Forgotten Soldier (42 page)

I quickly shook Hals, whose sleep, as always, seemed impenetrable. He jumped, but when he realized it wasn't a new bombardment or attack he pulled himself together, muttering a few incomprehensible words, and finally stood up, rubbing his stiff and aching body.

"God, I'm sick of this," he said, in a disgusted, weary voice.

"Where are we, and what the hell are we doing here?"

"Come and eat," said the veteran.

In silence, we devoured the millet and soup, which was already beginning to cool. Some of the fellows preferred to sleep a little longer. Then we were ordered out again, and began to walk slowly through the devastated sector of Konotop. We were too exhausted to notice much, and walked without thinking or looking. When we were forced to recognize an explosion or an airplane, we slid to the ground without haste. Then we got up again . . . and so on. I was certainly ill. My head and back ached, probably from exhaustion, and I was shaking with the cold shivers of fever. But there was nothing to do about it. If I felt any worse later, I would try to get sent to a hospital-but, for that, I would have to faint.

We reached a section of the town that had suffered particularly heavy damage. In the ruins, we could see an enormous Tiger tank, which had ploughed a large furrow through the heaps of rubble and appeared to have been stopped by a mine, which had blown off its right tread. Despite this it was otherwise intact, and its gun was still spitting occasional shells at the enemy formations, which were very close.

Groups of soldiers hiding in the ruins seemed to be waiting for Ivan, who must have been digging in near by. We moved carefully through the rubble to a hole where Hals and I settled down. For at least a half mile ahead of us, and five hundred yards behind us, we could see nothing but wreckage. Groaning with the effort, we piled up all the solid pieces of rubble we could move, to keep ourselves off the bottom of the hole, which was covered with blackish water. We stared at each other in a kind of stupefied silence: we had already said everything there was to say under the circumstances. Our lives at that moment were reduced to waiting. The force of events had already inflicted enough horror to drive us mad.

"You really look filthy," Hals said finally.

"I'm sick," I said.

"We're all sick," Hals answered, his eyes fixed on our universe of destruction. Our exhausted eyes met for a moment, and I saw on my friend's face an almost limitless depth of weariness and despair.

I was also haunted by the thought of what might happen to us. It seemed literally impossible that this existence could go on much longer. We had been living in this way for over a year now, like gypsies -except that that is far too mild a comparison. Even the poorest, most wretched gypsies lived better than we did. For over a year I had been watching my comrades die. Suddenly, all the memories of that year came flooding back: the Don, the "Third International," Outcheni, the battalions of stragglers, Ernst, Tempelhof, Berlin, Magdeburg, the horrors of Belgorod, the retreat, and only yesterday Wootenbeck, his belly striped by a dozen streams of red blood, which ran down to his boots. What stroke of fortune had saved me from those giant explosions? So many men had already been consumed right in front of my horrified eyes that I wondered if what I had seen could possibly have been true. What miracle had preserved Hals, Lensen, the veteran, and the other survivors of our ill-fated unit? Although our luck had been almost incredible, and had spared us so far, it must almost surely run out, if this went on much longer. Tomorrow, perhaps the veteran, or Hals, or maybe even I would be buried. I suddenly felt terribly afraid. I looked out as far as I could see, in all directions. It would probably be my turn soon. I would be killed, just like that, and no one would even notice. We had all grown used to just about everything, and I would be missed only until the next fellow got it, wiping out the memory of preceding tragedies. As my panic rose, my hands began to tremble. I knew how terrible people looked when they were dead. I'd seen plenty of fellows fall face down in a sea of mud, and stay like that. The idea made me cold with horror. And my parents: I really should see them again; I couldn't just die like that. And Paula? My eyes filled with tears. . . . Hals was looking at me, as still as that horrible landscape, indifferent to suffering, death, everything. There was nothing we could do about it -the screams of fear, the groans of the dying, the torrents of blood soaking into the ground like a vile sacrilege-nothing. Millions of men could suffer and weep and scream, and the war would go on, implacable and indifferent. We could only wait and hope; but hope for what? To escape dying face down in the mud? And the war? All it needed was an order from the authorities, and it would end-an order, which the men would respect like a sacrament. And why? Because, after all, the men were only human.... I went on crying, and muttering incoherently to my impassive companion.

