Forgotten Soldier (72 page)

Elsewhere, scattered through the population, were Lithuanians, anti-communist Russians, Poles, and even English and Canadian prisoners, who shared our fate, even at Memel. The general terror of Russia superseded all national divisions and differences of opinion; it was a brute fact-simple and unassimilable. When no other course was possible, everyone fled-even the English and Canadian prisoners. The likelihood of being distinguished by the Russian assault units was too doubtful. Women of all ages were exposed to another form of outrage. The number of people evacuated by sea must have risen into the millions.

The veteran had carefully set up his F.M. in the ruins of a house whose walls rose no higher than three feet from the ground. From time to time he brushed the snow from the breech with the back of his hand, which had turned gray from repeated frostbite. Since our last attack to the south of the town, the veteran seemed to have regained his calm. The nervous excitement which affected all of us no longer seemed to touch him. He no longer took part in our desperate discussions, and seemed to have separated himself from all our sufferings. The war, the cold, and all the other horrors which plagued us no longer seemed to touch him. His manner was strange and we wondered about his frame of mind.

However, that morning, his F.M. had saved us from a Russian patrol which had become particularly interested in our group. Twenty Russian bodies lay stiffening in front of the Volkssturm truck which continued to function despite the fact that one of its back wheels was a thick log wedged against the chassis-another of the minor miracles of Memel. Then the Russians had sent a 50-mm. bullet under its hood, finishing off the two old men dressed as soldiers who sat in the cab. Hours later the damned thing was still blocking our view. The Russians had tried to use it as a shield to get close enough to wipe us out with grenades, but Wiener had riddled them with enough fire to finish them off too. Speed had been the critical factor, and Wiener had simply been the quickest. Now he sat in silence, wiping his gun as if it were a precious jewel. The rest of us-Hals, Lindberg, two others, and I-remained sitting in nervous agitation behind our cold, gray weapons, fully aware that they were no longer enough to guarantee our safety.

I had at my disposal three Panzerfausts, and the new P.M. which the Volkssturm had recently distributed-an extremely effective weapon which combined features of both the F.M. and the old P.M. I also had a small magnetic mine, which gave my stomach an extra turn. At Memel we each carried enough of an armory to ensure a quick death-with all that load, there was no question of getting away quickly.

We were to hold our position for about two more weeks, fighting off more or less soft attacks every forty-eight hours. Our rear was no great distance from the front, which made it possible for us to rotate our rest periods at reasonably frequent intervals, and rest in a manner which was more or less refreshing. Not far from us, beside what was left of the street, was a signpost stating that we were five miles from the coast: the last five miles of our retreat from the Don-an almost incredible sweep of over a thousand miles, much of it on foot. As the veteran sometimes jokingly said to me: "The same route your great-grandfather took with Napoleon, my boy. You might think of it as a family affair, if that's any consolation to you."

Then, one evening, as we were returning to the damp and icy cellar we used as a dormitory during our rest periods, we noticed that the civilian population of Memel had almost disappeared. The last shipload of refugees must have left while we were at the front. We walked through the darkness of the town, which was more like an abandoned cemetery than a town, and returned to our cellar with something like joy in our hearts.

My companions sat huddled on their ragged pallets without talking, attacking whatever comestible Grandsk had been able to produce, without even noticing what it was. It didn't matter a damn; their attention was elsewhere. They were dreaming in the heavy silence, fixing their eyes, which burned with accumulated distress, on the dirty gray vault of our cellar. They were dreaming of the deliverance which must be near at hand, of the leaking hulk which would carry us out onto the sea against which we had been pressed for so long. They were dreaming, staring from their dark sockets with mad, transparent eyes, and it was understood that no one would speak. Their eyes, which had grown used to staring only at the war, had turned toward the possibility of an inner vision it was just possible to glimpse, with an intensity which I also felt in myself. They were dreaming, and so that the war wouldn't catch them at it, they tried to hide it, looking at no one and keeping their eyes fixed on some inner vision of hope.

