alive are gathered,
come to your crew.
Commander tried to stand up...
but understood he's somewhat heavily wounded and...
Sashenka, go to the crew and tell my deckhands fought bravely,
fought very bravely...
tell them I am content, and, also, tell to go with god.
Go with god. Go. I'll somehow manage myself.
On enemy cruiser their admiral calls up senior mate:
Did you see how russian mariners fought!
I don't know, japanese, frech...no, german. German
is easier to understand.
Did you see how russian mariners fought!
If I had such mariners...but you, you...
Step aside.
So, now go and free up living compartments,
you yourself free up your cabin, we will place russian commander there,
we will take all the wounded aboard, we will medically treet all of them,
we guarantee life to everybody. Go.
On deck of your cruiser sits deckhands who came out of casemat,
with hands scorched to bone he winds up cigarette...
What could he wind up with such hands? Bad, it doesn't smoke good.
He sits and smokes.
Cormorants are flying low.
And he prepares himself to die.
How did they know how one should die?
They new every time how to die. They couldn't have training.
But every time...
There, in the darkness of load compartment
two moustached starshinas are standing with kerosene lamp,
They have gone through everything. Young helmsman Sashenka,
he tries to open ??? but doesn't have enought strength.
In the end starshina tell him: Sashenka, step aside, for god's sake!
Oh, lord!
He comes and with one forceful move...
And then like this...
??????
I participated in combat just once.
Well, that was my personal battle.
It lasted one second.
That is, I saw the enemy for one second
and enemy saw me.
Sure, I defended my motherland in this battle and I won.
I was lucky, I had such second.
One second in three years.
Others were not lucky.
Most of them didn't have even such second.
I'll explain now what it was.
It was like this:
Our ship was going thorugh La Perouse Strait,
there is Hokkaido Island and Japan, here's Sakhalin.
We went like this.
We didn't go fast, as always through this strait.
It can't be done fast.
Japanese sent out their scout plane
with such wide wings....that's common thing to do,
they always send out [plane] to see who's sailing there and flies away.
Routine business.
I was swabbing cannon at the time. I was swabbing
cannon with big iron swab like this...
Alarm bell rang, I turned and saw how this plane made a turn over me.
Moreover, it flew low.
It flew low over me and I clearly saw how this japanese looked at me.
Well, japanse, you understand?
I saw japanese pilot.
Helmet, goggles, japanese.
Who else could it be in japanese plain?
Only japanese. It's clear, right?
And he looked at me.
I had...how to say?
I had one second to take the only right decision
out of million variants!
And to have time in this second, not the next one,
to execute this decision.
Decision regarding defending motherland, how to defend it.
I found this decision, I chose the only right one
and managed to execute it.
I did like this:
He made a turn and flew away
but I won. That's all.
Sure, I understand japanese's hands were busy at the moment.
But that's not important. Nobody sorts by that during battle...
who's got better position, who's better prepared...
Unbiased, I had everything better!
I was for certain better prepared.
Now, when I remember...of course, this battle lasted: one, two, done.
But that was my second of real action
and that's why when I now remember about it
some kind of slow-motion appears in my memories.
Such slow-motion. Beauty.
Practically epos.
Now you will have opportunity to see
how I, when I remember, see it.
There, in my head are such memories.
Now you can watch how I see it.
So, how do I see it? I close my eyes,
I remembrer and see.
This was how japanese pilot flew...
And here's me!
In fleet every thing has its use and meaning.
How do you think what