Nivel Estatal

I spent two weeks in a field army hospital recovering from my wound. The politruk’s news and the summaries from the Information Bureau gave us little comfort. Our forces were still retreating into the depth of the country, towards Moscow and Leningrad.

On 16 August, the enemy cut the Moscow-Leningrad railroad in the area of the town of Budogoshch. The Nazi generals were trying to cut all the lines of communication with Leningrad as quickly as possible, in order to hinder the evacuation of industrial equipment and people into the inte- rior of the country. Savage fighting developed on the ground and in the air on a narrow sector of the front, which extended from Mga Station to the shores of Lake Ladoga. On our sector of the front, in the area of

Volosovo Station, the enemy’s advance was almost brought to a complete stop. This revived our spirits, and we were expecting similar news from other sectors. The adversary was still powerful, however. Suffering heavy losses in men and material, the Germans continued to make penetrations into our lines here and there and forced the Soviet forces to retreat. My wounded leg healed and was now almost no longer hurting, but my heart constantly ached, because I knew the danger facing my native city and my family.

During one morning check of the patients, the old, stooped, wrinkled doctor with the kind, fatherly eyes was walking from bed to bed. He was asking each wounded man one and the same question: ‘Well, how are you feeling?’

‘Discharge me, doctor, I’m fine now.’

‘Don’t worry, now I’ll take a look and I’ll tell you whether or not you’re well. No, dear fellow, you’re not fully healed, but we’ll do what we can for you.’

He took a close look at my leg as well. ‘Your wound has healed,’ said the doctor, ‘but you’ll still have some pain in the leg.’

A nurse placed a check mark next to my name; this meant that they were going to discharge me. I said goodbye to the other guys in the ward, put on a new uniform, slung my sniper’s rifle over my shoulder, and went outside.

It was 27 August. The sun was high in the sky; the leaves on the trees were limp, while the grass was wilted. The air was hot, like inside an oven. Having made my way on foot past the Glukhovo State Farm, I sat down on the side of the road and started to smoke while waiting for a passing vehicle. My shin was hurting, and my toes felt numb. Kneading my leg, I recalled my front-line friend Petr Romanov. Where was he now? How was his treatment going?

I heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. A truck coming from the direction of the forest was kicking up dust. I raised my rifle over my head, the driver slowed, and the truck came to a stop next to me. ‘Going to the front?’ the driver asked.

‘Give me a lift; it’s tough for me to walk.’

‘Climb into the back and keep an eye on the sky. If you spot any “vultures” [slang reference to German planes], let me know!’

I climbed over the side of the truck, settled down comfortably among some boxes, and the truck set off in a cloud of dust. The driver drove quickly, skilfully manoeuvring around the shell craters. When we reached the outskirts of Gubanitsy, enemy fighters appeared overhead. The driver

parked the truck under a spreading maple, hopped out of the cab, and asked, ‘Where are you going, brother, to Luga or Volosovo?’

‘To Volosovo.’

‘Then head straight ahead on foot; I’m going to Khudanki.’ He glanced up at the sky, and gestured with his head at the circling planes: ‘I don’t know if I’ll manage to get past them, but I must; the anti-aircraft gunners are waiting for the ammunition.’ The driver was silent for a moment, and then gave a sly smile: ‘It’s nothing; I’ll give them the slip. This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered them.’ I remembered the sly smile on the broad, sunburned face of this Russian soldier for a long time.

Having thanked the comrade, I set out along a village road leading to Volosovo. Crowds of refugees were streaming in the opposite direction – children, adolescents, women and old men. The people were tired, the children were crying – they were thirsty. The mothers were urging them to hold on just a little longer, trying to get as far away as possible. The people were exhausted, often abandoning their meagre belongings by the side of the road.

On the edge of a ditch, an elderly woman was sitting with two girls. She gave me a friendly look and asked: ‘Heading to the front, sonny?’

‘To the front-line trenches, mammy!’ ‘What’s with that leg?’

‘It was wounded.’

The woman shifted her exhausted gaze to the dusty road, along which refugees were constantly moving. Towheaded girls were sitting on either side of the old woman. One was about 8 to 10 years of age; she was holding a bundle on her lap, and squinting from the bright sun, watching the men, women and children cutting across a field. The other girl, about 5 or 6 years old, having laid her curly-haired head on the lap of her grand- mother, was sleeping. I saw her smiling at someone or something in her sleep. But when the smile faded, her face became almost like that of a distressed adult.

The little girl woke up from some artillery explosions, but her eyes were continuing to struggle with sleep. Finally, catching sight of me, an armed man in a uniform, the little girl huddled closely against her grandmother and wrapped her little arms around the old woman’s neck. She looked at me frowningly with wide, hate-filled eyes. She thought I was a German.

‘Why are you so frightened, Raiska? He’s one of ours.’

The girl’s gaze softened. She immediately relaxed and again laid her little head on her grandmother’s lap, watching me out of the corners of her eyes.

