—— The Snipers’ Rally ——113eyes closed, thought about it, calmed down a bit, and the words
I needed came of their own accord.
Comrades! Thank you to the Party and the government
for this high honour. I will do my best to deserve it. I
swear that, as long as my heart still beats, as long as my
eyes can see, and my hands can firmly grip a rifle, I will
fight the Nazi pestilence. I have killed 76 Nazis. That’s not
many. I promise to wipe out 300 of them! And I will do it.
And I will teach my young comrades how to do it.‘Well done, well spoken,’ Comrade Zhdanov laughed. ‘Brief and
clear! Well done!’
Happy that I had not gone awry and had said exactly what
I felt, what I thought and wanted to say, I returned to my seat to
the applause of the presidium and then of the entire audience. My
friends were waiting for me. Ivan Dobrik shook my hand along
the way and several other pairs of hands were extended, even from
strangers, while Ivan Karpov was already taking the gleaming
gold and red and white enamel order out of the box and pinning
it on my chest.
While we were congratulating one another and examining and
attaching the decorations to tunics, the presidium announced:
‘Comrades! Our gathering will continue following a break of one
hour in the Kirov Red Army House, to which participants are to
make their own way.’
In under an hour we were already in the Red Army House
on Liteiny Street. As we walked through the city it seemed that
the whole of Leningrad was looking at us today and seeing the
decorations through our overcoats.
‘Tidy yourselves up and clean your boots – and then go straight
into the hall! The session is in fifteen minutes!’ announced the
senior officer in the dormitory.
In the big room partitioned off for our division there were
about twenty beds pushed together. Lying on them were some
paper bags.