—— An Arduous Battle ——83‘Orderlies! Are there any medical orderlies here?’ I shouted at
the soldiers. You need to help the machine gunner to drag back the
company commander. Somebody help Filatov!’
Finally, I came to myself to a small extent and began to make
some sense of what I observed around me.
‘How many are left alive? Which of the officers?’ I asked the
soldiers. They told me that none of the officers were visible and
there were very few troops.
‘Listen! You all need to prepare your weapons, and grenades.
The Nazis may attack. We mustn’t let them into the trenches! Find
some medical orderlies! We must help the wounded and send them
off to the rear. Find some rope or telephone cable in the dugouts.
We need to toss it over to Filatov. He won’t be able to crawl here on
his ow n.’
I felt they were listening to my orders and that my ‘musts’ were
being accepted as obligatory. Someone was already bringing a reel
of telephone wire. Filatov was lying ten metres from the trench,
covered by the lieutenant’s body.
‘Filatov! Are you alive? Can you crawl?’
‘I’m wounded. Help me! I won’t make it on my own!’
‘Right away. Catch, Filatov! Hold on to the end of it and twist
it round you. We’ll pull you along! Don’t throw off the lieutenant!’
I cried and for some reason fell down myself onto the parapet...
The pain had come suddenly. It had pierced my body with
burning needles and then retreated, and was fading somewhere. A
while later I heard a conversation, familiar voices, but I could not
understand who was talking to whom:
‘Where shall we send him? He’s unconscious! Or leave him
with the medical battalion?’
‘No, off to the Monastery with him, No. 1170, urgently! Hurry
up, Vlad! But carry him carefully. Don’t shake him, or he might
not survive!’
‘Who are they talking about? What’s happened to them? And
where am I? What’s happened to me?’ I was trying to understand
but nothing made sense. I got the impression that I had been picked