The Sniper's Kiss

Chapter Eighteen

The next shit spot on the map was a village whose name Mia didn’t learn. She only knew that a stream blocked their access to it and her platoon was holed up with the colonel in a house at the foot of the only bridge. The rest of the division spread out behind them, waiting for the way to be cleared.

The colonel peered from the window through binoculars and cursed. “According to the map, that’s supposed to only be a stream. And if this were July instead of May, I suppose it would be.”

Mia could see what he meant. The constant rain had caused it to rise and flow quickly, and there was no telling its depth. An old stone bridge had somehow remained intact, but the retreating Germans held it.

A machine-gun team was set up behind sandbags right at the bridgehead, providing an effective block. Even she knew they couldn’t advance without artillery, and they no longer had artillery.

The colonel cursed again and spoke into his field telephone. “Send up one of the snipers.” And while they waited, she peered from the corner of the window along the sight of her own rifle. She could see the two piles of sandbags and the muzzle of the machine gun protruding from the split between them, but nothing more. No sense in wasting her ammunition.

Some ten minutes later, Kalya crept up behind them. “Reporting, Comrade Colonel.”

“Good. I need you to take out that machine gunner. Can you do it?”

“Yes, Comrade Colonel,” she said automatically, and crouched below the window. She squinted into her rifle scope. “I can see between the sandbags, but he’s careful to stay out of the way. I’ll have to wait him out.”

“Take as long as you need.”

But at that moment two men emerged rolling a mortar across the bridge and setting it up next to the machine gun behind the sandbag piles. Only the tip and a hand that dropped a projectile into it were visible. A moment later, the mortar bomb struck the building they were in, and part of the wall to their right collapsed. Kalya fell back, struck on one side by brick and shrapnel, and her rifle flew out of her hand.

Mia dropped her own rifle and rushed to her side. Kalya raised a hand. “It’s my shoulder. I can’t feel anything in my arm. Shit. I’m useless.”

Without thinking, Mia grabbed the fallen rifle and scrambled back to the window. Peering through the scope, she was astonished how clear everything was. She saw the enemy in bits and pieces, a green cap here, a helmet there, but all was beautifully in focus.

The German mortar team shouted triumphantly, and a pale hand dropped in a second projectile. It fired, rose in a short arc, and struck in much the same place as the first one had, pulverizing the remaining bricks. But through the scope, Mia could see the mortar man raise his head above the sandbags for a split second to see where his missile struck.

With unthinking calm, she caressed the trigger and the gun fired, jolting her slightly with its backward thrust. With her eye glued to the scope, she could see the soldier fall forward over his mortar. His companion lifted him off and shoved him to the side, but that gave her enough time to draw back the bolt and aim once again. The second man raised the projectile to drop it in, and she struck it, causing it to explode in his hand.

Just then she felt someone press in beside her. Alexia also took aim and fired through the split between the sandbags, killing the machine gunner as well. With the two heavy guns now silent, the Russian troops charged, and setting up a storm of fire, they streamed over the bridge.

Another day, another village, another setting up of quarters for the night. The road sign, which miraculously had remained standing through all the years of the war, said Karmayshevo, but since the Germans had torched the houses, the place was little more than a church and a scattering of barns. The medical station and the officers laid claim to all of them.

Mia was assigned with her infantry squad to a patch of ground that had been a pasture. Now it was an expanse of mud, and they sheltered from the constant rain under a series of tarpaulins stretched over a framework of wood. Without dry wood, a fire was impossible, so the men huddled together for warmth. Mia unashamedly leaned against a man whose name she didn’t know.

She was sorry she didn’t smoke, for the men seemed to draw some comfort from their foul-smelling cigarettes and warmed one hand over the glowing ash when they weren’t puffing on them.

“Comrade Zhurova,” someone said, and it took a moment for her to react. Glancing up, she saw it was Colonel Borodin, and she struggled to her feet. She saluted as smartly as she could while shivering, noticing a moment later that he was accompanied by Alexia.

“Congratulations for your sharpshooting today. You and Senior Corporal Mazarova made it possible for us to move one village farther west. Keep that up, and we’ll end up in Berlin.”

