—— My First Partner ——33‘No, people like this will not let the Nazis into their city. So
we must hold fast too!’ thought Ivan and swore that he would not
spare his own life to wreak vengeance on the Nazis for their evil
deeds.
In response to an inner calling, Young Communist League
member Ivan Dobrik became a sniper. With every passing day his
tally of sacred vengeance rose and his mastery of his craft grew and
became more refined. The name of Ivan Dobrik, sharpshooter and
exterminator of the Nazi plague, began to be mentioned more and
more in the pages of military newspapers.
Our trenches ran across some land which, before the war, had
belonged to a state farm. The machinery and personnel had been
evacuated from it even before the Germans arrived. The only thing
left behind was the harvest, which they had not had time to destroy.
And so now there was a cabbage field spread out in no man’s land
in front of our battalion’s trenches.
One day a number of women came to the regimental
headquarters from Leningrad. They asked to be let through to the
front line.
‘There’s cabbages out there. And our children are going hungry!’
‘Do you realise what you are asking? It’s in no man’s land!
It’s under observation by the Germans day and night; they’ll
shoot you straight away,’ Rodionov, our regimental commander
remonstrated with the women.
‘Well, we’ll work at night! Then the Nazis won’t hit us,’ they
insisted. ‘And your soldiers can help us a bit.. .’
Giving way to pressure from the women, the lieutenant colonel
was forced to refer the matter to the divisional commander,
Panchenko. He gave the okay but requested that all safety measures
be taken and that the women be covered with sniper and machine
gun fire.
And so the following day about twenty of them came, all with
huge mattress sacks. The women had a resolute look about them.
They knew what they were in for. They had been warned. Right
on cue the guard commander let the women into our company’s