The Russian Sniper
(Excerpt from Gábor Szántai’s family saga)
Don Bend, first week of January 1943
Snow swirled above the trench; the bullet tore off the soldier’s cap pinned to a stick.
The Schoolmaster chuckled to himself, then leaned the stick against the side of the guard post.
Every two hours, either he or one of his men would wave a clean target, which the Russian sniper would immediately strike.
“Well, Ivan will soon have his hundredth hit and can go home to his Mashenka for a week,” he said to his orderly, who had just finished his evening watch. At minus thirty degrees, the men had to be relieved hourly.
“Yes, sir,” grinned the private named Laci, who, like the Schoolmaster, had been drafted from the same Gömör village to defend the homeland from the Bolsheviks.
Two hundred thousand men for two hundred kilometers of the Don — a man for every meter of snow.
Thousands of miles away from Hungary.
It was a quieter sector, but Ivan was a crack shot, and not a day passed without injuries.
It was also true that since the Schoolmaster came up with the trick with the stick, the company’s death toll had dropped drastically.
“They are only human,” the Schoolmaster thought one day. “Ivan, Sasha, Sergei… They just want to go home.” And since he was a man of order, from then on he waved a cap above the frozen observation post every even hour.
His gamble paid off. Each time, Ivan “killed” the cap. Each time, the Soviet political officer, watching through his periscope, marked it down in his logbook as a sentry eliminated during a changing of the guard.
Every validated hit brought Ivan one step closer to his precious week of leave—a system of rewards and rotation as common on the Hungarian side as on his own.
In time, Ivan pieced together the ruse, but he kept accepting the offered target. These fascists never learn, the commissar would think, shaking his head each time he verified another “kill” through his field glasses.
But Ivan knew.
And so, a new rule was silently ratified. He would fire only at the cap presented on the even hours, harming no one else. When his own leave was granted, he carefully briefed his replacement, Sergei, on the unspoken agreement…
Meanwhile, along other sectors of the line, the Hungarian auxiliaries of the German Reich continued to fall like flies.
The Schoolmaster never brought his superiors into the game. Only Laci and a trusted few within his platoon were privy to it. He had a very good reason.
He ducked his head to enter the officers’ dugout, and there—the reason itself—sat Captain Csipás, a man with a heart of forged iron.
Csipás was the sole other surviving officer: an aging career soldier from the Great Plain, who nursed a profound, visceral hatred for the young warrant officer towering a full head above him.
A jumped-up Highland gentry. A desk soldier. I’ll teach him what real discipline is, Captain Csipás thought the moment the Schoolmaster’s frame filled the dugout entrance. The contempt was plain in his eyes, twisting his voice into a wire-thin snap:
“Warrant Officer Hercsuth. Fetch your orderly. Now. Move.”
The Schoolmaster sensed danger. In one fluid motion, he drew the lanky boy—even taller and thinner than himself—behind him and into the relative shelter of the dugout. The spacious, earthen room was now their shared quarters with Csipás.
Inside, the iron camp stove pulsed an ugly orange, radiating a stifling, greasy heat.
The young soldier—Laci—snapped to attention, his salute sharp with a conscript’s desperate correctness.
“Private Kiss László. Reporting as ordered, sir.”
Captain Csipás set his cognac bottle down with a deliberate thud. The liquor had been his fortification. He spoke now with a slow, theatrical mockery.
“Warrant Officer. Are you aware that your… orderly… is engaged in the literal desecration of our most sacred national and Christian values?” He held up a hand. “No, don’t speak. How could you possibly know? Though the boy was your pupil, wasn’t he? Back in that… what is the name of that place…?”
“Kálosa, Captain,” the Schoolmaster replied, his voice flat.
“Yes. That northern rubbish heap, swarming with gypsies.” Csipás took a satisfied sip from his bottle. “Small wonder our noble allies—the Führer’s pure-blooded German troops—refer to us all as gypsies.”
The Schoolmaster bit down on his reply. We haven’t seen a German in weeks, he wanted to say. They executed a flawless retreat weeks ago, leaving this entire army as a sacrifice to cover their tracks.
Abandoned. Without winter gear. Without rations. Ten rounds per man, per day. That is our strategic reserve.
“Observe this specimen,” Csipás continued, gesturing contemptuously at Laci. “Is this the material from which you propose to defend the Fatherland?”
