He lowered the lid of the cart, making a tabletop of it, and recited a stream of instructions as, with a few deft movements, he broke the rifle down to its component parts. Within a minute, it lay in pieces in front of him.

The young recruits watched, and Alexia’s sideward glance saw their expressions of both anxiety and determination. She knew those emotions, for she’d had them the day she learned to assemble her guardsman’s rifle. If she could learn one, she could learn another, and so could they.

“You will learn the disassembly, and by tomorrow, you will be able to do it blindfolded. In the meantime, first squadron will march to the firing range with Sergeant Gryaznov, and second squadron will follow me to the slope. Dismissed.”

In the corridor outside the gymnasium, they received the next items of their kit: cartridge pouches holding forty rounds of ammunition and a canvas bandolier with fourteen five-round clips. Over it all, each wore a thick padded jacket that fell to her hips.

Most interesting, Alexia found, were the sniper gloves divided into thumbs, index finger, and mitten for the last three fingers. Logical, of course.

The outdoor air was frigid, but by the standards of the Russian winter, which they all knew, was tolerable. So they marched cheerfully along the path that took them to a wooded slope.

As they came near, they passed a bin from which each of them took a white camouflage outfit, and Alexia drew hers on, snickering to herself. They called it a suit, presumably because it had sleeves, trousers, and a hood, but it would have fitted no one less than a giant. Drawstrings held it closed around the face and waist, but otherwise it billowed in the wind as she jogged.

Major Kulikov paced in front of them as they lined up near the training woods. “You will learn two lessons today: concealment and endurance,” he said. “We’ll start with endurance. If you’re impatient, angry, hungry, cold, or have to piss, you’re useless. Then you’re just another rifle in the infantry. So, how do we avoid those things?” He paused for a moment, then answered his own questions.

“Carry food, wear extra layers, pee before you take position. But sometimes you’re stuck in place for four hours. Or six. Or eight. And the enemy is waiting at the other end of the field for you to lift your head just a few centimeters. And your bladder is full.”

No one spoke.

“You use this.” He tapped the tiny spade strapped to his upper arm. “When you arrive to set up your ‘hide,’ you dig a slight cavity in the ground below where your hips are going to be. When the time comes, you have to develop the skill to open your clothing and let go without wetting yourself. Now, I know that’s a little harder for girls to do, but you’d better find a way, because that can save your life.”

“So will you show us how to build a hide?”

“That’s what we’re here for.” He led them over to one of the larger trees. “You see how the snow wafts up on one side of the tree? That’s what your hide should look like. You just move the top layer aside, dig a pit with that extra hole in the bottom, then lay a support over the cavity—a few branches and a cloth—and cover the whole thing with a snow roof. You scatter branches and dead leaves over the top as camouflage, and you’re done.”

At his instruction, they set up little igloos, and if they passed muster, he nodded. If not, he kicked the faulty structure apart and they had to start again.

“All right. Now that you can make a nest, you have to shoot from it, so you’ve got to move the rifle nozzle from side to side without being seen. You do that by covering the tip with a white cloth.”

“Don’t we also work in twos?” Alexia asked.

“Only if you’re working from a trench instead of a single nest. If conditions allow, your spotter can use binoculars to locate the target, but the target may also be looking for you, so now you have two people to hide.”

“What about when there’s no snow?”

“Same principles. Different strategies. You’ll need rag capes, face covers, other equipment. I’ll show you those tomorrow. Any questions before we do target practice from your nests?”

One of the braver women raised a hand. “Just one, Comrade Major.”

“What is it?”

“That thing about digging an extra cavity for urinating. What about taking care of the other thing?”

He snorted derisively. “You better pray you don’t have to. You still have to do it lying down and staying almost motionless in your hiding place. Then you either have to stay with it or find a way to dump it without revealing your position. And of course you’ll stink when you get back to base.”

“Can’t you just toss it behind you or over the top?”

“A big motion like that will give you away. I once spotted a German sniper who’d relieved himself in his mess kit and then tried to lob it away from him. To do that, he had to lift his head just a little bit.”

“Did you shoot him?”

“I did. It was the last shit of his life.”

