The self-confidence of the ‘new boys’ didn’t always ring true. Another person who followed the changeover between the two divisions with very mixed feelings was Harras, recently promoted to the rank of lieutenant. His hopes had once more deceived him: Unold had refused his request for a transfer, and the supposedly imminent breakout from the Cauldron had come to nothing as well. Now he found himself embroiled in this unholy mess as a company leader. That trick he’d pulled a while back hadn’t paid off, despite being awarded the Iron Cross First Class and getting himself promoted. Quite the opposite, in fact: it would have been better to have stayed with the Russians. But the way back to the enemy lines was now barred too.
Besides, despite being relatively well equipped with winter clothing, it turned out that the men from the motorized unit, who were used to warm bunkers, could not cope with this snowy, shelterless wasteland. They were often found frozen to death in the morning in their foxholes, their rifles still in the firing position. From the very first day, the losses as a result of the severe cold were shockingly high, but there was no question of engineering work to improve the forward positions even though piles of railway sleepers lay ready behind the lines. You couldn’t raise your head above the parapet by either day or night now. With growing alarm, the unit leaders observed movements on the other side, which indicated that new forces were being brought into position. Had that always been the case here, or were they preparing for something special? The new division’s unfamiliarity with this sector contributed to a general sense of nervousness.
And so it came to the ninth of January. The preceding two days had passed off unusually quietly, so that evening in the battalion bunker a game of Skat was organized, something they hadn’t done for a while. The Arse – who had been made a captain on the first of January – was also less than overjoyed about the division’s relocation to another sector. His unhappiness manifested itself firstly in an increased intake of alcohol and secondly in him cursing about anything and everything – the lousy bunker, the feeble new troops and their endless complaints about the cold, the rations, the smoking stove, the dog-eared playing cards, and the top brass from the regimental staff upwards, who were solely responsible for the shit they were in. Yet none of this prevented him from being tirelessly active on behalf of his battalion from morning to night.
The fact that he showed his face at the forward front line on an almost daily basis and wasn’t afraid of contradicting the divisional commander if he felt it necessary had earned him the respect of the ordinary soldiers, though he did ask a lot of them. He was one of those eternal mercenaries for whom war and fighting at the front had become a way of life and who in peacetime generally go to the dogs for lack of any suitable job opportunities.
Lieutenant Harras suppressed a yawn while the captain was shuffling the cards. Once again, the Skat game seemed never-ending. If the Arse found himself on a losing streak, he refused to throw in his hand until he’d won everything he’d lost back again. He had undone the top buttons of his uniform jacket – a stylishly cut garment, though it was already badly faded and patched at the elbows – and his Knight’s Cross was dangling in a rather melancholy way from one of the hooks on the jacket collar. Harras stole a glance at his watch. Hell, it was almost six already! It must be light outside by now. Blinking, he looked at the little junior doctor sitting opposite him, whose eyes were also drooping from tiredness. The two messengers were snoring on the bench behind him. The only person who wasn’t wilting was the Arse. As he nonchalantly shuffled the pack, he regaled them with a story.
‘So, this brunette whore just sidles right up to the general, bold as brass, and pats his bald head and says, “Ooh, là là, Fatty!” and plonks herself down on his lap! “Fatty” she calls him, in German too! You should have seen the look on the old man’s face!’
‘Ha ha,’ Harras laughed mechanically. He’d heard this story, the pièce de résistance from the captain’s posting to Paris, at least ten times already and knew at what points he was expected to show his appreciation. Not a peep from the doctor, though. He was staring glassy-eyed at the hand he’d been dealt. ‘Pass,’ he murmured, and closed his eyes.
Suddenly, all three of them leap up from their seats with a start. The silence is abruptly shattered by an ear-splitting explosion. The small bunker trembles and shakes like it has been hit by an earthquake. Sand showers down from the roof, pieces of dried clay fall off the walls, and the flame in the storm lantern bends and flickers nervously. The two messengers in the corner have been rudely roused from their sleep and are bracing their backs against the earth wall, their arms spread wide as if they’re looking for something to cling fast to. The blast seems to go on for ever. It continues as a deep, incessant booming and roaring, like the sound of breaking surf amplified a thousand times over. The Arse shoots the others a crazed look, his hand reaching automatically for the bottle dancing around on the rocking table. He says something, the words disintegrating as they leave his mouth. But already he’s got a grip of himself; he’s a man of action once more. He jams his helmet on his head, throws on his fleece overjacket and springs over to the entrance. Harras can feel beads of cold sweat breaking out on his forehead; he gropes for his camouflage jacket, only managing to get hold of it at the third attempt.
Outside, all hell has broken loose. A few hundred metres in front of the bunker, where the forward positions are, the earth seems to have been turned inside out. The entire breadth of the sector controlled by the division, and doubtless extending far beyond it, is engulfed in a wall of fire, a living, blazing forest out of which new bright peaks of flame keep shooting skywards. And as they watch, this wall staggers in fitful leaps ever closer to the men, billowing out clouds of sulphurous smoke as it advances. The captain turns around, his face a ghastly grimace. He shouts something, but the roaring din swallows his voice. With a single leap, he propels himself back into the bunker, which suddenly seems to be seized by giant hands and shaken violently. A single sharp explosion rises above the backcloth of thunderous roars. Harras is hurled into a corner. As he is falling, he sees wooden beams splintering, and the ceiling and the walls shifting towards one another and appearing to dissolve. Then stifling dust fills the room, pouring into the lungs like lead. The light goes out. Harras buries his head in his coat and presses his fists to his ears; his teeth are chattering uncontrollably and his whole body is shaking like he’s caught a fever. He has a vague sense of someone pushing up against him and grabbing hold of him. Something warm flows over his hands.