in parts of the troops. The first and second batteries of the Trans-Baikal Artillery Division were included in the fourth artillery East Siberian Brigade. The commander of the second battery was the colonel Laperov, who had arrived in the Far East, and Mehmandarov assumed command of the seventh artillery battalion.
Chapter eight
one
The second battery is located on the outskirts of the semi-neglected village of Nanguin. The well-to-do villagers left the north from the very first days of the war, having left their homes. The gunners are located in the empty fanzah. Daytime, from sunrise to sunset, was held in intensive study with guns and on trips to the surrounding fields and hills. For a short period, the entrances to all promontories and coves located near Nangualin station were studied.
The Kwantung Peninsula is filled with short mountain chains of considerable height. Their slopes are steep and cut by valleys of mountain streams and streams. A close examination of the Kvantun relief can be established that the main mountain spurs on it stretch not along but across, forming several natural barriers. The Tafashinsky heights should be considered the first barrier, and the largest group of mountains, connected to the Perebali range, which starts from the village of Longvantan on the Korean Gulf beret, stretches northward through Mount Huinsan and further through a series of heights to Mount Yupilasa, ending with a chain of hills at Hecy Bay. In front of the “gates” to Arthur there is also a barrier called the Wolf Mountains, separated from the Perevali range by the valley of the River Tahe and the plain that reaches the Ten Ships Bay. Significant heights in the last barrier are Xiaogushan and Fenhoanshan.
The slopes of the Kwangtung Mountains are treeless and stony, and the peaks often protrude toward the sky with separate rocks and stone teeth, forming natural walls similar to cock combs.
During the drought period, the Kvantuna river becomes very small, but in rainy time they turn into violently flowing streams. Most of the Kwantung roads pass through their valleys, and sometimes the riverbeds.
2
The declaration of war disturbed the inhabitants of the Far, but the alarm did not last long. Soon fresh troops began to arrive on Kvantun. The Japanese have become silent after the first speeches.
– Since nothing significant has been done at the very beginning, there is nothing to be afraid of. “Reinforcements will come from the north, push the enemy aside, and life will go on as before,” said Modest Vladimirovich to his wife and daughter.
Valya never stopped making music. She often went to the beach and looked away for a long time. Dark silhouettes of enemy warships with black clouds of smoke did not frighten her.
Back in Harbin, just before she left, she received a letter from Irkutsk from her friend Zoya Remneva. She told her that Tikhon had been taken and assigned to the second field battery of the Trans-Baikal Artillery Division.
– Where is he now, this Trans-Baikal division? Maybe on Kvantun? – asked herself Valya.
Walking through the streets, she looked into the faces of young soldiers. She learned from kanta on her caps to distinguish artillerymen from infantrymen.
Once the arrows told her that not far from the city, at the pumping station, there was a field battery of the fourth rifle artillery brigade. After that, Valya began to go on the road to the pumping station.
At the end of March and at the beginning of April, it was the second battery that Valya so often asked about. Podkovin walked with Orlovtsev Konevyazov twice to the Far. Walking along the street past the building of the Russian-Chinese Bank, Tikhon once heard a familiar motive. In the next wing, the same melody that Valya played to him on the piano was performed on the piano.
“Where is she now?” Does Tikhon remember? Maybe become an important lady? But, although as a joke, she was going to marry me …”
The game stopped, and Podkovin went to the bazaar to look for the orlovtsa, who bought tobacco and cigarettes on behalf of his comrades.
3
In the evenings, Lykov often sat with the Inovs. Valya avoided him. Being alone with Serafim Prokopievna, he talked to her for a long time in the hope that Valya would seem to him.Inova met Lykova affably. He gave her a bunch of military news, expressed favorable assumptions and, thus, extremely pleased Seraphim Prokopyevna. Two times mothers managed to call her daughter into the living room and make her play the piano.
Valya noticed a big change in Lykov. He leaned over, walked with his head down, stopped drinking vodka and smoking.
On the fifth day of the war, Lykov transferred to the state gratuitously the remnants of building materials worth fifty thousand rubles. His father telegraphically approved the act, but demanded that he rather leave home. Showing the telegram to Seraphim Prokopievna, Lykov said:
– I can not decide to leave here.
– We are going back to Harbin in April. The movement of goods has stopped, and the entire composition of the bank’s branch has nothing to do here.
Talk with Valery failed. Lykov grieved.
“How short-sighted I am! The judge boy was right. Dad will approve the choice.”
Alexander Petrovich wrote Valais a letter. Week waited for an answer. Sent the second.
“You do not believe that I love you madly,” he wrote. – Time of my reasoning is over. I dropped the calculations. You made me turn round. I will do everything you order.”
Valya answered:
“No sacrifice is needed for me. How do you not understand that you need to marry after a year or two and, moreover, a girl who would not know you yesterday… I have a feeling of disgust for you… You smell like a foreigner… Maybe it’s cruel, but you are not a boy, but everyone a recognized smart businessman… I don’t need anything. But homeland needs you. Go to the headquarters and take on the share of concerns for the construction of fortifications in dangerous places. Work and live among the soldiers.”
four
In the courtyard occupied by the servants of the seventh cannon, the big fanza was cleared, and the Chinese family lived in a small one. The host and the teenage chinchone each morning went to the field. There were three Chinese women: an old woman and two young women, one of them pregnant. At the threshold of the fanza, three small girls played all day.
Konevyazov memorized a few words of Russian-Chinese jargon, and at each meeting he tried to encourage the owner of the court, who went to hang his head. Orlovets decided to prove to his master that he must definitely leave Nangual.
– You what, the kind person, you sit here, but you don’t leave somewhere far away from war? You have a horse, you have a cart, and so go.
The Chinese looked at the orlovtsov and shrugged.
– Captain Shango… My booty.