I was the only one who saw them. I saw them because I had nothing else to see. I had already dreamed too much, and perhaps had lost that capacity. Too many of my dreams had been nightmares. Even if I had still been able to dream, I wouldn't have dared, because in the end, when one of the dreams came true, it was too painful.

So I no longer dreamed but watched the others, drinking in some of their hope, and turning it for moments at a time into concrete images: worn boots on the slimy deck of a ship-boots, vomiting discolored, empty uniforms. And then I would stop, because hope was so horrible. What forms did the hope of others take? It seemed that I no longer knew how to dream.

And yet I too still possessed this impatience, which we hid and cherished like a treasure which life had not yet stolen. I still had it too, and was hiding it inside myself. I felt it, and heard it, shrieking through my silence, shrieking so loudly that it overwhelmed me, like the noise of explosions. My balance was damaged by that sound, because I no longer dared lay claim to any particular hope or promise. I was afraid to ask too much, afraid that the least desire might seem like a demand.

I was still alive, and was afraid that somebody might notice.

I had given everything else I had: my feelings, my anguish, my sorrow, my fear. I had also forgotten Paula, and, so that I wouldn't still seem too rich, I had forgotten that I was too young. I was not in very good health, but everything at Memel was hard. People with holes in their stomachs as big as fists were asked to be brave. Others, whose blood was pouring out onto the snow, fired at the war until their eyes grew glassy. I was lucky. In spite of my fits of coughing and my bloody phlegm, I still had a spark of life, which I kept hidden. One must no longer ask anything of anybody. Even if God heard our prayers, whatever we received would be consumed.

So I watched my companions as they dreamed. They too knew how dangerous dreams were in that place. Memel needed everything-dreams and hopes included. Men who still could hope fought better than those who couldn't. And we were all so tired of fighting.

From time to time one of us would emerge from torpor and scream. These screams were entirely involuntary: we couldn't stop them. They were produced by our exhaustion, by our organs, writhing with fatigue.

Some laughed as they howled; others prayed. Men who could pray could hope, and for so many hope was dead-so they howled their prayers. In any case, it was too late. Even if their prayers had been heard, God would no longer have dared to appear. He had abused His mercy-as in the case of Smellens, who had died that morning. Smellens had wanted to die, but not until he had received some news of his little brother, whom he had only seen twice. With dry eyes, we had watched the road which should have brought us the post, but no news came. Smellens had hung on to life as long as he could; but here, in Memel, it was too late for the All-powerful.

During the following days the first military evacuations took place. First, the units which had been most sorely tried, with the gravely wounded given priority-except for the hopeless cases, who would be as well off dying in Memel as anywhere else. The silently impatient joy of the less seriously injured, who could go, helped them to forget their wounds, which were tortured by the cold. Gangrenous cases stopped thinking about the amputations which awaited them. It was as if a veil of confidence had drifted gently over the town. Except for the planes, which hammered at us continuously, life might also have become life again. Ships gutted by bombs blocked the approaches to the piers. Mutilated corpses floated in the debris. The Navy was performing a prodigious task. We would have been lost without it.

A barge packed with men had been bombed amidships by an adroit pilot who hit the bull's eye the first time. We were summoned from our rest period to deal with the mess. I shall omit the details, the memory of which still nauseates me. Our boots were red with blood. The human refuse which we threw off the front of the half-submerged wreck drew a throng of fish, and the smell of bodies torn open by gaping wounds is beyond expression, even though the water washing over the carnage diminished it somewhat.

The water in which we worked at first seemed warm in comparison to the air. After a short time, however, it began to seem like torture. Our gestures became slow and hesitant, and our hearts felt the wrenching of pain which clouded our vision. We had to hang on. Two more ships were loading up with troops, and soon it would be our turn.

By mid-morning, the sky cleared. The pale sun attempting to shine over this scene of disaster filled us with unease. Any pleasure in the sun had long ago been killed for us. It invariably meant Russian planes.

