Forgotten Soldier (9 page)

My driver had managed to leave, and I waited for a moment of general inattention to do the same thing. Unfortunately, such a moment did not arrive until very late that night. I had to do a great many other things almost as troubling as the amputation. It was nearly one o'clock in the morning when I finally opened the double doors of the house. As the cold struck me, it seemed more violent than ever. I hesitated, but the thought of returning to those dying men and those streams of blood turned me resolutely back into the night. The sky was clear and light, and the air seemed absolutely still. The shadows of the houses and the trucks were stamped with precise outlines on the hard, gleaming snow. I couldn't see a living soul.

I walked through the village looking for my Renault; the whole convoy could have been destroyed before anyone gave the alarm. The door of an isba flew open and a bundle of blankets with a Mauser slung across it ventured a few faltering steps onto the snow. When the man inside the blankets caught sight of me he mumbled a few words. "You go in now. It's my turn."

"Go where?"

"To warm up. Unless you feel like taking another round."

"But I'm not on guard. I've just been helping the surgeon, and now I'm going to get some sleep."

"I see. I thought you were . . ." He mumbled a name. "Did you say there was somewhere to get warm?"

"Yes. You go on in there. They've made it headquarters for the guard. We take shifts every fifteen or twenty minutes. Of course, you don't get any sleep that way, but it's better than freezing for two hours." "Yes. Thank you. I'll go in."

I pushed open the heavy door and went inside. A big fire was blazing in the fireplace. Four soldiers, one of whom was Hals, were roasting potatoes and other vegetables under the ashes. The light from the fire was the only light in the room. Another fellow came in right after me, probably the guard I had been mistaken for. I warmed up the rest of the food in my mess tin, ate without appetite, and stretched out on the floor in front of the fireplace to sleep as best I could. Every fifteen or twenty minutes, one of the guards would shake awake some poor fellow flattened by sleep. From time to time the voice of someone protesting his fate would waken me. It was still dark when the reveille whistle shrilled in my ears.

Slowly we stood up on the floor which had served as our bed. We were rather stiff, but it had been a long time since any of us had slept without feeling cold. A young Russian woman was coming toward us from the shadows in the corner of the room. She was carrying a steaming pot which she held out to us, smiling. It was hot milk. For a moment I wondered if the milk might not be poisoned, but Hals, who preferred to die with a full stomach, had already grabbed the pot and helped himself to a generous swig. We passed the milk around among the four of us, then Hals laughed and returned it to the Russian woman. Neither of them could understand a word the other said. Hals went up to her and kissed her on both cheeks. She blushed a deep red. We bowed, and left.

Immediately, the cold fell on us like an icy shower. There was roll call, and distribution of lukewarm ersatz coffee. As on every other morning, we needed a good half hour to warm up the engines and get them started. Well before daybreak, the 19th Kompanie Rollbahn was jolting along the glare ice of that damned Soviet highway, the "Third International."

Several times, we had to make way for convoys driving to the rear. We stopped for lunch in a squalid hamlet where the column of tanks which preceded us had also stopped, and we learned that we were only fifty miles from Kharkov.

We were all jubilant to hear that we were so close to our destination. Our convoy should arrive in two or three hours. We tried to imagine our quarters in Kharkov.

"What do you think it will be like?" Lensen asked.

The fellow who'd been with me for this interminable trip, the one without a kneecap, was not one to jump for joy.

"I hope we won't be spending too much time there," he said. "It would be just like them to send us on to the Volga. I'd rather start back the other way than keep on going east."

"If no one wants to go east, we'll never be through with the Russians," someone said.

"That's true," another voice remarked.

"Some people would do better to shut up instead of always talking about how afraid they are."

We were back on the road about half an hour later. The sun had disappeared into a fog which veiled the horizon. The cold seemed less sharp, but damp and penetrating. We drove for about an hour. My eyes were half closed, and I had nearly fallen asleep, staring at an illuminated spot on the dashboard. My head was jolting from side to side with the motion of the truck. I decided I might as well sleep, and propped myself against the door. Before closing my eyes, I looked out once more at the snowy countryside. The sky had turned gray, and seemed heavier than the earth. Two tiny black spots were coming toward us over the top of the nearest hill. Probably a couple of patrol planes. I closed my eyes.

