—— Back in the Regiment ——131through to our forces whatever the cost and try to bring up
reinforcements. Nyemin had only crawled about three metres
from their positions before the Germans spotted him. And again
the mortar bombs started whining. They were exploding right
beside them. Nyemin was wounded and the commander of the
detachment, Kurmambekov was seriously wounded. Kazarian
himself was hit in the shoulder. Without paying attention to
his wound, Kazarian crept out and bandaged Nyemin’s head.
Kurmambekov was groaning softly.
The Germans decided that, after such massed fire, the Soviet
troops would no longer resist. Again they came out of their trench
and crawled towards the groaning Kurmambekov, who was lying
not far from an earth and timber pillbox.
‘No, you bastards! I won’t let you have him!’ whispered Sergo.
He grabbed his machine gun, but saw that it had been damaged by
a mortar fragment. Then Kazarian rose and threw three grenades,
one after another, at the advancing Germans. One of the Nazis was
killed, two were wounded, and the rest returned to their start line.
At this time a German sniper began firing at Kazarian. The
first bullet tore through the kitbag on the commander’s back.
Sergo began to dig even deeper into the ground. But the bullets
continued to whistle over him. Four bullets hit the kitbag and shot
through his mess tin, but did not touch the commander. He froze
to the spot... The German sniper decided that the Soviet soldier
was dead. After firing several more shots, he fell silent. Kazarian
was silent too and not moving.
Late at night Nyemin lapsed into semiconsciousness, became
delirious and began loudly crying out and thrashing around. The
German machine gunners directed their fire towards the sound of
his voice. One of their rounds hit the wounded despatch rider. He
died without regaining consciousness. Kazarian crept up to him,
kissed his friend’s parched lips, closed his eyes and whispered:
‘Goodbye, comrade! We’ll fight on and avenge you. I will not
surrender any soldier, dead or alive, to Nazi desecration. And we
will hold our line!’