There lived two generals. Both served at the reception desk. They didn’t know or know anything except their work. Somehow the registry was disbanded and the generals were sent into retirement. They settled in St. Petersburg on Podyacheskaya Street.
One morning the generals woke up in the same bed on desert island. They began to tell each other that they had a strange dream, as if they had ended up on a desert island. But then they realized with horror that they were really on a desert island. The generals began to think about how they got here. By that time, the generals had worked up an appetite. They decided to go explore the island. One went to the right, the other to the left.
One sees juicy fruits growing on the trees. I tried to rip them off, but only tore my shirt. There was a lot of fish in the river and game in the forest. But I couldn’t catch anything, because I didn’t know how to do it. Then the general decided to return. The second one was already waiting for him and was also empty-handed. The only thing the generals found was the newspaper Moskovskie Vedomosti.
The generals then decided to read the newspaper issue. Whatever the generals read, it was about food. The generals were upset because they really wanted to eat, and everything around them reminded them of food. Then the generals decided to find a man who could feed them.
The generals wandered around the island for a long time. Suddenly they noticed that a man was sleeping under a tree. The generals attacked him and ordered him to feed them. The man has fed the generals enough and asks for rest. The generals answer that the man should first make a rope. The man fulfilled this requirement too. Then the generals tied the man to a tree and went to bed.
Day after day the man fed the generals. After a while, the generals began to yearn for their apartments in St. Petersburg. They started asking the man to take them home. It turned out that the man had been to St. Petersburg.
The man began to think about how to get the generals home. He made a vessel, put the generals in it and they sailed to St. Petersburg. After some time the generals were home. After drinking coffee and putting on their uniforms, the generals went to the treasury to collect their pension. The generals raked in the money, but they didn’t forget about the man, sending him a nickel of silver and a glass of vodka.
Brief retelling"The Tale of a Real Man" was prepared in abbreviation by Oleg Nikov.
Alexey Meresyev's plane was shot down over the forest. Left without ammunition, he tried to escape from the German convoy. The downed plane broke into pieces and fell into the trees. Having regained consciousness, the pilot thought that the Germans were nearby, but it turned out to be a bear. Alexey repelled the predator's attack attempt with a shot. The bear was killed and the pilot lost consciousness.
When he woke up, Alexey felt pain in his legs. He didn't have a map with him, but he remembered the route by heart. Alexey lost consciousness again from pain. When he woke up, he pulled off the high boots from his feet and wrapped his crushed feet with scraps of a scarf. It became easier that way. The fighter moved very slowly. Exhausted and tired, Alexey went out to a clearing where he saw the corpses of the Germans. He realized that the partisans were nearby and began to scream. Nobody responded. Losing his voice, but without losing hope, the pilot listened and heard the sounds of cannonade. From last bit of strength he moved in the direction of the sounds. Crawling he reached the village. There were no people there. Despite his fatigue, Alexei crawled forward. He lost track of time. Every movement was very difficult for him.
The pilot crawled to a clearing in the forest, where he heard a whisper behind the trees. They spoke Russian. This made Alexei happy, but the pain sobered him up. He didn't know who was hiding behind the trees, so he pulled out a pistol. These were boys. Having made sure that the downed pilot was “one of our own,” one of them went for help, and the second remained near the fighter. Grandfather Mikhailo came and together with the guys transported the pilot to the village. They came to the dugout local residents and brought food for Alexei. After some time, the grandfather left.
Through his sleep, Alexey heard the sound of an airplane engine, and then the voice of Andrei Dektyarenko. The squadron commander did not immediately recognize the fighter and was very glad that Alexei was alive. Meresyev ended up in the hospital.
During his rounds, the head of the hospital saw Meresyev lying on a bed on the landing. Having learned that this was a pilot who had been getting out of enemy lines for a long time, he ordered Meresyev to be transferred to the ward and honestly admitted that Alexei had gangrene. Alexey was gloomy. He was threatened with amputation, but the doctors were in no hurry. They tried to save the pilot's legs. A new patient appeared in the ward - regimental commissar Sergei Vorobyov. He turned out to be a cheerful person, despite the pain, from which even strong doses of medication could no longer save him.
The doctor announced to Alexey that amputation was inevitable. After the operation, Alexei became withdrawn. The Commissioner shows Meresyev an article about the pilot Karpovich, who invented a prosthesis in order to stay in the army. This inspired Alexey, and he began to regain his strength. The commissioner died. For Alexei, he was an example of a real person.
The first steps with prosthetics were difficult, but Alexey forced himself to practice walking. Meresyev was sent to a sanatorium for further treatment. He increased the load. Alexey begged his sister Zinochka to teach him to dance. It was very difficult. Overcoming the pain, Alexey spun in a dance.
After the hospital, he asked to be sent to a training school. The front needed pilots. Alexey did not immediately get into flight school. After the first training, his instructor was shocked by the news that the student was flying without legs. After two months of training, Meresyev was offered to remain at the school as an instructor. The chief of staff gave Alexey enthusiastic recommendations, and the pilot went to retraining school.
Alexey Meresyev and Alexander Petrov were placed at the disposal of the regiment commander. In the battle, Alexey shot down two German planes, and miraculously survived. He ran out of fuel, but, not wanting to abandon the car, he made it to the airfield. High level Alexei’s professionalism delighted his colleagues and even the commander of the neighboring regiment.
One spring I was sitting in Mariinsky Park and reading Stevenson's Treasure Island. Sister Galya sat nearby and also read. Her summer hat with green ribbons lay on the bench. The wind moved the ribbons, Galya was short-sighted, very trusting, and it was almost impossible to get her out of her good-natured state.
It rained in the morning, but now it was shining above us clear sky spring. Only belated drops of rain flew from the lilacs.
A girl with bows in her hair stopped in front of us and began jumping over the rope. She stopped me from reading. I shook the lilac. A little rain fell noisily on the girl and Galya. The girl stuck her tongue out at me and ran away, and Galya shook the raindrops off the book and continued reading.
And at that moment I saw a man who poisoned me for a long time with dreams of my unrealistic future.
A tall midshipman with a tanned, calm face walked easily along the alley. A straight black broadsword hung from his lacquered belt. Black ribbons with bronze anchors fluttered in the quiet wind. He was all in black. Only the bright gold of the stripes set off his strict form.
