David Robbins - War of the Rats - A Novel of Stalingrad

“And after the building blew up last night, you ran, simply ran, through the streets to reach the Russian lines?”

“The explosion covered our sounds. I couldn’t hear myself run. Chief Master Sergeant Zaitsev ran ahead of us. We followed. It wasn’t my decision to make. But it was the right decision.”

Danilov closed his notebook. “One last question, Private Chernova. In these dangerous times, it is important that Russia is defended by, let us say, committed fighters. As a woman, you would die for the rodina ? You are prepared for that?”

The Communist bastard, she thought. His question carries the same stench as the Green Hats’ queries on the Stalingrad road.

“Comrade commissar, I would not die for the rodina as a woman. I would die as a Russian.” Tania cocked her head as if aiming her sniper rifle. “And I certainly will not die a coward. Comrade.”

Danilov tucked his notebook under his arm and yanked in his legs. He stood from the crate. He was barely taller when standing than Tania was seated.

“Of course, my dear.” He buttoned his coat with one hand. He stopped and reached the hand to Tania. When he spoke, the dramatic and false qualities of his voice were gone.

“Of course. Comrade.”

Tania shook the flabby hand. She watched Danilov walk away. Zaitsev looked across the room. He nodded to Danilov when the little commissar bustled past him.

Tania replaced her spoon into her boot. She laid her plate down and walked back to the firing line. Three other soldiers were taking the time for extra practice. Their shots echoed in the great hall while she knelt behind her crate. She brushed aside empty casings, spilling them to clatter across the floor. She stuffed paper wads in her ears and threw back the bolt to send home another round. Fixing her eye through the scope on the smallest circle, she curled the second fold of her index finger over the trigger. She watched the target bob, riding her heartbeat. She waited, her breathing shallow, for her hand to steady. In seconds the target grew dead still under the crosshairs. It seemed huge, unmissable, summoning the bullet. She pulled the trigger slowly, evenly. The rifle cracked and recoiled into her tender shoulder. Through the scope, she found the sudden red breadth of the brick wall, struck in the center of the smallest circle. She pulled back the bolt to fire again.

THE AFTERNOON SESSION WAS BEGUN WITH ZAITSEV’S call: “Hares! Let’s go! Bring your rifles!”

He led them up the basement steps with his rifle slung across his shoulders like a yoke. The recruits followed him to the Lazur plant’s first floor. They wove through the maze of twisted metal and charred ceiling timbers to a row of sooty windows facing the no-man’s-land rail yard. Zaitsev halted a few steps from one of the large openings; the window sash had long ago been blown in. His boots crunched on broken glass.

He pointed out the window at the German-held buildings beyond no-man’s-land. The air drifting in was brisk, the Russian winter’s first white blossom.

“You are looking west.” Zaitsev spoke. “Right now, the sun is behind you. Whenever possible, set up your shots with the sun at your back. It makes it harder for your enemy to find you. Also, it prevents glare off your scope.”

Tania looked out at the crater-filled rail yard, across which she and Fedya had crawled two nights ago, and the railman’s shed and the trench they’d tumbled into. Now, in the afternoon light, she saw a dozen Russian machine guns, manned at fifty-meter intervals in the trench, aimed across the yard. Fedya and I could have collected a few bullets that night, she thought back. Nicht schiessen.

On all fours, Zaitsev crept to the lip of the window to set his rifle on the sill. He took from his pocket a pair of gloves, which he’d lashed together with string; he laid them on the sill. “Make yourself some sort of shooting bag,” he said over his shoulder. “It’ll keep your barrel from sliding.”

He gazed down his scope. Without moving his head, he said, “See the second German tank, the one with the track blown off?”

Zaitsev fired. In the distance, Tania heard an impact, metal on metal, ping, ring through the report of the rifle.

The Hare turned from his shot. “The iron cross on the front fender of that tank is exactly four hundred meters from this wall. This row of windows is called the ‘shooting gallery.’ You will come here to calibrate your sights regularly or whenever you have any doubts about your rifle’s accuracy. Approach the windows carefully, two at a time. Set your sights for the proper distance and wait for my order to fire.”

Tania crawled to the window in front of her. Beside her was the Armenian woman, Slepkinian. She set her scope for four hundred meters and took careful aim at the Nazi tank’s insignia.

Zaitsev slid back from his window and stood. He raised his binoculars and walked behind the two hares at the first window.

“Shaikin. Fire.”

Tania braced at the report of the rifle to her right. From the field she heard nothing to indicate a hit.

“Nikolay.”

Kulikov, next to Shaikin, fired. He, too, missed.

Zaitsev walked to the next window. Again, he instructed the trainees to fire, one at a time. Each, in his turn, missed.

Zaitsev said, “Partisan.” She held the black cross on the tank’s fender dead in her sights and squeezed smoothly. The rifle kicked. She listened for the ping of the hit. There was nothing.

After they had all fired, not one of the hares had struck the insignia. Zaitsev spoke calmly from behind. There was a satisfaction in his voice. Some ruse of his had worked.

“Firing at a wall in a basement is, as you can see, not the same as shooting at a target in the open air. Out here on the battlefield, you must take into account the wind, the humidity, the temperature, whether you are shooting uphill or downhill, even the time of day. Most of you have experience hunting. But none of you is accustomed to firing with a telescopic sight over these kinds of distances. You must develop the shooting instincts of the sniper. You must read the signs the terrain and nature give you. Now look through your sights at the target.”

Tania fixed her crosshairs on the tank’s insignia. Zaitsev’s boots ground on the floor behind her.

“Look just above the fender. Today is cool but bright. The fender is dark. That means it’s going to collect heat. You’ll see heat waves rising off it. Which direction are the heat waves moving, left or right?”

Several voices answered. “Left.”

“Yes. This tells you the wind is blowing from right to left. The waves are barely moving, so the wind is slight. But you’re firing across a wide, open plain. You must reason that the wind is blowing unimpeded. Were it humid, or early in the morning after a cold night, you’d need to adapt your aim for those differences as well. Next, you’re shooting slightly downhill. Take that into account. The trajectory of your bullet will decay faster and you will undershoot. The opposite is true when you’re firing uphill; your bullet will sail and you’ll overshoot. Now turn around.”

Tania lowered her rifle, Zaitsev held a bullet in his fingers straight out from his shoulder.

“When you’re firing a round across a level plane, do you know how long the bullet is in the air?”

Zaitsev dropped the bullet. It clattered on the floor in a fraction of a second.

“That’s how long. Your telescopic sights do more than magnify your target. They help you give the proper loft to your bullet for the distance you’re shooting. This keeps the bullet in the air longer. You must learn to help your scope do its job by taking into account all the factors your bullet has to fight through to reach its target. Turn around and try again, on my signal. Think it through, set it up, then fire.”