Forgotten Soldier (45 page)

The roar of the guns was growing louder, like the noise of an oncoming train, and there was the sound of machine guns too, although we still couldn't see anything. We could also hear a vast din of human voices which rose above the thunder of guns and machinery. We stopped where we were, a light trace of breath escaping from each half-open mouth. I looked for some explanation on the filthy faces of my companions, but their expressions were as bewildered as my own, which had probably not changed much since I had begun to try to lose myself in memories. Since surprises in wartime can only be dangerous, we immediately looked for a hole. All I could find was the river bank. I slid over the edge until I was up to my thighs in the invisible water, which seemed almost warm after the icy air.

I immediately lost hold of my attempted daydream, and stared feverishly through the black and impenetrable wall which hid the action from us, like a curtain in the theatre. The roar of the tanks grew louder, and made the surface of the water tremble, with a motion I was just able to perceive.

When danger finally comes, after hours of harassing fear, it is almost like a liberation. At least one knows what the confrontation will be, and if the danger is terrible, one knows that at least it will soon be over. But, when danger continues indefinitely, it becomes unbearable. Then even an outburst of tears is no release. After hours and then days of danger, as at Belgorod, one collapses into unbearable madness, and a crisis of nerves and tears is only the beginning. Finally, one vomits and collapses, entirely brutalized and inert, as if death had already won.

For the moment, I remained calm. The river blocked our escape but, at the same time, offered a prospect of safety. I was already over my knees in water. The fog hid the terrifying breadth of the river from me, and I thought that, if the worst came to the worst, I could always try that way out, skimming over the surface like a will-o'-the-wisp. I felt almost convinced that I could do it. Then we saw lights, and heard explosions like grenades, and crackling sounds accompanied by little points of light. Five or six gasping soldiers splashed into the water beside me.

"It's those dumb bastards in the artillery who brought Ivan here."

Terrifying screams drowned the sound of engines, screams so prolonged and horrible that my blood froze, and the water around my legs seemed even colder than before.

"Mein Gott!" someone murmured in the darkness beside me.

We heard the sounds of gunfire and explosions coming closer, punctuated by bloodcurdling screams. Men suddenly plunged out of the pale, enveloping cotton, and disappeared like ghosts into the black water. From the sounds of splashing, we guessed they were trying to swim. We felt petrified by fear, and stayed where we were. A terrible, growling mass of machines passed by close to us, shaking the earth and water, and a penetrating headlight pierced the fog. We couldn't see where it was going, only that it was moving. During those moments of terror, we clung to each other like children. A piece of the bank broke away under our weight, and our heap of belongings slid into the mud. My head went under for a few seconds, and when I surfaced the river bank and the long grasses hid what was happening. We could hear the sound of machine guns ripping into the air very close to us, over the grinding roar of tank treads. And always, terrifying screams, as the tanks drove a bloody furrow through the tightly packed crowd paralyzed by terror and darkness. A little higher up, two other lights, barely visible in the gloom, were seeking out other victims.

With daylight, we saw that there must have been about ten tanks, passing through without stopping, on their way to Kiev.

However, our tension was so great that we stayed in the water for a long time, without moving, in spite of the stinking mud which had seeped into our helmets, and through our hair, which was standing on end with terror.

With absolute accuracy, the German guns, firing from the other side of the river, had drawn the Bolshevik tanks onto us, and contributed to the horrible deaths of many of our men.

Cries for help drew us from our slimy refuge, and we ran to do what we could to help the dying-which was very little. We saw sights so horrible they were beyond any imagining. We shot a great many men to put them out of their misery, although mercy killings were strictly forbidden. At dawn the fog lifted, and an almost spring like sun ushered in a new day of difficulties and disappointments.

Burial squads were forcibly organized and began their grisly work, grimacing with horror. Everyone who managed to escape this duty went off as far as he could, to try to sleep or warm up. My partly dried clothes had gone stiff, and I felt uncomfortable and ill. But my exhaustion, which weighed on my eyes and made the sunlight unbearable, prevented me from grasping that I should have stripped and washed in the river, allowing the sun to nourish my exhausted body. I stayed as I was, immobilized by my need for sleep, staring through half-closed eyes at the damp gray-green of my uniform, turning slowly yellow as it dried. When I finally did sleep, I was awakened almost immediately by shouts of terror.

