Vanya Solntsev was found by scouts returning from a mission through a damp autumn forest. They heard "a strange, quiet, unlike anything intermittent sound", went at him and came upon a shallow trench. Inside him was a boy, small and emaciated. The boy cried in a dream. It was these sounds that attracted the attention of scouts.
Scouts belonged to the artillery battery, commanded by Captain Enakiev, a conscientious, accurate, prudent and adamant man. Vanya got there too. After a long ordeal, Vanya got into the forest, which is almost on the front line. The boy’s father died at the beginning of the war. The mother was killed by the Germans, to whom the woman did not want to give a single cow. When Vanya’s grandmother and younger sister died of starvation, the boy went to fight in the surrounding villages. Gendarmes grabbed him and sent him to a children's detention center, where Vanya nearly died of typhoid and scabies. Having escaped from the detention center, the boy hid in the woods for two years, hoping to cross the front line and get to ours. In the canvas sack of the overgrown and feral Vanya, a sharply sharpened nail and a torn primer were found. Solntsev told the scouts that he was twelve years old, but the boy was so exhausted that he looked no older than nine.
Captain Enakiev could not leave the boy on the battery. Looking at Vanya, he recalled his family. His mother, wife and little son died three years ago, during an air raid on the road to Minsk. The captain decided to send the boy to the rear. Unaware of this decision, Vanya Solntsev was blissful. He was accommodated in a wonderful tent with two scouts, Vasily Bidenko and Kuzma Gorbunov, and fed an unusually tasty dish of potatoes, onions and pork stew with spices. The owners of this tent were bosom friends and for the whole battery were famous for their thrift and thrifty. Corporal Bidenko, the "bony giant", was a Donbass miner. Corporal Gorbunov, a “smooth, well-fed and chubby” hero, worked as a lumberjack in Transbaikalia before the war. Both giants sincerely fell in love with the boy and began to call him a shepherd.
Great was the disappointment of Vanya when he found out about the decision of the captain! Bidenko, who was considered the most experienced battery-powered scout, was instructed to take the boy to a children's reception. Bidenko was absent for a day, during which the front line moved far west. In the new dugout occupied by the scouts, the corporal appeared gloomy and silent. After numerous interrogations, he admitted that Vanya ran away from him. The details of this “unprecedented” escape became known only after some time.
For the first time, Vanya ran away from the corporal, at full speed, "cigan" through the high side of the truck. Bidenko found the boy only in the evening. Vanya did not run from the corporal in the forest, but simply climbed a tall tree. So the scout would not have found the boy if the ABC book from Vanina's torn sack had not fallen directly on his head. Bidenko caught another ride. Once in the truck, the scout tied a rope to the boy’s hand, and clamped his other end tightly in his fist. From time to time, Bidenko woke up and twitched for a rope, but the boy was fast asleep and did not respond. It was already in the morning that the rope was not tied to Vanya’s hand, but to the boot of a fat, elderly woman, a military surgeon who also rode in a truck.
Vanya, for two days, wandered “along some unknown new military roads and units, burned villages” in search of the coveted tent of scouts. The fact that he was sent to the rear seemed to the boy a misunderstanding, which is easy to resolve, it is enough to find the very captain Enakiev. And found.Unaware that he was talking to the captain himself, the boy told him how he had escaped from Bidenko, and complained that the strict commander Yenakiev did not want to accept him as "sons." The captain brought the boy back to the scouts. “So the fate of Vanya turned magically three times in such a short time.”
The boy settled with the scouts. Soon Bidenko and Gorbunkov were given the task: before the battle, to find out the location of the German reserves and find good positions for fire platoons. Unbeknownst to the captain, the scouts decided to take Vanya with them, since he hadn’t received the uniform yet, and still looked like a shepherdess. Vanya knew this area well and was supposed to serve as a guide, but within a few hours, the boy disappeared. Vanya decided to take the initiative, and he himself noted the bridges and fords of a small river. He drew a map in his old primer. For this occupation and the Germans caught him. Gorbunov sent his comrade to the unit, and he remained to rescue the shepherdess. Upon learning of such arbitrariness, Captain Enakiev furiously threatened to send the scouts to the tribunal and was about to send a whole squad to the rescue of Van. It would be a bad thing for the boy if our troops had not launched an offensive. Hastily retreating, the Germans forgot about the young spy, and Vanya again came to his own.
After this incident, Vanya was washed in a bathhouse, trimmed, issued uniforms and "put on full contentment." "Vanya had a happy ability to please people at first sight." Captain Enakiev fell in love with the boy. The scouts loved Vanya too “merrily”, and in the captain’s soul the boy aroused deeper feelings - he reminded Enakiev of his dead son. The captain decided to "take care of Vanya Solntsev closely" and appointed the boy as his liaison. "With his usual thoroughness, Captain Enakiev drew up a plan for education" Vani. First of all, the boy had to "gradually fulfill the duties of all gun calculation numbers." For this, Vanya was assigned a spare number to the first gun of the first platoon.
The gunners already knew everything about the boy and willingly accepted him into their close family. This gun crew was famous not only for the best accordion player in the division, but also for the most skilled gunner Kovalev, Hero of the Soviet Union. It was from the gunner that Vanya learned that our troops had approached the German border.
Meanwhile, Enakiev’s division was preparing for battle. The infantry division was supposed to support them, but Enakiev did not like something in the plans of his friend, the captain of the infantry. The Germans could have spare parts, but this was not proven, so Enakiev accepted this plan. Before the battle, the captain visited the first gun and admitted to the old gunner that he was going to officially adopt Vanya Solntsev.
Foreboding did not deceive captain Enakiev. The Germans really had fresh forces, with the help of which they surrounded the infantry units. The captain ordered the first platoon of his battery to move forward and cover the flanks of the infantry. After that, he remembered that it was in this platoon that Vanya was, but did not cancel the order. Soon, the captain himself joined the calculation of the first gun, which was at the very epicenter of the battle. The Germans retreated, and the first gun moved further and further. Suddenly, German tanks entered the battle. Then Captain Enakiev remembered Van. He tried to send the boy to the rear, but he flatly refused. Then the captain went to the trick. He wrote something on a piece of paper, put a note in an envelope and ordered Vanya to take the message to the chief of staff at the command post of the division.
Having delivered the package, Vanya returned back. He did not know that everything was already over - the Germans continued to harass, and Captain Enakiev “caused the battalion’s batteries to fire on himself”. Killed the entire calculation of the first gun, including the captain. Before his death, Enakiev managed to write a letter in which he said goodbye to the whole battery, and asked to bury himself in his native land. He asked to take care of Van, to make him a good soldier and a worthy officer.
Requests Enakiev fulfilled. After the solemn funeral, Corporal Bidenko took Vanya Solntsev to study at the Suvorov School of an ancient Russian city.
