—— Duel ——65and grabbing a zinc cartridge box of clean snow from the parapet,
I had a quick wash. Decidedly woken up after this procedure,
I went back to the dugout quite alert. I had to hurry up and get to
the spot before the Nazi.
Warming up yesterday’s dinner on the stove, I hastily finished
the food. As emergency rations I took a 100g rusk of seemingly
prewar provenance. Now I could set out on my journey. First of
all, I rewrapped my rifle in clean cheesecloth. Then, removing
my boots, I did everything that Vasiliev had told me yesterday:
smeared my feet with fat, put on woollen socks that somebody had
given me, wrapped them in newspaper, and wound on double foot
wrappings. I put on some different boots which had been specially
brought by Dudin – two sizes bigger than my own. ‘The main
thing is to keep your feet warm,’ my mother always said. ‘The main
thing is to wind your foot wrapping on properly,’ the army taught.
So, I was no longer worried about ‘the main thing’. We had no
sheepskin coats or felt boots at that time, and so I dressed as usual
with an overcoat on top of my padded jacket and similar trousers.
I put the finishing touches to my attire with a white camouflage
suit.
Having listened to a heap of useful tips from my friends,
I hurriedly said goodbye: ‘Must go or the Nazi will get there ahead
of me!’
I already had quite a good appreciation of the locality – that
comes with being a scout – and therefore I quickly found my ‘war
path’. From the protected zone to my observation point I literally
crawled under the snow. Having reached the spot, I set myself up
as comfortably as possible. Slipping a cartridge into the chamber,
I laid the rifle on the forks prepared the previous evening. Now
I had everything ready for an encounter with my opponent; I just
had to wait patiently for first light. Today I would only need to take
a single shot. Or not even that. It could turn out that way...
Soon it began to grow quite light, and the outlines of the enemy
defences became clearly visible. My eyes did not move from the
spot where the German sniper was supposed to appear. However,