Forgotten Soldier (28 page)

"REVEILLE AT SUNRISE FOR THE NEW SECTION."

"Jawohl, Herr Hauptmann."

"GOOD EVENING, GENTLEMEN."

He turned on his heel, then changed his mind, gesturing with one finger for the group of men at the gate to come in. When the fellows, stripped to the waist, and gray with dust, drew even with us, he stopped them, with a similar tiny gesture.

"Here are some new friends," he said, addressing himself to both groups. "Salute each other, please."

Three hundred men, their faces drawn with exhaustion, made a quarter turn to the right and saluted, shouting, "Thank you, comrades, for joining us."

We presented arms, and the captain walked off, looking very pleased with himself. As soon as he was gone, the two feldwebels who'd come with him chased us off to the barracks as if they'd suddenly gone mad.

"You've got four minutes to settle in!" they shouted.

Forgetting our tiredness, we were presently standing at attention at the feet of our double-decker beds. Our noncoms, who were clearly terrified, called the roll under the baleful eyes of the two camp felds, who then explained what they expected of us in the way of order, cleanliness, and discipline. They also advised us to sleep, although it was still early, as we would need all our strength tomorrow. We knew that in the German army words of that sort often had a significance far greater than their literal meaning. The word "exhaustion," for instance, had nothing to do with the "exhaustion" I've encountered since the war. At that time and place, it meant a power which could strip a strong man of fifteen pounds of weight in a few days. When the felds had gone, slamming the door behind them, we stared at each other in perplexity.

"It seems that life here won't be a joke," Hals said, from his bed beneath mine.

"God, no! Did you see that captain?"

"He's all I saw, and I dread the day I get his foot in my backside."

Outside, a section was leaving in camouflaged combat uniform probably on some night exercise.

"Excuse me, Hals. I've got to write a letter, and I want to do it while there's still daylight."

The feld had told us we weren't supposed to use candles after lights out except for emergencies.

"Go ahead," Hals said. "I'll leave you alone."

I hurriedly pulled out the scrap of paper I hadn't yet been able to turn into a letter.

"My dearest love . . ."

I described our journey and arrival at the camp.

"I am all right, Paula, and think of nothing but you. Everything here is quiet. I remember every minute of our time together, and long to get back to you.

"I love you passionately."

The sun had barely touched the tops of the trees with pink light when the door flew back against the dormitory wall as if the Soviets themselves were bursting in. A feldwebel produced some piercing blasts on a whistle, and made us jump.

"Thirty seconds to get to the troughs," he shouted. "Then everybody stripped and outside in front of the barracks for P.T."

One hundred and fifty of us, stripped to the skin, ran for the troughs on the other side of the buildings. A short distance away, in the dim half-light, we could see another group of soldiers jumping to the bark of another watchdog.

In no time, we had washed and were lined up in front of our barracks. Luckily we had reached the first days of July, so we didn't have to worry about the cold. Then the feld chose one of us to put the rest through a gymnastic routine until he came back. We had to stretch our arms in various directions, touch first the tips of our toes and then the ground to the right and to the left, at the greatest possible extension, and begin again.

"Get going," he said as he went off. "And no stopping."

We turned and stretched in this way for nearly fifteen minutes. When the feldwebel came back and ordered us to stop, our heads were spinning.

"You have forty-five seconds to get back here in battle order. Raus!"

Forty-five seconds later, 150 steel helmets topping 150 men whose pulses were racing to the explosion point lined up facing the flag. It was then that we made the acquaintance of Herr Hauptmann Fink and his formidable training methods. He arrived wearing riding breeches, and carrying a whip under his arm.

Stillgestanden!" ordered the feld.

The captain stopped at the appropriate distance, made a slow half turn, and saluted the flag. We were ordered to present arms.

"At ease," he said in a calm voice, turning back to us.

"Feldwebel, you will simply accompany us today. In honor of the new section, I myself am going to drill them."

He shifted his weight, and stared down at the ground, which was already lit by the sun. Then he jerked up his head again.

"Attention!"

In a hundredth of a second, we were standing at attention.

