FRIENDSHIP At no other time was it as crowded and noisy in the dugout of the second platoon as on that night. All the men from the battery had come together on such an unusual occasion: Simon Honcharenko had received a letter. And from whom, just think of it! It was more than a half year now since he had lost his wife and son. Every one in the battery knew this. His friends from the plant in which he worked before the war had informed him of their deaths in the autumn of last year. They also mentioned the circumstances under which it had happened. One night German bombers attacked (he railway station. The train his family was on alone suffered some twenty deaths, his wife and son included. There at the station they buried the dead in a common grave, that is those of the passengers who could be recovered from the wreck, for quite a few were devoured by the flames and never found. His Petrus must have been among them... And today he unexpectedly received a letter from his boy. The letter was actually written by the tutor of an orphanage somewhere by the upper reaches of the Volga. On the last page were the scribbles of a child. Evidently he had begun school this year: “You see, Honcharenko, your son’s already a scholar of sorts.” The more Simon Honcharenko read the letter, the less he could believe that happiness had come his way. He probably would not have believed the message at all were it not for the foresight of the woman who enclosed a snapshot of the boy in the letter. Besides, she must have told the boy that the snapshot would be sent to dad before it was taken. Holding his breath, the boy’s face was strained, and the eyes – well, hard as he tried he could not help blinking. The photographer had retouched the snapshot here and there but to no great avail. The picture was now passed from hand to hand. The men crowded around the table to have a look at it. Everyone liked the boy very much (well, it could not be otherwise). Moreover, the boy defied any criticism. Therefore, if anyone made a remark about his eyes, even if this kind of “criticism” referred not so much to the boy as to the photographer, everyone practically pounced upon the “critic.” “Now, that’s too much. In the end, you’d want the boy not to blink at all.” “What a crank! Why, it’s even better that way. You see right away that he’s natural and alive!” The remarks were accompanied with jokes and laughter. Simon, the happiest of all fathers in the world, was sitting at the table with letter in hand. Lost in thought, he did not hear or see anything around him. Only at times when the men would get too overexcited, he would raise his head in alarm and say in mock severity, “All right, all right, boys, watch out how you handle that snapshot!” “You found just the right people to do that!” ironically remarked Tsibulko, who was on duty in the dugout that day. “They’ll paw it to holes. And generally, how long will this go on. Why, the dugout is filled with smoke to the point of choking. All right, all guests here get moving! And besides, the supper is getting cold.” He put a loaf of bread, a canteen and some mugs on the table. “Sit down, boys,” he said, as he was about to open the canteen. “Wait a minute, Irakliy hasn’t come yet,” Simon stopped him. Without saying a word Tsibulko put down the canteen. He was even a bit embarrassed: now, how could he have overlooked Irakliy’s absence. Irakliy Mosashvili, who was on the same crew as gunner Simon, was on sentry duty. He would come in any minute now, as one of the men had already left to relieve him. Probably he told the unusual news to Irakliy, for the moment Irakliy entered the dugout, he stopped and with one hand pressed to his heart said with emotion, “Simon!” His teeth flashed in a smile from under his black moustache. But he suppressed his emotion. First he put his rifle in the arms rack, took off his overcoat, and then came up to the table, extending his hand to Simon.
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