—— Red Army Sniper ——172hot, and the nights short and also hot. The grass, it turned out,
was still growing and waving, and you could still relax by lying
down on it, looking up at the sky. And quite close by, just beyond
the parapets of the trenches, bluebells and daisies were growing
and stretching up towards the sun on their slender stems. We
saw bumblebees flying past, and heard their buzzing distinctly.
Even the flutter of dragonfly wings flitting above us was audible.
Only the occasional isolated rifle shots of snipers in the enemy’s
direction and blinding flares hissing up at night – that was all that
broke the silence that had descended.
‘There’s something funny about all this,’ the battalion
commander, Senior Lieutenant Arkhipov, told Lieutenant Popov of
our company, who was reporting on the situation in our sector of
the front line. ‘It’s even ringing in my ears! Don’t relax, Lieutenant,
be ready for anything unexpected. And in the meantime let your
troops carry on deepening the trenches and dig more foxholes.
And observation! Don’t drop your guard for a minute. I’ve got a
feeling the Nazis are up to something!’
And we observed. Every metre in the enemy defences was
scrutinised more thoroughly than before. The slightest change
there and in the landscape before us, with which we were familiar
down to the smallest details, was picked up and recorded in reports.
And during the daylight hours of 21 July Lieutenant Popov was
already reporting to battalion commander Arkhipov by telephone:
‘My observation team have reported major enemy troop movement
from the rear up to our front line!’
The same day there was another call to the battalion com
mander after nightfall. ‘I can hear the noise of engines in the
distance. Sounds like tanks. How many there are there I can’t
establish without reconnaissance. It’s quiet here in the meantime,
very quiet, you could say!’ the company commander stressed.
‘Strengthen the observation posts and put the company on
full battle readiness. Stock up on ammunition, have some petrol
bombs urgently delivered, and take some more antitank grenades.
Station the antitank gunners more rationally. And I’ll report your