Page 24 - Excerpts from the diary

19.08.1944
Last time we did not have to work, and during the night we returned to the company. At the position we left seven mines and a slit trench
dug deep—about two meters. Yesterday, however, I was given another assignment and sent here again with a crew of three men who had
been with me before. By now I know their surnames well, and their characters too.

Mikh, the crew commander, is the most even-tempered and quiet of them, a conscientious Red Army soldier. Shapovalov is restless, like
a very young horse that forever resists the saddle, though it seems to me that most of his bravado is in words. I watched him during an
artillery barrage and became convinced that he loves life very much and would never willingly part with it. The day before, he had told
me that he would go back to the company—I was sending him there—walking openly along the communication trenches in daylight
because he was so sick of them. At the time I thought him capable of such madness, but now I am firmly convinced otherwise. The third,
Martynov, mistook my calm and considerate treatment of the men for weakness and even decided he could be rude and insolent to me
with impunity.

The soldiers are extremely angry with the weapons officers, who take no interest in their needs or requests, and they decided, through
Martynov, to vent all that anger on me. But I made it clear that I was not the man to try that with. Yes, I am kind and courteous with
soldiers, but when necessary I can be strict. They understood, and now our relations are friendly.

On the eve of coming here I received letters from Beba, Anya Korotkina, and two from Father. I could not read them at once. Only today.
I will write about them later.

When the company commander sent me here, he mentioned a decoration and so on and so forth. He forbade me to register the mortar,
forbade me to fire during the artillery preparation, and told me to shoot only after everything had died down, if enemy groups appeared or
if the enemy counterattacked. He promised me a hundred mines, but in fact I received fewer. Counting those hidden here earlier, I had
ninety-seven in all.

We dug niches for the mines and grenades, set up the mortar, prepared the ammunition, and made ready. I posted a sentry and decided to
let the others rest until dawn. It was two in the morning. I could not fall asleep for a long time, and only when the morning haze began
gradually to dissolve the darkness was I awakened by the first artillery shots—I had finally dozed off. I ordered the men to stand by.
Observation was impossible: beginning about two hundred meters from me, the ground was wrapped all around in dense white fog.

The artillery preparation was brief and came in widely spaced bursts. Then a fierce chatter of rifles and machine guns began. Twenty
minutes later everything fell silent. I began firing at the German trenches, supposing that our infantry had not reached them. The mines
landed well. One, however, fell into the water. I was firing at a range of one kilometer, though in reality the German trenches seemed
only seven or eight hundred meters away.

Deputy battalion commander Karatayev, when giving me the mission during the night, had said they were only three or four hundred
meters away. He was completely mistaken, and it is fortunate that I did not obey him.

I fired about twenty mines and stopped, deciding to find out what was happening. The situation was deplorable. The artillery preparation
had only disrupted the operation. Our infantry had already been close to the trenches. The Germans had expected nothing and were
caught off guard. The groans of Germans wounded by our artillery alerted them, and they opened heavy fire—first rifles and machine
guns, then artillery. The shelling was especially intense around our firing position. Everything shook from the roar. Inexperienced sappers
released a smoke screen with the wind blowing toward us, and a chemical smell drifted over our position. One of the soldiers said it was
gas. I supported that opinion—without much faith in the enemy’s scruples—so that if the walls collapsed under the shelling and buried us
beneath a thick layer of earth, we would at least be able to breathe. The walls were already crumbling; whole chunks of clay fell on our
backs. We lay one on top of another in gas masks and helmets, ready to accept whatever our ill-fated destiny might bring us in that
terrible moment. And destiny toyed with us while we listened to our hearts falter at every shot, then pound and tremble at each explosion
and at the shriek of flying fragments.
The saddest thing in war, the most frightening thing in battle, is to sit in a trench or slit trench, watching the smoke from shells bursting
nearby, feeling the earth tremble, catching the smell of burning, and sensing the uneven beating of your own heart. Out in the open, in
action, fighting the enemy, you forget both fear and danger; you never experience the oppressive feeling that comes from sitting
motionless in one place, trapped beside a furious and merciless hell [...].

About thirty men returned from the company. There had been seventy. Two platoon commanders were killed and one wounded.

I had been present when they received their assignment. The two who were killed—Uzbek or Kalmyk lieutenants—were pale, and in
their faces I read the shadow of death. I was frightened by the indifferent pallor of one man’s face and his flat, hopeless answers; by the
other man’s hurried, uneven questions and the frightened blinking of his eyes. I understood that they would not live. I wanted to cry, to
shake their hands then and calm their hearts before the battle, but I did not dare. I am not a child. The second lieutenant answered quickly,
a little fearfully but confidently, and in his words one could feel life and the ability to fight for it. I do not know whether he survived, but
apparently he did.

I did not see the third platoon commander, Second Lieutenant Yeliseyev, before the battle.

I met wounded men. They were indignant about the artillery preparation and blamed this “god of war” for everything. Yes, today the god
of artillery was not merciful to people, and perhaps that explains the result. I am inclined to think they exaggerated, of course, but there
was clearly a large grain of truth in what the infantrymen said.