The Sniper's Kiss

Chapter Thirteen

April 1944

Alexia clambered down from the train at Novgorod. Since the Germans had been expelled in January, the station was in full operation, transporting troops to reinforce the follow-on offensive against the German army north. On this day, it received the 109th Rifle Division under the command of Major Bershansky, along with its separate sniper unit of twenty-four women.

The euphoria of the January liberation of Leningrad had subsided, and the Soviet troops found themselves in a hard struggle pushing the Wehrmacht westward. The addition of the 109th Rifle Division, including its snipers, was to add reinforcement to the slowing advance.

“These are our quarters?” Sasha glanced around at the cracked plaster and broken windows of the room they would bivouac in for the night. The remains of a blackboard on one wall revealed it had been a classroom, and Alexia felt a twinge of sorrow thinking about the school she had taught in and seen destroyed in Arkhangelsk.

“At least they’re going to feed us,” Alexia said, pointing with her chin toward a field kitchen just outside the school. A soldier fed wood into the small stove at the center while smoke rose from the chimney. The copper kettles on both sides already gave off steam, so it was clear the meal was ready to be served. By the aroma that drifted toward them, she could tell it was borscht.

In fact, they had just unloaded their packs against the wall when Major Bershansky arrived and ordered a lineup. They snatched their mess tins from their packs and ran to join the others. The cook, a grizzled, portly fellow, obviously had drawn some advantage from his proximity to food. He whistled softly as he ladled out the beet stew and twinkled at the line of women who held out their tins.

A few minutes later, they sat on their bedrolls with the steaming stew and a thick slice of larded black bread. Hardly had they finished their portions when the cook passed by the women’s corner with a canister of remaining stew.

“They told me you’re all snipers, so I wanted to make sure we take good care of you.” He ladled the canister’s contents into the tins held out to him.

“Thank you, Cook. But you’ve got a lot of mouths to feed tonight.”

“That’s a good thing. Lots of mouths means lots of soldiers.” He squatted down next to them, his captive audience. “We cooks can always tell how the army’s doing, even if the officers don’t tell you nothing. We know the casualty number same as the medics. Coupla times the field kitchen behind the line cooked up a hot dinner for some thirty men, but when the battle ended, no one made it back. All dead or wounded. We’d cooked all that food for no one.”

He glanced around, perhaps realizing that this was defeatist talk that could land him in prison. But when Commander Bershansky stood in the doorway, he seemed not to hear it and ordered everyone into the central courtyard of the school.

A microphone and speaker had been set up on a small platform at one end of the yard, and anticipating the usual political speech, Alexia and her friends lingered toward the back.

She was surprised, however, when a woman came to stand by Major Bershansky, and he announced, “Hero of the Soviet Union, Major Lyudmila Pavlichenko, has a few words to say to you.”

The troops cheered, for every man and woman in the Red Army knew her from The Red Star articles, and Alexia cursed herself for not moving closer to the front of the group.

The hero sniper began to speak. “I have just returned from a tour in the United States, as the guest of President and Mrs. Roosevelt, and I did nothing but boast about the courage and determination of the Red Army. I know you will continue to prove these boasts true.”

Another round of cheering came from the crowd and took a moment to subside.

“But please keep in mind that we are an advancing army now. You are no longer defending our cities but winning them back from the enemy. They are less arrogant now, but more desperate, and they will use every trick they know to draw you into their fire. As a sniper, I know these tricks.”

More cheering, which she quieted with a raised hand. “Snipers are defensive. We lurk in fixed position and watch for advancing, over-confident soldiers. But now, you will be those advancing soldiers, and I caution you to be ever watchful. Be suspicious of areas that saw fighting but have fallen still. That is where the enemy will be lurking. Your own marksmen must use new tricks to lure them into revealing themselves.”

Kalya jabbed Alexia with her elbow and whispered, unnecessarily, “She means us,” but Alexia said, “Shhh.”

“The soldier who wins, the soldier who survives, is the one who uses his head and works with his comrades to draw the fascists out of their holes. I know you will make me, and the motherland, proud. That’s all I have to say.”

