The Most Russian Person

It was half past eleven which meant it was something very important. Cursing while walking through the puddles, Ivan Nikiforovich returned to headquarters.

In addition to him, in the office of Maslennikov there silently sat the chief of staff, an unfamiliar colonel and a civilian – an unshaven man in a suit smeared with mud.

Ivan Nikiforovich reported on his arrival.

“Sit down,” the general nodded. “Here, listen to what comrade will tell.”

The civilian did not keep himself waiting. Somewhere near Malgobek his retreating medical battalion got stuck in a ravine. Gasoline and food ran out and there were fifty wounded soldiers in nine cars. Two, according to the stranger, have already died and, perhaps, some more while he was somehow trying to reach the city. In addition, in order to cut off the road to the medical battalion, Germans threw out the paratroopers. There is no one to defend just three paramedics and he, a refugee, joined the battalion.

“People need urgently to be rescued, battalion commander,” the commander ordered. “Take trucks, combatants, gas, and go now.”

Ivan Nikiforovich did not know that this trip would almost be the last in his life. As well as he did not know and could not know, he would be on the verge of life and death. He did not know that he, Medyanik, a strong and healthy man, could remain an invalid for life. He knew only one thing there was a task. People were in trouble. He could help them. He had to help them. And not only because it was an order. And also because it was his everlasting, personal order of Conscience…

Fortunately, the cars of the first company had just returned from the trip. They loaded barrels of gasoline, a dry ration and, having taken the signalmen of Lieutenant Bizyukov with the guide, moved to Malgobek in three cars – a cross-country vehicle, a bus, and a truck.

It was already dawning when having traveled about seventy kilometers, a gun fire burst from behind the turning. They had to back up.

Bizyukov had six people at his disposal, Ivan Nikiforovich had four. Medyanik set the task for the lieutenant to eliminate the landing force. Having taken submachine guns and machine guns, the combatants went by the forest in the direction of the enemy. They agreed that, having completed the task, they would give a signal rocket meaning that the way was clear.

Waiting time always drag on slowly. Half an hour later shots thundered behind the turning and for about fifteen minutes there was a fierce firefight. Then everything calmed down and the raw November sky was lit by a rocket. It was possible to move on. Combatants were lucky as Bizyukov had not lost a single person. But when they descended into the ill- fated ravine, where the medical battalion had stuck, they were horrified.

Aside from the mud-stained cars there were four corpses. The wounded could hardly move their tongues, they had had neither food nor water for a few days. The paramedics somehow fed them and the drivers quickly refueled tanks with gasoline. It was necessary to get out of the ravine in a hurry. German motorcyclists could appear at any moment.

It became light when we took the road to Beslan. On the right there was a cliff, to the left there was a hillside of leafless forest. And there came down three Messerschmidts and hit the column with machine guns.

Immediately the car with medicines was flamed, the second one was hit too, the driver and the nurse were killed. Meanwhile, the planes turned for the second approach.

This time the wheels flew from the bus in different directions. Two soldiers were killed immediately; two others were seriously wounded.

The driver was pressed by a trunk that fell on the cabin. To release the hand, we had to saw a tree with a hacksaw.

Ivan Nikiforovich was not lucky either. He was lying in blood with unnaturally twisted legs. Without giving signs of life…”

From the almost unreal sensations of Medyanik himself:

Second gaps of consciousness. The fire burned, boiled, igniting the body with inhuman pain. It seemed that the pain would boil the blood, the vessels would burst and the blood would flood. On the black earth or on white snow.

And again the failure into the abyss without a name. Yes, no name, no kin… Unconscious.

Unconscious, unconscious.

Then the flight was interrupted to overturn him into a new terrible abyss of pain which moved to his legs.

But what is it so unbearably pressing him?

Oh, this is probably a concrete slab, it will now flatten him, rub into dust, and this dust with its lightness – like on wings – will summon him from this trap, from this pitch darkness to light.

He screamed, as it seemed to him, loudly. He called for help.

There was nothing of it. No sound was made by Medyanik. The weakened mind drew to him the abyss and the depth, united the remnants of the will into a silent cry for help that no one heard.

Standing above the unconscious battalion commander, as Ivan Nikiforovich was called, Lieutenant Bizyukov and his communications personnel understood that it was necessary to immediately transport the one who didn’t show any signs of life to the nearest locality.

Continuation of a chapter from the book by A. Mosintsev:

“One thing that made happy was that the planes did not make the third approach, they flew away. Hastily the wounded and the dead were moved to the bodies of other cars. In Beslan, in the hospital, as Bizyukov later said, Medyanik was washed and bandaged, having twenty wounds from fragments. He did not come to consciousness and his legs were still lifeless.

