Forgotten Soldier (13 page)

"You've got some funny ideas," the soldier replied, still rubbing his fingers.

"We'd be in a fine fix without them. A few days ago, we'd have just been overrun without those guns. I sincerely hope that all our comrades of the 107th are still among the living."

"I do too," our sergeant agreed emphatically, realizing that he'd said the wrong thing. "But why have they stopped firing?"

"You should know how tight supplies are. We have to fire drop by drop, so to speak, or when we know we can't miss. The infantry and the artillery both have to economize on munitions to the maximum. But we can't let the Soviets know that, so from time to time we give them a heavy dose . . . you see?"

"I see."

"They're not shooting any more," said someone in our group.

"Yes. It's quieted down. You'd better make the most of it," said one of the soldiers from the geschnauz.

"Let's go, children," said our sergeant, who seemed to have regained some confidence.

Children ... he wasn't far wrong: we seemed like children beside these Don veterans. A few rounds from the big guns had seemed to us like the end of the world. There was a great difference between the proud soldiers we'd been in Poland, marching smartly through the villages with our guns slung, and what we were now. How many times in the past I had thought myself invulnerable, filled with the pride we all felt, admiring our shoulder straps and helmets and magnificent uniforms-and the sound of our footsteps, which I loved, and love still, despite everything. But here, by the banks of the Don, we seemed like nothing, like bundles of rags which each sheltered a small, trembling creature. We were underfed and unbelievably filthy. The immensity of Russia seemed to have absorbed us, and as truck drivers we were not dashing figures, but more like the junior maidservants of the army. We were dying of cold like everybody else, only our plight was never mentioned.

We left the shelter timidly, glancing toward the nearby parapet which screened off the war, and picked up our dangerous burdens. Everything seemed to have calmed down. There was no more noise, and the light in the sky had become less brilliant. We took a zigzag line of trenches, which ran parallel to the point we had to reach. Everywhere there were shelters filled with half-frozen soldiers trying to warm themselves beside those miraculous gasoline lamp-heaters, and everywhere we were greeted by the same question: "Any mail?" Three Messerschmitts passed overhead, and were greeted by a loud cheer. The confidence which the infantry placed in the Luftwaffe was absolute, and on innumerable occasions the familiar shapes of the planes with the black crosses restored faltering courage and frustrated a Russian attack.

Several times, as we moved forward, we had to press ourselves against the side of the trench so that stretcher-bearers carrying wounded could get through. We were drawing close to the outermost limit of the German lines. The trenches grew progressively narrower and shallower, so that eventually we became a kind of human chain, bent nearly double in order to remain unseen. Several times, I sneaked a look over the parapet. Some sixty yards ahead, I could see the tall grass on the river bank, stiff with frost; and somewhere in that space was the section we were supposed to supply.

Now we were advancing half exposed, setting off slides of earth and snow as we jumped from one hole to the next. We clattered down into a huge crater, where an orderly in heavy winter clothes was bandaging two fellows who were clenching their teeth to keep themselves from crying out. He told us we had reached our destination. We wasted no time inspecting the situation of this cursed section, but put our cases in the hole we were shown, and turned back for another trip.

By nightfall we had completed what we later learned to call the "priority" supply of this front-line section. Nothing had happened since the bombardment of the afternoon, and the unfortunate soldiers on the Don were preparing themselves for another icy night. Although the temperature had risen a little, it was still very cold.

We were waiting for two of our men who were collecting the scattering of letters these soldiers had managed to write. Hals, another soldier, and I were sitting on a mound of frost-hardened earth, hidden from enemy eyes.

"I wonder where we'll be sleeping tonight," said Hals, staring at his boots.

"Outdoors, I guess," our companion answered. "I don't see any hotels around here."

"Come over this way," called someone else from our group. "You can see the river very well from here."

We got up from the ground to look through a heap of frosty branches that camouflaged a spandau aimed and ready to fire.

"Look," Hals said. "Bodies lying on the ice."