Before we had finished our cleanup, the Russian fighter-bombers were overhead. This surprised no one. With good weather it could only be expected. Limping on our painful feet, we ran as fast as we could for whatever shelter we could find. All the true concrete shelters were used as first-aid hospitals, or shelters for the wounded. We had to huddle in the ruins, or in shell holes and bomb craters. We hid ourselves away in small clusters, and tried to concentrate on our imminent escape.

We could hear the anti-aircraft guns on all sides. Perhaps they would keep the planes away from the port itself.... But then we heard planes flying low overhead, making the icy air around us vibrate with their passage. We watched them, rubbing our fingertips, which were numb with cold, as they passed over the ruined town, and the men in rows, bowing beneath them like grasses in a wind. They passed over two ships which cast off their moorings to make less of a target. Five bombs fell simultaneously from the five planes gliding over the piers. Two fell in the water, where they burst, covering the waiting men with spray. A third scattered debris on the beach, while the last two opened a crater in front of a line of men who would not be leaving until much later. Bodies flew into the air. Some of the survivors gave way to despair, but those who still dared to hope supported them. There were no cries except from a few wounded men, who howled without meaning to.

There were now some forty planes overhead, and others were coming up from behind the cliffs to the north. One of them exploded in the air; perhaps one of our guns had hit it. But there were no cries of triumph, as in the old days. Here there was only the noise of war; the men were silent.

The ships had drawn somewhat away from the piers, but the men waiting to embark remained in their places so they wouldn't lose them. The planes turned in the sky, probably looking for the most effective positions for letting go their bombs.

We watched, trembling with cold and despair. But no one questioned the sanity of the men who remained in line. We knew that, when our turn came, we would do the same thing. At that time and place, hope was worth everything-a fortune which there was no question of staking. Everyone there had invested everything their torments had spared them in the possibilities which those ships represented.

The planes came over again, and I hid my eyes so that I couldn't see. The rhythm was too horrible, and in the end I was only human, not God. I hadn't died on the Cross, and had no right to watch.

The days went by. Memel no longer existed, except on strategic maps. The front had shrunk, but a great many men had embarked. However, there were still thousands waiting their turn, shuttling between the positions they still had to hold and the semi-tombs where they slept their mutilated sleep. I still watched, through my dazed eyes, as these thousands wandered through the heights of tragedy, in a silence which, to my ears, drowned out all the noises of the earth. They had been stripped of their human condition, and I watched them in hideous loneliness, weeping internal tears as heavy as mercury.

How long were we there? For how many lifetimes? It is no longer possible to say, and the world will never know. I feel now as though I was born to experience that test. Memel had become the summit of my life, the ultimate peak, with only the infinite beyond it. We felt that after Memel nothing of us would remain, and that the life we would experience in the future would be like the crutches one offers to a cripple. Memel is the tomb of my life, the absolute. The silence which enveloped our groups had a miraculous quality, which allowed each of the living dead we had become to think about what would follow our misery. However foolish it may seem today, the thought that our wretchedness would be recognized later, even posthumously, was a comfort. Today, even this last concern has disappeared. Anything which might be said about our misery depends on a system of interpretation which is believed to be perfect. But the spectacle of Memel will not even be helped by the last judgment.

It is growing dim and vanishing without ever having been seen.

We had left our cellar for a pillbox whose gun had been destroyed. I had stuffed my belongings into the space formerly occupied by the gun. Following my example, Hals, Schlesser, and another fellow had done the same. Wiener, Lindberg, Pferham, and seven or eight others occupied what was left of the turret itself. Our new lodging was less humid than the cellar, but that was not the reason for our transfer. We had shifted because in our new quarters we were closer to the various points we might have to reach at maximum speed. Our defense perimeter had shrunk even further because once again the Russians had become interested in us. The German troops still holding the tiny Memel stronghold had to face the possibility of serious attacks which might prove decisive. As it was, we were often obliged to approach our positions with extreme caution. Our men, driven beyond desperation, sometimes surrendered to the Russians, who would then put on their captives' rags and wait for the relief.