A heavy, theatrical silence filled the dugout.
“Boots. Off. Now, soldier!” The captain’s voice cracked like a whip.
Laci’s fingers, numb and clumsy with cold, fumbled at the knotted, ice-stiffened laces of his decaying boots—the kind the men called ‘paper-soles,’ for good reason. The process was agonizingly slow: a minute of picking, another of pulling, his breath fogging the air in ragged bursts. Finally, the boots surrendered, revealing feet swaddled in filthy, frozen rags.
Csipás watched the entire performance with a look of profound disgust.
“Now. Remove the stuffing. All of it. Let’s see what you’ve hidden.”
From the damp interior of the boots came crumpled wads of newsprint—pages torn from the Honvéd camp bulletin. It was a common, desperate practice: a last layer of insulation between rotting leather and flesh, a pathetic barrier against the cold that claimed toes daily.
“You gypsy filth,” Csipás hissed, the words dripping with loathing. “Assemble those pages. Now. Hold them up—let the Warrant Officer see what you use to line your sewer of a boot.”
Laci, trembling, did as he was told, piecing the damp sheets together into a ragged, incongruous poster.
“Do you see it now, Warrant Officer Hercsuth Tibor?” Csipás’s voice was a venomous purr. “Your man has used the sacred likeness of His Excellency, the Governor, the Supreme Warlord, Horthy Miklós, as boot-lining. He has trodden upon the Regent’s face with every step. This is more than insolence. It is desecration.” He gestured grandly at the crumpled image. “Here, the Governor receives His Eminence the Prince-Primate in solemn audience. And here—in the filth of a peasant’s boot—it ends its service.”
He let the monstrous comparison hang in the stifling air.
“For this, he will be secured to the punishment post. He will remain there, exposed, until the guard is relieved at dawn.”
Captain Csipás savored the moment. He drank in the Schoolmaster’s pallor, the private’s mute terror. The sensation was a stronger, purer spirit than anything in his bottle.
The blood drained from the Schoolmaster’s face. The knowledge of what that sentence meant—a slow, conscious freezing—was stark in his blue eyes.
“Captain,” he said, his voice tight. “In this cold, he will not last an hour. He will die.”
The reality crashed down on Laci. Secured to the post. Outside. His mind conjured the image: hands bound behind him, lashed to the iron hook on the punishment beam, a human offering to the wind. A pure, animal terror seized him, freezing the breath in his lungs. This is how I die.
Inside the Schoolmaster’s mind, calculations spun with desperate speed.
Four o’clock. The next even hour is at six. He must survive until six. Need time. Must create delay.
“Captain… I humbly beg you. Postpone this. Please.” The Schoolmaster’s voice was a strained whisper, every word a concession.
“You beg?” Csipás savored the verb. “Tell me, Warrant Officer, before you were given a command, what was your trade? What did you study?”
“Music, Captain. And painting. I… I was to be a conductor.”
A roar of laughter exploded from Csipás. It was a harsh, barking sound. He sank into his chair, the performance now fully for his own enjoyment, and poured a generous measure of cognac. He was an audience of one in a private theatre, watching a play titled The Breaking of the Schoolmaster. He took a long swallow, wincing slightly as the raw spirit seared its way down.
“Let me enlighten you,” Csipás said, swirling the cognac. “Conducting a damned orchestra is child’s play next to commanding men. I will now give you a lesson in true discipline.”
He refilled his glass to the brim.
The Schoolmaster played his part. He folded in on himself, his voice breaking into a torrent of pleas—for understanding, for compassion, for the life of the boy.
The Schoolmaster measured his effect. The captain was consuming his performance, savoring each tremor in his voice, each feigned crack in his dignity. It was a feast for the man.
Divine power shone from Csipás’s face. I am God here, it said. The sole judge. And in that instant, the Schoolmaster accepted the final truth of the situation: this judge had already passed sentence. Mercy was not in the man; it had to come from somewhere else entirely.
There was only one road left.
The Schoolmaster understood the final move. It was a single, desperate throw of the dice. But first, he needed the clock to keep turning. He descended deeper into his role—a man broken, begging, pleading—letting the torrent of desperate words flow to stretch the seconds into minutes.
Then, the performance shifted.