"Hals," I said. "We've got to get out of here. I'm afraid."

Hals looked at me, and then at the horizon.

"Get out? Where to? Go to sleep; you're sick."

I looked back at him with sudden hate. He too was part of this indifference and inertia.

The tank near us fired a shell, and the Russians sent back about half a dozen, scattering the piles of rubble a little further. Maybe they knocked off a few more of our fellows too: the veteran, perhaps. Suddenly it all seemed unbearable. My trembling hands clutched my head as if they were trying to crush it, and I sank into total despair. My sobs attracted Hals's attention. He looked at me, almost in irritation.

"Go to sleep, for God's sake. You can't go on like that."

"What difference does it make to you whether I sleep or die? You don't give a damn, and nobody gives a damn. Nobody gives a damn about anything. And nobody will give a damn when you're killed, either." "You're right. So what?"

"So what? We've got to do something, for the love of God, and not just sit here in a stupor, the way you're doing now."

Hals's listless eyes were without expression. His feeling of misery was probably as great as mine, but for the moment it was dulled, and his listlessness had overcome his outrage.

"Go to sleep, I tell you. You're sick."

"No!" I was shouting now. "I'd rather be killed and get it over with, right now."

I jumped up, and left our hole. But before I had taken more than two steps Hals had grabbed me by the belt and pulled me back.

"Let go, Hals," I shouted, louder than ever. "Let go, do you hear?" "You're going to shut up, for God's sake! And calm down! And be quick about it!"

Hals clenched his teeth, and clasped his two big hands around my neck.

,,You know as well as I do we're all going to get it, one after the other. So let the hell go of me. What business is it of yours anyway? What difference does it make?"

"The difference is that I need to see your face from time to time, the way I need to see the veteran, or that bastard Lindberg. Do you hear? If you go on like his, I'll smash you on the head, just to keep you quiet."

"But if Ivan gets me, I'll be dead anyway, and you won't be able to do a thing about it."

"If that happens, I'll cry, the way I did when my little brother Ludovik died. But he died because he was sick; he didn't do it on purpose. And if Ivan gets you, you won't have done it on purpose."

A violent shiver engulfed my whole body. Tears continued to pour down my cheeks, and I felt like kissing my poor friend's filthy face. Hals loosened his grip, and then let go. A burst of fire forced him to duck. He looked at me, and we both smiled.

At the end of the day, our third attempt to move failed like the others. By this time, the piles of rubble which stretched out to the dark horizon seemed to have been leveled absolutely flat, with no protruding shapes-although a few chimneys were in fact still standing.

Once again, the darkness was streaked with white lights, which glimmered back at me from the insensible retinas of my companion, and we began another interminable night of fear, in a dark hole, with a pool of cold water under the stones, and an exhaustion so heavy one wished to die; a night in which nothing-or everything-could happen.

There were fires, and explosions, and short or long flashes of light, which killed the sleep pressing at the backs of our eyeballs. We listened to the cries of our fellow combatants, and the lethal rain of rockets crashing into the ground behind us. A thousand memories of my other life passed through my head-France, and my youth, still so close, and so remote-an act of childish naughtiness, a toy, a scolding, which now seemed so gentle, my mother, and the new focus in my life, Paula. . . .

We hardly spoke during that night, but I knew that I should try to live for the sake of my friend....

Long before daylight, a violent fit of shivering destroyed what was left of my resolution. In the gray daylight, Hals wrapped me in my cover, which I no longer had the will to unfasten.

"Take this," he said, handing me a half-eaten can of food. "Eat it. You'll feel better."

I looked despairingly at the jam mixed with lint and dust from the inside of the pack.

"What is it?"

"Eat it. It's good. You'll see."

I did as I was told, and scooped out the jam with two fingers. But, before I'd swallowed even half of it, I was overwhelmed by nausea, and my vomit increased the filth of our refuge.

"Damn it," Hals said. "You're much sicker than I thought. Try to sleep."

