back. On the staircase leading to the roof of the house, a soldier stood and held a wounded comrade in his arms. I took a wounded man from him, but as soon as I tried to come down with him, there was a terrible explosion. The wounded man fell out of my arms, and I flew out of the house.
I woke up in the stretcher. I wanted to get up, but it didn’t work. Looking at my legs, I found that I had not one of my legs, and the other turned into something like a meat puddle. The trousers on the legs were broken. Someone ran somewhere, quarreled, screams were heard. They gave me some medicine to smell in the car. It seemed like I drank a lot of vodka. Then they turned from one side to the other. I don't remember anything further.
Four days I failed in the Kandahar hospital, from there I was transferred to Kabul. On the naked legs was put a bandage. Bandage was tightly attached to the bone, it was very painful. Three hours from the healthy part of the leg cut off the skin and attached to the bare bone of the feet. But everything is unsuccessful.
I was taken to Tashkent. Severe pain was caused by bandages attached to the bone. I could not sleep all night. It seems that the whole body has turned into a continuous rupture, ready to break. In Tashkent, the doctor, removing the bandages, tightly compressed my legs. The pain was terrible.
– The foot is clean, there are no cracks, – he said.
I was operated on that day. When I woke up at night, I didn’t feel any pain in my leg. I thought a lot about meeting home. I thought I would enter my hometown. Everybody knows that the news of such trouble spreads very quickly in the cheeks. My heart broke when I thought about it. Many times I thought: "Would I go back like this?". In front of my eyes passed dead comrades and blamed me for such thoughts.
The older brother arrived. When he saw me, he cried. Apparently, something was wrong with the remaining leg, and I was sent to Moscow. There I met a friend from Namangan. He lost two eyes. We walked together. Bitter tears flowed from his eyes.
Doctors promised him to do surgery, but only a year later and did not guarantee that at least one eye would see.
– If I don’t get my eyesight back, I won’t go back to my hometown. I will live here until I die, – he said.
He was very sociable, I couldn’t withstand his complaints and tried to avoid them, because I could not comfort him or myself.
I was treated in Moscow.
My older brother knew what had happened to me, but when I got back in the shell and went home on a prosthesis with a trunk in my hands, my mom was fossilized near the gate. Then she ran to meet me, pressed me to my chest…
"STARS IN DIFFERENT WORLDS"
Bahriddin Haydarov, born in 1967. From Bukhara region of Uzbekistan.
– The year 1986. Beginning of October. We returned from Hanabad to Kunduz. It was announced that Ahmad Shah had returned. His men settled in the highest, well-fortified place. Our battalion was strengthened by a regiment of motor gunmen. The Afghan sarandoi were also with us. At ten o’clock we were located four hundred meters from enemy positions. Seeing our preparations, the dushmans began to shoot first.
Two AFV were sent from us for investigate. However, they quickly returned, the soldiers reported something, and the commander decided that there was no point in attacking.
Planes were called. They, along with artillery, began to intensively shot at enemy fortifications. Unable to withstand the arranged hell, the Afghans withdrew to the village of Hanabad. In the battle a boy from Leninabad was wounded. We took three prisoners. When we, the sappers, purified this elevation, we were ordered to stay here and to settle.
We cut down trees around the fortification. The next day after returning to the location of the regiment, came the news that enemy units had appeared in Herat. We flew there by plane. From there we were transported to the mountains by helicopter. Three days later, we met in the mountains. The enemy stood on the opposite mountain. The distance between us was about a kilometer. Every movement could be seen in the binoculars. Among them we noticed people in foreign shape with light hair, as well as Arabs. They disassembled machine guns and mines.
There was another squadron next to us. In the first battle, my commander was injured. Tashbay Kurbanbayev and I each have 15 soldiers left.
At night fighting had stopped. I cannot describe it in detail, because battle in the mountains is different than in the plains. It seems like bullets are flying into you from all sides, you do not notice who is dead and who is still alive. Sometimes you can’t figure out what the enemy is hiding behind.
I remembered the whistling of bullets, the fires of shells, mortars, their echo in the mountains.
At three o’clock at night, when everything was quiet, I and the Khorezm boy had to change the guard in office. Soldiers are sleeping well. We were located in opposite points, a hundred meters away from the sleeping soldiers. In order not to lose vigilance, agreed to throw small stones. In the mountains, especially at the base, was some unusual darkness. It seemed like all the darkness was gathered around between the two peaks. You look down and it becomes awful. In the sky, the stars are shining – they are also unusually bright: the Big Bear, here is the Milky Way. It is good for study astronomy here. Nevertheless, these beautiful stars lead to unfortunate thoughts. They see everything. But if in my homeland there is a quiet, peaceful life under them, then here they look at the blood, the broken human bodies, the armored soldiers’ legs, the explosions of bombs, and the venerations of mothers. Per that’s why the stars look like they’re shrinking from fear. Peaceful life is hard to imagine.
My thoughts were interrupted by a suspicious noise. Someone approached me. It was about half five in the morning. I threw a stone to the side of the partner, he in the same way made it clear what he heard. The rustle was getting closer. At this time, somewhere it was fired from a rocket, everything around it lighted up in light. At three hundred meters from me I saw behind the nearby valley turban. I shoot from a rocket. My partner in long rows began to shoot from the machine gun in the direction of the valley. I heard the stone, and it all melted.
The next morning we learned about the death of one and the injury of another enemy spy. Soon the fight started again. I probably knew where I was standing, because the bullets whispered and hit the stones with a scratch. I could not shuffle. I stayed in this position for about ten minutes. Then they stopped shooting, apparently thinking it was over. I ran to another place and started shooting again. I lost half a gun shop and went down to the barracks. The commander ordered the defense. However, it was impossible to raise the head.
I don’t even remember when I ate. There was no food or water. From the stones came the heat, accumulated during the day. The throat is dry, it seems like it is filled with something hot. This is when you really feel the value of a spoonful of water.
The place we occupied was not very comfortable. Per that is why our commander decided to defend. They started moving under the rainy bullet towards the mountain. I, as a sapphire, had to go ahead and clean the road. The old, abandoned rocks were not replaced. All the soldiers who slipped after me had dirty and torn clothes, and the faces of them were dust and blood. I thought what a miserable spectacle we were. But it was for an external observer, and there were no such people here.
I accidentally noticed a narrow path, and we followed it. At a short distance, a guy from Khorezm followed me. Suddenly there was a deaf explosion. The explosive wave threw me a few meters away. I couldn’t see anything around, because everything was covered in dust. When the dust settled, I went looking for a path. I felt something sticky on my face, I felt it was blood. Someone from behind shouted: "You’re burning!" Only then I noticed my burning pants. A soldier named Samin helped
