—— Red Army Sniper ——96that there was a drop of his own blood left in our Sergei’s body. His
face was white, like a new prewar sheet.
Eventually there were only two of us left in the ward – Pyotr
Antonovich and I. Our neighbours had been taken away. They
did not come back to the ward of course... Pyotr Antonovich
was walking wounded, and gradually I began to go out into the
corridor myself. I found it difficult with nothing to do – I was not
used to it and therefore tried to find myself any work that was
going. I enjoyed for instance helping the sister on duty, whose desk
stood almost by the door of our ward, to compile graphs, reports
and other hospital documents.
I became particularly friendly with one senior sister from
our surgical department, the universallyrespected Alexandra
Ivanovna Kropivnitskaya, who was a member of the city council.
She devoted all her time and energy to the hospital. I would often
sit with her and her daughter Lena, who was a firstyear student
at the Leningrad Medical Institute and almost the same age as
me, by the duty sister’s desk in the corridor and talk about all
sorts of things. Lena and I quickly found a common language.
Energetic and lively, with a sharp tongue, she was the favourite of
the wounded men. She would read the paper to them, write letters
home that they dictated or simply chat with them.
Lena once told me that she had found another man from
Tambov in the hospital. It turned out to be our sergeantmajor, my
friend Vladimir Dudin. He was on the third floor (I was on the
first), all entangled in a complex contraption of wires, bandages
and a heap of weights – lying crucified, buried up to his neck in
plaster. It took a lot of courage to lie like that for so many months.
But Vladimir had an abundance of it.
He appeared to be feeling fine – smiled with his white teeth
and made jokes as always.
‘Well, Vlad, you haven’t forgotten how to laugh. We’ll live
another day, eh?’
‘You can’t break us Tambov folk! We’ll fight again!’ replied
Dudin.