War of The Rats - A Novel of Stalingrad - [World War II 01] (15 page)

This first class of volunteers looked gritty and battle-hardened. Their sizes ranged from the hulking Griasev to a short and flabby Armenian woman, one of two women in the group.

“My name is Chief Master Sergeant Vasily Zaitsev. I am your instructor. I am assisted by Master Sergeant Viktor Medvedev.” Viktor raised his cigarette in the air. “And of course by Commissar Danilov.” Zaitsev smiled at the commissar, but the man scribbling against the wall did not look up.

“Your sniper training will last three days. Today we will discuss weapons, fieldcraft, and tactics. Tomorrow we’ll teach you to aim and shoot with a rifle and scope. On the third day you will each be sent on a mission. Those of you who live to the fourth day will be reassigned to your companies as snipers.” Zaitsev turned on his heels. “Viktor.”

The Bear rose from the crate and snatched up two rifles. Screwed to the tops of both weapons were telescopic sights. Stopping in front of the trainees, he laid one of the guns down.

“When you came into this room this morning, each of you was told to leave your old rifle in the hall. Those rifles will be given to the infantry. You will be issued new weapons tonight.”

Viktor surveyed the soldiers’ faces. No one looked away. The Bear commanded attention. “I understand that two of you actually came in without any weapons at all.” Viktor shook his head and smiled. “You two must be very dangerous fighters.”

The group laughed with Viktor. He held up one rifle.

“This is the weapon of your enemy. The Mauser Kar 98K. It has been fitted with a four-power scope and fires an eight-millimeter load. This rifle is a piece of shit that can kill you.”

Viktor snapped the stock against his shoulder. In a flash, he leveled the barrel at a private ten meters in front of him. The soldier recoiled, then gained his composure and sat up.

Viktor nestled in behind the scope, wrinkling his face to aim. “The optics are poor, with a limited field of vision. The scope has a cross reticle, which in my opinion worsens the sense of roaming. The balance of the weapon is pitiful. It jams frequently, and the gas system can fail in cold weather.”

He pulled the rifle’s trigger. The hammer clicked. Instantly, without lowering the rifle from his cheek, he levered the bolt, pretending to chamber another round.

“The bolt is well located right above the trigger for fast reloading. The average Nazi sniper can get off two shots in four-point-five seconds with this rifle.”

Viktor let the Mauser fall with a clatter. With his foot, he shoved it away to send it skidding against a wall.

The Bear picked up the second rifle. He held it over his head with both hands.

“This,” he said, spinning the rifle like a baton, “is also the weapon of your enemy. It’s the Russian Moisin-Nagant model 91/30 sniper rifle with a four-power scope. It fires a seven-point-six-two-caliber load, is reliable under all combat conditions, especially the cold, and is the weapon of choice for both Russian and German snipers.”

The trainees smiled at Viktor. The Bear did not smile back. “Your job,” he said, “is to not die and let these rifles fall into the enemy’s hands. Let them keep using their German shit. These are Russian guns. Understand?”

Viktor again jerked the rifle up under his chin. He trained it at the head of the same recruit. The private, surprised for the second time, leaned away from the barrel, then righted himself again, embarrassed.

“Excellent optics, with a post and sidebar reticle, leaving the top of the field of vision open. The scope has internal windage and elevation adjustments. It’s also mounted high enough above the barrel for you to see under it and use the open sight for shots under one hundred meters. The rifle is nicely balanced but a few grams heavier than the Mauser.”

Viktor lowered the rifle, smiling now at the young soldier who’d been in his sights. “What the hell,” he said, “we’re Russians. We can carry it.”

Viktor brought the weapon into firing position, again at the selected private, who this time sat stolidly. Viktor pulled the trigger, then slammed the bolt in and out without lowering the gun from his cheek. He squeezed the trigger again.

“It has one design flaw,” he said, holding the rifle at his chest. “The bolt is too far forward for fast repeat firing. The average Russian sniper can fire two shots five to five and a half seconds apart. That means your first shot had better hit, because your enemy is going to be a second faster with the next bullet.”

He tucked the Moisin-Nagant under his arm. “You will all be issued this rifle later today.” Then Viktor turned his back to the trainees. “Vasha.”

Zaitsev rose from the crate. He handed over his half-smoked cigarette in exchange for the Russian rifle. Zaitsev looked over at Danilov. The commissar remained bent over his notebook; he flipped to a new page, then shook out the fingers on his writing hand.

Zaitsev hefted the weapon. He walked up to the private who had jerked twice under Medvedev’s aim. The soldier was seated with five others on a metal pipe.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

The private began to stand for his answer. Zaitsev motioned him to stay seated.

“What’s your name?”

“Chekov, Chief Master Sergeant. Anatoly Petrovich.”

Zaitsev looked at the small rips in Chekov’s uniform, the scruffiness of his boots. The man’s eyes showed no fear. His lips were tight, his breathing was even.

“You’ve seen some action, Private?”

Chekov’s eyes narrowed. His jaw muscles flexed.

“Yes.”

“Did you hunt as a civilian, Chekov?”

“Yes. I was a poacher. In the Ukraine.”

Zaitsev’s eyebrows went up. A poacher? This is what I get for letting Danilov write the requirements for me. Well, this is no time to judge. He nodded and moved down the line, asking for names, sometimes homes, and if they’d been hunters. Or poachers.

