—— Thirty-Five Years Later ——203see what was happening ahead. And ahead was a huge shellhole
across which a temporary wooden bridge had been built. Its wide,
smoothly planed boards were now damp from the rain.
Without reducing speed, Sergei tried to dash over the bridge,
but he miscalculated, failed to consider that the bridge was damp.
I came off the motorbike, was tossed up three or four metres,
and ended up in an empty field. Having flown about ten metres
through the air, I crashed down right on top of Shornikov, who
was already lying under the motorbike. All this took place in an
instant.
The highway was deserted; there was nobody to help. And
Sergei was pretty smashed up, all covered in blood, and urgently
needed a tetanus injection.
‘Get on. Let’s go back,’ said Sergei, his face puckering with the
pain, having already checked the state of the bike.
We got back safely. Somebody immediately called for a doctor,
who treated our injuries. Sergei was firing off witticisms as if
nothing had happened.
‘I look around, and there’s our boss in flight! Flying well, and
even chooses his own landing ground. And, guess what, he landed
with amazing accuracy!’
Sergei quickly rose through the ranks. Starting off as head of
brigade reconnaissance, before my very eyes he became battalion
commander and then an artillery battalion commander. His chest
was covered in medals. We finished the war together in Berlin and
signed our names on the walls of the Reichstag.
Sergei Shornikov and I tramped a long way side by side along
frontline roads. We liberated Leningrad from the enemy siege,
cleared the Leningrad region of Nazis, as well as the Baltic, Poland,
Germany, and the Karelian Isthmus. We took Riga, Tallinn, Danzig
and other cities. Together we lived a life that was relatively short
in terms of time, but packed with events. And only later, long after
the war, when constantly contacting veterans of my own infantry
division, did I think: how is it I forgot about the 96th Artillery
Brigade, which was no less of a home to me? Recalling that Sergei