Tag #154462 - Interview #97841 (Hertz Rogovoy )

When I came around, I began to crawl. I lost the boot and froze left foot. I could crawl propping on write leg and left hand. What was I to do?  … Finally, I crawled to the trench, where our gun soldiers were and besought: ’brothers, help me out of here!’ and they replied that they were not entitled to leave their positions. Then they took away the gun machine. Then, I think I was noticed by a sniper. It was getting dark, and I was on the woodland. He was aiming at me from the wood with the tracer bullets. I did not move. One bullet hit right in front of me, the second on the rear, and the third hit my leg. It was a percussion bullet, which hit my tibia, and exploded when it came out. I saw a huge torn hole in my felt pants. Later I found out that the bullet exploded and tore 10,5 cm of tibia. Spell bone was safe and served as a natural frame. My leg was saved for the sake of that, though it became crooked. I fell in the trench without any thoughts and stayed there for 24 hours or more. I could not put a bandage with my healthy hand, I could not even unbutton my cloak. I lost conscience, then I came around. And there in the trench being feeble, wounded, with forlorn hope, I believed in God, he was my only hope. I needed to pray. I was praying, lost the conscience and came around. I kept on praying. I told the God that I was young, and had not seen anything in life, and would have made my parents suffer, if I had died … My thoughts gadded, I was very scared and became even feebler. I remembered for all my life the gorgeous blue sky, with flashing lights from the tracing shells and bullets. I could not hear the explosion, it was all so far away, and over my head celestial flights were scintillating in the sky. My mouth got dry because I lost a lot of blood, so I ate snow from time to time. Then the hemorrhage stopped as I have a high coagulability.