Notes of a Russian Sniper by Vassili Zaitsev

Author:Vassili Zaitsev [Zaitsev, Vassili]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: War, Memoir, WWII, Military
Published: 2013-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11: Find The Sniper

I cleaned myself up as best as I could. I was too enervated to sleep; I descended into the ravine to talk to the wounded soldiers who had arrived the preceding night. In order to locate the sniper who had hit Sasha Gryazev, it was crucial for me to find out where and under what conditions these other soldiers had been wounded. I was especially interested in bullet wounds. After all, every wound is different, and each one contains clues about the enemy's firepower at a particular site.

Near the entrance of the medical aid post sat a heavyset soldier. His black eyes were bright with that bitter soldier's humour that stays with us up to the moment of death. His mouth was bandaged shut.

The bandage over his chin was caked brown with dried blood. The soldier's large, dirty hands and shirt were both stained with splotches of blood. The staff at the aid post told me that he had been wounded the previous morning. His ID papers indicated that his name was Stefan Safonov. Next to him lay a torn section of a book with no cover, with a broken-off piece of a pencil stuck between its pages.

'How did the Fritzes manage to locate you?' I asked him.

The soldier gave me a glance full of reproach. His look said, 'Get lost', but I endured his withering gaze and waited for an answer. Finally he picked up the pencil and scribbled a reply onto a page of the book.

'You haven't had a chance to smell my breath, have you? If you'd like ... '

'That's all right,' I answered, 'just relax. I'm not trying to upset you, I just need to find out where and how you were wounded. It's very important.'

With his next response, I learned that Safonov had been shot while lighting up from a companion's cigarette.

'And where's your friend that gave you the light?'

'My friend, Chursin, is still at the front.' Safonov was writing furiously with the pencil. 'He's just waiting his turn ... they'll put a bullet through him, too, soon enough.'

'Idiots!' I blurted out angrily. 'We spent a whole week up on the hill, and managed to keep our heads away from Fritz fire, while in a single night you greenhorns manage to lose half your unit! What's your problem?'

Safonov scribbled some obscenities in response, and I got up and stormed out of the aid post, and back to my position.

I crawled through the trenches, to the grave of Sasha Gryazev, and then descended into a bunker, where after what seemed like a whole day of crawling on my knees, I was finally able to stand up straight. I had to figure out what to do about the enemy snipers in our area. I knew they were out there, but they were operating with a great deal of caution.

As a rule, Nazi snipers would take up positions deep within their own line of defence, whereas ours would crawl up to the very edge of our front lines.

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