"Mikhail Evstafiev. Two Steps From Heaven " - читать интересную книгу автора

dreamt of home in the stillness of afternoons and nights, ate dry rations
and relieved themselves in the immediate vicinity.
Lieutenant Sharagin worried that this relaxed atmosphere could prove
fatal if it were to last a few more days, but there was little he could do
about it but hope for speedy orders to advance.

.... we're surrounded by mountains... when the sun goes down,
and darkness falls, and the first stars appear like sentinels in
the heavens, the sun still lights up the other side of the
mountain range, making it look as though it is still daylight
over there, and they look flat ... as though some giant has
made cardboard cutouts of ancient warriors, heads bent, and
tired horsemen, and the peaks and contours look like their
heads, lowered in exhaustion, who have struck camp, backs and
shoulders slumped, and their horses' heads ... the giant has glued
them carefully and disposed them like immense decorations,
gifting the sleeping valley with a certain coziness ... the
valley that we shall take soon...

The atmosphere of tedium and lyrical musing was heightened by the
effects of the dry, hot, all-pervasive and heavy wind known as the "afghan,"
which descended out of nowhere and blew unrelentingly all day.
The "afghan" was fierce, as though angered by the platoon and all the
troops that had come to the valley. It drove myriad grains of sand against
the canvas of the tents, stung faces, covered those who had taken refuge
behind rocks with sand and dust and harried the sentries who crouched in
dug-outs and waited to be replaced.
But the relief sentries never arrived punctually. The "grand-dads"
slept, unconcerned by the problems of the youngsters, and those who were
scheduled for duty strung out the time as long as possible to shorten their
own stint on guard.
The wind danced up and down the valley, blotting out the sky and
mountains with an impenetrable shroud of dust. Stubborn, capricious and
merciless, the "afghan" spun at liberty, feeling its power and impunity.

... what was that bit in the Bible? How apt it was!...

Sharagin racked his brains, trying to remember those words out of
Ecclesiastes, which he had read so long ago, before military school:

"The wind blows to the South and goes around to the North; round and
round goes the wind and on its circuits the wind returns."

... it was as if the prophet was talking about the "afghan"...
I'll have to read it again when I get back home....

It was easier to tolerate the "afghan" in company, but depression was
just as great, the desire to go home was always there, and because home was
far away, the next best thing was to get drunk.
The sand raised by the "afghan" penetrated everywhere, filtering