There were numbers of motionless bodies, victims of the fighting of a few days earlier. The soldiers at the geschnauz had not been exaggerating: the Russians had not removed their dead.

I tried to see further into the distance, to what must be the island we had heard so much about, but this was difficult, as it was growing dark. I could recognize only vaguely what looked like snow-covered trees. Our soldiers must be crouched among them, watching in the silence, with every sense alert. Beyond, in the heavy, unbreathable mist falling across this mournful landscape, the far bank was almost invisible. On this bank, the German advance had been halted, and Russian soldiers were watching for us.

I had reached the front line, the line I had thought about with such dread and had been so curious to see. For the moment, nothing was happening. The silence was almost complete, broken only by occasional voices. I thought I could see a few thin streams of smoke rising through the mist on the Russian side. Then some other soldiers pushed me aside.

"If it interests you so much," said one of the grenadiers standing at the foot of the spandau, "I'll gladly give you my place. I've had enough of this cold."

We didn't know what to say. His place was certainly not very enviable.

A lieutenant in a long hooded coat jumped into our hole. Before we had time to salute, he lifted a pair of field glasses, and stared into the distance. A few seconds later, we heard the sound of heavy detonations coming from behind us.

Almost at once, there were explosions on the ice, immediately reproduced by a long, repetitive echo, and then a sharp whistling sound which rang through the air very close to us. The entire German front responded immediately. The noise of the guns became indistinguishable from the explosion of their projectiles. We all dropped to the bottom of the hole. We felt lost, and stared at each other with anguished, questioning eyes.

"They're attacking," someone said.

The two machine gunners didn't fire right away, but stayed beside the lieutenant, staring at the Don. Some of the explosions were loud and strident; others sounded heavy, and as if they were coming from under ground. Finally, the grenadier who had so generously offered his place decided to speak to us: "The ice is breaking more easily tonight; it's not so cold. Pretty soon they'll have to swim over."

We all hung on his words, as none of us understood what was happening.

"We'll send out the lightest one here," he said. "If the ice holds his weight, we'll have to blow it up."

"He's the lightest," said Hals with a constricted laugh, pointing to a cringing, very young soldier.

"What will I have to do?" the boy asked, white with anxiety. "Nothing just yet," the gunner said jokingly.

The bombardment stopped as suddenly as it had begun. The lieutenant looked out through his glasses for a few more minutes, then climbed over the parapet and vanished. We stayed where we were, without moving or speaking. To break the anxious silence, our sergeant ordered us to open our mess tins and eat dinner, while we waited for the fellows with the mail.

We swallowed down our tasteless, frozen portions without much appetite. As I chewed I went over to the spandau to look down once more at the river.

What I saw explained the German bombardment of a few moments ago. Great blocks of ice, some of them two feet thick, were standing up at right angles to the surface of the river. These ice blocks, partly broken and crushed, formed steep hills of ice, whose crests oscillated with the rhythm of the current beneath the frozen surface. The German gunners fired on the ice every night to deny access to the incessant Soviet patrols, who nonetheless exposed themselves to great danger on these moving blocks. Now the broken ice was rearing up and crashing into other pieces with a strange, heavy sound. New fissures were opening, and the night was filled with the noises of cracking, breaking ice.

I stood for a long time, transfixed by the unreal vision, gradually noticing that hundreds of lights were springing up on the east bank. With my eye glued to the loophole, I stared at these lights, which seemed to be growing stronger.

"Hey," I shouted at the two regulars, "something's happening!" They rushed over to me, pushing me aside so they could see. I stayed where I was, shoving my head between theirs.

"Hell, you really scared us," one of them said. "That's nothing; they do it every night. The Popovs like to make us think they're warming up. Not at all a bad idea, either. Those lights are a damned nuisance. Look how hard it is to see the river now. Even flares make it hard."