In land-based Kyiv, where we hardly saw sailors, this was an alien from the distant legendary world of winged ships, the frigate "Pallada", from the world of all the oceans, seas, all port cities, all the winds and all the charms that were associated with the picturesque work of seafarers . An ancient broadsword with a black hilt seemed to have appeared in the Mariinsky Park from the pages of Stevenson.
The midshipman passed by, crunching on the sand. I got up and followed him. Due to myopia, Galya did not notice my disappearance.
My whole dream of the sea came true in this man. I often imagined seas, foggy and golden from the evening calm, distant voyages, when the whole world changed, like a quick kaleidoscope, behind the porthole windows. My God, if only someone had thought to give me at least a piece of fossilized rust, broken from an old anchor! I would treasure it like a jewel.
The midshipman looked around. On the black ribbon of his cap, I read the mysterious word: “Azimuth.” Later I found out that that was the name of the training ship Baltic Fleet.
I followed him along Elizavetinskaya Street, then along Institutskaya and Nikolaevskaya. The midshipman saluted the infantry officers gracefully and casually. I was ashamed in front of him for these baggy Kyiv warriors.
The midshipman looked around several times, and at the corner of Meringovskaya he stopped and called me over.
Boy,” he asked mockingly, “why were you in tow behind me?”
I blushed and didn't answer.
“Everything is clear: he dreams of being a sailor,” the midshipman guessed, speaking for some reason about me in the third person.
Let's get to Khreshchatyk.
We walked side by side. I was afraid to look up and saw only the strong boots of a midshipman, polished to an incredible shine.
On Khreshchatyk, the midshipman came with me to the Semadeni coffee shop, ordered two servings of pistachio ice cream and two glasses of water. We were served ice cream on a small three-legged marble table. It was very cold and covered with numbers: stockbrokers gathered at Semadeni’s and counted their profits and losses on tables.
We ate the ice cream in silence. The midshipman took from his wallet a photograph of a magnificent corvette with a sail rig and a wide funnel and handed it to me.
Take it as a souvenir. This is my ship. I rode it to Liverpool.
He shook my hand firmly and left. I sat there a little longer until my sweaty neighbors in boaters started looking back at me. Then I awkwardly left and ran to the Mariinsky Park. The bench was empty. Galya left. I guessed that the midshipman pitied me, and for the first time I learned that pity leaves a bitter aftertaste in the soul.
After this meeting, the desire to become a sailor tormented me for many years. I was eager to go to the sea. The first time I saw him briefly was in Novorossiysk, where I went for a few days with my father. But this was not enough.
For hours I sat over the atlas, examined the coasts of the oceans, looked for unknown seaside towns, capes, islands, and river mouths.
I figured it out challenging game. I have compiled a long list of ships with sonorous names: “ polar Star", "Walter Scott", "Khingan", "Sirius". This list swelled every day. I was the owner of the largest fleet in the world.
Of course, I was sitting in my shipping office, in the smoke of cigars, among colorful posters and schedules. Wide windows overlooked, naturally, the embankment. The yellow masts of steamships stuck out right next to the windows, and good-natured elms rustled behind the walls. Steamboat smoke flew cheekily into the windows, mingling with the smell of rotten brine and new, cheerful matting.
I have come up with a list of amazing voyages for my ships. There was not the most forgotten corner of the earth where they did not go. They even visited the island of Tristan da Cunha.
I removed ships from one voyage and sent them to another. I followed the voyages of my ships and unmistakably knew where the Admiral Istomin was today and where the Flying Dutchman was: the Istomin loaded bananas in Singapore, and the Flying Dutchman unloaded flour at Faroe Islands.
In order to manage such a vast shipping enterprise, I needed a lot of knowledge. I read guidebooks, ship's handbooks and everything that had even a remote connection to the sea.
That was the first time I heard the word “meningitis” from my mother.
“God knows what he’ll get to with his games,” my mother once said. - As if all this would not end in meningitis.
I've heard that meningitis is a disease of boys who learn to read too early. So I just grinned at my mother’s fears.
It all ended with the parents deciding to go with the whole family to the sea for the summer.
Now I guess that my mother hoped to cure me with this trip from my excessive passion for the sea. She thought that I would be, as always happens, disappointed by a direct confrontation with what I so passionately strived for in my dreams. And she was right, but only partly.
One day my mother solemnly announced that the other day we were going to the Black Sea for the whole summer, to the small town of Gelendzhik, near Novorossiysk.
It was probably impossible to choose best place, than Gelendzhik, in order to disappoint me in my passion for the sea and the south.
Gelendzhik was then a very dusty and hot town without any vegetation. All the greenery for many kilometers around was destroyed by the cruel Novorossiysk winds - the Nord-East. Only thorny bushes and stunted acacia trees with yellow dry flowers grew in the front gardens. From high mountains it was hot. At the end of the bay it was smoking cement factory.
But Gelendzhik Bay was very good. In its clear and warm water they swam like pink and blue flowers, large jellyfish. Spotted flounders and bug-eyed gobies lay on the sandy bottom. The surf threw red algae onto the shore, rotten floats from fishing nets and pieces of dark green bottles rolled in by the waves.
The sea after Gelendzhik has not lost its charm for me. It only became simpler and therefore more beautiful than in my elegant dreams.
In Gelendzhik I became friends with an elderly boatman Anastas. He was Greek, originally from the city of Volo. He had a new sailing boat, white with a red keel and grating washed to gray.
Anastas took summer residents on a boat ride. He was famous for his dexterity and composure, and my mother sometimes let me go alone with Anastas.
One day Anastas walked out with me from the bay into the open sea. I will never forget the horror and delight I felt when the sail, inflated, tilted the boat so low that the water rushed at the level of the side. Noisy huge waves rolled towards me, shining through with greenery and dousing my face with salty dust.
I grabbed the shrouds, I wanted to go back to the shore, but Anastas, holding the pipe between his teeth, purred something, and then asked:
What did your mom pay for these dudes? Ay, good dudes!
He nodded at my soft Caucasian shoes - dudes. My legs were shaking. I didn't answer. Anastas yawned and said:
Nothing! Small shower, warm shower. You will dine with gusto. You won’t have to ask - eat for mom and dad!
He turned the boat casually and confidently. She scooped up the water, and we rushed into the bay, diving and jumping out onto the crests of the waves. They left from under the stern with a menacing noise. My heart sank and sank.
Suddenly Anastas began to sing. I stopped shaking and listened to this song in bewilderment:
From Batum to Sukhum - Ai-vai-vai!