Not far from the road, some boys on horseback were driving a herd of cows across a field.

‘You see, sonny, we stay close to the herd,’ the old woman spoke up, addressing me. She gave a caress to the head of her granddaughter with her dry, wrinkled hand. ‘We have no hot meals. We live on the milk.’

The older girl now and then touched the cover of my sniper’s rifle with her little hand and looked at me affectionately. In these moments, it was as if I was seeing the Ukraine, Belorussia, and the lands of Smolensk, enveloped in the flames of war; our wives, children, fathers and mothers, having abandoned their homes, were now resignedly trudging along the dusty roads into the country’s interior, in order there to help us with their labour in our struggle against the fascist hordes. Perhaps my own mother was now walking in this same way down a different dusty road?

The old woman looked at me with wise, kind eyes, and as if reading my thoughts, sighed deeply: ‘It’s hard for you to fight, dears. But it is also difficult for us, oh, how difficult! I’m trying to make my way to Leningrad with my granddaughters. Their father is at the front, and their mother was killed during a bombing.’

Artillery salvoes thundered in the distance. The old woman hastily grabbed the hands of the little girls, gave me a quick nod goodbye, and quickly set off into the woods. On the village road, the people also quick- ened their pace, glancing backward in fright.

At Volosovo Station I encountered an unusual procession. Two burly old men and several women armed with hatchets and pitchforks were leading four bedraggled, filthy German soldiers. Two carts, loaded with boxes of shells, brought up the rear of this procession. A crowd of women and children, buzzing like agitated bees, were swarming around the little column. Falling in behind this strange procession were Red Army soldiers heading towards the front. I also joined the crowd.

We stopped in a little village. From somewhere an empty box appeared from among the cases of shells. An excited young woman clambered up on the box and looked spitefully at the Germans.

‘Comrades!’ the woman shouted. ‘There they are, Hitler’s heroes! He dropped them on us in parachutes [rumours of German paratroop drops were rife among the population in the summer of 1941]. In the daytime, they hid in a haystack like mice, but at night they fired on our villages and roads. They were trying to create panic.’

The Red Army soldiers began talking among themselves: ‘A spunky woman!’

‘Interesting, how did they catch them?’

Guessing the thoughts of those present, the woman appealed to one of the old men: ‘Uncle Mikha, tell the comrades how you tracked down these vipers.’

The thickset – with shoulders as broad as a door – and pale as the moon Uncle Mikha, bewildered by all the attention, was shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

‘There’s nothing really to say,’ he softly said. ‘Anyone would have done it . . . It was just before dawn, and the first roosters had only begun to crow. I couldn’t sleep; worry was gnawing at my heart: what would our lives be like, if the German comes? I stepped out for some fresh air. The forest was quiet. I walked over to the brook, thinking I’d have a little sit. Just then there was a gunshot. I think, “Who’s doing this firing?” I crossed the brook on a board and entered the glade next to the gully. A haystack was standing there, just as it is now. I was about to head back to my forest hut, when suddenly there was a movement in the haystack. Aha, I think, something fishy is going on here; our own guys wouldn’t hide in haystacks and fire on places at night. I quickly, or at least as fast as I could manage, ran back to the village and roused the people. At dawn we walked up to the gully and grabbed them.’

Uncle Mikha shot a suspicious glance at the Germans: ‘A dastardly people . . . in a word, rats!’

I was just about to leave, when I unexpectedly caught sight of Sergeant Akimov in the crowd. He also noticed me. Akimov ran up to me and almost knocked me off my feet.

‘Friend!’ He tightly embraced me. ‘We meet again! You’re alive, well? That’s great! We’ve often been thinking about you.’

Akimov was a young, slender, well-built man, blessed with fine features on his slightly elongated face. The guys all loved the Sergeant, and everyone, even the officers, called him affectionately ‘our Akimych’. By nature, Akimov was a cheerful, clever fellow, but in battle he was a tough and capable fighter. Everyone especially respected him for the fact that wherever Akimych might be, he would never leave behind a comrade in distress.

‘Well, what fates have brought you here, so far in the rear?’ I asked the Sergeant.

‘What “rear”? The bullets might not be whistling, but there are more than enough shell fragments!’

On the edge of the forest, we took a seat on the grass. Akimov propped his rifle between his knees, took off his forage cap, turned it inside out,

and wiped his sweaty face with it. Having rested a bit, we went back out onto the road, and by evening we had successfully reached our company area. The reunion with my combat-friends was noisy, with lots of embraces and kisses.

During the war, I more than once had to part from my comrades. The parting was always sad, as if I was losing my dearest friends. But the return to my combat family was always joyful, even though death was always around us.

I reported to my company commander on my return from the hospital. Kruglov, smiling, firmly embraced me: ‘I’m very happy that you’ve come back. After all, there’s only a few of us veterans left.’

The Senior Lieutenant remembered something and took me by the arm: ‘We’re going now to the battalion commander. He has a gift for you.’ Kruglov pointed at my left breast.

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