A gray dusty column moved along the roadside with a heavy, but quite steady step toward Oryol. These were some of the last Soviet prisoners from 1941. Ahead of the fallen—crunching the ancient cobblestone—swept German tanks, self-propelled guns, and artillery tractors. Mixed among them, with small intervals, ran trucks with ammunition and provisions, fuel tankers, and cars with officers. On the other roadside, slightly thinned out in the same direction, as if to overtake, a line of motorcyclists raced by. Infantry too rode on armored personnel carriers and vehicles with canvas covers thrown back. And all this immense machine, warmed by the momentum of an offensive breakthrough and the October sun, drove relentlessly north, as though there were even warmer there. Everything on wheels, on tracks—together in one great striking mass. Only the traffic controllers walked on foot with brief pointers on poles: “To Tula!,” “To Moscow!”…
In the ditch, amidst scraps of dry road mud, lay a battered green side panel of a “two-and-a-half-ton” truck with a slanted inscription: “Forward, to the West!” A few dozen steps away, with burned-out wheels turned black, a wrecked vehicle lay.