The lieutenant reported to the commander about the fulfillment of the task, informed about the victims and that the battalion commander was among seriously wounded. The hospital chief doctor was going to cut off his right leg.

Maslennikov asked to hand him the phone. The conversation was short. The commander warned that if he did not cure Medyanik, he could not escape the penal battalion. They did not always understand the possibilities of treatment in the conditions of war. If the commander had not warned the doctor, they would have cut Ivan Nikiforovich’s leg off. But since this case was taken under special control, they found two very strong men who were osteopaths and they were straightening his legs for half an hour, although Medyanik himself shouted without ceasing.

Tied up with bandages, he came to himself, but he could not speak, the head was shaking. They looked at him with pity. He was in that condition for two days. On the third the head of the hospital came. “Well, battalion commander, come on, get better!” And Ivan Nikiforovich, repeating the word “come on,” started speaking.

Twelve days he stayed in the ward. The situation at the front became worse. They were going to transfer the hospital, and Medyanik knew perfectly well that they could take him far away from his battalion…

Fortunately, a movie was brought to the hospital that evening and the entire nursing staff rushed to watch the picture. Ivan Nikiforovich, relying on the shoulders of his comrades, left unnoticed.

He was recovering in Ordzhonikidze in his apartment. And, as soon as he got stronger, although with a crutch, he returned to service. In fact, from that raid, Ivan Nikiforovich had become disabled, but he hid his disability until his retirement in 1972.”

This passage is cited with a conceived aim: not to give Ivan Nikiforovich the opportunity to once again experience the terrible flashback telling me about this incident.

But it was impossible not to tell about it. It was too tactilely filled with that wartime which Medyanik doesn’t like to remember. Just as he does not like the state of his own, does not allow anyone to groan and gasp around, despite his forced weakness. He doesn’t like the position of a person bent from pain, especially if it is him being a huge, strong, tall, brave, risky person as he was many years ago.

It seems to me that even now he is like this, only turned gray, wise with a long life experience, which is so necessary for young people.

Maybe you think that with such a mortal wound the war for Medyanik ended?

Not at all.

When the army of Paulus was defeated at Stalingrad, it became known that the 62nd Army under the command of General V. I. Chuykov, which with incredible efforts had gained the victory, was left without food, without ammunition. Who do you think was entrusted with the delivery of food stuff to Stalingrad? Of course, Medyanik, as an experienced transport worker!

All night they were loading cheese, sausages, a dozen of smoked pork carcasses, bread, boxes of vodka, barrels of alcohol and ammunition. In a word, everything that was available in the warehouse moved into the body of trucks.

It took more than a day to get to the unrecognizable ruined during military action, but once beautiful, city on the Volga. Neither lack of roads, nor cold and snow drifts could stop them. Medyanik delivered everything to the destination and handed over everything on receipt to the warehouse.

Vasiliy Ivanovich Chuykov personally thanked Ivan Nikiforovich and, having called Suslov, reported that the task was perfectly carried out by Medyanik.

That trip was memorable for our hero for many reasons. But among them was another one – personal. At the ceremonial dinner hosted by Stalingrad defenders Ivan Nikiforovich met and became friends with the man sitting next to him. It was Yevgeniy Parkhomenko, a representative of the General Staff and the son of the legendary hero of the revolution and civil war division commander Alexander Parhomenko.

For half a century, for nearly fifty long years, this friendship lasted, the beginning of which seemed to be specially programmed by His Greatness – The Occasion in the distant wartime of February of 1943 after the fateful and crucial Stalingrad battle.

On that memorable evening, the commander made a toast to the Victory, which everyone who was sitting at the table drank standing. Besides alcohol there were several bottles of vodka on the table the assortment unthinkable in the wartime.

After Stalingrad, the country took the first step towards Berlin. There were still bloody battles along the way, a lot of young and desperate heads, young lives would be devoured by the terrible “Moloch” of the war, but Stalingrad was really a turning point…

Knowing Ivan Nikiforovich for many years, I have never asked him whether he was upset that he did not take part in major military actions, such as Stalingrad, the Dnieper, Kurskaya Douga, the capture of Berlin. He did not leave the autograph on the walls of the defeated Reichstag. Young, strong, brave fighter drove girls crazy who dreamt of the hero on a white horse. It would seem that his portraits should have been replicated by front-line newspapers.

I decided not to ask such questions. In conversations Ivan Nikiforovich himself touched this topic overthrowing all my Maksims with a simple and convincing formula: “A well-secured and well-organized rear is half of success and glory, and, ultimately, Victory”.