From Sukhum to Batum - Ai-vai-vai!
A boy was running, dragging a box - Ai-vai-vai!
A boy fell and broke a box - Ai-vai-vai!
To this song we lowered the sail and quickly approached the pier, where the pale mother was waiting. Anastas picked me up, put me on the pier and said:
Now you have it salty, madam. Already has a habit of the sea.
One day my father hired a ruler, and we drove from Gelendzhik to the Mikhailovsky Pass.
At first, the gravel road ran along the slope of bare and dusty mountains. We crossed bridges over ravines where there was not a drop of water. The same clouds of gray dry cotton wool lay on the mountains all day, clinging to the peaks.
I was thirsty. The red-haired Cossack cab driver turned around and told me to wait until the pass - there I would get a tasty drink and cold water. But I didn’t believe the cab driver. The dryness of the mountains and the lack of water frightened me. I looked longingly at the dark and fresh strip of sea. It was impossible to drink from it, but at least you could bathe in its cool water.
The road rose higher and higher. Suddenly a breath of freshness hit our faces.
The very pass! - said the cabman, stopped the horses, got off and put iron brakes under the wheels.
From the ridge of the mountain we saw huge and dense forests. They stretched in waves across the mountains to the horizon. Here and there red granite cliffs jutted out of the greenery, and in the distance I saw a peak ablaze with ice and snow.
“Nord-Ost doesn’t reach here,” said the cabman. - This is paradise!
The line began to descend. Immediately a thick shadow covered us. In the impassable thicket of trees we heard the murmur of water, the whistle of birds and the rustle of leaves agitated by the midday wind.
The lower we descended, the thicker the forest became and the shady the road. A clear stream was already running along its side. He washed colorful stones and touched them with his jet purple flowers and made them bow and tremble, but could not tear them away from the rocky ground and take them with them down into the gorge.
Mom took water from the stream into a mug and gave it to me to drink. The water was so cold that the mug immediately became covered with sweat.
“It smells like ozone,” the father said.
I took a deep breath. I didn’t know what the smell was around me, but it seemed like I was covered in a heap of branches soaked in fragrant rain.
The vines clung to our heads. And here and there, on the slopes of the road, some shaggy flower poked out from under a stone and looked with curiosity at our line and at the gray horses, raising their heads and performing solemnly, as if in a parade, so as not to gallop off and roll out the line.
There's a lizard! - Mom said. Where?
Over there. Do you see the hazel tree? And to the left is a red stone in the grass. See above. Do you see the yellow corolla? This is an azalea. A little to the right of the azalea, on a fallen beech tree, near the very root. Look, you see, such a shaggy red root in dry soil and some tiny blue colors? So here it is next to him.
I saw a lizard. But while I found it, I did wonderful trip along a hazel tree, a redstone tree, an azalea flower and a fallen beech tree.
“So this is what it is, the Caucasus!” - I thought.
This is paradise! - the cab driver repeated, turning off the highway into a narrow grassy clearing in the forest. - Now let’s unharness the horses and go swimming.
We drove into such a thicket and the branches hit us in the face so much that we had to stop the horses, get off the line and continue on foot. The line moved slowly behind us.
We came out into a clearing in a green gorge. Crowds of tall dandelions stood in the lush grass like white islands. Under the thick beech trees we saw an old empty barn. He stood on the bank of a noisy mountain river. It tightly poured clear water over the stones, hissed and dragged away many air bubbles along with the water.
While the driver unharnessed and went with father to get firewood for the fire, we washed ourselves in the river. Our faces burned with heat after washing.
We wanted to immediately go up the river, but mother spread a tablecloth on the grass, took out provisions and said that until we had eaten, she would not let us go anywhere.
Gagging, I ate ham sandwiches and cold rice porridge with raisins, but it turned out that I was in a completely unnecessary hurry - the stubborn copper kettle did not want to boil on the fire. It must have been because the water from the river was completely icy.
Then the kettle boiled so unexpectedly and violently that it flooded the fire. We drank strong tea and began to hurry father to go into the forest. The driver said that we had to be careful because there were a lot of wild boars in the forest. He explained to us that if we see small holes dug in the ground, then these are the places where wild boars sleep at night.
Mom was worried - she couldn’t walk with us, she had shortness of breath - but the driver calmed her down, noting that the boar needed to be deliberately teased so that it would rush at the person.
We went up the river. We made our way through the thicket, constantly stopping and calling each other to show granite pools carved out by the river - trout flashed through them with blue sparks - huge green beetles with long mustaches, foamy grumpy waterfalls, horsetails taller than we were tall, thickets of forest anemones and clearings with peonies.
Borya came across a small dusty pit that looked like a child's bath. We walked around it carefully. Apparently this was a wild boar's roosting area.
The father went ahead. He started calling us. We made our way to it through the buckthorn, avoiding huge mossy boulders.
Father stood near a strange structure overgrown with blackberries. Four smoothly hewn gigantic stones were covered, like a roof, by a fifth hewn stone. It turned out to be a stone house. There was a hole punched in one of the side stones, but it was so small that even I couldn’t get through it. There were several such stone buildings around.
These are dolmens,” said the father. - Ancient burial grounds of the Scythians. Or maybe these are not burial grounds at all. Until now, scientists cannot find out who, why and how built these dolmens.
I was sure that dolmens were the dwellings of long-extinct dwarf people. But I didn’t tell my father about this, since Borya was with us: he would have made me laugh.
We returned to Gelendzhik completely burned by the sun, drunk from fatigue and the forest air. I fell asleep and through my sleep I felt the heat blowing over me and heard the distant murmur of the sea.
Since then, in my imagination, I have become the owner of another magnificent country - the Caucasus. A passion for Lermontov, abreks, and Shamil began. Mom was worried again.
Now in mature age, I remember with gratitude my childhood hobbies. They taught me a lot.
But I was not at all like the noisy and enthusiastic boys choking with saliva from excitement, giving no rest to anyone. On the contrary, I was very shy and did not pester anyone with my hobbies.
While accompanying Ilya, who was setting off to attack an enemy airfield, fighter pilot Alexey Meresyev fell into a “double pincer.” Realizing that he was facing shameful captivity, Alexey tried to wriggle out, but the German managed to shoot. The plane began to fall. Meresyev was torn out of the cabin and thrown onto a spreading spruce tree, the branches of which softened the blow.