In one fluid motion, the Schoolmaster straightened his spine. He lifted his chin and met the captain’s gaze, not with defiance, but with a chilling, formal clarity.
“Captain. I must request a formal clarification of the punishment order. I require you to explain it to me. Failing that, I will be compelled to report this matter to division command.”
For a moment, Csipás could only stare, as if the Schoolmaster had sprouted a second head. Then the dam broke.
“You have no conception of who stands before you!” he roared, spittle flying. “This is not a request—it is gross insubordination! I will tell you your fate, and the fate of all upjumped clerks who dare wear an officer’s rank! You will hang! Both of you! You hear me, you Highland dandy?”
…and just as the Schoolmaster had planned, the tirade began. Csipás launched into a roaring sermon on true discipline, the sacred soil of the homeland, and the cowardice of the puffed-up gentry who had infiltrated the army—men who should be on their knees thanking God for the restoration of the Highlands to Hungary, yet who instead cowered in their dugouts.
The captain’s cognac dwindled; the Schoolmaster’s internal clock, a precise and gentle metronome, marked the passage of each precious minute.
He let the harangue wash over him for nearly two full hours. Then, at the perfect moment, he cut through the noise.
“Captain. Your point is made, and my duty is clear. I will execute the order personally. This… individual… will be secured to the post. I thank you for the instruction.”
Csipás was stunned. A broad, triumphant grin spread across his face. He’s finally broken, he thought. The man’s shit himself with fear. Satisfied, he reached for his officer’s heavy fur coat.
The Schoolmaster snapped at his soldier, his voice sharp:
“Move. Out. Now. Leave the boots. Go as you are.”
Trembling, Laci backed out of the bunker. He stumbled into the frozen, deserted trench—a world of ice and silence—feeling utterly ashamed and betrayed.
The Schoolmaster picked up a length of hemp rope and gestured Laci forward, herding him like a condemned man.
Captain Csipás followed, tugging a thick fur hat down over his ears. A grim sense of fulfillment warmed him. It had been ages since he’d felt so thoroughly in command.
They passed the guard post where the new watch had just taken over. The Schoolmaster barked at him:
“You there! Run to the punishment post and prepare it. Immediately.”
The soldier saluted and sprinted down the trench, leaving the three of them alone in the frozen silence.
Then, the Schoolmaster committed to the final, grotesque act of his performance.
He dropped to his knees in the churned snow at Csipás’s feet, his body convulsing with sobs. “Captain! For God’s sake, mercy! Show mercy!”
Csipás was caught utterly off guard. He took an involuntary step backward, his greatcoat scraping the frozen trench wall. “Compose yourself!” he barked, disgusted. “You sniveling coward!”
But the Schoolmaster only clutched more desperately, his arms locking around the captain’s legs in a vise of supplication. He was a bundle of raw terror—kneeling, crouching, groveling.
Csipás spat incoherent curses. Laci stared, his mind a white void of shattered understanding.
The captain felt those powerful arms tighten like bands of iron around his calves. Then, with a single, explosive heave—the uncoiling of a massive steel spring—he was lifted clean off his feet and held, suspended, for one timeless second.
A gust of wind swirled the snow above the trench. The crack of the shot was swallowed by the vast cold, but its effect was instantaneous. The bullet took Captain Csipás’s fur cap—and the crown of his skull—clean off. A fine, dark mist of blood and matter sprayed across the pristine snow wall behind the kneeling Schoolmaster.
On the other side of the line, Sergei lowered his rifle. A perfect shot.
His political officer set his binoculars on the parapet, moistened the tip of his grease pencil, and made a neat mark in his logbook. Another confirmed elimination.
It was, as the men on both sides understood without a word, the most truthful shot either of them would ever witness.”
January 12. The Main Attack.
The general attack began with the artillery preparation they had dreaded for days. The world dissolved into a continuous, earth-shattering roar as Soviet guns systematically worked to obliterate the Hungarian lines—to shred the wire, flatten the trenches, and bury the defenders alive.
Warrant Officer Hercsuth—the Schoolmaster—used the chaos. As the ground shook, he became a shepherd in the storm, herding every man he could find into the largest bunker: his own. They crammed in the able-bodied and dragged in the wounded from neighboring posts. The final tally was a silent indictment of their situation: thirty-two men who could still hold a weapon, and fifteen injured.
