—— From the Soviet Information Bureau... ——
193
I have received your letter. I am deeply moved by the
attention you have paid to me. It inspires me to new
feats. I have wiped out 211 Nazis. My operations will
not be limited by that. As long as my heart beats, as long
as my hands can hold a rifle, and my eyes can see, I will
go on annihilating the brown plague. My pledge, given
at the frontline rally of snipers – to wipe out 300 Nazis
- will be honourably fulfilled. I have passed on and
will continue to pass on my experience of operations to
broad masses of Red Army troops and I will rear new
snipers. I call on all snipers on our front to strike at the
enemy with even greater hatred, to ensure that not a
single Nazi remains alive on our land.
Let us promote the spread of sniping more broadly.
Let us have more military competition between
detachments!
Military greetings from decorated sniper, deputy
political instructor Y. Nikolaev.
The commissar took the letter, carefully folded it, put it in
his field bag and slammed it shut as if placing a fullstop after a
question now resolved. Then, saying farewell to everyone, as he left
he told me curtly:
‘Report with Dobrik at the regimental staff headquarters
tomorrow – there’ll be a meeting. We’ll let you know the time later.
Well, comrades, I wish you all the same success in wiping out the
Nazi scum. Three hundred and four Nazis were killed in this three
day engagement by our snipers alone. May the tally of vengeance
for each of you grow from day to day, so they write about you in
the newspapers and mention you in Soviet Information Bureau
despatches.’
‘Nikolaev, have you read the letter from your mother?’ Ivan
Karpov suddenly asked me.
‘No, I haven’t seen any letter.’
‘How come? Who’s got Yevgeni’s letter from his mother?’