When he woke up, Alexey saw a skinny, hungry bear next to him. Fortunately, there was a pistol in the pocket of the flight suit. Having gotten rid of the bear, Meresyev tried to get up and felt a burning pain in his feet and dizziness from the concussion. Looking around, he saw a field where the battle had once taken place. A little further away I could see a road leading into the forest.
Alexey found himself 35 kilometers from the front line, in the middle of a huge Black Forest. He had a difficult journey ahead of him through the protected wilds. Having difficulty pulling off his high boots, Meresyev saw that his feet were pinched and crushed by something. No one could help him. Gritting his teeth, he stood up and walked.
Where there used to be a medical company, he found a strong German knife. Growing up in the city of Kamyshin among the Volga steppes, Alexey knew nothing about the forest and was unable to prepare a place to spend the night. After spending the night in a young pine forest, he looked around again and found a kilogram can of stew. Alexey decided to take twenty thousand steps a day, resting every thousand steps, and eat only at noon.
Walking became more difficult with each passing hour; even sticks carved from juniper did not help. On the third day, he found a homemade lighter in his pocket and was able to warm himself by the fire. Having admired the “photo of a thin girl in a colorful, colorful dress,” which he always carried in his tunic pocket, Meresyev stubbornly walked on and suddenly heard the noise of engines ahead on the forest road. He barely managed to hide in the forest when a column of German armored cars drove past him. At night he heard the sound of battle.
The night storm blew the road away. It became even harder to move. On this day Meresyev invented new way movement: he threw forward a long stick with a fork at the end and dragged his crippled body towards it. So he wandered for two more days, feeding on young pine bark and green moss. He boiled water with lingonberry leaves in a can of stewed meat.
On the seventh day, he came across a barricade made by partisans, near which stood German armored cars that had overtaken him earlier. He heard the noise of this battle at night. Meresyev began to shout, hoping that the partisans would hear him, but they apparently had gone far away. The front line, however, was already close - the wind carried the sounds of cannonade to Alexei.
In the evening, Meresyev discovered that his lighter had run out of fuel; he was left without heat and tea, which at least slightly dulled his hunger. In the morning he was unable to walk from weakness and “some terrible, new, itchy pain in his feet.” Then “he got up on all fours and crawled like an animal to the east.” He managed to find some cranberries and an old hedgehog, which he ate raw.
Soon the hands stopped holding him, and Alexey began to move, rolling from side to side. Moving in semi-oblivion, he woke up in the middle of a clearing. Here the living corpse into which Meresyev turned was picked up by the peasants of the village burned by the Germans, who lived in dugouts nearby. The men of this “underground” village joined the partisans; the remaining women were commanded by Mikhail’s grandfather. Alexey was settled with him.
After a few days that Meresyev spent in semi-oblivion, his grandfather gave him a bathhouse, after which Alexei felt completely ill. Then the grandfather left, and a day later he brought the commander of the squadron in which Meresyev served. He took his friend to his home airfield, where an ambulance plane was already waiting, which transported Alexei to the best Moscow hospital.
Part two
Meresyev ended up in a hospital run by a famous professor of medicine. Alexei's bed was placed in the corridor. One day, while passing by, the professor came across it and learned that here lay a man who had been crawling out of the German rear for 18 days. Angry, the professor ordered the patient to be transferred to the empty “colonel’s” ward.
Besides Alexey, there were three more wounded in the ward. Among them is a badly burned tankman, hero of the Soviet Union, Grigory Gvozdev, who took revenge on the Germans for his dead mother and fiancée. In his battalion he was known as a “man without measure.” For the second month now, Gvozdyov remained in apathy, was not interested in anything and expected death. The patients were cared for by Klavdia Mikhailovna, a pretty, middle-aged ward nurse.
Meresyev's feet turned black and his fingers lost sensitivity. The professor tried one treatment after another, but could not overcome gangrene. To save Alexey's life, his legs had to be amputated to the middle of the calf. All this time, Alexey re-read letters from his mother and his fiancée Olga, to whom he could not admit that he had lost both legs.
Soon, a fifth patient, the seriously shell-shocked commissar Semyon Vorobyov, was admitted to Meresyev’s ward. This resilient man managed to stir up and console his neighbors, although he himself was constantly in severe pain.
After the amputation, Meresyev withdrew into himself. He believed that now Olga would marry him only out of pity, or out of a sense of duty. Alexey did not want to accept such a sacrifice from her, and therefore did not answer her letters
Spring came. The tanker came to life and turned out to be “a cheerful, talkative and easy-going person.” The Commissioner achieved this by organizing Grisha’s correspondence with the student medical university Anyuta - Anna Gribova. Meanwhile, the Commissioner himself was getting worse. His shell-shocked body was swollen, and every movement caused severe pain, but he fiercely resisted the disease.
Only Alexey could not find the key for the Commissioner. WITH early childhood Meresyev dreamed of becoming a pilot. Having gone to the construction site of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Alesey and a group of dreamers like him organized a flying club. Together they “conquered space for an airfield from the taiga,” from which Meresyev first took to the skies on a training aircraft. “Then he studied at a military aviation school, he himself taught young people there,” and when the war began, he went into the active army. Aviation was the meaning of his life.
One day, the Commissioner showed Alexei an article about a pilot from the First World War, Lieutenant Valerian Arkadyevich Karpov, who, having lost a foot, learned to fly an airplane. To Meresyev’s objections that he does not have both legs, and modern aircraft are much more difficult to control, the Commissioner replied: “But you soviet man!».
Meresyev believed that he could fly without legs, and “he was overcome by a thirst for life and activity.” Every day Alexey did a set of exercises for his legs that he had developed. Despite the severe pain, he increased the charging time by one minute every day. Meanwhile, Grisha Gvozdev fell more and more in love with Anyuta and now often looked at his face, disfigured by burns, in the mirror. And the Commissioner was getting worse. Now the nurse Klavdia Mikhailovna, who was in love with him, was on duty near him at night.
Alexey never wrote the truth to his fiancee. They knew Olga from school. Having parted for a while, they met again, and Alexey saw in his old friend beautiful girl. However, he did not have time to say the decisive words to her - the war began. Olga was the first to write about her love, but Alesey believed that he, legless, was unworthy of such love. Finally, he decided to write to his fiancee immediately after returning to the flying squadron.
