—— From the Soviet Information Bureau... ——185movements spare and decisive. As soon as the enemy were within
twenty or thirty metres, the sergeant gave the order: ‘Fire!’
The first to speak up was Karpov’s Maxim. Its voice was loud,
harsh and angry. ‘Rattattattat!’ Ivan blazed away at the Nazis. In
response came the cries and groans of the wounded Fritzes, who
had not expected such a decisive repulse. Under the impact of the
machinegun fire the attacking wave receded for a moment, but,
gathering again, launched another headlong attack.
‘You want more? Here it comes! What, you don’t like it?’ said
Ivan Karpov, angrily squeezing out the words through firmly
clenched teeth as he pressed the trigger.
The Nazi lines now halted, became confused and turned back.
The Germans were fleeing, leaving dozens of bodies in the gully.
There was a particularly large number in front of Sergeant Karpov’s
gun. But then enemy mortar bombs began exploding right in front
of his firing position.
‘Found me out, the rats!’ said Ivan and carefully covered his
machine gun with a waterproof cape. ‘Rest up for a bit, mate!’
He took up his sniper’s rifle. ‘Let them think they’ve smashed the
machine gun!’
But the Germans kept up the pressure. More and more of
them appeared from beyond the railway embankment. They
approached, stooping low to the ground, encouraging themselves
with the rattle of their submachine guns.
‘Grenades at the ready, everybody!’ shouted Sergeant Karpov,
and carried on firing his machinegun, going through one belt
after another until the water in the barrel jacket boiled over. Beside
him his ammunition bearer, Vasily Neznanov, was firing at the
Nazis with his sniper’s rifle.
‘Six!’ he called, counting his hits, but suddenly he groaned:
‘That’s it, lads, byebye! Sergeant write to my.. .’ and, without
finishing the sentence, he fell to the bottom of the trench.
Looking round at the dying man, Karpov only wavered a
second. Then he leapt down to him and seized the sniper’s rifle
from his already chilled hands. He had no time to shake his