Shaking with fever, I let myself fall into the mire, which I pushed back with my elbows and feet to try to make a flat place where I could stretch out and perhaps really sleep. Several hours passed before I regained consciousness.

Later that morning, we were sent some reinforcements, and Hals was able to help me to another hole a little farther back, where two fellows put me on a makeshift bed laid across the shattered remnants of a ladder. Two other fellows were lying on boards which had been put directly onto the stones.

Behind my head and my ears, ringing with fever, the war went on. I lay where I was, listening to its roar for an indefinable time, shaking with feverish chills, despite the pile of covers and coats which several well-meaning companions had thrown down on top of me. Once, somebody woke me up and made me swallow a pill.

How much time went by? Perhaps a day. I fought my fever while Russians and Germans fought each other through the outskirts of the town. After turning the end of the enemy lines to the east of Konotop, we withdrew to the west, only to find a defensive wall which cut us off from our rear. Several attempts to move out to the west failed, and our autonomous group, already weakened, was faced with the prospect of entrapment in a Bolshevik noose, which was drawing tight, from the north, west, and south.

While I lay shivering on my ladder, our situation grew extremely critical. Our staff officers were doing everything they could to kill the terrible rumor that we were encircled.

The next night I was ordered to leave my ladder in a hurry, and tottered on my unsteady legs to a more secure shelter in a cellar, where about fifty sick or wounded men had been collected. I was almost turned away from this improvised infirmary, but as I looked pretty sick, an orderly stuck a thermometer in my mouth. When this registered nearly 104°, I was told to sit in a corner, where I waited for morning and someone to look further into my case.

Outside, the town was undergoing heavy bombardment simultaneously from the ground and from the air, and the orderlies were run off their feet by a flood of freshly wounded men. My comrades had gone back into the line, to face the increasingly ferocious enemy assaults. Toward noon, the orderlies filled me with quinine, and made me give my place to a fellow who was dripping with blood, and no longer able to stand on his feet.

With stars dancing in front of my eyes, I staggered from the dark cellar into brilliant sunshine. A final burst of summery sun lit a landscape of total devastation. Everywhere, columns of smoke were climb ing into the sky. Groups of slightly wounded men stood staring and talking, visibly stricken with desperation and horror. One of them told me we were surrounded.

This terrible news was almost as destructive as the bombardment. A sense of every man for himself had begun to spread, and our officers needed all the severity they could muster to prevent a hopeless rout.

Still another day passed, and I slowly began to recover, but my head swam, like the head of a convalescent who has gotten up too quickly. I stayed huddled in a corner as long as I could, gleaning fragments of news from the rest of the city.

Surrounded ... dangerous situation ... the Russians have already reached ... we're trapped ... the Luftwaffe is coming.... But, instead of our planes, we heard Yaks and Its throbbing overhead in the pale blue sky, and torrents of Russian bombs shaking what was left of the town.

What, exactly, was happening? Almost no one really knew. I can still remember a roll call, and then the noncoms coming to comb the infirmary. A fellow had to be missing a foot, at least, to be able to stay behind. I was among those who could still be used, and was led back with several bandaged companions to a zone near the front of the fighting.

In a vast space bordered by roofless houses, a new group was hastily organized. Among the five or six officers present, I immediately recognized Herr Hauptmann Wesreidau. From nearby, to the northeast, the thunder of Stalin's organs drowned our voices, and provoked a wave of panic which was difficult to control. I was still very sick. My mouth tasted sour, and I felt as if my thin, faltering body was supported only by my boots and my filthy clothes.

Wesreidau began to speak, raising his voice to make himself heard above the noise of the guns. He would probably have preferred to give us a more detailed explanation, but the continuous uproar, the pressure of time, and the risk of Russian planes suddenly diving at our three companies drawn up in the square forced him to be brief.

"Kameraden! We're surrounded! . . . The entire division has . . . been . . . surrounded!"

We already knew it, but hearing it officially made us horribly afraid. A situation officially acknowledged to be dangerous by the staff must be very serious indeed. In the near distance, through the sound of explosions, we could hear the howl of Russian rockets. Both the earth and sky were filled with roaring noise, as if to emphasize the desperation of Captain Wesreidau's announcement.