—— Red Army Sniper ——202of my own accord and began to move around. It was then that a
soldier noticed me. I was dragged out, covered in blood, laid on a
stretcher, and dispatched to hospital.
I was always lucky. There were times when it seemed I was not
supposed to have been wounded, but killed! But all turned out
well. Imagine for example the following situation: I am sitting in
my own, or somebody else’s, dugout. All is quiet, but something
prompts me to leave, though without any good reason. I leave.
And, returning, I find the dugout destroyed by a direct hit. And
that happened several times. I think what preserved me was the
love of my mother...
One day Sergei Shornikov brought along from somewhere a
beautiful, huge motor bike without a sidecar but a full tank of
petrol.
‘Get on! I’ll take you for a ride,’ he offered. ‘You’re not afraid of
riding with the wind, are you?’
It was early morning and, after the rain, the air was fresh
and warm, and the broad highway was empty and in excellent
condition. Why not go for a ride? By now a crowd of idlers were
making their feelings known: Shornikov was the reckless type;
how about our boss? Would he chicken out or go?
But a voice inside me was already whispering: ‘Don’t get on,
find some excuse!’. But there was no excuse to be found. We were
off duty, there was no shelling, and there were no enemy in the
vicinity...
‘Let’s go,’ I said. ‘Give her all she’s got! I’ll climb on behind you.’
Sergei tore off like a rocket. I knew that he was a classy driver
of any make of automobile – I had been with him as a passenger.
But I did not know that he could ride a motorbike. Now I was
convinced and, in a nice sort of way, I envied Sergei: ‘Well, blow
me down, he does know how!’
No doubt about it, he was an excellent racer. We flew like an
arrow along the smooth surface of what was a firstrate highway,
and Sergei extracted from the vehicle everything it was capable of.
I sat gripping Sergei’s belt and behind his broad back I could not