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

Zaitsev sat again on the keg. “Do you want me to hunt on Mamayev Kurgan? I know it pretty well.”

Batyuk waved his hand. “Not yet.” He opened Zaitsev’s sniper journal to the first page. “Tell me about your introduction to being a sniper.”

Zaitsev had seen his first snipers during the battle for the Tractor Factory only eighteen days before, two lithe men crawling in the direction of the bullets while others dug their way to cover. Zaitsev had admired their courage, how well they seemed to work on their own.

“Do you like working on your own?” Batyuk inquired.

“I am not unaccustomed to it. It’s how I hunt.”

“Who commissioned you a sniper? When did it happen?”

“On October eighth. We were in a shop of the Tractor Factory, pinned down under a machine gun. I don’t know—I just crawled to a spot, aimed, and fired.”

“Distance?”

“One hundred and seventy-five meters.”

“You took out the machine gunner?”

“Yes.”

“And you shot the next two Nazis who got behind the gun.”

“I did.” Zaitsev was surprised Batyuk knew this.

“Lieutenant Deriabyn approached you and told you to report to the sniper unit of my division, yes? You, along with your Siberian friend Viktor Medvedev—another crack shot, I hear—began as snipers with your telescopic sights the next day.”

Zaitsev nodded. Batyuk was not inviting comment.

“What kind of training did you get?”

Zaitsev said nothing.

“Hmmm?” Batyuk took up the penknife. He tapped it on the table. It said, quietly, Answer me, Chief Master Sergeant.

Zaitsev’s first days as a freshman sniper had been marked by a funereal silence. The nine other snipers in the squad did not speak often. No one seemed sure how long any of them would live. Camaraderie did not exist. The snipers were fresh-scrubbed boys and weasel-eyed men, long-limbed athletes and stocky pugs, all volunteers. They had been recommended for sniper duty by their platoon commanders, each for his ability to kill one target at a time from a distance. It seemed they were all resolute to survive the same way, one at a time, alone, at a distance.

The unit lived in a dirt cave, a bunker dug by a heavy artillery round and then covered with rafters and debris to disguise it from Nazi dive-bombers. At night, when Zaitsev and Viktor returned to the snipers’ bunker, they alone talked by the glow of the lantern of strategies and their similar childhoods in the Urals. They spoke of hunting the enemy in Stalingrad as if the Nazis were animals in the wild, driven by instinct more than intellect. War, they agreed, scoured away man’s humanness to reveal the beast inside. The beast was what Zaitsev and Viktor tracked and killed.

There was neither structure nor training in place for the snipers; experience was their teacher, the battle gave them their orders. Some of the men were sullen; others shone brightly, ready to prove their worth. Many had strength; others had patience; some had brains. Few combined all three, and Zaitsev and Viktor watched the faces come and go, disappearing into the giant meat grinder of war in the decimated streets, cellars, rusted metal, and pockmarked walls.

“None, sir,” Zaitsev answered. “No training.”

Batyuk turned back to the opening page in the journal. “Tell me about your first sniper kill.” He found a place on the page with his finger. “October eighth. You had two kills near the railway behind the chemical factory.”

On Zaitsev’s initial dawn as a sniper, he’d spotted an enemy unit digging a trench to connect two shattered rail cars. That evening he’d asked the sniper squad’s leader, a corporal, for permission to return and hunt them. Since he was a chief master sergeant, the rank he brought with him from his years as a naval clerk, and the highest-ranking soldier in the bunker, he was told to do what he wanted. Before dawn, he and Viktor crawled out to take up positions three hundred meters from the trench.

Zaitsev and Viktor watched the Nazis through binoculars under the rising sun. The two snipers let the Germans show themselves above the trench a few times to give them confidence that the area was secure. They would wait for one of the digging soldiers to finish his labor and thrust the shovel into the dirt or lean on it. That would be the time for a chest shot.

“Why in the chest?” Batyuk interrupted.

A chest shot, Zaitsev explained, would more likely cause the target to drop the shovel and leave it on top of the breastwork when he fell. A shot in the back would increase the odds of him taking the shovel back down into the trench. Just as planned, the first soldier to die— with Medvedev’s bullet in his heart—let the shovel fly from his grasp before he tumbled backward into the trench. Viktor and Zaitsev trained their sights on the tool left lying in full view. In minutes a head and an arm appeared above the dirt wall to retrieve it.

Viktor whispered, “You.”

Zaitsev’s bullet pierced the Nazi’s cheek.

“Where did you learn this tactic?” Batyuk sat forward, his fingers playing under his chin.

“It’s a simple ploy for a hunter from the Urals, sir. Wolves and other animals in the taiga mate for life. You bait one with the body of the other.”

Batyuk opened his hands. “Ah, yes, of course. In Siberia. I fear we’re out of wolves in my home, the Ukraine.” He turned more pages in the journal. “And this one? Last week you were on the southern slope of Mamayev Kurgan, hunting enemy snipers.” Batyuk held the book closer to his eyes. “What is the ‘mortar shell trick’?”

Again Zaitsev explained to his colonel. He’d picked up this ploy from a German sniper who’d feasted on Russian wounded during their evacuation through a ravine near Mamayev Kurgan. Zaitsev had crawled to a position high above the ravine. He lay behind cover for hours, watching with his artillery periscope. The periscope was an excellent tool, allowing him to stay out of sight and observe a wide range at four power, the same as his sniper scope. It was precise to 250 meters. Looking near the crest of the hill, Zaitsev saw a heap of empty brass mortar shells. He counted twenty-three shells. He noted that one among the pile had no bottom.

“You counted the shells?” Batyuk tapped his pocketknife in his palm. “I marvel at your attention to detail. That’s fantastic.”

“Not really, sir. Noticing details is a more important skill than shooting for distance. Movements in the terrain, even the smallest shift in a rock or a new hole in a wall, are the only clues you may get to the location of a sniper. These are the tracks we read, just like footprints in the snow or animal scat on the forest floor.”

Batyuk nodded. Zaitsev knew he was telling his colonel things the man did not, could not, know. Oh, well, he thought, Batyuk asked me. What can I do but tell him? Zaitsev reminded himself to try not to boast. You’re just a hunter, hunting. It’s what you do well. Let it speak for itself.

“When I saw the bottomless mortar shell, I realized it would make a perfect shooting tube. It could be buried inside a trench mound or hidden among other shells, as this sniper had done. It would make him almost invisible.”

Zaitsev had focused his periscope on the shell. With his free hand, he raised his helmet on his bayonet. A flash appeared inside the shell. The helmet sprang off the bayonet, dented in the front. Zaitsev gave the sniper credit for his patience and cunning. He’d had the first shot. The next belonged to the Hare.

The following dawn Zaitsev crawled to the same spot and located the shell pile. He counted again. This time he found only twenty-two shells. The shooting tube was gone. This sniper was no freshman; he knew to shoot and move. He’d taken the open shell with him. Where? Using the periscope, Zaitsev looked in every pit in the ground, along every mound. After three exhausting hours he found the brass shell buried near the top of a trench a hundred meters east of its original site. The camouflage was sloppy; part of the tube was left sticking out of the trench. A yellow reflection glistened in the rising sun, enough for Zaitsev to zero in on.