“Vasilchenko. Um, yes, I did poach some.”

“Druiker, from Estonia. I preferred fishing. But I can handle a rifle. You’ll see.”

“Volvivatek. Outside Kishinev in Moldavia. Hunted every day until I was drafted. Best turkey shot in my village.”

“Slepkinian, from Armenia,” answered a dark, thick-legged woman. “My husband was crippled in the factory years ago. I had to learn to hunt to feed my children.”

Peasants, thought Zaitsev, like me. We’re all peasants. All the better. Accustomed to hardship.

Zaitsev stepped before a tall, lithe blond girl. He noted her stare. This, he thought, is no peasant.

“Chernova,” she said.

The large young man standing next to her called out his name even before Zaitsev could move away from the girl.

“Michailov, Fyodor Ivanovich. From Moscow.”

Zaitsev looked at the two. Both appeared freshly scrubbed compared to the ruggedness of the rest of the group.

“Your uniforms are new. When did you arrive in Stalingrad?”

The youth spoke quickly; it seemed he was answering for both himself and the girl. “Two days ago. Our transport was sunk on the Volga. We . . . um . . .” He paused, looking straight ahead, “Our uniforms were . . . um ...”

Zaitsev said, “You’re the ones who fell into the shit.”

Viktor chuckled, rubbing his forehead into his hand.

Zaitsev looked at Fyodor Ivanovich Michailov. The boy was as big as Viktor. “It’s all right, Private,” he said. “It’s just that stories like that one get around quickly. You’re actually quite brave.” Zaitsev looked at the girl. “Both of you,” he added, smiling.

Zaitsev stepped to the middle of the floor, the Moisin-Nagant under his arm.

Well, he thought, now would seem to be a good time to start playing the hero. He spoke loudly, snipping the words off short the way Viktor did.

“Before we begin, I want to tell you something Comrade Danilov has not yet managed to put into print.”

The commissar looked up from his pad like an animal hearing a curious sound. Hurriedly, he turned to a fresh page and bore down with his pen.

Zaitsev continued. “I want each of you to know why I have accepted the assignment to teach you. It’s because I view you as my revenge. If I die in battle, yours will be the bullets I’ll still fire at the Nazis. I’ll fight them from my grave through you.”

He paused to look over the intent faces of the recruits. “Each of you,” he repeated, his voice solemn. He waved his open palm across the trainees as if in benediction.

“Each of you must know your own reason for being here, as I know mine. It will keep you alive.”

Zaitsev extended the rifle to the poacher Chekov. The private took it, and Zaitsev held it with him for a moment.

“And it will make you die very, very dearly,” he said. He released the rifle into the man’s grasp.

The room was silent save for the echoes of Zaitsev’s voice and the flipping of paper while Danilov whisked to a new sheet.

* * * *

THE REMAINDER OF THAT MORNING WAS SPENT ON WHAT
Zaitsev and Viktor called “fieldcraft.”

Viktor presented the topic to the recruits in a simple fashion: field-craft was nothing more than hunting, right up to the point of pulling the trigger. The skills of silence and unseen movement were the most important abilities a sniper could develop. “Your shooting eye will improve with practice,” he told them, “but missing a shot at three hundred fifty meters will never get you killed so long as your enemy doesn’t know where you are.

“Stalingrad is not the forests or wheat fields of your homes. It’s a giant pile of bricks, concrete, and metal. Hunting Germans in Stalingrad is not the same as hunting squirrels on the farm. Squirrels don’t shoot back. To survive and kill in this city, you’ll need new ways to move and hide. You must learn to use the ruins and craters, to run bent over with your head almost to your knees. We’ll practice crawling and dragging your weapon in a sack behind you. Picking your routes through the debris requires a keen eye and patience. Most important—and this is something you may already know if you’re really hunters—you must lie still for hours until the one shot presents itself. A move made too soon can be your last.”

Viktor and Zaitsev led the recruits up the steps out of the basement to the first floor of the Lazur. Collapsed walls and ceiling joists formed a huge, jumbled wasteland. For four hours the two sergeants watched and shouted while the trainees crawled over and around the wreckage, dragging mock rifle sacks behind them. Whenever a head or shoulder popped above the debris, Viktor shouted “Bang! Dead Ivan! Now get
down!”

The smaller recruits were better at escaping detection in the ruins. Many of the bigger ones, like Griasev and the freshman Michailov, bumped and jangled their way through the rubble.

To take advantage of these differences, as well as minimize the risks, Zaitsev divided the class into two teams. One squad, the “hares,” would come under his tutelage. The hares would be the shorter, more slender soldiers, like Zaitsev himself, who could move undetected in the debris. Viktor’s group would be the “bears,” the larger men who needed extra instruction on how to keep their heads down and their feet from fouling each other’s ropes but possessed greater physical strength.

In the late morning they ate a lunch of tea, soup, and bread. The hares and bears sat separate, as units, talking and laughing. Members of each group produced bottles of vodka.

Danilov approached Zaitsev, carrying sheafs of notes.

“Comrade Zaitsev,” Danilov began, offering a cigarette, “tell me. What do you think of our new heroes?”

Zaitsev accepted the cigarette. “The women.”

“You object to the presence of women in our sniper school?”