—— Brave Girls ——161bullets tightly round the bull’s eye. And the first time she went out
‘hunting’, she wiped out two Nazis at once.
Marusya became particularly badtempered after she had been
wounded for the umpteenth time by a fragment of a shell that
exploded nearby. This time she was hit in the mouth – her lower
lip. She did not go to hospital, but spent time in the divisional
medical section. She was given the chance to travel to Moscow,
which had a special cosmetic surgery institute where she could
have an excellent operation done on her, but she flatly refused.
‘I haven’t got time now to mess around in the rear!’
They sewed her lip up in our medical section. And Marusya
looked none the worse for it. Except that her face began to look
even bolder.
In the lulls between battles Marusya Mitrofanova would come
looking for me in the regiment and we would set off hunting for
Nazis.
‘Be economical with your cartridges,’ I taught her. ‘Keep cool
and only fire when you’re certain. If you feel you won’t hit the
target, don’t fire, or else you may not get to take another shot.
There are lots of Germans and plenty of choice. But don’t hurry;
that doesn’t always help. Don’t just aim at soldiers, but go for the
higher ranks – that’s our main objective.’
Marusya wiped out sixteen Nazis with me and, after three
weeks, she was going out ‘hunting’ on her own. She was not afraid
of the difficulties involved, but did not rush in without thinking,
did not take risks for nothing – she knew the cost of a sniper’s bullet.
I correspond to this day with Marusya, who has for a long
time not been Mitrofanova but Barskova. She lives in Leningrad
and carries out major community work for patriotic and military
purposes. At the moment she is the executive secretary of our
divisional veterans’ committee. She has also brought up two
daughters who are just like their mother.
* * *