“Yes, Comrade Colonel. It took me by surprise, too.”

“I see that you still have Senior Corporal Petrova’s weapon. Well, if you can shoot that well with a sniper’s rifle, I’m assigning it to you until she returns to duty. Then we’ll see about another one for you. In the meantime, we’re transferring you to the sniper squad. Senior Corporal Mazarova has requested you as her spotter.”

Mia saluted again. “Thank you, Comrade Colonel. Request permission to visit Corporal Petrova in the medical station.”

“Permission granted.” The colonel saluted quickly and strode away from them.

Alexia embraced her awkwardly, impeded by their heavy coats and rifles. “Well done, you. Who would have thought, eh?”

“Certainly not me. How’s Kalya? Have you seen her?”

“Not yet, but one of the stretcher bearers said she was sitting up and smoking, so she’s not dead yet. Come on. The med station’s over there in the church. Lucky devils have a roof over their heads.”

The church was dry, but that was all it was. The folding beds they’d had in the previous village had not been brought over yet, so the two dozen wounded lay on blankets on the floor.

A few wooden benches, odd remainders of those used years before by parishioners, were piled up in the rear, though some of the soldiers were smashing them to fuel the fire that burned just outside the door. The altar, such as it was, had long ago been cleared of religious objects and now held bundles of bandages and bottles of disinfectant.

They walked along the rows of wounded on the floor until they found Kalya, leaning against her backpack and trying with one hand to roll a cigarette. Alexia knelt beside her.

“Let me do that for you. You’re making a mess of it.” She took hold of Kalya’s tiny sack of mahorka tobacco and shook a line of it into the folded paper. She rolled it slowly, and her trembling hands revealed she was more worried than her banter suggested.

Mia squatted next to her. “So what the hell happened? I wasn’t paying attention, and suddenly you were on the ground. Are they going to ship you back?”

Kalya accepted Alexia’s somewhat uneven cigarette roll and held it in her mouth while she lit it. She inhaled, blinking from the harsh smoke, and sighed. “Not sure. Something hit my arm and broke it. Shrapnel, maybe, because it hurts like hell. They’ll send me to the nearest surgical unit to clean it up. I should be back in two weeks, with luck.”

Alexia shook her head. “With luck, you’ll be sent home for a good rest. In the meantime, Marina here has surprised us all by being a crack shot. She’ll take your place until you’re ready to come back.”

Mia laid a hand lightly on Kalya’s good shoulder. “They gave me your rifle, but don’t worry. I promise I’ll take good care of it. I’ll oil it, keep it dry, all the things they tell you.”

“You better, because I’m coming back for it. You’re not going to Berlin without me.”

“Wouldn’t think of it.”

The assurance had come from Mia spontaneously, but the word Berlin caught her up short. She hadn’t thought of that. She hadn’t thought of the future at all and now had to consider the possibility of being trapped in the Red Army until victory, whenever that would be.

“All right, you two. Clear out. You can’t hole up here all night just to stay out of the rain.” It was one of the nurses, and she was serious.

“Yes, comrade. Just give us a minute.” Alexia rolled another cigarette and slipped it into Kalya’s shirt pocket. “We’ll check on you tomorrow if they haven’t moved you out.” She kissed Kalya on the forehead. Mia would like to have done so, too, but it seemed presumptuous. Instead, she once again touched Kalya’s good shoulder. “Think of us while you’re in your clean bed eating hot food. And hurry back.”

Kalya stared up at them, wan, as the nurse returned and hustled them out of the church.

As they stood on the stone steps outside, a private rushed up to them. “Comrades, have you heard the news? The Americans landed this morning in France.”

“Hurrah!” Alexia hugged her suddenly, a long, tight, wonderful hug.

When she released her hold, Mia beamed. “Thank God! Finally I’m not the only American fighting north of Italy.”

She thought of President Roosevelt poring over his maps, of Churchill, grumbling about the lack of landing craft, of Stalin’s endless reproaches. And now, in the fourth year of the war, the Western allies had finally come through.

“Better late than never.”