I quickly shook Hals, whose sleep, as always, seemed impenetrable. He jumped, but when he realized it wasn’t a new bombardment or attack he pulled himself together, muttering a few incomprehensible words, and finally stood up, rubbing his stiff and aching body.
“God, I’m sick of this,” he said, in a disgusted, weary voice.
“Where are we, and what the hell are we doing here?”
“Come and eat,” said the veteran.
In silence, we devoured the millet and soup, which was already beginning to cool. Some of the fellows preferred to sleep a little longer. Then we were ordered out again, and began to walk slowly through the devastated sector of Konotop. We were too exhausted to notice much, and walked without thinking or looking. When we were forced to recognize an explosion or an airplane, we slid to the ground without haste. Then we got up again… and so on. I was certainly ill. My head and back ached, probably from exhaustion, and I was shaking with the cold shivers of fever. But there was nothing to do about it. If I felt any worse later, I would try to get sent to a hospital — but, for that, I would have to faint.
We reached a section of the town that had suffered particularly heavy damage. In the ruins, we could see an enormous Tiger tank, which had ploughed a large furrow through the heaps of rubble and appeared to have been stopped by a mine, which had blown off its right tread. Despite this it was otherwise intact, and its gun was still spitting occasional shells at the enemy formations, which were very close.
Groups of soldiers hiding in the ruins seemed to be waiting for Ivan, who must have been digging in near by. We moved carefully through the rubble to a hole where Hals and I settled down. For at least a half mile ahead of us, and five hundred yards behind us, we could see nothing but wreckage. Groaning with the effort, we piled up all the solid pieces of rubble we could move, to keep ourselves off the bottom of the hole, which was covered with blackish water. We stared at each other in a kind of stupefied silence: we had already said everything there was to say under the circumstances. Our lives at that moment were reduced to waiting. The force of events had already inflicted enough horror to drive us mad.
“You really look filthy,” Hals said finally.
“I’m sick,” I said.
“We’re all sick,” Hals answered, his eyes fixed on our universe of destruction. Our exhausted eyes met for a moment, and I saw on my friend’s face an almost limitless depth of weariness and despair.
I was also haunted by the thought of what might happen to us. It seemed literally impossible that this existence could go on much longer. We had been living in this way for over a year now, like gypsies — except that that is far too mild a comparison. Even the poorest, most wretched gypsies lived better than we did. For over a year I had been watching my comrades die. Suddenly, all the memories of that year came flooding back: the Don, the “Third International,” Outcheni, the battalions of stragglers, Ernst, Tempelhof, Berlin, Magdeburg, the horrors of Belgorod, the retreat, and only yesterday Wootenbeck, his belly striped by a dozen streams of red blood, which ran down to his boots. What stroke of fortune had saved me from those giant explosions? So many men had already been consumed right in front of my horrified eyes that I wondered if what I had seen could possibly have been true. What miracle had preserved Hals, Lensen, the veteran, and the other survivors of our ill-fated unit? Although our luck had been almost incredible, and had spared us so far, it must almost surely run out, if this went on much longer. Tomorrow, perhaps the veteran, or Hals, or maybe even I would be buried. I suddenly felt terribly afraid. I looked out as far as I could see, in all directions. It would probably be my turn soon. I would be killed, just like that, and no one would even notice. We had all grown used to just about everything, and I would be missed only until the next fellow got it, wiping out the memory of preceding tragedies. As my panic rose, my hands began to tremble. I knew how terrible people looked when they were dead. I’d seen plenty of fellows fall face down in a sea of mud, and stay like that. The idea made me cold with horror. And my parents: I really should see them again; I couldn’t just die like that. And Paula? My eyes filled with tears…. Hals was looking at me, as still as that horrible landscape, indifferent to suffering, death, everything. There was nothing we could do about it — the screams of fear, the groans of the dying, the torrents of blood soaking into the ground like a vile sacrilege — nothing. Millions of men could suffer and weep and scream, and the war would go on, implacable and indifferent. We could only wait and hope; but hope for what? To escape dying face down in the mud? And the war? All it needed was an order from the authorities, and it would end — an order, which the men would respect like a sacrament. And why? Because, after all, the men were only human…. I went on crying, and muttering incoherently to my impassive companion.
“Hals,” I said. “We’ve got to get out of here. I’m afraid.”
Hals looked at me, and then at the horizon.
“Get out? Where to? Go to sleep; you’re sick.”
I looked back at him with sudden hate. He too was part of this indifference and inertia.
The tank near us fired a shell, and the Russians sent back about half a dozen, scattering the piles of rubble a little further. Maybe they knocked off a few more of our fellows too: the veteran, perhaps. Suddenly it all seemed unbearable. My trembling hands clutched my head as if they were trying to crush it, and I sank into total despair. My sobs attracted Hals’s attention. He looked at me, almost in irritation.
“Go to sleep, for God’s sake. You can’t go on like that.”
“What difference does it make to you whether I sleep or die? You don’t give a damn, and nobody gives a damn. Nobody gives a damn about anything. And nobody will give a damn when you’re killed, either.”
“You’re right. So what?”
“So what? We’ve got to do something, for the love of God, and not just sit here in a stupor, the way you’re doing now.”
Hals’s listless eyes were without expression. His feeling of misery was probably as great as mine, but for the moment it was dulled, and his listlessness had overcome his outrage.
“Go to sleep, I tell you. You’re sick.”
“No!” I was shouting now. “I’d rather be killed and get it over with, right now.”
I jumped up, and left our hole. But before I had taken more than two steps Hals had grabbed me by the belt and pulled me back.
“Let go, Hals,” I shouted, louder than ever. “Let go, do you hear?”
“You’re going to shut up, for God’s sake! And calm down! And be quick about it!”
Hals clenched his teeth, and clasped his two big hands around my neck.
“You know as well as I do we’re all going to get it, one after the other. So let the hell go of me. What business is it of yours anyway? What difference does it make?”
“The difference is that I need to see your face from time to time, the way I need to see the veteran, or that bastard Lindberg. Do you hear? If you go on like his, I’ll smash you on the head, just to keep you quiet.”
“But if Ivan gets me, I’ll be dead anyway, and you won’t be able to do a thing about it.”
“If that happens, I’ll cry, the way I did when my little brother Ludovik died. But he died because he was sick; he didn’t do it on purpose. And if Ivan gets you, you won’t have done it on purpose.”
A violent shiver engulfed my whole body. Tears continued to pour down my cheeks, and I felt like kissing my poor friend’s filthy face. Hals loosened his grip, and then let go. A burst of fire forced him to duck. He looked at me, and we both smiled.
At the end of the day, our third attempt to move failed like the others. By this time, the piles of rubble which stretched out to the dark horizon seemed to have been leveled absolutely flat, with no protruding shapes — although a few chimneys were in fact still standing.