—— Red Army Sniper ——204Shornikov was a Muscovite, I made inquiries in the Moscow
address directory. But whether it was because my information
about Shornikov was insufficient, or for some other reason, I got
no reply. And so I regretfully abandoned attempts to find anyone
from my artillery brigade.
On the eve of major public holidays, the familiar name
Shornikov often flashed before my eyes. ‘The commandant of the
Moscow Kremlin, Lieutenant General S. S. Shornikov is to take the
salute.. .’ and so on. Who was this Shornikov? ‘Maybe the father
of our Sergei? But surely not him?’ I thought.
Some time went by and then I received a package from Moscow.
I read the return address: ‘Moscow, Kremlin, Commandant’s Office,
Shornikov, S. S.’ I felt my temperature rising and my hands began
to tremble. Not because it was the commandant of the Kremlin,
but because it was Sergei Shornikov! That’s what it was ...
‘Greetings, friend! At last we’ve found you, our gallant former
ops chief!,’ wrote Shornikov. And at this point I suddenly realised
that it was him, my former battalion commander, Sergei Shornikov
- only he would address me like that. ‘First of all I would like to
“praise” you for conducting a vigorous search for us over these last
thirtyfive years and more, while we camouflaged ourselves so as
to be impossible to find, although you only had to scribble a line
to me in the Kremlin in 1967, and everything would have fallen
into place.’ Later in the letter he described how he had ‘found my
range’, using gunners’ terminology. It turned out that a veterans’
committee for our brigade had existed for many years and they
met almost every year either in Moscow or in Leningrad.
‘But then Fayar Khairzamanov, your former orderly, inci
dentally, gave me a book called The Watchword is Victory. In the
recol lections of the commander of the 109th Division, Rodionov,
and regimental commissar Agashin the divisional snipers are
mentioned, including you. It mentioned where you now live and
work. The rest was a matter of technology.. .’
The letter was lengthy and written in a clear hand. After my
demobilisation, Sergei had left the brigade for the post of divisional