—— Red Army Sniper ——22Who chained them there it is difficult to say. Maybe they did it
themselves, hoping for heaven knows what. But, well camouflaged
and completely invisible, they annihilated our troops and officers
one by one in calculated fashion with their accurate fire as they
moved from place to place. They took out the drivers of cars and
trucks along with their small numbers of passengers. Then they
would set fire to the vehicles themselves. On discovering where
these ‘cuckoos’ were from their shots and where their bullets
struck, albeit only approximately, we would rake suspected sites
with machinegun fire and destroy them. Occasionally, under
cover of our own fire, we would creep right up to the tree where a
sniper was ensconced and finish off the pest with hand grenades
tossed up into the foliage. We would pull the grenade’s pin, but
not throw it immediately; rather we waited several seconds.
Then it would explode in the air, up where the marksman was
positioned; there was no time for it to fall back onto the ground
and injure us.
One day, when I was taking part in such operations for the
first time, I was surprised that after several grenades thrown by me
had detonated in the foliage above, nobody fell out of the tree, as
ought to have happened. I decided to climb the tree. Great was my
amazement when, taking all the safety measures, I ascended about
six metres and... beheld, almost beside me, a sniper hanging
down head first with one foot chained to the tree! And a little
higher up, on the same sort of chain, hung his rifle, which he had
prudently discarded. I could not reach it, but, feeling that I was now
completely safe, I climbed higher. Among the thick foliage he had
a wellequipped lair. There I discovered two kit bags. One of them
contained not only provisions, mainly tinned food, but carefully
packed bundles of cash. There were enough provisions for at least
a couple of weeks. There was chocolate and biscuits, condensed
milk, cigarettes and matches, a portable spirit lamp and a flask of
fuel for it. In the second bag there was a whole box of cartridges,
which had already been opened, and a single grenade. Apart
from the cartridges the bag contained empty food tins, boxes and