Another round of cheering came from the crowd and took a moment to subside.

“But please keep in mind that we are an advancing army now. You are no longer defending our cities but winning them back from the enemy. They are less arrogant now, but more desperate, and they will use every trick they know to draw you into their fire. As a sniper, I know these tricks.”

More cheering, which she quieted with a raised hand. “Snipers are defensive. We lurk in fixed position and watch for advancing, over-confident soldiers. But now, you will be those advancing soldiers, and I caution you to be ever watchful. Be suspicious of areas that saw fighting but have fallen still. That is where the enemy will be lurking. Your own marksmen must use new tricks to lure them into revealing themselves.”

Kalya jabbed Alexia with her elbow and whispered, unnecessarily, “She means us,” but Alexia said, “Shhh.”

“The soldier who wins, the soldier who survives, is the one who uses his head and works with his comrades to draw the fascists out of their holes. I know you will make me, and the motherland, proud. That’s all I have to say.”

When the cheering stopped and the troops began to filter back to their respective bivouacs, Alexia elbowed her way forward to the platform. A circle of men was already around the major, and it seemed they would monopolize her forever, but finally Pavlichenko caught sight of her and turned her head.

“I’m a sniper, too, Comrade Major,” Alexia announced, instantly regretting the outburst. It sounded childish.

As if to underscore the foolishness of the remark, Pavlichenko reached between the men, shook her hand, and asked, “What is your count?”

“My count? I… uh. Well, I’ve just graduated from the Central Women’s School, so at the moment…”

“I see. Zero. Well, it’s where we all start. Tomorrow, you can put your skill to the test, and I’m sure you’ll do well. What’s your name, Corporal?”

“Alexia Vassilievna Mazarova, Comrade Major. Though I’m called Alyosha. A boy’s name, I know, but my father named me after a character in a book, and…” She fell silent, suddenly aware of how much nonsense she was chattering.

“I see. Well, just remember to follow your training, and…” Pavlichenko also paused for a moment. “Did you say Alexia Vassilievna?”

She nodded. “Yes, Comrade Major.”

“I believe you have a friend at the White House. Unless there’s another sniper named Alyosha.”

Kalya piped up. “No, she’s the only one.”

Alexia felt her face flush, she wasn’t sure from what. “That must be Miss Kramer, a diplomat whom I guarded in Moscow.”

“Well, you’ll be glad to know she remembers you, too.”

Her face warmed even more. The woman she’d kissed had not forgotten her. She dropped her glance.

At that moment, Commander Bershansky returned, bringing the small talk to an end. Pavlichenko patted her on the shoulder. “I wish you all courage and success tomorrow.” With that, she marched away beside the commander.

Sasha jabbed Alexia with her elbow. “I had no idea you had friends in high places.”

Alexia strode away, suddenly protective of the memory and the woman, who had disappeared but now seemed real again. As she lay down for her last full night of sleep before going into battle, she relived the sensation of the sudden forceful lips, over and over again.

* * *

They awoke before dawn and scrambled into a line of troop carriers for their first engagement south of Novgorod. As they rumbled along the crater-pitted road, German planes flew overhead but dropped no bombs. She guessed they were reconnaissance flights and hoped the absence of bombardment meant the Luftwaffe was short on bombs.

But the retreating Wehrmacht found other ways to kill. The first houses the advancing army encountered were smoldering ruins, and in the village behind them, the Wehrmacht was still entrenched. Major Bershansky distributed his troops in a curve around the village, interspersing his snipers where they might be useful. Alexia and Kalya reported to him for their assignment.

The major set down his field phone that had linked him with his forward rangers. “Reconnaissance says most of the Fritzes have moved to the west of the village, but they’ve left a machine gunner behind the wall of the first house. Looks like it’s just him and another man, probably a spotter. We don’t have any artillery, and he’s too far for a hand grenade, but there’s a long gully about three hundred meters from the building. You’ll have to take him out from there.”

“Yes, sir,” both of them said, though Alexia heard how high and tight her voice sounded. “He has an overview of the field, so you can’t let him spot you.”

“Understood,” Kalya said, sounding confident. At least one of them was.

