—— Red Army Sniper ——184I heard they gave the Nazis what for. Ivan Karpov also brought
his machinegun platoon and had his own rifle with him and was
working a “double shift” as they say. But the main thing is that we
got good backup!’
Sniper Sergeant Ivan Karpov was known in the regiment to
be an excellent machine gunner. As well as that he knew how to
work with people; he could teach his subordinates how to shoot
accurately.
They were great friends – Ivan Karpov and his Maxim. They
could not bear being separated for long and they had bailed each
other out a number of times. Ivan was there with his machinegun
tod ay.
‘Gee, it’d be nice to have dinner now!’ said Karpov’s partner
and number two dreamily.
‘You’ll have to earn your dinner!’ Ivan commented,’ Let’s build
up the breastwork under the machine gun and clean up the firing
position!’ And the machine gunners routinely and smartly began
to arrange the firing position. The work went well. It was quiet all
around.
‘Stop!’ cried Sergeant Karpov suddenly.
A bullet whipped past close by, then another, while on the left
flank of the company there was already an exchange of rifle and
submachinegun fire.
‘Well, lads, smoko’s over! Everyone to their stations, everyone
disperse! Let’s get ready to greet our uninvited guests,’ came the
directions from Karpov, but his troops had already manned the
machine guns in any case. German mortar bombs were flying over
their heads, exploding somewhere to the rear, behind the trenches.
‘Bunglers!’ somebody called out contemptuously with regard
to the Nazi gunners. ‘They should learn to shoot!’
‘If I’d known, I wouldn’t have bothered to duck!’ another
machine gunner echoed him. ‘Now we’ll show you how to shoot!’
The troops were joking. But as soon as the Nazis began to
approach our trenches, having populated the entire gully, the
machine gunners’ faces became stern and concentrated, and their