Red Army Sniper A Memoir on the Eastern Front in World War II

—— Red Army Sniper ——

64

While one of them set out on his dangerous path with the flasks
attached to his back by broad straps, the other would prepare food
in the kitchen for the following day. Our cooks feared not for their
own lives as they made their way through fire to the front line, but
for the flasks, which could be struck along the way by fragments
of shells and mortar bombs exploding close by. The path from
the kitchen to the company’s location was not long, but it was
dangerous. And time and again the personnel were left with no
food. Sometimes instead of liquid soup we were brought the solid
ingredients. And then, if there was anything left in the kitchen,
the cook or the sergeant­major would negotiate his tortuous route
a second time. It was Sergeant­Major Vladimir Dudin who had
the hardest time: the trenches were shallow, while he was tall and
unused to ducking low to avoid the bullets. And then he would
arrive with the flasks from which the hissing liquid was already
spilling out.
Everyone was supposed to get half a mess­tin of thin but hot
borsch or soup. Some managed to make two courses out of it: first
they would drink the liquid with bread, while leaving the solid
matter to provide a second course. Hot tea was poured into the lid
of the mess­tin. Sometimes the only thing we had to brew it with
was a soaked rusk from the oven.
In the morning I was awakened by the company sentry.
‘It’s time, Nikolaev, up you get!’
‘What, already? What a pleasant dream you’ve interrupted!
I was dreaming of my mother. We were buying rye flat cakes, hot
and fragrant.. .’
‘Did you get to try one?’ asked the sentry.
‘You didn’t give me the chance,’ I  answered, closing my eyes
again in the hope that the dream would be repeated. But the sentry
wouldn’t let me – he saw what was going on.
‘Enough beddy­bye, Nikolaev. You’ll miss your Nazi.’
I leapt to my feet in an instant. It was about four in the morning.
On leaving the dugout, which stank of smoke and bitter soot, I was
glad to gulp in the pure winter morning air. Stripping to the waist