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Scout Pashkov
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Looks like my scouting
that night was no good,
And my cunning that night was a laugh,
For they caught me red-handed right there in the wood,
And they dragged me away to their staff.
With a Parabello stuck in my eye.
"Bastard," they said, "don't lie!
Many Reds in those trees?"
"Like the sands in the seas."
"Many guns?"
"You can count if you try."
Here a sergeant got sore and started to slog
With his rifle, a ticklish tool.
"Answer our questions, you son of a dog!
Enough of your playing the fool!
Don't try," said the guy, "to get funny with us.
Out with it now! Don't stall!
Tell the truth - you'll be free and there won't be a fuss.
Keep it back, and you're dead - that's all."
If they beat you to putty and throw you about,
I'm telling you, brother, it hurts.
The price was so high, but I figured it out,
And decided to take my deserts.
Then they twisted my arms - once again - and again -
And they battered my shoulders and back.
It isn't so nice to remember what then -
I don't want to remember the rack.
But the big guy - he sees that the torture's the bunk,
So he figures he'll speed us the pace,
Shoves a spade in my hand, "Get going, you skunk!"
And they usher me out of the place.
There I dug m own bed in the earth with these hands
While their rifle butts prodded for fun.
You can be a crap shot, yet your bullets will land
In a fellow who hasn't a gun.
Then they gathered around my bed in the ground.
And their shots at that range were a cinch.
The number of bullets I took in the face
Was easily one to the inch.
I fell on my face in the hole I had made.
With a sizzling under my shirt.
An officer gave me a blow with a spade
Where the lead in my shoulder-blade hurt.
They dug me in tight and left me alone
With that weight pushing down on my chest.
I wriggled a leg, got a cramp in the bone,
Couldn't breathe for the clay, as I guessed.
But to go and pass out in that grave - what the hell!
Better flirt with your fate, the old witch.
So I gathered the strength - where from I can't tell,
And tried to get out of the ditch.
I turned myself over. I clawed at the clay.
I felt my body. I wasn't dead!
There at my feet the coffin lay,
There at my head the stars were spread.
I kissed the dirt and crawled away
To the woods where my pals were collected.
At half past ten I was pickled in clay,
At eleven I was resurrected.
I felt O.K. on the following day.
My first funeral wasn't so bad.
So I pointed my tommy gun over the way,
And gave my grave-diggers all that I had.
Aleksii Surkov (1941)
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