Fortunately for us, the Luftwaffe, on which we could no longer rely, made an unexpected appearance, and somewhat reduced the force of the Russian blow. But the next day this intervention was answered in kind, and Russian planes did what they could to knock out our artillery. As a result, our artillery was withdrawn during the night, leaving us to do the honors unsupported.
We held our positions for four more terrible days, in spite of continuous infantry attacks supported by armor. Whenever possible, we buried our dead in the holes where they fell. Eighty-three names were scratched off the company list — among these, Olensheim, who had re covered from a serious wound at Belgorod, to receive his coup-de grace here, on the west bank of the Dnieper, where tranquility was to have been assured.
The Russians had finally regrouped for their supreme effort, and were delaying only to complete last-minute preparations. Their artillery, which seemed to be growing stronger by the hour, pounded our positions and the countryside for a long way back. The veteran had just been wounded, and was waiting, along with some hundred other men, for evacuation to a hospital, or at least to a quieter zone in the rear. A brusque sergeant had taken Wiener’s place, and I continued to feed ammunition into the spandau, operated by someone considerably less expert than my friend.
The night which followed was so horrible that I retain only a confused and fragmented memory of it. Fresh supplies of ammunition were often slung into a length of canvas and carried across the trenches by two or four fellows.
The “night” of which I speak was, of course, total by five in the evening. Time in Russia is like that: in the summer there is almost no night, and in the winter, no day.
We had just withstood two or three major assaults. From the screams of anguish to our left, we concluded that a great many of our men had been killed. We had emptied five magazines, and were warming our fingers on the hot metal of the machine gun. Our sixth and last magazine had been attached, and we were anxiously waiting for fresh supplies. The night was continuously lit by the explosions of thousands of Russian shells, which made movement extremely difficult. Our trenches, which in any case were not deep enough, extended only to certain positions. The others had to be reached by leaps and bounds, alternating with plunges to the ground, and writhing on our stomachs across dozens of yards of snow mixed with chunks of frozen earth.
From time to time, we could see four figures moving toward us, jumping from crater to crater, carrying shells for our 50-mm. mortar, and magazines for the spandau. They were still about forty yards away, when their shadowy mass was surrounded by a flash of white light. We never heard any cries. A few minutes later, I was sent out to crawl to the point of impact. The sergeant ordered me to bring back at least two magazines. I had just arrived at my destination when I heard the Russian assault cry, followed by a shower of grenades and mortar shells. The ground shook beneath me in a manner which defied all prediction. I felt like a pea inside a ferociously beaten drum. I was lying flat on the ground among the bodies of comrades killed only a few minutes before, unable to see any of the supplies I’d been sent to fetch. Then I heard the sound of a tank. The darkness all around me was broken by streaks of light and large pink and yellow explosions. In a momentary beam from some headlight, I could see a small sign marked S. 157. I opened my mouth wide, as prescribed, because I could hardly breathe, and lay where I was, frantically groping for something to hang on to in that diabolical setting, where horizontal and vertical alternated to the rhythm of the lights which slashed the darkness. I thought that I could recognize through the uproar the crackle of the weapon I had operated with Wiener and had left only a moment before, and felt that my sanity might be close to collapse. I could see no escape from my situation, and lay glued to the ground with my head down, like a trussed animal, waiting for the butcher’s axe.
A hundred yards to my left, the Pak, with its barrel marked for eleven kills, was fleeing into the striped darkness with its ammunition and gun crew. I heard the terrifying roar of a tank rising above the general tumult, and a headlight wavered and leaped through the undulating darkness. It had obviously driven through our defenses and was now passing within twenty yards of where I lay. I saw it suddenly burst into flame, and despite the intense cold a wave of hot air almost asphyxiated me. Half unconscious, I could hear the trample of running feet all around me, and, despite the noise of guns and explosions, cries which sounded more like curses than anything else, and were certainly neither French nor German.
I thought I could distinguish three or four pairs of boots thumping past me. Everything happened so quickly at that moment that I am no longer sure of what in fact I did see. I could still hear the sound of a machine gun, and then there were hundreds of shouting voices. The tank exploded a second time, showering steel fragments all around me. Some of our soldiers must still have been firing.
Then there was a period of relative calm, which lasted for about three-quarters of an hour. Exhausted by nervous tension, I managed to pull myself out of my torpor enough to take a few steps toward the position I had left twenty minutes earlier. But nothing remained of it except smoke and motionless bodies. Furthermore, the entire sector, as far as I could see, was veiled in smoke. I turned back again, heading for our rear lines, and, too late to stop myself, tripped over a corpse. I realized that I had no weapon, and grabbed the dead man’s gun, which was lying beside him. Then I began to run.
I heard four or five shots. The whistling flight of the balls made me think of hell. I knew that I might faint at any moment, and between two spasms of nausea fell into a hole where three fellows in roughly the same state as myself were staring fixedly at the dark, somber east. Literally crumpled into the bottom of the hole, I attempted to order my thoughts. My retina still bore the imprint of a thousand darting, luminous points, which prolonged my sense of vertigo.
For a long moment, I stayed where I was, wondering where to head for next. Then I heard the other fellows in the hole exclaiming with astonishment. Far to the south, the earth seemed to have caught on fire, and the sky rang with the sound of thunder.
Twenty miles to the south, the second Dnieper front had given way in the face of irresistible Russian pressure, and thousands of German and Rumanian soldiers met an apocalyptic end. Some twenty regiments had been unable to disengage in time, and had laid down their arms, to be rewarded for their bravery by captivity and degradation. For the rest of us, the war continued. In a rush, I decided to leave the hole which had received me a few moments before. Doubled over, I ran like a madman to another defensive position, where a group of soldiers were clustered around a motionless figure who was being bandaged. A fellow I didn’t recognize hailed me by name: “Where’ve you come from, Sajer?”
My head was still pounding to the rhythm of the bombardment. I stared at him.
“I don’t know…. I don’t know any more…. Everyone back there is dead…. I ran away, through all the Russians.”
Behind us, we could hear the roar of an engine. A tractor was pulling a heavy anti-tank gun into position. Then we heard the burst of the exhaust a moment before each shell exploded. Our overwhelming weariness was now affecting us like a drug. Russian shells were coming over in profusion. For a moment, we watched the storm closing in. Then, with a cry of despair and a prayer for mercy, we dived to the bottom of our hole, trembling as the earth shook and the intensity of our fear grew. The shocks, whose center seemed closer each time, were of an extraordinary violence. Torrents of snow and frozen earth poured down on us. A white flash, accompanied by an extraordinary displacement of air, and an intensity of noise which deafened us, lifted the edge of the trench. None of us immediately grasped what had happened. We were thrown in a heap against the far wall of the hole, wounded and intact together. Then, with a roar, the earth poured in and covered us.