When the cheering stopped and the troops began to filter back to their respective bivouacs, Alexia elbowed her way forward to the platform. A circle of men was already around the major, and it seemed they would monopolize her forever, but finally Pavlichenko caught sight of her and turned her head.

“I’m a sniper, too, Comrade Major,” Alexia announced, instantly regretting the outburst. It sounded childish.

As if to underscore the foolishness of the remark, Pavlichenko reached between the men, shook her hand, and asked, “What is your count?”

“My count? I… uh. Well, I’ve just graduated from the Central Women’s School, so at the moment…”

“I see. Zero. Well, it’s where we all start. Tomorrow, you can put your skill to the test, and I’m sure you’ll do well. What’s your name, Corporal?”

“Alexia Vassilievna Mazarova, Comrade Major. Though I’m called Alyosha. A boy’s name, I know, but my father named me after a character in a book, and…” She fell silent, suddenly aware of how much nonsense she was chattering.

“I see. Well, just remember to follow your training, and…” Pavlichenko also paused for a moment. “Did you say Alexia Vassilievna?”

She nodded. “Yes, Comrade Major.”

“I believe you have a friend at the White House. Unless there’s another sniper named Alyosha.”

Kalya piped up. “No, she’s the only one.”

Alexia felt her face flush, she wasn’t sure from what. “That must be Miss Kramer, a diplomat whom I guarded in Moscow.”

“Well, you’ll be glad to know she remembers you, too.”

Her face warmed even more. The woman she’d kissed had not forgotten her. She dropped her glance.

At that moment, Commander Bershansky returned, bringing the small talk to an end. Pavlichenko patted her on the shoulder. “I wish you all courage and success tomorrow.” With that, she marched away beside the commander.

Sasha jabbed Alexia with her elbow. “I had no idea you had friends in high places.”

Alexia strode away, suddenly protective of the memory and the woman, who had disappeared but now seemed real again. As she lay down for her last full night of sleep before going into battle, she relived the sensation of the sudden forceful lips, over and over again.

They awoke before dawn and scrambled into a line of troop carriers for their first engagement south of Novgorod. As they rumbled along the crater-pitted road, German planes flew overhead but dropped no bombs. She guessed they were reconnaissance flights and hoped the absence of bombardment meant the Luftwaffe was short on bombs.

But the retreating Wehrmacht found other ways to kill. The first houses the advancing army encountered were smoldering ruins, and in the village behind them, the Wehrmacht was still entrenched. Major Bershansky distributed his troops in a curve around the village, interspersing his snipers where they might be useful. Alexia and Kalya reported to him for their assignment.

The major set down his field phone that had linked him with his forward rangers. “Reconnaissance says most of the Fritzes have moved to the west of the village, but they’ve left a machine gunner behind the wall of the first house. Looks like it’s just him and another man, probably a spotter. We don’t have any artillery, and he’s too far for a hand grenade, but there’s a long gully about three hundred meters from the building. You’ll have to take him out from there.”

“Yes, sir,” both of them said, though Alexia heard how high and tight her voice sounded. “He has an overview of the field, so you can’t let him spot you.”

“Understood,” Kalya said, sounding confident. At least one of them was.

As they crept away toward the enemy, Kalya took charge. “Look, we should take position about ten meters apart but where we can see each other. When we have him in our sights, we both shoot, and if we don’t get him, at least he won’t know where to return fire.”

“I understand,” Alexia said, and they slipped along the gully. When Kalya signaled “stop,” Alexia scraped a shallow trough at the rim with her bayonet and laid the muzzle of her rifle into it. While she waited for the next signal, she studied the window where the machine gunner was set up.

She could see him intermittently, peering out from under his helmet, though the tripod and the protective armor of his machine gun made it difficult to aim at him.

She set her scope for a distance of three hundred meters, and when she brought it into focus, she could see amazing details. He was young and had a scrappy beard, and was obviously talking to his comrade, for she could see his lips moving. Something even made him laugh, which seemed so incongruous to the mortal danger he was in. She wished she could laugh with him. She slid her finger gently alongside the trigger, and her hand began to tremble.

