—— Red Army Sniper ——138Lying five metres from each other, the political adviser and
I did not spend long admiring the peaceful landscape. Our shots
resounded and the Germans began to fall one after another.
Vasilyev with the binoculars was directing us to the targets.
Eventually the political advisor called it a day: ‘Well, seven
between the two of us – is that enough for today? Let’s not tempt
fate any further.’
‘Not a bad result,’ Ivan Vasilyev confirmed. ‘But the Germans’ll
start firing mortars now. Let’s go. I’ve got no desire to drag you
back wounded .. .’
When he got back to our trenches, I remembered something.
‘Say, Ivan, lend me your binoculars for half an hour. Or maybe
we’ll go together. I want to see where the Germans have hung the
rad io spea ker.’
‘Only don’t be too long, lads! The speaker’s over there – it must
be about eighty metres away.’ And the political adviser pointed to
the wood.
Ivan Vasilyev and I crawled on our elbows in the direction
indicated, to where the music was coming from. Clambering into
a deep shell hole, we began to look, Ivan through the binoculars
and me through the telescopic sights of my rifle.
On one of the trees Ivan spotted the speaker. ‘There it is! Look,
there’s a blue cord leading to it.’
By now I too had sighted the black bellshape of the outdoor
speaker. To aim at the cord and hit it, even from a range of a few
tens of metres, would not be easy. But I remembered how we
practised in our early days, attaching a matchbox to a thin twig or
straw. There was no twig now, but the bright blue radio cord was
clearly visible against the green background.
After lying there for a bit and completely relaxing after the
rapid walk and the crawling, I got ready to fire.
‘Okay, Ivan, keep looking through your binoculars. Let’s see
how it goes!’
After the fifth shot the music stopped. Ivan, who had kept
his eye on the speaker, whispered: ‘The cord has snapped as if it