She doesn’t want to think about the quivering depths beneath her feet, so she thinks of their sergeant, Gleb Petrovich. He is young, and giving the five of them orders makes him uncomfortable: he looks away and rubs his forehead under his military cap when he has to tell them what to do next. She has a suspicion no one has ever called him Gleb Petrovich, and every time Zhenya or Liza shape their mouths around the sounds of his patronymic, he blinks in surprise, as though the more formal name they use for those in charge should be addressed to someone else, someone worthy of command. In her thoughts, she calls him simply Gleb, and sometimes even the diminutive Glebushka when she thinks of his blue eyes and his hair the color of straw, when she admits to herself that she likes him, the way she liked Andrei when Marik was still alive: longing, not yet desire, the small, unopened bud of future love. Gleb is from a tiny village, like her, and she can tell from the pink hue that floods his freckled cheeks that he likes her, too. He doesn’t blush when the tall and beautiful Zhenya-Lara sings “Katyusha” in her deep, seductive voice or when the other three girls whisper into each other’s ears and stifle giggles.