The Commissioner died on May 1st. On the evening of the same day, a newcomer, fighter pilot Major Pavel Ivanovich Struchkov, with damaged kneecaps, settled in the ward. He was a cheerful, sociable person, a great lover of women, about whom he was rather cynical. The next day the Commissar was buried. Klavdia Mikhailovna was inconsolable, and Alexei really wanted to become “a real person, just like the one who was now taken to last way».
Soon Alexei got tired of Struchkov’s cynical statements about women. Meresyev was sure that not all women are the same. In the end, Struchkov decided to charm Klavdia Mikhailovna. The ward already wanted to defend their beloved nurse, but she herself managed to give the major a decisive rebuff.
In the summer, Meresyev received prosthetics and began to master them with his usual tenacity. He walked for hours along the hospital corridor, first leaning on crutches, and then on a massive antique cane, a gift from the professor. Gvozdyov had already managed to declare his love to Anyuta in absentia, but then he began to doubt. The girl had not yet seen how disfigured he was. Before being discharged, he shared his doubts with Meresyev, and Alexey made a wish: if everything works out for Grisha, then he will write to Olga the truth. The meeting of lovers, which was watched by the entire ward, turned out to be cold - the girl was embarrassed by the tankman’s scars. Major Struchkov was also unlucky - he fell in love with Klavdia Mikhailovna, who hardly noticed him. Soon Gvozdyov wrote that he was going to the front, without telling Anyuta anything. Then Meresyev asked Olga not to wait for him, but to get married, secretly hoping that true love such a letter will not scare you away.
After some time, Anyuta herself called Alexey to find out where Gvozdev had disappeared to. After this call, Meresyev became emboldened and decided to write to Olga after the first plane he shot down.
Part three
Meresyev was discharged in the summer of 1942 and sent for further treatment to an Air Force sanatorium near Moscow. They sent a car for him and Struchkov, but Alexey wanted to take a walk around Moscow and test the strength of his new legs. He met with Anyuta and tried to explain to the girl why Grisha disappeared so suddenly. The girl admitted that at first she was confused by Gvozdyov’s scars, but now she doesn’t think about them.
At the sanatorium, Alexei was placed in the same room with Struchkov, who still could not forget Klavdia Mikhailovna. The next day, Alexey persuaded the red-haired nurse Zinochka, who danced the best in the sanatorium, to teach him to dance too. Now he has added dance lessons to his daily exercise routine. Soon the whole hospital knew that this guy with black, gypsy eyes and a clumsy gait had no legs, but he was going to serve in the air force and was interested in dancing. After some time, Alexey already participated in all the dance parties, and no one noticed how much pain was hidden behind his smile. Meresyev “felt the constraining effect of prostheses” less and less.
Soon Alexey received a letter from Olga. The girl reported that for a month now, together with thousands of volunteers, she had been digging anti-tank ditches near Stalingrad. She was insulted last letter Meresyeva, and would never have forgiven him if it weren’t for the war. At the end, Olga wrote that she was waiting for him. Now Alexey wrote to his beloved every day. The sanatorium was agitated like a ruined anthill; the word “Stalingrad” was on everyone’s lips. In the end, the vacationers demanded an urgent transfer to the front. A commission from the Air Force recruitment department arrived at the sanatorium.
Having learned that, having lost his legs, Meresyev wanted to go back to aviation, first-rank military doctor Mirovolsky was about to refuse him, but Alexey persuaded him to come to the dance. In the evening, the military doctor watched in amazement as the legless pilot danced. The next day he gave Meresyev a positive report for the personnel department and promised to help. Alexey went to Moscow with this document, but Mirovolsky was not in the capital, and Meresyev had to submit a report in general.
Meresyev was left “without clothing, food and money certificates,” and he had to stay with Anyuta. Alexey’s report was rejected, and the pilot was sent to a general commission in the formation department. For several months, Meresyev walked around the offices of the military administration. Everyone sympathized with him, but they could not help him - the conditions under which he was accepted into the flying troops were too strict. To Alexei’s delight, the general commission was headed by Mirovolsky. With his positive resolution, Meresyev broke through to the highest command, and he was sent to flight school.
The Battle of Stalingrad required many pilots, the school was working at maximum capacity, so the chief of staff did not check Meresyev’s documents, but only ordered to write a report to receive clothing and food certificates and put away the dandy cane. Alexey found a shoemaker who made straps - with them Alexey fastened the prosthetics to the foot pedals of the plane. Five months later, Meresyev successfully passed the school head exam. After the flight, he noticed Alexei’s cane, got angry, and wanted to break it, but the instructor stopped him in time, saying that Meresyev had no legs. As a result, Alexey was recommended as a skilled, experienced and strong-willed pilot.
Alexey stayed at the retraining school until early spring. Together with Struchkov, he learned to fly the LA-5, the most modern fighter aircraft at that time. At first, Meresyev did not feel “that magnificent, complete contact with the machine, which gives the joy of flight.” It seemed to Alexei that his dream would not come true, but the school’s political officer, Colonel Kapustin, helped him. Meresyev was the only fighter pilot in the world without legs, and the political officer provided him with additional flight hours. Soon Alexey mastered the control of the LA-5 to perfection.
Part four
Spring was in full swing when Meresyev arrived at the regimental headquarters, located in a small village. There he was assigned to Captain Cheslov's squadron. That same night the fatal thing began for German army battle on the Kursk Bulge.
Captain Cheslov entrusted Meresyev with a brand new LA-5. For the first time after amputation, Meresyev fought with a real enemy - single-engine dive bombers Yu-87. He made several combat missions a day. He could read letters from Olga only late in the evening. Alexey learned that his fiancée commanded a sapper platoon and had already received the Order of the Red Star. Now Meresyev could “talk to her on an equal footing,” but he was in no hurry to reveal the truth to the girl - he did not consider the outdated Yu-87 a real enemy.
Fighters have become a worthy enemy air division"Richthofen", which included the best German aces, flying modern Foke-Wulf 190s. In complex air combat Alexei shot down three Foke-Wulfs, saved his wingman and barely made it to the airfield on the last of his fuel. After the battle he was appointed squadron commander. Everyone in the regiment already knew about the uniqueness of this pilot and were proud of him. That same evening, Alexey finally wrote the truth to Olga.
Afterword
Polevoy came to the front as a correspondent for the newspaper Pravda. He met with Alexei Meresyev while preparing an article about the exploits of the guards pilots. Polevoy wrote down the pilot's story in a notebook and wrote the story four years later. It was published in magazines and read on the radio. Guard Major Meresyev heard one of these radio broadcasts and found Polevoy. During 1943-45, he shot down five German planes and received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. After the war, Alexey married Olga and they had a son. So life itself continued the story of Alexei Meresyev - a real Soviet man.
