Forgotten Soldier (47 page)

A German soldier is expected to die rather than indulge in carelessness with army property.

The careless lieutenant was assigned to a penal battalion, and three grades were stripped from his rank. At that, he could think himself lucky.

The lieutenant's eyes were wild, and he seemed to be fighting for breath. He was a pitiful and terrifying sight. Two soldiers dragged him off to the right, toward a group of broken men, who'd been dealt with in the same way.

Then it was my turn.

I felt stiff with fright. I pulled my crumpled documents from an inside pocket. The M.P. riffled through them, throwing me a reproving look. His bad temper seemed to soften somewhat at the sight of my apprehensive, mortified face, and he continued his inventory in silence.

Fortunately, I had been able to reintegrate with my unit, and had saved the scrap of white cardboard which stated that I had left the infirmary to take part in an attack. My head was swimming, and I thought I was going to faint. Then the M.P. read off a list of articles which ordinary soldiers like myself were supposed to carry at all times. The words rolled off his tongue, but I didn't catch them quickly enough, and didn't immediately produce the items still in my possession. The M.P. then treated me to a certain German word, which I was hearing for the first time. It appeared I was missing four items, including that fucking gas mask I had deliberately abandoned.

My pay book was passed from hand to hand to be inspected and stamped. In my panic, I made an idiotic move. Hoping to gain favor, I produced nine unused cartridges from my cartridge belt. The M.P.'s eyes lit on these like the eyes of an alpinist who spots a good foothold.

"You were retreating?"

"Ja, Herr Unteroffizier."

"Why didn't you try to defend yourself? Why didn't you fight?" he shouted.

"Ja, Herr Unteroffizier."

"What do you mean-ja?"

"We were ordered to retreat, Herr Unteroffizier."

"God damn it to hell!" he roared. "What kind of an army runs without shooting?"

My pay book came down the line. My interrogator grabbed it, and riffled the pages for a moment. His eyes traveled from the filthy, tattered page to my face.

I followed the movement of his lips, which might be about to assign me a penal battalion-to the life of a prisoner, to forward positions, mine clearing, infrequent leaves always confined to camp, so that the word "liberty" lost all meaning, and the cancellation of mail.... I held back my tears with difficulty.

Finally the M.P.'s rigid fingers handed back my liberty. I had not been assigned to a penal battalion, but my emotion overwhelmed me anyway. As I picked up my pack, I sobbed convulsively, unable to stop. A fellow beside me was doing the same.

The crowd of men still waiting stared at me in astonishment. Like a miserable tramp, I ran past the line of tables and left by a door opposite the one we'd entered by. I felt that I had disgraced myself.

I rejoined my comrades, who were standing in the rain in the other part of the camp. They weren't resting on the soft beds we'd dreamed of before coming to this place, and the rain streaming down their shoulders and backs was another hope disappointed.

However, despite the slap in the face we had just received from our grateful country, we could still count ourselves lucky.

Three days later, we learned that the day after our crossing, with six or seven thousand of our men still waiting on the east bank, the Russians had attacked. They were probably discouraged by their failure to retake Kiev, where the heavily outnumbered German Army was fighting desperately, and had decided to clean up the pockets still occupied by the Wehrmacht. Twenty-four hours after our group left, our comrades on the east bank were suddenly dazzled by the flares that flooded their temporary encampments with brilliant light.

The lookouts in the shallow trenches scratched into the hills overlooking the river, who were supposed to provide an illusion of protection, watched the shouting hordes of Russian infantry flood down to the river. These soldiers quickly realized they would never be able to stop that irresistible tide, and succumbed to a moment of absolute panic. Some ran, through the deafening explosions of Soviet rockets which drowned out our spandaus and light mortars. The Russians, driven by expectations of victory and by the exhortations of the people's commissars, pushed forward regardless of the cost.

