—— An ‘Invitation’ ——135Of course, the Nazis were not slow to open fire with mortars.
‘Let’s run for it!’ Ivan could barely utter the words through
tears of laughter and, grabbing his rifle, he darted towards our
trenches, pressing one hand to a wound he had only just suffered
as he went – fragments from a mortar bomb exploding beside us
had embedded themselves in his backside. I dashed after him.
We both ran upright, paying no attention to the shrapnel. It
was of no significance; some kind of nervous tic contracted our
cheeks – we did not even laugh, but squealed and went into spasms
every time we as much as looked at each other. So, laughing all the
way, we finally fell into our trenches.
‘You’ve put on quite a show,’ said the observer escorting Ivan
and me under cover. ‘Have you turned into a couple of halfwits,
or what?’ How a bullet or a significant shell fragment failed to hit
us, how we avoided treading on our own mines, God only knows.
With the onset of spring our medics became concerned about
infections. There were ample reasons for this. Constant mal
nourish ment led to weakening of the men’s constitution. Moreover,
the troops were drinking untreated swampy water from shell
holes because there were no other sources at hand, and the snow
had already melted. True, for the meantime everything was fine
thanks to the bustling activities of our battalion medical assistant,
Ivan Vasilyev, who was a bright young lad. After graduating from
Tambov medical school and working for a year in a rural hospital
before being called up into the army, Vasilyev knew his business
well. Besides that, he was a brave lad. In battle our Mikhailovich
(the patronymic by which everyone addressed him), concerned
himself not just with what was in front of him – patching up and
evacuating the wounded – but also found time to fire back expertly
at the enemy when things got tough. And one day he somehow
managed to take a big strapping Nazi prisoner. Mikhailovich was
constantly venturing into the heat of the action and saved the lives
of hundreds of wounded men.
During lulls in the action Vasilyev was concerned with pre
ventative measures. For instance, he organised the collection