—— Back in the Regiment ——125communication routes and firing positions in the platoon’s defences
were always in an exemplary condition. Roman Stepanovich was
not afraid of work, always found something to do, and handled it
superbly. He constantly dug out trenches collapsed by enemy fire,
ensured they remained clear and improved the firing positions,
bringing up whole cubic metres of earth to the surface by night.
He was like this in clashes with the Nazis – calculating, balanced,
calm and, at the same time, possessed of a certain fury.
Private Samuil Davidovich Blyakher had been in the home
guard. Of amazingly short stature, he was a frail and puny Odessa
Jew. He loved to talk. In his free time he would endlessly show
photos of his family and boast about them: ‘Right here, in the
middle – that’s me and my Roza. And the kiddies.’ Anyone looking
at the photograph would be faced by the enormous, bigbreasted,
buxom Roza, who towered over her husband. And at their parents’
feet and to the side – a host of scruffy children. Blyakher had still
not worked out how many children he had left at home – eleven or
a full dozen. According to Samuil Davidovich, who possessed that
celebrated Odessan sense of humour, his wife Roza, a domineering,
but kind and cheerful, woman, would look at the children and
often joke to her husband: ‘Well, what shall we do, Samuil – clean
this lot up or make some more?’
A frequent visitor to our platoon was Zagid Kalievich
Rakhmatullin, a sniper well known in the division and a soldier
of the 4th Company. No longer a young man, he was of short
stature and had a broad face with black, slightly slanted eyes. He
would call in on us on his way – either to go out ‘hunting’ or on
his return – to chat with those from his own part of the country.
‘Krupno govoryat za zhizn’ (‘Much talk about life’), our Odessan
native Blyakher would say back then. Zagid often served me as an
interpreter – from Kazakh, Tatar and Uzbek into Russian, and vice
versa.
There was nobody in the army who was not familiar with
the division’s best snipers, at least by name. And that was under
standable; at that time their names were never out of the divisional