—— Thirty-Five Years Later ——201this bare patch but had not finished the job. There were no trenches
of any dimension, but in places the land had been hollowed out
seemingly with a view to constructing dugouts. They were three
metres by three metres in area and of the same depth.
With Major Klimovich present I was in the vehicle interrogating
a Nazi scout we had only just detained. And suddenly somewhere
far away, and then closer and closer, exploding shells could be
heard. It was at this point I heard the voice of the radio operator:
‘Comrade Captain, artillery fire! Get out of the vehicle and
take cover!’
Being outside, he understood the situation clearly. But I had
not had time to gather up the documents before a shell exploded
over head and, with a frightful hoarse wheeze, the mortally
wounded Klimovich collapsed onto the floor. Still sitting there
with a huge shell fragment in his temple, the spy had also fallen
silent for eternity. My overcoat, which was hanging on a nail at
the head of the bed, was also shredded by numerous fragments...
I leapt out of the vehicle and dashed to where everybody else was
running – to the hollow covered with a waterproof cape and used
as a temporary dugout. I jumped down and with some difficulty
thrust myself into a corner. ‘Quite a crowd... ’ was all I could
think before a shell fell into this hollow followed by the boom of
an explosion.
What happened next I was told ten days later. It was like this.
As soon as the bombardment finished (apparently there was a Nazi
spotter sitting somewhere nearby), our medical orderlies began to
offer medical assistance to the wounded. They ran to the hollow,
which had been churned up by the explosion, and saw there was
nobody to rescue... They decided to fill it in, turning it into a
communal grave.
The April soil was hard, frozen and slightly dusted with snow.
Digging was difficult. I don’t know what it was actually like, but
this was what I heard: tossing in yet another spadefull of soil,
someone shouted: ‘Stop! There’s somebody alive – he’s moving!’
Either the cold earth and snow came to my aid, or else I came to