—— Red Army Sniper ——48‘senior forager’ with a group of soldiers to no man’s land, where
the women from Leningrad had been harvesting. We did not have
an easy time of it – searching for huge cabbages under deep snow
in fortydegree frost and cutting them in the dark and putting
them in sacks made from waterproof capes. But we managed to
get enough cabbages for the battalion to last us almost a month!
Vlad and I had a real laugh when I recalled my second
‘vegetable expedition’. For some reason that night the Nazis were
not directing any fire in our direction. But there was a very simple
explanation: apart from my group, the Nazis were also working
in the pitch darkness – they wanted some cabbages too. When we
worked out what was what, it was already too late; both sides had
scattered in different directions.
After thanking the host for the cabbage soup I withdrew to my
own quarters; before going out I had to check out my ‘girlfriend’,
as we snipers called our reliable 7.62 mm MosinNagant rifle with
its telescopic sight. Checking meant cleaning it, oiling it, and, in
winter, camouflaging it by wrapping it up in clean bandages, so
that it didn’t stand out against the snow. Setting myself down
on a box in my dugout, I set about this vital task. The soldiers
obligingly offered me cartridges from their supplies that were
marked in different colours: yellowtipped ones had a heavyweight
bullet; greentipped ones were tracer; armourpiercing bullets
were blacktipped, sometimes with a red body; and a red tip, rarely
seen, identified an explosiveincendiary bullet. The Germans and
their Finnish allies had yellow bullets which were explosive, the
so called ‘Dum Dum’ bullets that were prohibited by international
law. However, it was just such a bullet fired by a Nazi sniper
that exploded in my hand, ‘shattering the upper third of the left
shoulder’, as my medical records later described.
A sniper may go into ambush for a day, but he takes enough
bullets for a week – different ones, of all types. Who knows what
can happen in the front line over this period! Thoroughly wiping
every cartridge individually and placing them in the pockets of my
padded jacket and trousers, I also filled up my ammunition belt. As