In the relative, trembling shelter of the bunker, he briefed them. They all knew the standing order: Hold to the last man. He looked at the pale, soot-streaked faces lit by the flashes of shell-bursts and saw only a final, futile gesture.
“Listen,” he began, his voice strained but clear over the thunder. “The order is to fight. We will fight. But when the weight becomes impossible, we do not stay to be slaughtered. Our duty is to hinder them, not to die for a meter of frozen mud.”
“Our plan is this: we stop the first infantry wave. Then we leave. We conduct an organized retreat. All the way home.”
He laid out the brutal arithmetic they all understood. After the first wave of infantry attack, the Russian tanks would come soon. They had nothing to stop a tank. Their only real weapon was a single machine gun that hadn’t frozen solid.
He distributed the last of the food and ammunition. He selected three of the strongest men—one, nicknamed “Medve” (The Bear) for his enormous strength, to carry the machine gun. The other two would take their ammunition. They would be the rearguard.
He knew what came next. They all did. After a breakthrough, the Russians sent skiing troops by the hundred to hunt down stragglers. A heavy rifle would be useless in a running fight and would only slow down a man who might be carrying a wounded comrade.
“After we repel the first attack,” he ordered, “we move. We leave the rifles. They are dead weight. Only the machine gun can keep the hunters off our backs.”
„I will hand out the few pistols we have, the three submachine guns, and two short carbines. After you repulsed the first wave, the heavy Mannlichers are to be stacked in this corner,” a pile of abandoned pride, he added in himself.
The briefing done, they waited. The bombardment was their clock. Every man knew the sequence: when this shelling lifted, the new horror would begin. There would be a moment of silence, then the terrible, roaring “Hurraaah!” from the Soviet lines as the infantry swarmed out. And then, most brutally, their own artillery would resume, pounding the ground just ahead of their advancing troops—a moving wall of fire and steel designed to pin the defenders in their bunkers until the assault waves were upon them.
They waited for the guns to stop. It seemed like an eternity.
The Fight.
Abruptly, the cannonade ceased. In the sudden, ringing silence, they all heard it clearly: the distant, rolling thunder of the “Hurraaah!” And then the shells began falling again.
“To the trenches!”
They fought from the shattered parapets. Soviet shells, firing over their own advance, burst terrifyingly close, killing men with blizzards of hot shrapnel. The defenders fired at the little black dots that became swarming figures racing across the white field. The machine gun, handled with brutal efficiency, spoke in long, desperate bursts. The fight was a blur of noise, cold, and fear.
Then, as suddenly as it began, it was over. The attack collapsed. A dead, eerie silence fell.
It was not yet noon.
The Decision.
“Laci,” Hercsuth said. “The observation post. See what’s coming.”
It was then that the sniper’s bullet found Laci, striking his head. They saw him fall.
Without a second thought, Hercsuth went out for him. Under sporadic fire, he sprinted the 200 meters to the post, hoisted the unconscious boy onto his back, and began the long, agonizing walk back. He was not a weak man—in another life, he had been the Athletic Champion of the Highlands. He needed every ounce of that strength now.
That single act decided everything. The men watching saw their commander carrying his orderly. Without a word being spoken, the unspoken rule was forged: we do not leave our wounded.
When Hercsuth staggered back into the bunker, gasping, the decision was made. They would go. Now.
The wounded were hoisted onto backs or carried between two men. Medve slung the heavy machine gun over his shoulder like a toy. His two comrades hefted the crates of ammunition. The tiny group—a remnant of roughly forty souls—silently broke the supreme order.
To cover their movement, Hercsuth forged a written order on the spot. It was signed with Captain Csipás’s name, authorizing a tactical repositioning. If anyone from command stumbled upon them, they would have a tale to tell.
It was a stolen chance. A tiny rebellion against the machinery of annihilation. And at its center, holding them together by sheer will and example, was the Schoolmaster, leading his men not in a last stand, but in a desperate, calculated fight for life.
Neither of them knew if they would ever see Kálosa again. The boy, a head taller than the officer, begged to be left behind. But with gritted teeth, the Schoolmaster fastened him in place with belts and straps, accepting the weight. He would carry this piece of home on his back, or die trying. But between that decision and any homeland lay a vast, frozen hell they had to cross first.