Summary of “The Tale of a Real Man” Option 2
- About the product
- Main characters
- Other characters
- Summary
- Part one
- Part two
- Part three
- Part four
- Afterword
- Conclusion
About the product
Boris Polevoy’s book “The Tale of a Real Man” was written in 1946. The prototype of the main character of the work was a real one historical character- Hero of the USSR, pilot Alexey Maresyev. Boris Polevoy's book was awarded the Stalin Prize.
“The Tale of a Real Man” is a work that tells about a strong, strong-willed person. The main character of the book overcomes personal tragedy with dignity, finds the strength not only to get back on his feet, but also to continue to fight for native land. The work refers to literary direction socialist realism On our website you can read a summary of “The Tale of a Real Man” chapter by chapter.
Main characters
Alexey Meresyev- a fighter pilot, after a plane crash, he crawled through the winter forest for 18 days with injured legs. He lost his legs and was the only person in the world who flew with prosthetics.
Vorobiev Semyon- a regimental commissar who, even being near death, did not lose the will to live, “a real person.”
Grigory Gvozdev- lieutenant of tank troops, Hero of the Soviet Union. During one of the battles he was burned in a tank.
Struchkov Pavel Ivanovich- Major, fighter pilot from the capital's air cover division.
Other characters
Vasily Vasilievich - doctor, professor of medicine.
Stepan Ivanovich- sergeant major, sniper, Hero of the Soviet Union, “Siberian, hunter.”
Kukushkin Konstantin- pilot, “a quarrelsome and quarrelsome person.”
Klavdiya Mikhailovna- nurse in a Moscow hospital.
Anyuta (Anya)- medical student, Gvozdev’s beloved.
Zinochka- a nurse at a sanatorium, taught Meresyev to dance.
Naumov- Lieutenant, instructor Meresyeva.
Part one
Chapters 1-2
Winter. In the battle, pilot Alexey Meresyev “fell into double pincers” - he was surrounded by four German planes. The pilot tried to get around the enemy, but the Germans “knocked down” his plane. Meresyev began to fall rapidly, touching the tops of the pines. Alexei was thrown out of the plane and thrown onto a spruce tree, whose branches softened the blow. When he woke up, Meresyev saw a bear in front of him.
Chapter 3
The bear began to tear Meresyev’s overalls with its claws. Last effort Aleksey grabbed a pistol from his pocket and shot at the animal. The bear died.
Meresyev tried to get to his feet, “the pain in his feet burned through his whole body” - the man realized that he had injured his legs during the fall. Having overcome severe pain, Alexey took off his high boots - his feet were swollen, it was obvious that the pilot’s small bones had been crushed during the fall.
Looking around, Alexey noticed that he was on a field where there had once been a battle.
Despite the fact that Meresyev lost the tablet with the map, he roughly oriented himself in the forest and decided to go east. Overcoming severe pain, Alexey slowly moved forward.
Chapters 4-5
In the evening Meresyev went out to " sanitary zone" - the place where the wounded were laid out. Alexey removed the leather sheath and knife from the dead. In the morning, a hungry man found a can of canned food in a bag with a red cross. Meresyev decided to eat once a day - at noon.
To distract himself, Alexey began to think through the route and count the steps. Since it was becoming increasingly difficult to walk, the man cut himself two juniper sticks.
Chapters 6-7
On the third day of the journey, Meresyev found a lighter in his pocket, which he had completely forgotten about. The man was finally able to light a fire and warm up. On the way, he was almost noticed by a column of Germans in armored cars passing by. Alexey began to walk more carefully.
Chapters 8-9
In order to somehow feed himself, Alexey chewed the bark, brewed tea from lingonberry leaves, and took pine nuts from the cones.
On the seventh day of the journey, Meresyev came to the scene of the massacre - the Germans were defeated. The sounds of an artillery duel were heard very close by.
Chapters 10-14
In the evening, Alexey discovered that the lighter had run out of gasoline. During the night he froze and could no longer walk. The man, without losing his willpower, crawled forward on his hands. On the way, he found a hedgehog, which he ate raw.
Alexei moved forward with all his strength. Suddenly he heard children's voices speaking Russian. Meresyev began to cry from excitement. Alexey was taken on a sled to the dugout.
Chapters 15-16
Meresyev found himself among the people who fled from their native village and now lived in the forest. Alexei was brought in by his grandfather Mikhailo. The whole village tried to nurse Meresyev to health.
Chapters 17-19
Grandfather Mikhailo, seeing that Meresyev was getting worse, brought to him the commander of the squadron in which Alexey served. After counting the days, the commander realized that Meresyev had been in the forest for eighteen days.
At his home airfield, where everyone was happy to see Alexei, an ambulance plane was waiting for him.
Meresyev was sent to the best Moscow hospital.
Part two
Chapter 1
Before the war, the clinic where Meresyev was placed was an institute. While making his rounds, the head of the hospital, Professor Vasily Vasilyevich, came across beds standing near the staircase. They explained to him that these were pilots who had been brought in at night - one had a fractured hip and arm, the other had gangrene of the feet.
Vasily Vasilyevich ordered to place them in the “colonel’s” ward.
Chapter 2
There were three other people in the room with Meresyev. Fully bandaged lieutenant tank troops Grigory Gvozdev, famous sniper Stepan Ivanovich and pilot Kukushkin. Gvozdev had been “on the brink of life and death” for the second month, practically not talking to anyone - during one of the battles he was burned in a tank.
Vasily Vasilyevich started talking to Alexei more and more often about amputation. Meresyev, greatly worried, did not write about what happened to him either to his mother or to his fiancée Olga.
Chapters 3-4
A week later, regimental commissar Semyon Vorobyov was moved into the ward. Vorobyov, whom everyone began to call “Commissar,” was able to “pick up his own special key for everyone.” “With the arrival of the Commissioner, something similar happened in the ward to what happened in the mornings, when the nurse opened the window and the fresh and humid air of the early Moscow spring rushed into the tedious hospital silence, along with the cheerful noise of the streets.”
Chapters 5-6
Alexey could not be helped with anything other than surgery. Meresyev's legs were amputated to the middle of his calves. After the operation, the man withdrew into himself, deeply worried that now he would never be able to fly on an airplane again. Alexey was never able to write to his mother and Olga about the operation.
