We had just caught up with a regiment of motorized cavalry, stopped in the middle of nowhere. Streams of water were running down every exposed surface; the dull finish of the sidecars sheltering under the dripping leaves of the trees at the edge of the woods glistened with raindrops.
Wesreidau climbed down from his sidecar to talk to the cavalry commander. The fellows in the sidecars had long oilskins which pretty well covered them, and kept them more or less dry. However, all their camping equipment was in the trucks of the supply column, so instead of sleeping they had to spend their rest period tramping up and down through the puddles.
Two fellows distributed food: a stale sausage for each German soldier and loaves of bread to be divided among eight. There was no food for the prisoners, whose rations, in theory, would be provided by the division. We thought of walking off a short way to devour our meager portions, but we were bunched around our dripping communal plates. The Russians, who had nothing but their lives, kept their feverish eyes fixed on the food, which was impossible to hide. Finally, our torn and filthy hands broke the hard bread and held it out to the men who had been trying to kill us only a few hours before.
Our stomachs were still rumbling with hunger five minutes later, as we swallowed down the last mouthfuls of our rations. Everyone was thirsty, and our water bottles had been emptied after the fighting. Like feverish sheep, we needed water. We had obtained permission to leave the trucks to relieve ourselves, but for no other reason. We were in the middle of wild, uninhabited country, and there were no preikas or drinking troughs. However, the rain was still pouring down, and we collected the run-off from the backs of the trucks, and the leaves, and the puddles in the oilcloths. When we had quenched our thirst, we left with the cavalry regiment.
Finally, the rain stopped, leaving us chilled and bone-tired, to the misery of our throbbing machines. Lightning was still streaking through the sky behind us and over our heads, and the thunder was still rumbling. Ahead, there were other flashes too, which unfortunately had nothing to do with the storm. These were produced by Stalin’s organs, firing at the division blocked behind Konotop. As we drew nearer, we were able to gauge the size of the battle by the intensity of the fire flashing across the horizon. Soon we also could hear the loud and continuous sound of guns.
We had been hoping for a refuge where we could spend the night. Instead, we were faced with the anguish of a fresh hell, and a fresh uncertainty of survival, as war tightened its viselike grip once again around our throbbing temples. The young face of the blond boy who had played the harmonica a short time before hardened suddenly into the face of a man. Was it exhaustion, or did he simply want to get it over with? In the space of a few moments, he suddenly aged twenty years.
We arrived at the town, which was black and deserted. Intermittent flashes from the battle being fought somewhere to the west of us, through the outer fringes of the town, lit the darkness. The thunder of explosions filled the air, shattering window panes and breaking off the gutters of the houses all around us.
The rain had begun again, falling in small, delicate drops. We were ordered to leave the trucks, and jumped down like sleepwalkers. The shock of contact with the ground reverberated through our numbed bodies, and we felt sickness rising in undulating waves, along the entire length of our spinal columns. In a herd, we followed our leaders, while the trucks drove off to a nearby street. I could feel the sleep weighting down my eyelids, and, only half awake, staggered like an automaton after the sound of the boots of the fellow in front of me, without grasping that I was going back into battle.
What happened that night at Konotop? I only know that there were explosions and fire and houses collapsing down the length of dark, indefinable back streets. There was a gutter full of running water, and there were my hard, heavy boots, which I scarcely had the strength to lift, and my big bony feet inside them, which felt as if they were growing smaller and smaller, and the heat of my throbbing temples, which had begun to burn with fever, and the crushing fatigue which had settled around my thin shoulders, trapped in the filth of my undershirt and waterlogged tunic, and the tangle of leather straps and cartridge belts, heavy with ammunition, and the incomprehensible, hostile world, whose weight we still had to bear, where we still had to march and crawl and tremble….
Toward morning, which dawned as pale as the last morning of a condemned man, I was overwhelmed by a crushing sleep, and briefly lost my waking nightmare. We collapsed in the shelter of an entrance way, which protected us from most of the rain, except when the wind blew a particularly strong gust. We spent a few hours there — then we were wakened, to stare at a hundred other faces as white and drawn as our own. Our closest relatives would probably have hesitated before identifying us. My eyes, which felt as if they had sunk into my aching head, instinctively looked around to see what the new day would bring.
Directly in front of the gate where we had slept was a building of several stories. Its gray walls were stained with long streaks which dribbled down from its gaping windows. A short distance to one side stood a cluster of miserable shacks which now offered shelter only to a few wandering cats, and troops looking for refuge. These buildings, which at their best could never have looked like much, now seemed soiled by the passage of something monstrous. Further along, the street was entirely blocked by the houses which had collapsed when the Russians had shelled the town the evening before.
I looked for something which might produce an instant of pleasure, and distract me for a moment from the effort of trying to control the spasmodic shivers which shook my whole body.
A sound behind me made me turn my head. The veteran was coming back with two canteens of hot soup, which he had found God knows where. I watched him blankly as he limped through the puddles and the scattered rubble. His uniform was as gray and filthy as the setting, and his thin, shaggy face beneath his heavy steel helmet seemed to fit perfectly with everything else. Above our heads, the sky flowed slowly toward the horizon, trailing gray clouds, like dirty rags, as far as the eye could see.
“Anyone who wants to eat better open his eyes,” the veteran called, putting down the canteens.