A few seconds later, my eyes flew open again. The roar of an engine passed right over our heads, and was immediately followed by a series of crackling detonations.

Then something unimaginable hurled me against the windshield, and I felt as if my chest and eardrums were going to explode. There was an intensity of noise which sounded like the end of the world, and we were engulfed in a shower of ice, stones, boxes, helmets, and mess tins. Our Renault nearly crashed into the car in front of us, which had come to a dead stop.

Stupefied and bewildered, I opened the door and jumped down to the ground, looking back toward the source of the noise. The truck behind had almost run into us, and behind it a third truck had rolled over. Its wheels were still turning in the air. Beyond it there was nothing but flames and smoke.

"Quick! Get over the bank!"

Soldiers were scattering across the snow as far as I could see. "They're shooting at the trucks!" someone shouted.

I dug myself into three feet of snow behind the bank. "Anti-aircraft defense!" yelled a sergeant, who was running, doubled over, along the side of the bank.

The soldiers floundering in the snow beside me aimed their guns at the sky.

Good Lord! My gun was still in the Renault. I was already running back to the truck when I heard the noise of airplane engines once again. I pushed my head into the snow. A hurricane passed over me, followed by explosions, both nearby and far away.

I lifted my snowy face and looked at the two bi-motors diving down behind distant birch woods. The captain's Volkswagen was bouncing from rut to rut, driving down the length of the convoy in reverse. Soldiers were running in every direction.

I got up and ran toward a pillar of black smoke. A truck loaded with explosives had been hit by Soviet planes. The truck had exploded, destroying the vehicles immediately in front of it and behind it. The snow was strewn with smoking debris for a distance of nearly sixty yards. What was left of the trucks was burning, giving off a black, acrid smoke. I saw the feldwebel emerging from this cloud with another soldier. They were carrying a bloody, blackened body.

Instinctively, I and some others ran into the black fog to see what we could do. Through the smoke which stung my eyes I tried to see if I could recognize any human beings. A silhouette crossed my path, coughing.

"Don't stay here; it's too dangerous. The munitions cases are about to blow up."

I heard the sound of a racing engine, and then two headlights pierced the curtain of smoke. A truck was coming along the bank, and behind it another, and two others . . . The convoy was continuing its journey.

Despite the flames, I was beginning to freeze. I decided to return to the relatively warm cab of my Renault. As the road was becoming visible once more, through the veil of thinning smoke, I noticed a group of soldiers, wrapped in their long overcoats, lined up in front of an officer.

"Come over here, you two," shouted the lieutenant.

We ran over to the line.

"You," he said, pointing at me.

"Where's your gun?"

"Over there, Leutnant ... behind you ... in the Renault."

My voice was trembling with anxiety. The lieutenant looked furious. He must have thought I'd lost my gun, and that I was just telling him a story to cover up. He walked over to me like an enraged sheep dog.

"Break ranks!" he shouted. "Attention."

I stepped out, and had only just snapped to attention when I was rocked by a thunderous slap. Although I had pulled it down as far as I could, my cap rolled onto the snow, exposing my dirty uncombed hair. I thought the lieutenant was going to shower me with kicks.

"Guard duty until further orders," he muttered, shifting his furious gray eyes from me to the sergeant, who saluted.

"At ease," he added, staring at me with a petrifying expression.

"You scum," he went on.

"While your comrades in arms are getting themselves killed to protect you, you are incapable of spotting two stinking Bolshevik aircraft firing at us. You should have seen them. You must have been asleep. I'm going to get all of you sent to the front in a disciplinary battalion. Three trucks destroyed, seven men killed, two wounded. They must have been asleep too. There's your result. You are unworthy of the arms you bear. I am going to report your attitude." He walked off without saluting.