I couldn't tear myself away from this disquieting vision. All along the vast horizon, the Russians had lit hundreds of braziers, not to warm themselves, because they must certainly have kept their distance from them, but to dazzle our observers. And in fact, when the eye traveled to the east bank, it remained fixed on those fires. Everything else, by contrast, was plunged into darkness, and this enabled the enemy to effect numerous changes which we could deduce only with difficulty. We were able to see a little with flares, but their radiance, although intense, was reduced at least to half strength by the enemy's arrangement of alternating light and darkness.

I would have stood and stared much longer if our sergeant hadn't given the signal for departure. We had no trouble returning to the rear. The night, undisturbed by the noises of war, hid our movements perfectly.

Everywhere, soldiers were curled up in their holes. Those who were asleep had covered themselves with everything they could find, leaving no fraction of themselves exposed-not a nose, or the tip of an ear. One needed to be accustomed to this strange mode of existence to know that beneath these mounds of cloth subtle human mechanisms were managing to survive and garner their strength.

Others were playing cards in the depths of their lairs, or writing letters in the flickering light of a candle, or of a lamp-heater. These marvelous objects-and I call them "marvelous" deliberately-were about two feet high, and would operate on gasoline or kerosene: one simply had to regulate the nozzle and the intake of air. A reflector behind a glass projected the light. A story had it that the army was working on an improved model which would also dispense beer.

Those who were neither asleep, on guard, playing cards, or writing letters were absorbing the alcohol which was freely distributed along with our ammunition.

"There's as much vodka, schnapps and Terek liquor on the front as there are Paks," I was told later by a wounded infantryman who was waiting for evacuation on the hospital train. "It's the easiest way to make heroes. Vodka purges the brain and expands the strength. I've been doing nothing but drink for two days now. It's the best way to forget that I've got seven pieces of metal in my gut, if you can believe the doctor."

We got back to our two sleighs without incident.

"Am I dreaming," Hals said, "or has it grown warmer? I'm sweating like an ox in these clothes. Maybe I've got a fever: that's all I need."

"Then I've got one too," I said. "I'm soaking wet."

"That's because you had the balls scared off you today," said the fellow who earlier in the afternoon had shouted, "They'll kill me!" "Listen to who's talking," Hals said. "You're still as green as your clothes, and you think you can judge us."

Our sleighs were now carrying six wounded as well as ourselves. Although they were less heavily loaded than they had been, they ran less smoothly. The little horses were clearly having a hard time: we could almost see the snow growing softer as we looked at it. The wind was carrying large flakes of melting snow, which soon changed to rain. This milder air, after such terrible cold, seemed to us like the Cote d'Azur.

It took us two hours to reach our huts in the rear lines, and we needed no urging to fling ourselves onto our rough pallets. However, despite the physical and emotional exhaustion of that wearing day, I wasn't able to sleep immediately. I kept seeing the banks of the Don, and hearing the whine of enemy projectiles, and the explosions, whose violence I would never have been able to imagine. For me, whose eardrums were shattered by the firing of a Mauser, our Polish exercises now seemed like the most trifling of games.

The infantry on the west bank had to fight as well as survive: that was the difference between them and us. We had been promised that we would be as honored as the infantry, as combat troops, if we distinguished ourselves on our supply missions. This promise, which had been made to us on behalf of our commander at the Wagenlager near Minsk, was clearly addressed to young recruits like Hals, Lensen, Olensheim, and me. We had taken it as an honor, and were proud of the confidence which had been placed in us.

Yet the reports in the front-line journal blamed us squarely, almost making us responsible for the German retreat from the Caucasus, and back beyond Rostov. For lack of supplies these troops had been forced to abandon territories won with great sacrifices, so that they would not suffer the same fate as the defenders of Stalingrad. In their exhortations to us, our officers often asked us to achieve a certain goal despite adverse conditions, at whatever the cost, to do more than was humanly possible, to face the prospect of the worst, including death. We had thought that we had accomplished more than the bare minimum. In fact, despite our unstinted efforts, and all our bitter moments, we had achieved somewhat less than half of what had been expected. Maybe we should have given our lives too.