—— Red Army Sniper ——144could imagine what was happening now on the other side; however,
we found out in detail when our scouts began to return to our
trenches one by one, to the feverish crackle of machinegun fire.
‘What’s going on there?’ Everyone returning from the other
side was showered with questions.
‘It’s not so good! We ran right into it! The officer’s seriously
wounded. Two killed and some have got grazes.. .’
Several agonising minutes went by. The German trenches were
already visible in the blue early morning haze, but more obvious
was the flight of the tracer bullets that the Nazis were firing at us.
A number of men had still not returned. They included those who
had been killed and would never come back, and those who were
still hanging on, covering their comrades’ withdrawal.
But then we caught sight of the scout platoon commander, Ivan
Pilipchuk. He was the last to withdraw. Badly wounded, Pilipchuk
had still managed to crawl into no man’s land. Now he was lying
10–15 metres from the German trenches, in full view of the Nazis.
All the rounds of Nazi machinegun tracer firer were directed, it
seemed, at one target – the escaping Soviet officer.
The firing from our side, which was on the point of stalling,
started up again; Pilipchuk had to be cut off from the enemy, the
Nazis could not be allowed to take him alive, and Ivan had to be
helped to crawl away and get nearer to our trenches. We saw that
Pilipchuk had stopped moving. We felt that he would not be able
to crawl on his own. Surely it was not all over for him? No! We
could hear his groans; we could see him stretching out his arms
now and then. How could we help him? We all realised that it was
impossible to crawl towards him; every inch of ground was swept
by fire and it was now quite light.
It would have been no trouble for the Germans to finish
Pilipchuk off – he was just lying there, groaning, right in front of
them. But they were waiting, they were not going to touch him.
They were enjoying the sight of him and of our helpless position.
The Nazis could not take the lieutenant prisoner themselves; we
would not let them near him.