Lakosch stared at the captain in astonishment. Had he suddenly taken leave of his senses? But then it began to dawn on him. A look of amazed disbelief crossed his face. He approached the captain, searching for some appropriate words of thanks. But Endrigkeit had already flung the door open and gave Lakosch such a terrifying look that the driver, cowed into silence again, simply squeezed quickly past him and rushed up the steps and dashed past the baffled sentry into the gathering darkness.
Captain Endrigkeit sat down on the bench and wiped the sweat from his brow. He was perfectly well aware – as both an officer and a policeman – of what he had just done. And of the consequences. But despite that, he felt an enormous sense of relief. Let them put him up in front of a court martial, let them shoot him – what did he care now? Final sentence had already been passed on all of them here in the Cauldron, including those who still took it upon themselves to judge others. In the face of certain death, the judgement of men counted for very little; all that really mattered now was the verdict of one’s own conscience. And his conscience had just acquitted him – just as he had decided to acquit the deserter Lakosch.
Endrigkeit stood up and stretched his limbs. As he did so, he chuckled softly to himself. He was now so far beyond caring about what would happen to him that he could raise a smile, even at a time like this, at the prospect of Unold’s dumbstruck expression tomorrow when he learned of what had happened. Yet there was one thing that Endrigkeit couldn’t see, nor could he possibly have been expected to realize it: that his judgement on Lakosch was at the same time a judgement on his own entire, long life and on the world in which that life had been led – and that he had effectively burned all the bridges to that world.
He went over to the door and called the sentry in – Senior Sergeant Kleinke, a man he’d fought alongside since day one of the war, and who was still standing outside at his post wondering what the hell had just happened. He put his arm round Kleinke’s shoulder.
‘Take the weight off your feet, why don’t you, Heinrich?’ he said. ‘Let’s you and I chew the fat for a bit…’
The candle had long since burned down. But the two men were still sitting there in the darkness. They talked about Lakosch, who wanted to desert to the Russians to try to save the Sixth Army, and about the war and justice and dying. And as always happens when people take stock of their lives, the captain found himself delving further and further into his past. He told Kleinke about his childhood, and the vastness and the silence of the Masurian forests. And he fell to describing the picture that hung in the little log cabin his family called home, showing the knight riding steadfast and upright flanked by Death and the Devil and making his way inexorably to his destination, the strong fortress on the hill.
The stretcher-bearers are dashing about, distraught. The surgeons’ hands shake, and instruments clatter to the ground. Agitated voices, shouts and curses fill the room, and even the delirious ramblings, wheezes and moans of the seriously wounded sound more restless than normal. What has happened? What did that murderous artillery barrage last night portend?
The day brings new streams of wounded men. They recount what they’ve been through, their eyes full of sheer horror. The front has been smashed. The Russians are coming!
In the afternoon, the first tank shells slam into the gorge from the surrounding high ground. By the evening, the chief surgeon of the Corps is on the field telephone:
‘Evacuate immediately!’
The staff doctor’s hand is trembling so violently he can hardly hold the receiver.
‘Evacuate? Yes, but how? And where to?’
‘Anywhere behind our lines. No, not to Pitomnik; that’s pointless… To Gumrak! There’s still room there!’
‘To Gumrak… But what about vehicles, Colonel? And petrol… No, we don’t have any left! Twenty lorries, Colonel… or fifteen at a pinch… or ten at the very least! Ten lorries, Colonel!’
‘My dear fellow, what are you thinking of? Where am I supposed to get hold of ten trucks? No, you’ll have to fend for yourselves! Besides, you’ve got a better overview of the situation from where you are. You’ll manage it somehow, I’m sure!’
‘But… Colonel… Colonel!’
The line goes dead. He’s hung up!
The doctor jumps into a VW Kübelwagen and roars off into the snowy night, taking the road to Karpovka, before climbing up to the burning town of Bolshaya Rossoshka, pockmarked by bomb impacts. There, he drives around visiting divisional and regimental staffs, logistics units and supply depots. Almost everywhere he goes, he is shunned and ignored. And even in the few places where he’s given a hearing, they quickly tell him they’re very sorry but they can’t help him. They’ve got their own problems to worry about.
As he’s driving along, he falls foul of a Russian ‘U2’ on its bombing run. Thirty metres ahead, it sets a radio van ablaze. Together with the driver, he pulls two wounded men from the burning vehicle. Two new casualties to add to the six hundred – that’s all he returns with from his nocturnal foray.
But then, the next morning, things unexpectedly fall into place. Twelve lorries draw up, hissing and steaming, outside the field hospital. An empty supply column that had been bringing munitions up from behind the lines. Losing no time, orderlies and doctors carry out the moaning, whimpering wounded. They are packed on to the open flat-bed trucks like cigars in a case. Thirty to forty men per vehicle, each wrapped only in a single blanket. Would they ever reach their destination? And where was that, anyhow? Even so, how promising this uncertainty was compared to the awful certainty of remaining behind!
Padre Peters hurries to and fro, helping carry patients and load them up, and offering consoling words and dressing wounds. Despite the cold, the sweat is streaming off his brow. He keeps hard at work to avoid having to think too much.
‘Hello, Padre!’
Peters looks up into a wild face.
‘We know one another! From the divisional staff. Lieutenant Harras!’
So, this is Harras, is it, the elegant Harras? The padre offers him his hand without a word. Only now does he notice the filthy, blood-soaked rag wrapped round the officer’s hand.
‘Padre, might you be able… look, could I go on one of the lorries?’
‘On a lorry?’ the padre echoes. ‘Certainly not! You can still walk, can’t you? But I’ll see if I can do something about that wounded hand of yours. Come and see the doctor with me, maybe he can get you a fresh dressing.’
The lieutenant gives a start and quickly hides his hand behind his back.
‘No, no,’ he mutters, ‘but thanks anyhow! That won’t be necessary. It’s a clean shot, straight through. No thanks!’ Saying this, he steps aside.
The trucks are full. The drivers close up the side flaps and secure the latches. The troops of the escort detail jump to their feet and the lorry engines chug into life. The fat tyres crunch into the snow and the heavy vehicles begin to roll forward slowly. This activity suddenly galvanizes the miserable, shot-up, starving mass of humanity that is milling about or sitting around on the ground. All those who have assembled here in the crazy hope that some miracle might happen leap into action, storming the trucks as they move off, trying to secure a handhold anywhere, on the side panels or the mudguards or the handle of the driver’s cab door. They stumble and trip over one another, or kick each other to the ground, or are dragged along for a stretch before they are shaken off and crushed beneath the wheels of the vehicles behind.
But more than two hundred men are still left lying inside the stables! Over two hundred seriously wounded soldiers hear the noise of the departing lorries. And it dawns on them that no one will be coming to fetch them any more. They have been abandoned. The surgeon, who has kept on working tirelessly throughout (though to what purpose, who can say?), is startled by the concentrated animal-like howl that goes up around the room, as if from a single throat, and then dissolves into a cacophony of individual sighs, groans and roars, mounting over and over again. He sees how, in the semi-darkness at the back of the room, the mass of men lying there begins to stir; he sees faces twisted in pain, the whites of men’s eyes shining, torsos swaying this way and that, limbs stretching, hands with no strength in them being balled into fists; and he notices how men who have lain there for days as motionless as if they were dead suddenly raise themselves up and fall over one another. He sees the grey mass propel itself slowly and clumsily towards the exit, like a river of lava, and then watches as it subsides and solidifies. The groans and screams tail off into a helpless whimpering.