Chapter 7
Spring came. Gvozdev gradually began to talk with other men in the ward and “completely came to life.”
Everyone except Gvozdev received letters. WITH light hand The commissar and nurse Klavdia Mikhailovna Grigory received letters from girls from the medical institute. One of them, Anyuta, even sent her photo. Soon Gvozdev began a correspondence with her.
Chapter 8
The Commissioner, wanting to restore Meresyev's will to live, found him an article about a pilot who continued to fly the plane without one foot.
After reading, Alexey noticed that it was easier for that pilot, but the commissioner answered him that “you’re a Soviet man!” . That night Meresyev could not fall asleep for a long time, thinking that he would be able to fly again.
The Commissioner was getting worse, but despite this, the man found the strength to joke and reassure the nurse. Klavdia Mikhailovna, who spent more and more time at Vorobyov’s bedside, fell in love with him.
Chapter 9
Stepan Ivanovich was the first to check out.
Having fallen in love with Anya, Gvozdev, whose entire face was covered in scars, was afraid that the girl would not want to communicate with him when she saw him in person.
Chapter 10
Meresyev did everything to become a full-fledged pilot again. Alexey came up with a special set of exercises for himself, which he performed regularly. Despite the fact that the gymnastics caused severe pain, the man tried to increase the load each time.
Meresyev received letters from Olga more and more often. Previously, they tried not to talk about their feelings, but now the girl was the first, without hesitation, to write about her love to melancholy. Alexey, hiding his condition, answered Olga briefly and dryly.
Chapter 11
"The Commissioner died on the first of May". This happened “somehow unnoticed” for everyone - under an official speech on the radio.
In the evening, a fighter pilot, Major Pavel Ivanovich Struchkov, was moved into their room. The man's kneecaps were damaged. He was sociable and cheerful, he loved women very much.
“The next day the Commissar was buried.” Mourning music played as Vorobyov was seen off on his last journey by soldiers. To Struchkov’s question about who was being buried, Kukushkin replied: “They are burying a real person... They are burying a Bolshevik.” “And Alexei really wanted to become a real person, just like the one who was now taken away on his last journey.”
Chapter 12
Struchkov invited Alekseev to bet that he would seduce Klavdia Mikhailovna. Everyone in the ward was outraged and was going to stand up for the woman, but Klavdia Mikhailovna herself refused Pavel.
Soon Konstantin Kukushkin was discharged.
Chapter 13
In one of the early summer days They brought prosthetics to Meresyev, wearing brand new shoes. The doctors explained to Alexey that now he would have to learn to walk like a baby. With his usual tenacity, Meresyev, leaning on crutches, began to move along the corridor.
Gvozdev and Anyuta fell in love. In letters they confessed their love to each other, but Grigory was very nervous, because the girl did not see his scarred face.
Chapter 14
In mid-June, Gvozdev was discharged from the hospital. Soon Meresyev received a letter from Grigory. Gvozdev said that although Anyuta didn’t show it when they met, it was clear from the girl how frightened she was by Grigory’s appearance. Not wanting to torment her, Gvozdev left himself.
After reading his friend’s letter, Alexey wrote to Olga that it was not known how long the war would last, so she should quickly forget about him. Secretly, Meresyev hoped that this would not frighten away true love.
Vasily Vasilyevich found Alexey trying to learn to walk without crutches. In the evening, he gave Meresyev his own ebony cane as a gift.
Chapter 15
Struchkov fell in love with Klavdia Mikhailovna. In response to Pavel’s confession, the woman replied that she did not love him and could never love him.
Meresyev received a call from Anyuta, who was very worried about Gvozdev’s unexpected disappearance. Alexey was glad - now everything will work out for his friend.
Part three
Chapter 1
In the summer of 1942, Alexei was discharged from the hospital and sent to a sanatorium for further treatment. Air Force near Moscow. Before leaving, Meresyev decided to take a walk around Moscow. Suddenly he met Anyuta. The girl offered to come visit her. Having learned that Grigory decided to grow a beard in order to please her more, Anyuta called Gvozdev an “eccentric.”
Chapter 2
At first the sanatorium office was surprised that “Meresyev without legs” was sent to them, but then they realized that Alexey had prosthetics. Meresyev was placed in the same room with Struchkov.
Chapter 3
Alexey asked nurse Zinochka, an office worker, to teach him to dance. The girl agreed. The dance was difficult for Meresyev, but he did not show anyone how much pain “this complex, varied trampling” caused him.
Chapter 4
Over time, the dance exercises began to produce results - Alexey “felt the constraining effect of the prostheses” less and less.
For the first time in for a long time I received a letter from Olya. The girl wrote that she was digging trenches among the volunteers. Olga was outraged by his last letter - she was ready to accept it in any way: “You write that something could happen to you in the war. And if some misfortune had happened to me “in the trenches” or had crippled me, would you have abandoned me?” . After that, Alexey began to write to her every day.
Chapter 5
A commission from the Air Force recruitment department arrived at the sanatorium. The doctor, having learned that Meresyev’s legs had been amputated, did not want to send him to the air force. However, having seen Alexey dancing in the evening, he wrote a conclusion that with proper training Meresyev would be able to fly.
Chapter 6
Mirovolsky, to whom the military doctor had sent Alexei, was not in the flight unit. Meresyev had to submit a report in a general manner. Having not taken care of his clothing and food certificate, Alexey stops at Anyuta’s.
Meresyev tried for several months to advance through the military administration, but he was refused everywhere.
Chapter 7
Having received a referral to a commission in the formation department, Alexey finally met with the doctor he needed, Mirovolsky. He sent Meresyev to TAP for testing. Alexei, who really wanted to fly again, managed to break through to high command. Meresyev was sent to a training school.
Chapter 8
Meresyev feared that if he discovered he had no legs, he would be kicked out of the training school. However, before Battle of Stalingrad, there was too much work at school, so the colonel did not check Alexei’s documents - he was only outraged by the fact that Meresyev walked with a “foppish” cane.
Lieutenant Naumov was appointed Alexei's instructor. To make it convenient to control the plane, Meresyev attached the prosthetics with leather clamps (which he ordered in advance from a shoemaker) to the pedal control.
Having learned that Alexey had no legs, Naumov decided to work with him according to a special program.