Just then Kalya whispered, “Now,” and Alexia suppressed her tremor enough to caress the trigger. The two gunshots were the loudest sounds she’d ever heard.

Through the scope she could see the machine gun jerk into the air and the gunner topple forward. She convinced herself it was the gun barrel she’d hit and Kalya’s bullet had killed the man. She drew back the bolt and knocked another bullet into the chamber.

At that moment, the spotter lunged into sight, grasping the machine gun, and she fired off another shot. He, too, toppled forward. No doubt this time. It was her bullet.

She dropped her head onto her arm and broke into tears.

Father Zosima. Forgive me.

The battle continued for the rest of the morning, but Alexia simply shot wildly in the direction of the enemy. German soldiers fell, but she never knew whose bullets killed them. Within a few hours, the division overran the village, and she could already sense what it meant to be battle-hardened. At the end of the day, as she marched back to the troop carriers, stretcher bearers were bringing in the dead and wounded from all directions. Anxiously she checked their faces and saw to her relief that none of them were her friends. So this is victory, she thought. It felt nearly the same as defeat.

Reaching the field where the troops were once again mustered, she watched with mixed feelings as the medical vehicles turned north to return to the Novgorod station. The troops would continue south on foot. The field kitchen had followed them, and the exhausted victors received a mess tin of steaming kasha for their labor. Then they were ordered again to march.

At that moment, she realized how easy they’d had it before, sleeping in a schoolroom and being transported by truck. Now they were genuine infantry, foot soldiers, slogging along the roads marked by charred houses, barns, corpses. The Wehrmacht collected its dead and wounded, as did the Red Army, but no one collected the dead peasants.

The April rains had started, but only lightly, and the roads were still intact. They could march with some speed in pursuit of the retreating Germans, until the next locus of confrontation, though no one told them where it would be. Marching wearily, she located Sasha and Kalya and fitted herself between them.

“How did you feel, Kalya? I mean after you killed your first man?”

Kalya snorted. “I felt just fine. I have no sympathy for the bastards. Men just like them killed my family.”

“What about you, Sasha? Was it hard?”

Sasha glanced sideways at her with her pixie eyes. “What? Oh, yeah, sort of. It’s different when it’s so personal. But that’s our job now, isn’t it?” She scratched her head. “Damn. I could really use a shampoo.”

Alexia laughed. “Maybe our next battle will be in a town that still has hot water, and as a reward for your shooting a German officer, they’ll let you take a bath.”

But the next battle was at Tolstikovo where the Red Army drove the Wehrmacht from the town. The troops were allowed to rest for a night, but baths were not on offer.

Borki was more of a challenge, for they first had to ford a stream, and shots that felled two of their scouts told them snipers were holed up on the far side. Reconnaissance reported that the riflemen were hidden somewhere on the ground near a mill, apparently guarding a radio visible in the upper floor. Someone had to take out both the rifles and the radio.

“Corporal Mazarova, that will be you,” Major Bershansky said, pointing at Alexia. “Yekimova, you’ll be spotter.” Sasha nodded agreement. The rat-a-tat of machine-gun fire had been ongoing, and they crouched low, scuttling from cover to cover toward the designated house. They spotted a depression and crawled along it until it deepened and they could crouch unseen. The machine-gun fire stopped.

“Do you think they’ve retreated?” Alexia asked.

“I’m sure they haven’t. This is just what Major Pavlichenko warned us about. Let me take a look.” Laying her rifle aside, she extended her small periscope and surveyed the field. “So many places he could be,” she muttered. She passed the periscope to Alexia, who saw the same half dozen rocks, broken walls, wrecked vehicles, the blasted remains of a tree trunk. Behind the tree stump something sparkled. A reflection on metal, perhaps?

“I think he’s behind the stump,” Alexia whispered. “How can we force him to shoot first so we can see his muzzle flash?”

“Well, you can try that old trick of raising your cap, while I watch through the periscope,” Sasha said. “Just be sure to keep your head out of it.”

