Penalty Strike by Alexander V. Pyl'cyn

Author:Alexander V. Pyl'cyn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: HIS027100
ISBN: eBook ISBN: 9781907677533
Publisher: Helion & Company Ltd.
Published: 2006-09-06T00:00:00+00:00

In those difficult days of October 1944, we had to focus all our attention on rearranging the German trenches and make them suitable for strong defence in the opposite direction, i.e. against the Germans. That meant that we had to transfer breastworks, remake MG nests, dig niches for hand-grenades and ammo, create new communication trenches and many other things. In short, there was plenty of work. Soon we received a phone line. That was again through the care of Senior Lieutenant Valery Semykin, who again stayed with us in the trenches on his own initiative. His office was to be in the staff for most of the time, while he wanted to be with us in the trenches!

I have described many practical details of our life at the front, as I think that this experience might be, God forbid, useful for future generations of history scholars. They would be able to learn about our life at the front. That is why I mention another practical detail. During fortification works we dug holes, at least one per squad, some 20–30 metres away from the main trench, for latrines. When those holes were getting full, we covered them with soil and dug new ones.

It was already late October. The nights grew colder, sometimes even frosty. Silver hoar-frost remained on the ground and dry grass for a long time in the morning. There was a simple shallow shelter in our sector of defence. My orderly found it and I was accommodated in it together with the company’s clerk. Incidentally, our clerk was not a shtrafnik, but a regular soldier, Malkin. He had a calligraphic handwriting and could spontaneously think up funny or scary stories. He never took part in battles, always staying with the company’s papers. Then I invited one former deputy platoon leader, a good friend of mine, to live in the same shelter. Soldiers dug another shelter for my deputy George Sergeev. As company commander, he and his deputy had to be apart from each other in order not to be killed by the same shell. My company was then less than a platoon. While platoons only had 8–10 men each, so the sector that we had to defend seemed too wide for us. We started to get replacements quite soon, though. After a couple of days they brought some ten rookies to us, and my company was then about a regular rifle platoon in size. It was good for strengthening our defences.

But I was upset to see one of the AT-rifle crew members there, whom I had already recommended for decoration, and release from the battalion, for the tanks that they knocked out. That was a demonstration of the ‘vigilance’ of our kombat. Both Baturin and our NKVD officer scrutinised us. They found out who fired at the tanks and who loaded the AT-rifle. As they decided that only one person could knock out a tank, they refused to release and decorate the loader of the AT-rifle. The shtrafnik was offended, and I was offended, too.

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