The cost was enormous. Each German projectile seemed to hit home. But Ivan continued his inexorable advance. On the mud landing stage from which I had embarked, panic gave way to madness. One of the rafts, which was loading up as usual, was swamped by a human flood. The few who managed to keep cool heads shouted for calm, and sometimes even used their guns. In the grotesque, trampling rush, mooring ropes gave way, and the raft drifted out a few yards, shuddering under the weight of the mob which had overrun it. Hands trying to grip the edges of the raft were trampled and crushed by heavy boots. On the landing stage, friends were fighting each other. Some of the officers committed suicide. The raft moved out another couple of yards, and then suddenly tipped away from the bank like a child's toy. A loud cry mingled with the sound of the approaching battle, and two hundred terrified men floundered in the water, clinging together or trying to swim. A great many sank and drowned instantly.

At that moment, Ivan appeared at the crest of the hills, having swept the defenders aside. Drunk with excitement, the Russian soldiers dropped to the ground on one knee, and picked off Germans as if they were clay pigeons at a fair. A few Germans, white as ghosts, fired back with their F.M.s, but their numbers were so small the Russians scarcely noticed them. Several thousand others were running, screaming, trying to get away, and dying as they ran. The Russians also fired at the men in the water who were trying to swim, using flares to light the darkness.

An hour after they had appeared on the skyline, the Russians reached the river. There were a few more scattered shots, but their victory was complete. A third of the remaining German troops were taken prisoner, and for the rest everything was over. Their military responsibilities had come to an end, and they would never again be victimized by military police.

At the reception camp, we stood in the rain a little longer, and then three blacked-out trucks appeared to collect us. Despite the appalling road and the overload which threatened to burst the slatted sides, fifty soldiers wrapped in sacking were piled onto each truck with all their equipment. I was stuffed into one of these human ant heaps: that is to say, one leg was buried in the swarm, while the other dangled out. I was astride the back flap, but there were other fellows hanging on for dear life who were almost entirely outside the truck. We rolled off through the quiet night. I felt completely disoriented, and hadn't the faintest sense of our direction.

An hour later, we drew up to a group of buildings, which first appeared as a vague, blurred mass in the dim, bluish light. We realized that an unusual rush of activity was taking place all around, and then gradually perceived that we were looking at a row of structures bordered on both sides by tree-lined roads jammed with innumerable vehicles. There were troops everywhere, on foot or arriving and leaving on high-speed motorcycles, and many officers and M.P.s. The trucks jerked to a sudden halt, and we were told to get off. Although we still understood that we'd been saved, we were beginning to feel that we'd had enough. We were famished and dropping with sleep.

We had to wait for another half hour before someone came to take charge of us. The rain fell steadily. Was it raining anywhere else? Was it raining in France? I tried to think of my house and my bed. Where were they now? In which direction? But I could only summon up confused and fragmented memories of the life I had left behind. My only world was the vast anonymity of Russia, which seemed to be engulfing all of us, absorbing entire regiments, so that even their names vanished.

Finally, a noncom came over to us. Our group leader handed him our papers, which he examined with a dimmed flashlight. Then he ordered us to collect our gear and follow him. At last, we entered the shelter of a roof, an amenity to which we'd grown so unaccustomed that we stared at it as if it were the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

"You'll be sent to your units later," shouted the noncom, who, like the rest of us, seemed to have had just about enough. "While you're waiting, try to get a little rest."

He didn't have to repeat himself. We explored the darkness of the but with our pocket flashlights, and discovered that it contained a couple of benches and four or five large tables. Everyone stretched out where he could, making pillows of the nearest leg, or buttocks, or boot. The discomfort seemed unimportant beside the fact that at last we were out of the rain. Some fellows began to snore immediately. Others tried to pretend they were somewhere else. Despite our harsh reception, we all had a sense that from now on everything would go better, and that once again life was offering its possibilities. We all thought of the leave we would surely be getting, which was now only a question of patience.

However, soldiers fresh from the front cannot indulge the luxury of daydreams. The accumulated lack of sleep gripped our temples like an iron band. Like people suffering a serious illness, we dropped swiftly from consciousness into deep sleep.

We probably slept for a long time. It was broad daylight when a burst of noise suddenly woke us. Then a long blast of a whistle ordered us to our feet. We were all filthy and horribly crumpled. If the Fuehrer had seen us, he would either have sent us all home or had us shot.