As they crept away toward the enemy, Kalya took charge. “Look, we should take position about ten meters apart but where we can see each other. When we have him in our sights, we both shoot, and if we don’t get him, at least he won’t know where to return fire.”

“I understand,” Alexia said, and they slipped along the gully. When Kalya signaled “stop,” Alexia scraped a shallow trough at the rim with her bayonet and laid the muzzle of her rifle into it. While she waited for the next signal, she studied the window where the machine gunner was set up.

She could see him intermittently, peering out from under his helmet, though the tripod and the protective armor of his machine gun made it difficult to aim at him.

She set her scope for a distance of three hundred meters, and when she brought it into focus, she could see amazing details. He was young and had a scrappy beard, and was obviously talking to his comrade, for she could see his lips moving. Something even made him laugh, which seemed so incongruous to the mortal danger he was in. She wished she could laugh with him. She slid her finger gently alongside the trigger, and her hand began to tremble.

Just then Kalya whispered, “Now,” and Alexia suppressed her tremor enough to caress the trigger. The two gunshots were the loudest sounds she’d ever heard.

Through the scope she could see the machine gun jerk into the air and the gunner topple forward. She convinced herself it was the gun barrel she’d hit and Kalya’s bullet had killed the man. She drew back the bolt and knocked another bullet into the chamber.

At that moment, the spotter lunged into sight, grasping the machine gun, and she fired off another shot. He, too, toppled forward. No doubt this time. It was her bullet.

She dropped her head onto her arm and broke into tears.

Father Zosima. Forgive me.

* * *

The battle continued for the rest of the morning, but Alexia simply shot wildly in the direction of the enemy. German soldiers fell, but she never knew whose bullets killed them. Within a few hours, the division overran the village, and she could already sense what it meant to be battle-hardened. At the end of the day, as she marched back to the troop carriers, stretcher bearers were bringing in the dead and wounded from all directions. Anxiously she checked their faces and saw to her relief that none of them were her friends. So this is victory, she thought. It felt nearly the same as defeat.

Reaching the field where the troops were once again mustered, she watched with mixed feelings as the medical vehicles turned north to return to the Novgorod station. The troops would continue south on foot. The field kitchen had followed them, and the exhausted victors received a mess tin of steaming kasha for their labor. Then they were ordered again to march.

At that moment, she realized how easy they’d had it before, sleeping in a schoolroom and being transported by truck. Now they were genuine infantry, foot soldiers, slogging along the roads marked by charred houses, barns, corpses. The Wehrmacht collected its dead and wounded, as did the Red Army, but no one collected the dead peasants.

The April rains had started, but only lightly, and the roads were still intact. They could march with some speed in pursuit of the retreating Germans, until the next locus of confrontation, though no one told them where it would be. Marching wearily, she located Sasha and Kalya and fitted herself between them.

“How did you feel, Kalya? I mean after you killed your first man?”

Kalya snorted. “I felt just fine. I have no sympathy for the bastards. Men just like them killed my family.”

“What about you, Sasha? Was it hard?”

Sasha glanced sideways at her with her pixie eyes. “What? Oh, yeah, sort of. It’s different when it’s so personal. But that’s our job now, isn’t it?” She scratched her head. “Damn. I could really use a shampoo.”

Alexia laughed. “Maybe our next battle will be in a town that still has hot water, and as a reward for your shooting a German officer, they’ll let you take a bath.”

But the next battle was at Tolstikovo where the Red Army drove the Wehrmacht from the town. The troops were allowed to rest for a night, but baths were not on offer.

Borki was more of a challenge, for they first had to ford a stream, and shots that felled two of their scouts told them snipers were holed up on the far side. Reconnaissance reported that the riflemen were hidden somewhere on the ground near a mill, apparently guarding a radio visible in the upper floor. Someone had to take out both the rifles and the radio.

“Corporal Mazarova, that will be you,” Major Bershansky said, pointing at Alexia. “Yekimova, you’ll be spotter.” Sasha nodded agreement. The rat-a-tat of machine-gun fire had been ongoing, and they crouched low, scuttling from cover to cover toward the designated house. They spotted a depression and crawled along it until it deepened and they could crouch unseen. The machine-gun fire stopped.