Katrina never forgot the emptiness she felt as she left the terminal that last Sunday all those years ago and all hope of ever seeing her husband again. She was quite old now but she still went for her daily walk along the streets of Leningrad. Katrina had moved from Irkutsk to Leningrad in 1939 with her two children, Maya, when she was just turning 19 and Peter 17. Those early years had been hard even though she had a good position as an interpreter-translator. Life was better now.

Both children had received good educations. Maya was the better scholar of the two. She had been working on her graduate degree in Russian languages and the history of the Revolution at the University when she fell in love with a young math professor. Katrina liked the young man and gave her blessings. Maya and Mikael Orlov were married shortly before Hitler’s panzers roared across the German and Polish borders. Neither of them survived the siege of Leningrad.

Katrina’s son, Peter, volunteered for service and was trained as sniper. He had always excelled in anything that required physical skill and coordination. While still in training he met Anna, a young Russian woman, who was the best shot in their sniper group. Peter sent Katrina a photo of the both of them in uniform before the Nazi siege cut off Leningrad from the world.

When they were assigned to the Stalingrad front, Anna knew she was pregnant but told no one. She and Peter were a team and she was not going to abandon him. Soon they were recognized as the best sniper team on the Stalingrad front. When the two of them singlehandedly stopped an entire German company from advancing, they were given the highest medals for bravery and assigned to train other snipers in the tactics they had developed. It was more coaching than training, as they never left the front area and were constantly engaged in fighting for every foot of Russian soil.

In 1943 the tide had turned on the Stalingrad front. The German supply lines were cut by the Red Army and the German troops fighting in Stalingrad were surrounded with no way out. Peter was killed in the last of the German artillery barrages. Anna helped bury him and then made her way east to get away from the fighting. She knew her baby would be coming soon and she had to find a safe place.

Their sergeant told her to seek a place to have her baby and marked her as killed in action. Anna left her uniform and rifle in the ruins of Stalingrad but kept her sidearm and medals. She scavenged a dress, though it was two sizes too big for her, and a full-length coat. Her condition was obvious and she used it to get a ride with a female truck driver who took her to the nearest hospital and helped her get admitted. She gave birth to a son late the next day. Anna paid the midwife to give them a room until she could gather her strength and be sure the baby could travel.

All of Barry Kelly’s novels are available in print and digital formats from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore. Visit www.factsandfictions.com for more by the author.