—— Red Army Sniper ——76The commander got up. We leapt to our feet as well. The general
thanked us for the chat and shook everyone’s hand in farewell.
Except that he missed me out and went back to his desk. He picked
something up from there, turned to face us and said:
‘Well, comrades thank you for your service! And you, Comrade
Nikolaev, on behalf of the Military Council of the FortySecond
Army, I am rewarding you for your active extermination of the
Nazi vermin with a watch engraved with your name,’ and, holding
out a small box, he shook my hand.
‘I serve the Soviet Union.’ I replied with some agitation.
When he had given the order to ‘stand easy’ and we had left
the office, the lads asked me to show them the gift. It was a large
pocket watch from the Kirov Factory. Engraved on the inside of
the lid was: ‘To Comrade Nikolaev, Y. A., from the Army’s Military
Council for military distinction in fighting German Fascism.’
The lads looked at the watch, read the inscription, and
congratulated me, though none of us could have imagined what
fate had in store for me and this watch in the not too distant
future.
We returned by the same route, by way of the divisional HQ, but
now in reverse order of seniority. At the divisional staff and in the
regiment they showed interest in the content of our conversation
with the general, examined my watch, and read the inscription on
the lid, but nobody asked: ‘Aren’t you hungry, lads?’ Of course we
were not counting on an invitation ‘to dine with us’ – it wasn’t the
time. But they could have let us off a bit earlier...
I covered the route from the regimental general staff to the
battalion command post at maximum speed – such was my desire
to get back quickly and have something to eat. But it was not an
easy path and involved travelling some distance along winding,
snowcovered frontier roads.
‘It looks like something’s under way,’ I thought, hurriedly
making my way through the company’s dispositions via trenches
which had changed noticeably in my absence; there were empty
zinc cartridge boxes lying around by the dugouts, oiled wrapping