I opened my eyes, and stared up into an infinite, pale blue sky, in which there was a familiar noise: planes. My bones creaked as I propped myself up on one elbow. I couldn't see anything unusual only the piles of sleeping bodies among the gorse. Everywhere, faces drowning in sleep were turning to the sky. A fellow in a fatigue cap ran by, shouting like a deaf man.

A heavy machine gun behind me opened fire. It took us a while to shake off our torpor. Four Russian planes were circling like hornets about three thousand feet above us. Everyone was shouting-both men and officers.

"Do you all want to be killed?" a ragged lieutenant was yelling at us. "You should at least try to defend yourselves."

We feverishly grabbed our guns, and waited with one knee on the ground for the enemy, who was about to drop from the clouds. However, the Yaks went away. It was inconceivable that they should have been afraid of us, so we concluded they were running out of gas. We rubbed our eyes and sighed with relief, as our partially revived sense of vigilance died down. Everyone was thinking of stretching out again and catching up with his lost sleep. Then the heavy machine gun pivoted rapidly on its mount and began to fire toward the north. Everyone turned that way too, before throwing himself flat. The four planes roared over us almost at ground level, firing rapidly with all their guns. We could just hear the lieutenant, who was very near us, shouting as loud as he could to make himself heard above the noise of the planes: "Fire, you bastards!"

The planes passed overhead. I saw the lieutenant roll onto the ground, stand up again, and with one hand clutching his stomach fire his revolver at the roaring planes. Then he grimaced, fell to his knees, and rolled over onto himself. Of all the men around us, he was the only one who had been hit. The planes had reserved most of their fire for the overloaded, almost motionless rafts, which made perfect targets.

"Give us some help!" shouted a fellow with a long thin face, who'd gone with a companion to see what he could do for the lieutenant.

"Why in God's name did he stand up?"

"He was acting like a hero," answered one of the felds, "and he was the only one. We should all be ashamed."

The thin-faced fellow was helping to carry the dying man down to the river's edge. I was behind him with some of the lieutenant's things.

"Shame has nothing to do with it," he said, sighing heavily.

We had not been abandoned. From the west bank, our antiaircraft guns were firing on the Russian vultures overhead, and the two ramshackle rafts on the river were continuing their dangerous journey. There must have been many dead and wounded men on board, to judge by the agitation we could all see.

The planes dived down toward the swarming strip of ground which rang with screams of pain and cries for help, and toward the rafts, and achieved a hideous massacre. Every time the danger withdrew for a moment, so that we could lift our heads and look out over the reeds, we saw scenes of tragedy. Almost everyone on the rafts who hadn't been killed or immobilized by wounds had jumped into the water and was trying to swim. The planes made a fourth pass, and were met this time by all our guns and spandaus, which finally drove them away. We heard a loud sound of shooting. One of the Russian planes had been hit, and was spiraling upward, trying to gain height, leaving a thick plume of black smoke behind it. Suddenly it lurched into an irrevocable dive toward the water. We saw a smaller shape detach from the mass of the plane-probably the pilot, trying to jump to safety. But his parachute, if he had one, failed to open. Man and machine hit the water at the same speed, and disintegrated. For a moment, our cheers drowned the groans of the wounded on the rafts. However, toward noon the Russian planes were back again-about a dozen fighter-bombers this time.

In the interval, we had deepened our holes so that we were better protected; but we couldn't reach the planes with our fire. The Russians, as before, attacked the heavily loaded rafts on the river, which had almost reached the west bank. Our flak tried unsuccessfully to keep the planes away, and we watched, pale with helpless rage, as the bombs fell toward the water. A raft and all its human cargo were blown to pieces. Our fleet was being liquidated, and the attacks were just beginning. The Ilyushins were gaining height, to dive down again. A soldier beside me was weeping and shouting over and over: "The bastards, the bastards." Our damp hands scraped nervously against the ground as we maneuvered our guns.