With a grunt, Alexia belly-crawled farther along the gully. Splinters of wood lay about from a blasted fence, and she propped one up with her woolen pilotka at its top, rising only a centimeter above the rim of the depression. No sooner had she crawled out of the way than a shot rang out and the cap flew off the wood.

“He’s there, all right,” Sasha announced. “He thinks he’s got you. Now let me raise mine, and when he moves out to shoot, you get him.”

Alexia was already in place, her eye glued to her scope as Sasha lifted her cap on the post in the same way. The sniper fell for it again. Alexia could see him clearly as he raised himself just high enough to take aim.

Two shots sounded simultaneously, his shot and hers. His hit the mark harmlessly, knocking away Sasha’s pilotka. Alexia’s shot was fatal.

In the next ten days the division pounded its way southwest through a string of burnt-out villages, until finally it took Menyusha. A third of the sniper unit was lost during the battles, but the surviving women gained the privilege of sleeping in a barn along with the wounded. The medics hung a lantern overhead from one of the beams so they wouldn’t be in total darkness.

While the medics, also mostly women, saw to the needs of the wounded, the sixteen remaining snipers scattered through the barn collecting straw to sleep on.

Alexia leaned against a stall wall across from Sasha, Kalya, and Fatima, and drew off her boots. “Oof. That feels good,” she said, rubbing her toes. “Be nice to have some water to wash off the grit.”

Sasha yanked her boots off as well. “Why stop there? How about wishing for a hot bath and a hair wash?”

Kalya stretched out on the dry straw. “You’re still going on about that shampoo. Well, I’m just glad to be able to get a night’s sleep without worrying about attack or groping hands.”

“What hands have been groping you?” Alexia asked. “It can’t be the men in our division. They’re like our brothers.”

“Not all of them. Some of them can’t seem to keep their hands off these.” Kalya cupped one of her own ample breasts.

Sasha untied her foot cloths and shook them out. “Kalya’s right. On the battlefield, they’re good comrades, but afterward, after a little vodka, they sometimes forget to be ‘brothers.’ The other day, one of them, a lieutenant, believe it or not, tried to kiss me. Said he’d been away from his wife for over a year and had forgotten what a woman’s lips were like. I told him to try a sheep.”

Another woman spoke up. “I’ve never been kissed at all. If the man’s young, and not too dirty, I wouldn’t mind a kiss. We could be dead tomorrow. Who wants to die without ever being kissed?”

Kalya folded her arm back behind her neck as a pillow. “Well, there are kisses and kisses. I got nice kisses from my babushka, and once from a pretty boy in school. Nothing to be excited about. But the serious ones, I think you get only a few of them in life.”

“My sister said a good kiss starts on your lips and then goes all the way down to your groin.” Sasha stretched out and rested on one elbow. “What about you, Alexia? Have you ever had a kiss like that?”

Alexia stared into the distance at the lantern, remembering the kiss that had shaken her. “No. Nothing like that.”

“Well, I’ve kissed a few Germans,” Fatima said, chuckling. “Not on the lips, though. More like between the eyes.” She snorted and rolled over, pulling her field blanket up over her shoulder.

Kalya chuckled. “Yeah. A kiss from Stalin.” Then she also turned away and curled up for the night.

Alexia stared into the darkness for a few moments before dropping off. She dreamt of the icon on her grandmother’s wall, of the long-haired angel, swathed in silk, kissing the Virgin’s mouth.

After two weeks of nearly constant fighting, they reached Medved, and the spring rains finally arrived in full force. The troops were drenched all the time, and advancement along the roads of deep mud was excruciating.

When the storm tapered off to mere rainfall, Major Bershansky called in two of his favorite snipers.

“Mazarova, Petrova, our scouts spotted some German brass over that hill. Go take a look and see if you can knock off someone of value.”

“Understood, Comrade Major,” Alexia and Kalya said almost in unison.

They crept to where the officers had been spotted and crouched behind some cover, both in capes of tattered rags painted the color of dead leaves. They waited for hours but could see no sign of life. Meanwhile the gray sky darkened even more. Then thunder cracked and a wall of rain fell, and they soon lay shivering in a pool of mud. This was surely a waste of time.