* * *

The day was long, very long, but at eighteen hours the shivering recruits were ordered to the mess hall for supper. When Alexia had her mess tin full of steaming soup, she spotted her squad mates at one of the tables. She sat down and nodded a greeting to all of them.

“Well, that was fun,” a dark-haired woman with pixie-like eyes said, holding her hands over her hot soup. “I can’t bend my fingers and I can’t feel my toes.”

“Is that all? Just your toes?” A muscular woman with a very short haircut sneered. “Imagine having to lie in the snow for four hours on these.” She glanced down at her enormous breasts.

Both giggled, and the first one glanced toward Alexia. “What about you? Anything frozen off you?”

Alexia mimicked superiority. “The Russian patriot does not freeze, and nothing must ever fall off.”

“Oh, yes. I forgot.” Pixie-eyes held out her hand. “Aleksandra ‘Sasha’ Yekimova.”

Short hair and large bosom held out hers. “Kaleriya Petrova. Call me Kalya.”

A short, swarthy woman with heavy eyebrows leaned toward them. “Fatima Mironova, from Kazakhstan and Leningrad.”

Alexia added a fourth hand to the group clasp. “Alexia Mazarova. Alyosha to my friends. I feel lucky to be here, don’t you?”

The swarthy one shook her head. “I don’t feel so lucky. I was at the aviation academy, but they wouldn’t let me fly and sent me to manufacture planes instead. So I applied for sniper school. Anything was better than a factory.”

“I definitely do,” the one called Kalya answered with vehemence. She spooned up a portion of soup and sucked it in noisily. “I joined up with a friend from the kolkhoz, and they put her in laundry service. I was afraid I’d get that, too, but fortunately, my eyesight was better than hers. Poor kid. All she does all day is wash mud, blood, and lice out of soldiers’ underwear.”

Sasha wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I wanted to be in the Red Army chorus, but it’s all men.” She also spooned up her soup, though with delicacy.

Kalya looked surprised. “Chorus? What made you want to do that?”

“I was studying to be an opera singer when the war started. My father sang in the Bolshoi chorus, and we always had music in our house. I really miss it.” She looked glum for a moment, then turned her attention to Alexia. “What about you? What did you do before?”

Alexia wiped her mouth. “Well, there’s ‘before’ and ‘before-before.’ Before-before, I was a schoolteacher in Arkhangelsk. But after I enlisted, I was posted to the Kremlin guard. I guess because I’m tall.”

“And good-looking,” Kalya added admiringly. “Did you guard anyone interesting, like Stalin?”

“All soldiers in the garrison end up guarding Stalin one time or another. That’s part of the duty. But I also guarded the delegation that went to Tehran. That was exciting. Then in Moscow, I had to guard some Americans.”

“Wow. You met Americans,” Sasha exclaimed. “Who were they?”

“Assistants to President Roosevelt. A man, very quiet, odd looking, and a woman.”

“A woman, too? What was she like?” Fatima asked.

Alexia stared into the distance for a moment. “Probably the most interesting woman I ever met. She spoke Russian, so we could talk.”

“Gosh. What does one talk about with an American?”

“Oh, this and that,” Alexia replied vaguely, and was saved from more interrogation by the bell terminating the mess. “But now I have to memorize all the rules posted on my barracks wall.”

* * *

By the second week of training Alexia knew her Mozin-Nagant rifle better than the fancy automatic she’d carried at the Kremlin. She could dismantle and reassemble it in minutes, with her eyes closed. She also knew to carry a cloth to conceal the muzzle—white in the snow, gray otherwise.

And now, gazing out over the target range, she felt the comfort of its wooden stock against her cheek. Heavy boots crunched through the snow, behind her.

The gunnery sergeant’s voice was bright in the cold air. “It is critical to be able to judge distance in order to set the range-finder on your scope. Account for wind, rain, or snowfall. Look for smoke for wind strength and direction.”

The snow crunched again as he trod to the next recruit. “If you just want to take out an ordinary soldier, aim for the body. It’s a larger target and will tie up the enemy with wounded. But if it’s a high-value target—officers, machine gunners, radio operators—shoot for the head.”

More crunching, farther away. “And remember to cover your muzzle flash whenever possible. If you don’t get your man, you’ll give your position away and the next shot will be for you.”