Page 54 - The Mirror of My Soul. Vol. 1

Nicolai Levashov. The Mirror of My Soul. Vol. 1. Born in the USSR

“tortoise”, I gave the alarm. Interestingly, soldiers never considered my actions wrong.

Very often, when I asked them to send me this poor wretched sentry, soldiers told me:
“Comrade lieutenant, we will take care of it”. I suspect that in-stead of his rest period
this sentry added lustre to the guardhouse with a mop.

Sometimes, sergeants and soldiers in their second year of service escaped from the
quarters to bathe in the sea or to visit girls. Usually, they laid their overcoat on the bunk
and covered it with a blanket. The substitution would be unnoticed until someone passed
between bunks. An orderly al-ways had a ready answer that this sergeant, private first
class or soldier went to the Gents. I knew where they really went and gave the orderly
half an hour for the absentee to report to me when he returned. I knew that the moment
I left the post a messenger rushed to the absentee, who, having been caught on
unauthorized leave, reported to me and I imposed a penalty upon him. Mostly it consisted
of washing the floor in the headquarters.

I never reported the incident to either the company commander or the commander
of the unit, because I had already punished the infringer. Those absentees whom I
“caught” always considered their punishment to be fair enough and washed floors
impeccably. Some other officers acted in similar situations differently. They reported to

the unit commander. As a result, the whole unit, including officers and ensigns, had to
stand to attention on the parade-ground for one and a half hours, listening to the unit
commander’s oratorical speeches. Very often the extra duty that was imposed as a
punishment was given to those who had nothing to do with the infringements.
Every Saturday we were to tidy up the unit. I gave the soldiers of my platoon the
plan of work for the day and said that, if they did all the work in advance, the rest of the
time would be theirs. The only condition was the good quality of the work. This
arrangement of things gave soldiers an incentive to do their work well. They were highly
motivated to do everything quickly and well instead of stalling for time, imitating
feverish activity, because usually when they completed one task, they were assigned a
new one. If they finished the latter, they received another one, even if it was senseless
work. Thus, any initiative, desire or necessity to do something quickly and well was
“killed” in them.

In my platoon there was a soldier, who was a “walking disaster”. He had a soldier's
shrewd-ness, only the wrong way. For example, once, being on duty at one of the diesel
stations, he decided to warm up in the warmth of the diesel electro generator room.
According to the instructions, it was prohibited to be any length of time in the room with
the generator running because of the high con-tent of carbon monoxide. So, my “genius”
decided to sleep on the camouflage nets which were stored there. To protect himself
from fumes, he decided to put on a gas- mask. It would be very clever, if it were not for
one little “but”. A gas-mask does not protect from carbon monoxide. If the ensign, the
commander of this diesel station and this soldier’s direct commander, had not glanced
accidentally into the room, there would be a “warm” dead body instead of an “ingenious”
soldier.

But his “adventures” did not finish there. He somehow managed to start a fire at
the military diesel station and it was pure luck that the fire was noticed and quickly
extinguished. As the platoon commander I was personally liable for breakage of my
platoons’ equipment and together with the commander of this station had to restore it

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