Translated material
I owe you a favor
Before leaving the fighter, the pilot managed to report to the command post about what happened to him. When ready, a search and rescue team was raised. The helicopter ironed the sky for two hours to no avail, and then a snow storm fell - a quite frequent phenomenon in those places. And for almost two more days the fluffy flakes were replaced by snow pellets. This made the search very difficult, and D. was discovered only at the end of the third day. The pilot identified himself with hand flares and thick orange smoke from a flare.
When the helicopter hovered over a clearing among the endless forest, the crew’s surprise knew no bounds. A senior lieutenant stood in the middle of an open patch, and a man in a black padded jacket and a hat with earflaps was walking towards the forest, energetically pulling his felt boots out of the deep snow and protecting himself with his hand from the snow jets driven by the blades.
The helicopter pilots knew (and the map confirmed this) that there was no housing for at least tens of miles from this place. Where did this second one come from? The senior lieutenant brought on board explained: this is an escaped prisoner, fate brought them together in a frosty forest, and this man greatly helped the pilot with his peasant ability to adapt to circumstances. They even took turns putting on felt boots. One of the pilot’s legs was in a fur boots, the other was wrapped in rags - the second boot, not locked, that is, not tied to the metal ring on his fur trousers, flew off during ejection.
One of the search engines suggested catching the fugitive - after all, he’s a criminal! Or at worst, give him a lift, otherwise he will die. But the senior lieutenant protested vigorously. Determination and despair were written on his frosted face, overgrown with light stubble. And the crew realized: he knows what he is doing.
The rotorcraft climbed up, its body tilted, and the commander headed for his airfield. The doctor handed the rescued man a small glass of alcohol. But D. stuck to the window, then rushed to the pilot’s cabin and shouted something in the commander’s ear. He shook his head with dissatisfaction, pursed his lips, but turned the helicopter around.
We hovered over the clearing again. The flight engineer removed it from the latch, rolled the door halfway and, using a halyard for protection, looked out. The fugitive stood below, his hands were lowered, as if before something inevitable. The senior lieutenant hastily pulled off his fur jacket and threw it into the doorway, followed by a flask of alcohol and a bag of food snatched from the hands of a perplexed doctor. D. sat down on the metal seat and no longer looked out the window. The flight engineer closed the door.
A few days later D. visited the crash site of his plane. The fighter broke through the ice of a small swamp lake and disappeared into the water. This made visual search very difficult in the early days. They said that it was impossible to look at the senior lieutenant without sympathy. For a long time he did not leave the edge of the ice hole where the diver was working, and probably said goodbye to the plane as to a friend in battle. And then he glanced at the forest, as if hoping to see someone...
This amazing story can be perceived in different ways, as if born from the sophisticated imagination of a fiction writer. But what surprises does life throw at us? And I think: what brought closer, even united two completely different people - a combat pilot, an officer and a criminal? What were they talking about as they whiled away the long, chilly night in the endless forest? What depths of souls did these people who met by chance reveal to each other?
The pilot could shoot the fugitive, identifying him by the number on his padded jacket. A prisoner could kill a pilot who trusted him in order to take advantage of weapons, carry-on supplies and good-quality clothing. But, as D. later said, the prisoner shared with him the bread and fish he had taken during his escape. He, in turn, halved everything he had.
Probably each of them saw in the other just a person in those two days. Everything else was abandoned in the face of circumstances. Damn it, it takes a lot to see someone else as just a person. And - how little...
Two years later, D., already a captain, was called to the unit’s checkpoint. He did not immediately recognize the man waiting for him as a long-time fugitive. A lot of time passed, something was erased from memory, and the pilot reacted to the visit coolly, even warily. And the old acquaintance, it seems, was not going to fall into sentimental memories. He only said that he then went in the direction where the helicopter had flown off, a day later he went out onto the road, got to the timber industry enterprise and was detained by the district police officer.
His sentence was added a little, taking into account the “quiet” crime for which he was imprisoned, and the reason that forced him to go on the run: his relatives were oppressing his old mother, planning to sell the house at a profit.
Saying goodbye, the guest pulled out a jacket, the same one, and a flask from his plump backpack. A debt, if it’s criminal. But here's another case...