During the desperate defence of Moscow in 1941/2, a father and daughter fight for the Red Army: he as a general, she as a sniper.
During the desperate defence of Moscow in 1941/2, a father and daughter fight for the Red Army: he as a general, she as a sniper. After Moscow escapes from imminent disaster, both become involved in a series of battles to the west of the city. The famous Russian victories at Stalingrad, Kursk and Leningrad have overshadowed the offensives around Rzhev and Vyazma, because the latter failed.
Excerpt
Even from a distance of 300 metres, Marta could hear the death agonies of men being bayoneted and bludgeoned. She covered her ears, to block out the bestial noises.
At the Sniper School, she had developed the delusion—fostered during all the lessons in marksmanship and field craft: the myriad technicalities of her specialism—that the despatch of an enemy was a clean, a clinical matter. It consisted of no more than the correct combination of training and opportunity, followed by the final few irrevocable grams of trigger pressure. On this day, the childish delusion—concerning the true nature of her life as a soldier—was destroyed.
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