Red Sniper

Through his scope, Barkov saw a couple of square stahlhelms peeking from above the rim of a trench. They probably thought they were safe—the distance was at the more extreme range for the Mosin Nagant sniper rifle. Meanwhile, the Germans were really chewing things up with an MG 40, spitting twelve hundred rounds per minute toward the Russian lines. The gun fired so fast that it made a sound like tearing paper. Someone had nicknamed it “Hitler’s bone saw.”

As a sniper, Barkov knew his trade after long years of war. He had been born in a remote commune on the edge of Siberia, which was, as an American might say, on the wrong side of the tracks. No one of consequence came from Siberia; it was where Russians were sent to be punished or re-educated. But a Siberian knew how to hunt, and Barkov had moved easily from stalking wolves to stalking men. Barkov also possessed a kind of animal cunning for survival that served him well as a sniper. Like any predator, he possessed a ruthless streak. There was no sentiment in Barkov. He did not sing along when the other Russians sang their ballads, but drank his vodka in silence. He did not write letters home. He did not have faith in Stalin or his commissars. He found his satisfaction in being a good hunter.

He put the post sight of his reticle a foot above the helmet and a little to the right to account for the wind. There was no formula for this—Barkov simply used the experience of a hundred other shots just like this one to aim. He squeezed the trigger. Pop. Down went the German. Barkov lowered his head behind the dead horse’s belly, but no one shot back at him.

“You want to move?” the Mink asked.

“I don’t think anyone spotted us,” Barkov said. “We’ll take at least one more shot from here before it gets dark, and then we can find another position.”

They still couldn’t locate the sniper, so Barkov picked off another German machine gunner. Enough of the man was exposed that this time he took a belly shot, so that the German would scream for a while in agony, discouraging his fellow soldiers. The noise carried on well after dark. Barkov lay there listening the way that some listened to birds singing, a faint smile on his lips.

He and the Mink were just getting ready to move when the Soviet artillery opened up. The ground beneath them rumbled and they both covered their ears. It sounded like the end of the world, and for the Germans on Sellow Heights, it was exactly that.

• • •

Unfortunately for his troops, Marshal Zhukov would discover that the Germans defending Seelow Heights were not fools. They could see the Russian artillery moving in, so under cover of darkness the Germans withdrew their forces from the first defensive line and deployed them in the secondary defenses instead. The Russian shells rained down on empty fortifications.

Zhukov had an innovation planned for his nighttime assault. Giant searchlights were maneuvered into place, and switched on as the order to attack was given. Instead of providing illumination as intended, the lights created chaos. The bombardment had filled the humid marsh air with smoke from the exploding shells, along with dust and bits of vegetation that swirled like confetti, all of it mixing together to create a low haze that hung over the ground. The searchlights reaching into this haze created a blinding mist, leaving the Russian army to stumble forward, much like an automobile trying to drive into a wall of fog with its bright beams on.

The Russians couldn’t see a thing. Many troops were under the false impression that Zhukov had brought into play some sort of super weapon to turn the tide of battle. How wrong they were.

On their heights, where the shelling hadn’t reached them, the Germans could see the advancing Russians backlit in the fog. The enemy was silhouetted like so many paper targets. Fire from machine guns and small arms poured into the Russian ranks, cutting them to ribbons. Fresh troops pressed forward from the rear.

Barkov and the Mink crept forward, taking their time, yet not so slow that they would earn a bullet in the back from one of the commissars. Thirty minutes passed, then an hour.

The whine and whisper of bullets still filled the glowing darkness. They started stumbling over the bodies of the first ranks of Russian soldiers, mixed here and there were a few dead Germans.

“It looks like our boys caught a German sniper,” the Mink announced.