The noncom who had waked us looked at us with an expression of surprise. Perhaps he too had never imagined that the German Army could be reduced to such a state. He spoke to us, but I no longer remember what he said. I was still only half awake, and understood that he was talking, without really listening to him. We gathered that we were to prepare for departure. We were going to be returned to our units.

One of the huts had been fitted with showers, but so many men were waiting that we clearly had no chance of getting inside. Instead, we were given some empty gasoline vats full of hot water. However, we all felt too exhausted to want to wash. Our days of training, when we were appalled by the smallest spot on our tunics, seemed very far away. Our concern had shifted from hygiene to something far more urgent. Furthermore, it was bitterly cold, and no one wanted to take anything off-not even the sacking draped over our shoulders.

I was so cold I was shivering, and I wondered if I was getting sick again. We had to go outside for food, and lined up like a column of tramps beside the field kitchen. A cold east wind was blowing damp patches of fog in from the river. Two cooks emptied large ladles of hot soup into our chipped and filthy mess tins. We had been expecting the usual ersatz, but it seemed that the time for that had long gone by. As a special gesture, they were serving us eleven-o'clock soup early. The burning-hot mixture made us feel much better.

A hauptmann stared at us as he walked by, and then turned back, obviously looking for our unit leader. The lieutenant who filled this position got up and walked over to him.

"Kamerad," the captain said, "you and your men have been given this opportunity to clean up. I think you should make the most of it."

"Jawohl, Herr Hauptmann."

The lieutenant ordered us over to the vats, which were standing under the eaves of one of the huts. We looked enviously across at the fellows who were going to get into hot showers. At least three hundred men were waiting for an experience which seemed like a blessing from heaven, so close to the front.

Those at the front of the line had more or less undressed, and were scratching the lice which had settled in a ring at the belt line, when we were suddenly ordered to prepare for immediate departure. For me, at least, this was a reprieve. Stripping in that icy air had begun to seem impossibly difficult. I much preferred to keep my lice relatively warm between my gray under-vest and my stomach, which was rumbling with hunger.

I was certainly ill again-I no longer had any doubts.

I couldn't stop shivering, and felt cold right down to the soles of my feet. We piled into the open trucks, overloading them as usual. But no one com plained. No matter how squashed we were, it was better than walking. However, I was soon caught in a grotesque predicament.

The trucks rolled off down a road which the rains had transformed into a swamp. The truck behind us gave off two sprays of liquid mud as steady and uniform as the sprays of a municipal fountain. I was strangely reminded of the retreat from the Don. Was Russia nothing but a vast sea of mud? As always, we were driving toward a northern horizon marked by dark forests. The echoes of occasional explosions drifted to us on the wind, but they didn't sound serious. The sky was overcast and threatened rain.

Huddled between two companions, I swayed to the slow rhythm of the trucks struggling through the mire. I felt more and more uncomfortable and ill. My lips and face seemed to be burning, and the slightest motion of the air felt like ice against my skin. My stomach was griped by a brutal pain, which traveled outward through my body, in waves of violent shivers. At first I thought this must be an after-effect of the hard times we'd been through, especially as I had never entirely recovered from my illness at Konotop. I knew that I must look more cadaverous than ever. My intestines were twisting themselves in knots. Naturally, no one gave a damn, and besides I was certainly not the only one with a pain in my gut. Then my pain became so imperative that I tried to double over, despite the crowding and all my gear.

The fellow beside me noticed my restlessness, and leaned his hairy face toward me: "Take it easy, friend.... We'll soon be there." But he clearly had no more idea where we were going than I did.

"I've got a hell of a pain in the gut."

"And this is a hell of a time to crap."

Suddenly, I realized what was the matter with me. My stomach was churning with increasing violence and threatened to explode. I certainly couldn't stop a military convoy because my guts were about to turn inside out. I had to laugh at my predicament despite my shivers and cramps and salivating mouth. But I also had to try to think of a solution. The convoy was now in the middle of a forest, where there was no reason to stop. And, even if we came to a camp, I couldn't just leave my group the moment we arrived, without any apparent motive. If I did that, they might even shoot me as a deserter.