This story that happened to him during the Great Patriotic War was told to me by a former Red Army soldier Timofey. He asked not to give his last name.
- In 1944 I was wounded, - Timofey began his story. - I spent more than a month in the hospital, and then returned to the unit with a wound that did not heal to the end. It happened just before the battle for Uzhgorod.
After the battle, every soldier is generally exhausted, crushed - it feels like his body has been in a meat grinder. But I felt really bad: the temperature rose, my arm, which had not been healed in the hospital, was terribly aching, I could hardly move it.
He turned to the orderly, told about his misfortune, showed the wound. He cried out:
- Yes, here such suppuration has gone, immediately to the hospital!
- Maybe it will cost?
- What do you mean, serious medicine is needed here. And I have nothing but dressing bags.
What can you do, you have to go to the field hospital. I reported to the commander and asked to be accompanied by my friend and fellow countryman Yuri: I had a strong fever, I was afraid of losing consciousness. It was about twenty minutes to get to the hospital.
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We passed through some village, I don't remember the name now, but an old woman stands near the gate of one house. We greeted her. She asks me:
- What, are you going to the hospital?
- Yes talking.
- Go into the house, I'll give you some hot tea.
My friend and I had doubts. It seems to be not supposed to drink teas … But our legs seemed to carry us after the old woman.
Grandma brought us chairs and poured tea into mugs. Such a scent filled the room, I have never heard anything tastier than it in my life. She also brought in two small cakes. And he says:
- Son, I knew that you would go, I baked it for you.
We looked at each other in silence. They decided that the old woman was crazy. She interpreted our awkward silence correctly:
- Yes, I knew. Would you like to tell you your part number?
And she really did! True, in order not to reveal military secrets, we said that she was mistaken. The old woman smiled knowingly:
- Well, if it's a secret, let it be that I was mistaken.
Then he says to me:
“Take off your tunic, I’ll heal your wound, or even you will not be able to hold your mug soon.
Grandmother washed the wound with black tea, as a solution of tar, sprinkled with herbal powder, whispered something. Never in my life would I have believed that such a thing was possible, but less than five minutes passed, I felt better. Soon the wound stopped hurting completely, my hand let go, I was able to move it.
- Well, has it stopped hurting? the old woman asks. And, waiting for my nod, he smiles: - Now get up, I’ll speak to you, boys, so that the bullet does not take.
The old woman took a candle and began to drive first around me, and then around Yura. She whispered something at the same time. When she finished, she said that she would not hurt us anymore, because we were already conspired. She also told our future - how long we will live, how many children we will have. She even named our future wives. And he says to me:
- You must call your daughter Sophia.
I nodded. Then we thanked her and asked her name.
“Wanda, my name is Wanda,” she replied.
Leaving the house, we bowed deeply to her, thanked her again:
- Thank you very much, mother Wanda.
- Not at all, and the war took so many souls, let at least two more will be saved from death.
Yura and I went back. We agreed that we will not tell anyone about Wanda. All the same, no one will believe, and no matter what kind of trouble the old woman has.
We came to the unit, reported to the commander about the return. He asked what the hospital was doing. I replied that the wound was washed, some kind of ointment was smeared and sent back. I was only afraid of one thing - that the commander would not force the orderly to check the wound. But such nonsense never entered his head.
Yura and I fought until the very end of the war, and we were never wounded. And several times I heard the bullet ringing and flying off my body. Sometimes I even thought: maybe I'm made of iron? Yura said the same thing. After the treatment of Baba Wanda, my wound healed, only a small scar remained, and at first there was a scar almost half a shoulder.
We came from the front and got married. Baba Wanda accurately named the names of our wives. And with the number of children, as it turned out later, I got it right. Of course, as promised, I named my daughter Sophia.
How much time has passed since then, the woman Wanda is probably gone a long time ago. I am an old grandfather myself, but I still remember the aroma of that tea and the feeling when a bullet hits your body.
Mariy IVANIV, s. Libochora Lviv region