I won’t beat around the bush -
it’s too late anyway.
The entire platoon one morning
shot me with their rifles.

How did I earn this evil,
absurb punishment?
Not that I don’t know -
it’s just forbidden to talk about it.

My commander almost saved me,
But someone insisted on a firing squad.
And the platoon carried out the order excellently.
But there was one who didn’t shoot.

My feverish fate
was long ago at the crossroads:
One day I added a tongue,
but didn’t report it.

And so our untiring
Osobist1 Suetin,
Then took note
and grabbed his pencil.

He dragged out into the light and pulled in
My hidden and hemmed material -
No one could do anything...
No, but one could, the one who didn’t shoot.

The arm fell downward
with a silly shot
And the salvo gave me a pass
to the other side of the earth.

But then I hear: he’s still alive.
Take him to the battalion infirmary.
The orders say nothing
about shooting him twice.

While the doctor later clucked his tongue
And, in surprise removed the bullets.
But I in my delirium conversed secretly
With that little fellow, who didn’t shoot.

I licked my wounds like a dog,
but I didn’t heal,
In the hospitals
I was a big celebrity.

I entire weak, loving,
feminine sex came to me:
Hey you, ’not-completely-shot’,
here have an injection!

Our battalion was heroic in the Crimea,
And I sent my glucose tablets there,
So that the fighting was sweeter for one of them,
To whom? To the one who didn’t shoot.

I drank tea from the dish,
with a little medical alcohol,
It didn’t give up,
I fought my way back to health.

They found out back at my regiment.
Fight - said the battalion commander,
So what if they didn’t completely shoot you,
I’m even glad brother.

I’d should be glad, here squatting by the tree-stump,
But I flopped like a sturgeon and howled at destiny:
The German sniper competed shooting me
By killing the one who didn’t shoot.