Our troops were finishing off an almost already strangled grouping of German forces whose command, as they did near Stalingrad, refused to accept an ultimatum of unconditional surrender. Lieutenant Boris Kostyaev’s platoon, along with other units, met the enemy that was breaking through. The night battle involving tanks and artillery—“Katyushas”—was terrifying: the assault of Germans crazed by frost and desperation, and losses on both sides. Repelling the attack, having gathered the dead and wounded, Kostyaev’s platoon arrived at the nearest hamlet to rest.
Behind the bathhouse, in the snow, Boris saw a dead old man and an old woman killed by artillery barrages. They lay there, covering one another.