Overhead Alexia heard what sounded like a Tupolev transport. What was it doing here? Supplies usually arrived in Novgorod and were trucked to the lines. Maybe the storm had blown it off course.

She let her mind wander on what it could be carrying. Ammunition almost certainly, but also warm clothing and new boots? Spam maybe?

Another sound filled her with dread. The rat-a-tat of a fighter plane attacking.

She rolled onto her back and looked up, though by now the battle was nearly over. The fighter had shot off half of one of the Tupolev wings and now circled around it, trying for a second shot.

Mortally wounded, the Tupolev managed a wide, curved descent and disappeared behind a distant farmhouse. The absence of explosion told her it had managed a crash landing, and that meant wounded men. Someone had to get to them.

But the moment she stood up, she’d be shot, and so she waited, and waited, watching through her periscope for the slightest movement.

Was it her imagination? No. Something did move at the top of the wall, just a spot, but it wasn’t enough to shoot. If she could just get him to raise his head to aim. For that, she needed to give him a reason to shoot.

She focused on the tiny spot and held it in her sight with a steady hand, compensating for the force of the wind. “Kalya,” she hissed to the other mound under the rag cape a few meters away. “Keep your head down but fire into the air. Let him see your flash.”

Kalya lay flat and out of range but raised the tip of her rifle over her head and fired blindly toward the wall.

As she’d hoped, the dark spot rose to take aim, revealing a paleness beneath it. Alexia fired, and it dropped backward. “Got ’im.”

From her position, facedown in her trench, Kalya chuckled. “Number nineteen. I’ll vouch for you.”

“Good,” Alexia said, collecting the shell from the deadly bullet and dropping it into her pocket. It would rest in her pack alongside the previous eighteen.

With the enemy sniper eliminated, Alexia and Kalya crept slowly forward until they came within sight of an enemy jeep partially obscured by bushes. A driver sat at the wheel while an officer radioed from the rear.

“This one’s mine,” Kalya murmured as they slid ever closer. Still some five hundred meters away, they stopped.

“Can you do it from here?” Alexia whispered.

“Like giving you a drink,” Kalya said.

Alexia smiled to herself. Da voobsche kak pit’ dat’! She hadn’t heard that expression since childhood. “All right, Miss Show-off. You do him and I’ll get the driver.”

Kalya squirmed into a good firing position, and a short distance away, Alexia did the same. Kalya’s shot had priority, so she did the count. “One… two… three.”

A fraction of a second after Kalya’s gun detonated, Alexia shot.

The two men slumped over in their jeep.

Wasting no time, they sloshed through mud and water back to the 109th Rifle Division headquarters in the largest of the remaining farmhouses. They stood dripping in the doorway and saluted. “Reporting mission successful, Comrade Major,” Kalya said.

“Well done, soldiers. What did you get?”

“Alexia had two clean shots, a driver and a Kraut sniper. Me? I got the officer on his radio. I believe his last radio report was ‘Oh, Scheisse.’”

The major snickered slightly at the German profanity that every man in the Red Army knew.

“Request permission to investigate the plane crash just north of here,” Alexia said more seriously. “It looked like one of our transports.”

“Don’t worry about that, Senior Corporal. I’ve already sent out a squad and a couple of snipers to check on it. In the meantime, reconnaissance has just informed me of a machine-gun nest south of here, near the river. We’ll need to take it out before we can cross. Dry out for a few minutes and get some tea from the field kitchen. We’ll send you both out with Sergeant Sumarov, who spotted them.”

“Yes, Comrade Major,” Kalya replied for both of them. “Will that be all, Comrade Major?”

“Yes. Dismissed.”

They did an about-face and strode from the room. Just before stepping outside, Kalya swept off her pilotka cap and wrung out a thin stream of rainwater over the threshold. “Do you think it was the supply plane?”

“A Tupolev. Had to be. The storm must have blown it south. Damn. I thought the Luftwaffe was down to bare bones now, but obviously not.”

Kalya was more hopeful. “They didn’t explode, though, so that’s a good sign. C’mon. Let’s grab our tea and then look for Sumarov.”