"To your posts," the sergeant shouted, trying to maintain the tone of his superior.

We all ran off our separate ways. I darted for my cap, but the sergeant caught me by the shoulder.

"Back to your post!"

"My cap, Sergeant."

A soldier who was standing right beside my hat gave it back to me. In a daze I climbed into my truck, which was just starting up.

"Wipe your nose," said my driver.

"Yes ... It seems as if I'm getting it in the neck for everybody."

"Oh, don't worry. Tonight we'll be at Kharkov. Maybe there won't even be anything to guard."

After the shock of a moment ago, I was beginning to feel angry.

"He could have seen those planes himself. After all, he's part of the convoy too!"

"Why don't you go tell him that?"

I thought of the two little black dots I had noticed in my half sleep. There was some truth in what the lieutenant had said, but we hadn't been prepared for anything like that. In fact, we hadn't yet encountered any of the real dangers of war, and we were all exhausted by the lack of sleep, the cold, this endless journey, and by our revolting condition of almost unbelievable filth. We were too cold to wash during the few minutes of our daytime halts, and in any case it was almost impossible to find water. We had to ask the peasants for it, and as they didn't understand a word we said we had to proceed without their permission, in front of their stupefied faces and their enormous eyes. All of that took time, and we had time only in the evening, after dark, when all we could think of was sleep.

But all these excuses wouldn't bring my comrades back to life. I was appalled by the thought that a difference of three trucks would have meant ours. I had never been wounded, but I already had an idea of how painful that could be.... I glued myself to the window.

"If any others come back, I certainly won't miss them."

My driver looked at me with his habitual mocking expression.

"You'd better look in the rear-view mirror too. They might come up from behind." He was almost sneering.

"You think I'm an idiot. What should we do?"

He shrugged his shoulders. His expression didn't change.

"Well, you know, there really isn't too much you can do. When I broke my knee, I was thinking about my head. The best thing would be to go in the other direction."

"That's it! And quit on our comrades at the front!"

He looked at me, and for a moment stopped smiling. Then his face relaxed again, and he added in the same offhand tone as before: "All they have to do is what I just said: half-turn, right face." He imitated the tone of a feldwebel.

"You're not really thinking about what you're saying," I said. "The Bolsheviks would certainly take advantage of anything like that. It's impossible. The war isn't over. You have no right to talk that way."

He looked me full in the face. "You're too young. You thought I was serious. No. We've got to go as fast as we can, and faster." As if to emphasize his remarks, he stepped on the gas.

"I'm too young! You all drive me crazy saying that. As if only fellows your age were any good. Don't I wear the same uniform you do?"

I didn't really believe what I was saying with such passion, or even that I was really there, among all those soldiers.

"If you're not satisfied, get another taxi." He was openly laughing at me.

As he plainly wasn't going to take me seriously, I was silent. I was both furious and sad. First they beat me up for lack of vigilance, then they bawl me out. Our line of trucks was continuing its sliding advance across the ice and snow. Night was falling, and with the darkness the cold was increasing. The thought that we were nearly at the end of our journey was in some way encouraging. We would be approaching the outskirts of Kharkov within a half hour. What condition would the town be in? It was the last big city before the front, before the Don, and beyond that, the Volga, and Stalingrad. Stalingrad was still four hundred miles from Kharkov. Secretly, despite my feeling of revulsion toward the Soviet countryside, I felt almost disappointed that we weren't yet at the front.

Then came the crushing blow.

I remember that we were going down a hill. The trucks ahead of us slowed down, and then stopped.

"What now?"

I had already opened the door.

"Shut that door. It's too cold."

I slammed the door in his face, and walked across the icy crust that covered the narrow "Third International" highway. A sidecar had just come to a stop ahead of me, and was still skidding on the ice. A courier from Kharkov was bringing us an order. In the gray light I could see some officers talking rapidly to each other. They seemed to be trying to make a plan, to be discussing some serious news. One of them, our captain, was reading a paper.