"We'll never get out of this," shouted my companion. "They'll wipe us out, the shits."

Then a miracle occurred, which completely changed the tone of our cries.

"Sieg! Sieg! Der Luftwaffe!"

Nine Messerschmitt 109-Fs had appeared and were diving down onto the Russian planes, which had just completed an attack formation. The Russian pilots, aware of the technical inferiority of their planes, were trying to get away as fast as they could. We could hear bursts of fire, and felt a surge of intense, savage, and vengeful joy when we saw two of the Ilyushins spinning through the air like partridges hit by hunters' bullets. Then our cries grew even louder. Five Russian planes passed right overhead before we realized they meant danger. We shook our fists at them.

The fellow beside me, who'd been trembling with fury a moment before, was now trembling with joy, as uncontrolled as a madman. Our fighters were chasing the Ilyushins, which fled, skimming low over the ground. Then the pack disappeared behind the hills, which blocked our view. We heard guns, and a loud explosion. After that we had nothing to do but tend the wounded.

The next day we felt almost happy to wake in the rain. Traffic across the river had continued all night, carrying over as many men as possible; nevertheless, a vast number were still waiting on the east bank. We no longer knew how many days we'd been there, but, despite all our difficulties, we'd been able to reorganize somewhat. Men belonging to the same units had sorted each other out, and waited in distinct groups. Our officers had posted armed men on the hills to warn against a sudden attack. We knew that the Russians were very close, and felt rather surprised that they hadn't attacked already. Probably the battle for Kiev had absorbed almost all of them.

I had joined a large group of men made up for the most part of members of the Gross Deutschland, and men who had escaped from the infantry regiment which had come to our aid when we broke through at Konotop. The officers present-among whom I was delighted to see Herr Hauptmann Wesreidau-told us that as members of an elite division, and as specialized offensive troops, we should have been among the first to embark for the west. They also said that we would be the next to go. Naturally, we were glad to hear it, as everyone wished to reach the west bank as quickly as possible. Some fellows suggested a technique that had occurred to many of us as soon as we arrived at the river. This was to tie together bunches of reeds with our belts, and use them as floats. This had been proved successful many times, but it was not possible for moving the equipment indispensable to any soldier who did not wish to be considered a deserter.

The reception of these unequipped men on the other bank must have been sufficiently poor for our officers to forbid escape by reed float. But it was difficult for them to impose discipline on men simultaneously paralyzed by fear and prepared to affront the devil. Many men, in fact, drowned, or died of pneumonia, and many, after risking everything, were court-martialed.

I no longer had any clear idea of our situation, and set about trying to discover from the soldiers in my unit what had happened to my friends. Perhaps someone among these three thousand men waiting in the mud had run into Hals or Lensen or the veteran, stretched out on an armful of long, soaking stalks, dreaming of a distant utopia, indifferent to the rain running down his resigned features.

But my researches were in vain, and my questions remained unanswered. Once I thought I recognized a couple of faces from our disbanded company. I talked to the fellows, who answered evasively that they no longer remembered anything that had happened. They were absolutely exhausted, and my questions only seemed to annoy them. Their stunned minds seemed capable of only one idea: they had to cross the river.

There was only one person who might know a little more than the others-Herr Kapitan Wesreidau. But the respect and fear which officers required of us made it almost impossible to speak to them. A few of the older soldiers were bold enough to approach them, but for a boy like myself it was entirely different. However, I was so consumed by desire to speak to the captain that it must have showed on my face. Also, I was always lingering somewhere near him or his group. I was sitting on my bundle a short distance away from Wesreidau and two or three other officers, including a major, when Wesreidau began to walk toward me. I stared in confusion at the tall figure in the long leather coat shining with rain, ready to leap to my feet and snap to attention. But the captain gestured to me to stay as I was, so I remained on the ground, with my eyes glued to his face. He seemed even taller than usual, because I was so low down.