Chapter 9
Meresyev trained for more than five months. Finally, the instructor gave him a test. Realizing that his fate was now being decided, Alexey performed in the air the most complex figures. The colonel, delighted with Meresyev's flight, offered to remain as an instructor at the school, but Alexey refused.
Noticing that Meresyev was walking with a cane again, the colonel was outraged and even wanted to break it. However, upon learning that Alexey had no legs, he appreciated the greatness of the pilot’s feat and gave him the highest recommendations.
Chapter 10-11
"The rest of winter and early spring Meresyev spent at the retraining school." At first, Alexey did not feel coherent in controlling the fighter. This was a serious blow for the pilot. Wanting to cheer Meresyev up, the school’s political officer, Lieutenant Colonel Kapustin, came to him. Since Alexey was the only person in a world that flies without legs, the colonel gave him the opportunity to train separately. One March day, Alexey finally felt that the plane was completely listening to him.
Part four
Chapters 1-2
Summer 1943. Meresyev arrived at the regiment on military service. Judging by the state of the roads, Alexey realized that active military operations were unfolding at the front.
Chapters 3-4
"The Battle of Kursk was heating up". Before the first combat flight, Meresyev was somewhat worried, “but it was not the fear of death.” During the battle “in one of the areas Kursk Bulge after a powerful two-hour artillery preparation, the army broke through German defense and entered the breakthrough with all her might, clearing the way for the Soviet troops, who went on the offensive.”
After the battle, Alexey, lying on the moss, read Olga’s new letter, in which the girl sent a photograph of herself in a tunic with the Order of the Red Star on her chest. She was already the commander of a sapper platoon that was engaged in the restoration of Stalingrad.
Chapters 5-6
During one of the subsequent battles, Meresyev shot down three Foke-Wulf-190 aircraft, which were flown by “German aces from the famous Richthofen division,” saved his younger comrade and barely made it to the airfield with the remaining fuel.
After the battle, Alexei was appointed squadron commander.
Finally, Alexey decided to write to Olga about everything that had happened to him over the past 18 months.
Afterword
“In the days when the Battle of Oryol was nearing its victorious end,” Pravda newspaper correspondent Polevoy met Maresyev, who was recommended to him as “ best pilot shelf" . Alexey personally told the author his story.
“I didn’t have time to write down a lot of things at the time; a lot of things were lost in my memory over four years. Alexey Maresyev kept silent about many things, out of his modesty. I had to think about it and add to it.”
After the story was published, Maresyev heard the book being read on the radio and called Polevoy himself. A few hours later, Guard Major Alexey Maresyev came to visit the author. "Four war years have hardly changed him". Maresyev took part in the military campaign of 1943-1945 and received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. After the war, Alexey married Olga, and they had a son, Victor.
“So life itself continued this story I wrote about Alexei Maresyev - a Real Soviet Man.”
Conclusion
Boris Polevoy’s book “The Tale of a Real Man” is a work about true patriotism, humanism and human resilience. The book has been translated into many languages and has been published more than one hundred and fifty times around the world. In 1948, “The Tale of a Real Man” was filmed by director A. Stolper. In 1947 – 1948, S. Prokofiev wrote an opera in three acts based on Polevoy’s book.
Summary of “The Tale of a Real Man” |
Front-line correspondent for the Pravda newspaper Boris Polevoy knew the war firsthand. He, who began his career as a textile factory technologist, was helped to enter journalism by Maxim Gorky. And I was not mistaken. The inquisitive gaze of the writer examined “The Tale of a Real Man” among numerous front-line stories. Its summary is the selfless return to duty of the ace pilot of the 580th aviation fighter regiment Alexey Maresyev.
Wound and amputation
The main character of the story is named by the writer in consonance with the real historical prototype - Alexei Meresyev. In the winter of 1942, during battles in the Demyanovsky district of the Novgorod region, a pilot was shot down in occupied territory.
His legs are injured. Thus, “The Tale of a Real Man” begins one of the most convincing stories about human strength spirit. Knowing the map of the area, Meresyev crawls and tries to get to “his people” (he took 18 days to take this path from his historical prototype). Along the way, Alexey saw several corpses German soldiers, guessing that partisans were operating nearby. The boys noticed him first. Together with grandfather Mikhail, they brought the pilot to the village. Then a partisan plane delivered the wounded man behind the front line to a Red Army hospital. The doctors' verdict is harsh - the fighter pilot faces inevitable amputation of his legs. Seriously wounded worsened by infection and gangrene developed. Doctors are adamant: tissue necrosis will progress. Boris Polevoy begins his “Tale of a Real Man” with this premise. The summary of this work further tells about the operation performed and the deep internal crisis of the hero.
New incentive to life
Regimental Commissar Sergei Vorobyov ends up in the same room as the pilot. The Tale of a Real Man introduces the reader to this man, who knows how to mobilize and inspire people. The summary testifies to his stoic character, which allows him to endure inhuman pain, from which even medicines cannot save. The Commissioner knows what a pilot who has lost interest in life needs. He shows Alexey a clipping from an old newspaper. During the First World War, the Russian pilot Karpovich, having lost his leg and receiving prosthetics, nevertheless returned to flying. This example of the courage of a compatriot inspired Meresyev. He had a goal - to continue to fight the Nazis, preparing himself to carry out physical activity fighter pilot. The commissioner soon died from his wound. The death of this bright man confirmed Alexei in his decision.
Defeat fate
“The Tale of a Real Man” was written about the enormous willpower of a person who decided to do the seemingly impossible. The summary of the book introduces us to strong character Meresyeva: barely starting to walk on prosthetics, he asks nurse Zina to help him learn to dance. He trains intensely for two months and is offered to become an instructor. Alexey's dream - to join the ranks of combat pilots - has finally come true. How can one not recall Henri Remarque’s thought that fate is often defeated by calm courage that resists its vicissitudes! The denouement of the plot is the first fight between Alexey Meresyev and his partner, Alexander Petrov, in which main character In the story, he shot down two Messers, and then, having exhausted his fuel supply in a difficult battle, miraculously “reaches” the plane to the runway of the regimental airfield.
conclusions
Experts are unanimous: “The Tale of a Real Man” is a documentary. Its brief content repeats the milestones in the biography of the real hero. Pilot Alexey Maresyev, having actually lost his legs, continued to fight. In total, he shot down 11 enemy fighters during the war. 4 - before injury and 7 - after. He also had a famous battle that ended with two Messers shot down. Boris Polevoy’s book turned him into a people’s idol, brought him respect, and opened up broad life prospects.