—— Red Army Sniper ——180at his disposal on the sector. And from our rear the regimental
artillery and Semyon Yushin’s AA battery again bombarded the
gully. But we only found out about this later. In the meantime, we
needed to decide what we ourselves were to do.
Through cracks in the dugout door I could see almost the
entire gully through which the Nazis were now running towards
the trenches, while, through a small window, our defences were
easily visible. Just as before, there was a large number of Nazis.
‘Get the grenades ready!’ I shouted to Anatoly Knyazev,
breaking the window with my rifle butt. ‘I’ll help the lads right
from here! But use the grenades to stop the Nazis getting close to
the dugout, guard the entrance! Sergei, keep trying to get the radio
going – it doesn’t look as if there’ll be any more artillery strikes.
Try to get the door open – Knyazev will help you.’
I fired shot after shot into the backs of the attacking Nazis.
For the time being it was easy; the Nazis could not see me and
could not hear my shots. But they did not only fall from my bullets
- I could see only too well how our troops were fighting off the
Nazis. ‘So long as they have some officers there still alive, even just
one!’ I thought, reloading my rifle for the umpteenth time.
Knyazev, who had long exhausted all the cartridges in his
Nagant revolver except the three left ‘for emergencies’, as he put it,
was following my firing and prompting me:
‘There, to the left, there’s an officer, waving his arms. He’s
about to jump into the trench. Get him!’ he cried and in an instant
I subdued the overzealous Nazi. And each time yet another German
fell dead from my bullet, Anatoly would keep count, amusingly
adding comments:
‘That’s the twelfth one played out! Number seventeen has waved
goodbye! Number twenty has ascended to the heavens!’
Amidst the feverish firing and the excitement of battle I failed
to notice that I was beginning to make audible comments myself
just before dispatching the next Nazi: ‘Well, pray to God! Thine be
the kingdom, bastard!’ And, again setting my sights on yet another
Nazi, I would smoothly press the trigger with words: ‘Gone to your