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Soviet people left alive.
"Whatever side you come from, you Hitlerites, you can't win! You'll drown in your own blood sooner
or later..."
"Those lines were written in the winter of 1941-42," said Lazarev, and looked at the photograph from
which our old friend smiled down on us.
In the glass case lay the mangled remains of the German machine-gun. There were dull spots on its
black steel. Perhaps they were from the blood of Yuzik Starodomsky and his comrades who had been
found dead beside the gun.
"When Starodomsky realized that he couldn't break through to the station," said Lazarev, "he and his
friends mounted that machine-gun in the bushes by the fork and kept the enemy's motorized infantry back
from the fortress. Think of it! Three of them alone, with hardly any cover, held up an avalanche of enemy
troops! The people living round there say that the Germans had to use two batteries and their regimental
mortars to crush them..."
We walked along the honeysuckle-covered fortress wall to the place where Yuzik had climbed into
the fortress for the last time.
A yellowish biplane appeared over Dolzhetsky Forest and' flew over our heads, deafening us with the
roar of its engine. "That must be the professor flying here from Lvov in answer to Elena Lukyanovna's
call," I thought.
The sight of the aeroplane in the sky brought Maremukha's thoughts to something he had told me
before we met Lazarev.
"There'll come a time," Petka said dreamily, "when you, Valerian Dmitrievich, will make a place of
honour in your museum for yet another of our old school-friends."
"Who?"' Lazarev asked with interest.
"Alexander Bobir."
"I don't remember anyone of that name."
"How could you remember Bobir, if you could hardly remember us!" said Maremukha. "Bobir used
to study at your school, then went on to the factory-training school. After that he went to the Azov Sea
with us. While he was there, he got interested in flying. An airman came to their flying club and helped
them put a damaged training plane in order, then up they went! Before we knew what was happening,
Sasha was waving to us from the sky..."
"But that's hardly enough to gain him a place of honour in the museum," Lazarev said cautiously.
"Hundreds of thousands of young people go in for flying nowadays."
"We don't mean that he ought to be remembered just for that first risky flight," Petka replied. "Sasha
distinguished himself apart from that. In 1936 he volunteered to fight in Republican Spain. He flew in the
'snub-noses,' shot down two Savoias and three Junkers, I think, and was killed in an air battle over
Teruel. There was an obituary about him in the Mundo Obrero. Some time afterwards I met a Spanish
airman. A chap called Fernandez. Sasha had taught him to fly. Fernandez even showed me his
photograph. There was our Sasha with his arm round that dark Spanish chap. Both of them in flying kit
on the airfield. They were laughing. And there were mountains in the distance. What a pity I never asked
Fernandez for that photograph! I could have given it to you."
"Don't frown, Petka," I said. "People meet each other in all kinds of places nowadays. Your
Fernandez may be commanding a guerilla detachment somewhere right under Franco's nose. Perhaps
he's still got that photograph with him. And perhaps there'll come a day when Fernandez and his guerillas
will be able to show us Sasha's grave without fear of Franco's gendarmes..."
"If you do see his grave one day," Lazarev said, "be sure to bring me a handful of soil from it. I shall
exhibit in the museum and write: 'Soil of Spain for whose freedom Alexander Bobir of Podolia shed his
blood."
"Valerian Dmitrievich," Maremukha said after a pause, "get in touch with the Lvov historians. They'll
tell you how the defenders of the Old Fortress liberated Lvov from the Nazis. The Urals tank men were
the first to break through into the city. A tank man from the Urals, Alexander Marchenko, hoisted the red
flag over the city hall of Lvov. All those facts would be very interesting for your museum. Make a special
exhibition: 'Liberators of Podolia!' "
"Yes, that's quite a good idea," Lazarev agreed. "But as a matter of fact there were very few
defenders of the Old Fortress left. Most of the garrison that Senior Lieutenant Stetsuk commanded were
either killed or wounded. Those who were still fighting up to the last moment, when the First and Second
Ukrainian fronts joined each other, were so tired that they had to go to the rear for a rest. Stetsuk, for
example, as soon as he heard that the main forces of the Soviet Army had reached Podolia land the
Nazis were shouting kaput, said to his comrades: 'Well, that'll do for now. We've done our job.' Then he
just dropped down on the wet earth under Karmeluk Tower and slept for fifteen hours without stirring.
People tried to wake him, but it was no good. The brigade commander arrived, glanced at the sleeping
man and said: 'Don't bother him, let him sleep. Even an eagle must rest sometimes.' "
"And what happened to Dima, Valerian Dmitrievich?" I asked.
"Dima was very unlucky," Lazarev replied. "On the last day of the defence a shell from a Tiger tank
smashed the Archbishop Tower. Dima fell into the yard with the rest of the rubble, badly shell-shocked.
He still can't say a word..."
"So it's for him the professor has been called in from Lvov?" I exclaimed. "Why didn't I think of it
before!"
"Has he been called already? Oh, I am glad to hear that!" Lazarev said gladly.
"It may have been him who flew over just now," I said.
"Let's go and see Dima, what about it, Vasil?" Maremukha suggested suddenly.
"Yes, let's," I agreed. "If you're going to stay in town overnight, we've got plenty of time. Besides I
know Elena Lukyanovna. She's in charge of his case, so I think she'll let us see him."
Lieutenant-Colonel Maremukha's truck whisked us down to the market, where we bought Dima
some good things to eat home-made pork sausage with a delicious smell of garlic and wood-smoke
about it, eggs, a loaf of caraway bread, several fresh prickly cucumbers, butter wrapped in a damp
pumpkin leaf, a bar of chocolate, and a bunch of fragrant dewy jasmine.
When Elena Lukyanovna saw us with all this she looked worried.
"What am I to do with you, I really don't know!" she exclaimed, spreading her arms. "The professor
started examining Dima half an hour ago. Now he's gone out to telephone. He wants to get in touch with
Leningrad. I can let you see the patient, but only for a minute."
We had expected to find a tough young dare-devil when we went to see Dima. That was how we had
pictured the youngster from Siberia from the way Lazarev had described him. But before us, propped on
his pillows, lay a very quiet, round-faced Russian lad smiling at us shyly.
The young hero looked at us with surprise and hope. Perhaps he thought we were professors from
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