediately, his tiredness disappeared, he forgot about the fox, forgot to rest, and crawled forward to the depths of the dense forest.