"Very good," he said in a honeyed voice. He walked toward the first row of men. "Gentlemen, I have the impression that you perhaps entered the infantry a trifle hastily, without sufficient reflection. You probably do not realize that the specialized infantry, such as we are here, has nothing in common with what you knew in the auxiliary service, which you voluntarily quit. Not one of you seems adequate to the job we have to do. I hope that I am wrong, that you will prove the contrary to me, that you will not oblige me to send you to a disciplinary unit to teach you that you have made a mistake."

We listened to him transfixed, with empty heads and rapt attention.

"The task which you will all have to assume sooner or later will certainly require more of you than you supposed. Simply maintaining a decent level of morale and knowing how to handle a weapon will no longer be enough. You will also require a very great deal of courage, of perseverance and endurance, and of resistance in any situation. We, of the Gross Deutschland, have merited mention in the official communiqués which are published throughout the Reich, and this is an honor not lightly bestowed. To deserve this honor we need men, and not pitiful specimens like you. I must warn you that everything here is hard, nothing is forgiven, and that everyone in consequence must have quick reflexes."

We didn't know how we ought to receive this tirade.

"Attention!" he shouted.

"Down on the ground, and full length!" Without a moment's hesitation, we were all stretched out on the sandy soil. Then Captain Fink stepped forward and, like someone strolling down a beach, walked across the human ground, continuing his speech as his boots, loaded with at least two hundred pounds, trampled the paralyzed bodies of our section. His heels calmly crushed down on a back, a hip, a head, or a hand-but no one moved.

"Today," he said, "I am going to take you for a little outing, so I can judge your abilities for myself."

He divided us into two groups: one of a hundred, the other of fifty.

"Today, gentlemen," he said, addressing himself to the group of fifty, to which neither Hals nor I belonged, "it will be your privilege to assume the role of the supposed wounded. Tomorrow, it will be your turn to look out for your comrades. WOUNDED SECTION ON THE GROUND!"

Then he turned to us: "In twos! Pick up the wounded!"

Hals and I made a seat of our hands for a wincing fellow who must have weighed at least 170 pounds. Then Captain Fink led us to the camp exit. We walked as far as a low hill which seemed to be about three quarters of a mile away. Our arms felt as though they would break under the weight of our comrade, who gradually grew used to the situation. When we reached the top of the hillock, we had to climb down the other side. Our boots cracked as we stumbled down the steep slope. By now the day had turned hot, and we began to run with sweat. Every so often an exhausted man let his grip slip for an instant, and the supposed victim slid to the ground. Whenever this occurred, Fink, with the help of his feld, would separate the enfeebled trio from the main body of men and assign them an even heavier load: each man would have to carry another on his back. At the bottom of the slope, I sensed that it was going to be my turn.

"I can't go on, Hals. My wrists are giving way. I've got to let go."

"You're crazy. You can't. Would you rather lug him all by yourself?"

"I know, Hals. But I really can't help it."

"Keep going," said the captain. "Los, los."

Hals tightened his grip on my hands to keep me from letting go. We could hear the men behind us gasping for breath, and stumbling on the rocky ground under the weight of a comrade and full equipment. The feld was trying to keep them going, urging them on with a torrent of abuse. Hals, who was a great deal stronger than I, clenched his teeth. Each crease in his face was pouring with sweat.

"I'm sorry boys," said the fellow we were carrying. "I'd gladly walk this, if they'd only let me."

We somehow managed to stagger to the next wooded hill, which we climbed with almost unbearable effort. By now the wretched fellows with their separate burdens had dropped far behind us, still relentlessly pursued by the feld. The captain never took his eyes off us. With every yard, we were expecting the order to halt, but every yard was followed by another, which was still more difficult. My numbed hands were now entirely without circulation.

"I can't stand it any more, Hals. Let go."

Hals clenched his teeth and didn't answer. The pain and pressure had become so great that I'd lost my grip altogether, and Hals was hanging on alone. The groups of men who had broken apart were straggling over a wide distance. Captain Fink reorganized them into couples. Then it was our turn.

I shook my bloodless hands, and heaved a long sigh. The giant shadow of the captain loomed over me, and I was ordered to lift a man heavier than myself onto my trembling shoulders. But the shift in position was a relief. Although my head was swimming, I was able to keep going.

