—— Back in the Regiment ——127When Zagid went out ‘hunting’ for the first time, he did not
lose his presence of mind: with some accurate shots he took out
an enemy officer and four soldiers at the same time. The Nazis
discovered the spot from where the successful sniper was directing
his lethal fire and carpeted it with mortar bombs. But Zagid
remained calm; he was cleverly camouflaged and safely protected
from the shell fragments.
On the Leningrad Front fate brought him together with people
like himself – strong and determined lads. Their big hands had
once been accustomed to holding the wheel of a tractor, combine
harvester or cottonpicking machine. They were well used to
carefully picking up boxes of ‘white gold’ and tenderly letting the
golden grains of wheat pour from their hands. Nobody had taught
them the science of killing. But the soldiers matured, became
hardened in battle.
At the beginning of April 1943 Zagid wrote his family a letter
in which he said:
Don’t be concerned on my behalf. I have kept my word:
148 Nazis wiped out by my sniper’s rifle. I have been
awarded the Order of the Red Star. Comrade Zhdanov
thanked me personally for my achievements. I have
given my word to raise my tally of exterminated Nazis
to 200 and I will keep it. Keep working calmly, my dear
ones, for the good of our motherland; we shall rout the
Nazis.
And indeed, when I met Rakhmatullin in 1944 in our divisional
medical section, he told me: ‘They’ve started keeping snipers’
records. They weren’t around in your time.’ And he showed me a
‘Personal Record of Nazi Kills’. On the opposite page were graphs
showing the total number of Nazis in a day and the growing tally.
According to Zagid’s record, he had reached 177.
Zagid fought superbly. Whatever he did, he did thoroughly
and reliably. I recall his clashes with Ivan Dobrik, who, according
to Rakhmatullin recklessly ‘asked for trouble and fought like a