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But no attack followed. What had happened was that the Fritzes had come off worse from their last bombardment than we did. They let the opportunity for a new attack slip by, and, in the interim, we managed to advance, unopposed, to new positions. Starshiy Leytenant Bolshapov had some of our guys set up the Maxim gun in the boiler room of the metalworking factory office. But now the location was an even better firing position: the most recent Fritz artillery barrage had flattened all the rubble and ruins, increasing the Maxim gun’s arc of fire.

Judging by the amount of incoming fire we were taking, the Germans must have thought we had an entire company in the boiler room. Misha and I would approach the railway engine while Plaksin covered us with the Maxim gun. We started off crawling, explosive bullets whizzing and cracking inches past our faces. A green flare fired off and Misha and I slid into a crater. ’ He thumped his big fingers against his chest. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘. . We spotted the German riflemen and directed Plaksin’s fire to them by shooting a red flare in their direction.

We could barely wait for the opportunity to confront them. And now these fools were rushing at us, their officers shouting, as if their shouting would frighten us into surrender. Suffice it to say that very few Romanians left the field that day. Our sacred Russian steppe was fertilised with their corpses. CHAPTER 7 A QUIET DAY At that time the only thing I had to put on my feet were tarpaulin boots meant for someone else. The boots were too big for me and kept flopping off. In the factory workshops, it would have been easy for them to hear my steps.