This torture went on for nearly an hour, until we were all on the point of losing consciousness and at the extreme limit of our capacities, which Captain Fink seemed to be deliberately overestimating. Finally, he decided to shift us to a new exercise.

"Since you all seem to be tired, I shall now assign you a lying-down exercise, which may revive you. Picture to yourselves that over there behind that hill there is a nest of Bolshevik resistance."

He gestured toward a hillock about a half mile away.

"Furthermore," he went on in a jovial tone, "imagine that you have the best of reasons for taking that hill, but that if you walk over there on your feet, the Bolsheviks will make it their business to lay you flat. Therefore, you will make yourselves even flatter than the ground, and proceed toward your objective on your bellies. I shall precede you, and shall fire on anyone I see. Understood?"

We gaped at him, astounded. He was already walking away from us, pulling his Mauser from the holster on his belt. The few minutes he needed to reach the hill gave us a chance to breathe-almost the only chance we were to have during our three weeks of training. We kept our eyes glued to the hauptmann, who had gone to take up his position, wondering if we had heard him correctly.

On the feld's orders, we threw ourselves down on our stomachs, and began to squirm forward. The feld ran to join the captain, and we drew slowly closer to the rocky outcrop. Hals was struggling along on my left. We had covered about four fifths of the distance when the tiny silhouette of the captain appeared against the sky. He began firing almost at once. We hesitated for a moment, wondering what was happening, but the feld's whistle was still summoning us forward. The captain must have been under orders to avoid undue damage to his trainees, otherwise I am sure he wouldn't have hesitated to aim true.

His bullets whistled down among us until we had reached our objective. The game was not entirely without danger. During our three weeks of training, we buried four companions to the strains of "Ich hat ein Kamerad"-victims of so-called "training accidents." There were also some twenty wounded, with injuries ranging from a long infected scratch received during a crawl through a barbed-wire entanglement, to a wound from a bullet or a fragment of shrapnel, to a limb crushed by the track of a training tank. We also pulled out two fellows who had nearly drowned crossing a piece of water on waterlogged wooden crosses made of old railway ties.

We were sent on interminable marches. One day, we spent hours following the edge of a swamp, on the water side, while another section fired at us, forcing us to remain submerged up to our chins. During that particular game, everyone's head was down in earnest. We were trained to hurl grenades, both offensive and defensive, on a carefully prepared piece of ground. We were given bayonet practice, and exercises to develop balance, in which one in five cracked his head, and tests of endurance which seemed to last forever. One of these, for instance, took place in an old conduit, which must have been used to supply several towns with gas. It was made of two elbows, and the fellows in the middle learned all about the horrors of claustrophobia. There were many thousands of similar tests. In addition there was the famous "harteiibung," which was almost continuous. We were put on thirty-six hour shifts, which were broken by only three half-hour periods, during which we devoured the contents of our mess tins, before returning to the ranks in an obligatory clean and orderly condition. At the end of these thirty-six hours, we were allowed eight hours of rest. Then there was another thirty-six-hour period, after which everything began all over again. There were also false alarms, which tore us from our leaden sleep and forced us into the courtyard fully dressed and equipped, in record time, before we could return to our uncomfortable beds. Our first days were a time of martyrdom. No one had the right to talk. Sometimes a fellow would drop from exhaustion, which would place an extra charge on the section, obliging them to get the fellow onto his feet again, slapping him and spraying him with water.

Sometimes one of our comrades would return to camp so exhausted he could only stagger with the support of two other men. In principle, within five-hundred yards of the camp we were supposed to line up in order, fall into marching step, and sing, as if we were returning from a healthy and enjoyable hike. On some evenings, however, despite every curse in the book, and the threat of the disciplinary hut, we were so exhausted it was impossible for us to assume the attitude the feld required. To his chagrin and fury, he was obliged to drag a long line of sleepwalkers past the flag, before chasing us into our barracks, where we dropped onto our beds with all our clothes and equipment, our mouths bone dry and our heads aching. Nothing ever affected the routine at Camp F; Captain Fink simply carried on, in total disregard of our bleeding gums and pinched faces, until the stabbing pains in our heads made us forget the bleeding blisters on our feet. A cry for mercy would have brought no relief: any appeal was guaranteed an identical reception: "Auf marsch! Marsch!"