Once again, the darkness was streaked with white lights, which glimmered back at me from the insensible retinas of my companion, and we began another interminable night of fear, in a dark hole, with a pool of cold water under the stones, and an exhaustion so heavy one wished to die; a night in which nothing — or everything — could happen.
There were fires, and explosions, and short or long flashes of light, which killed the sleep pressing at the backs of our eyeballs. We listened to the cries of our fellow combatants, and the lethal rain of rockets crashing into the ground behind us. A thousand memories of my other life passed through my head — France, and my youth, still so close, and so remote — an act of childish naughtiness, a toy, a scolding, which now seemed so gentle, my mother, and the new focus in my life, Paula….
We hardly spoke during that night, but I knew that I should try to live for the sake of my friend….
Long before daylight, a violent fit of shivering destroyed what was left of my resolution. In the gray daylight, Hals wrapped me in my cover, which I no longer had the will to unfasten.
“Take this,” he said, handing me a half-eaten can of food. “Eat it. You’ll feel better.”
I looked despairingly at the jam mixed with lint and dust from the inside of the pack.
“What is it?”
“Eat it. It’s good. You’ll see.”
I did as I was told, and scooped out the jam with two fingers. But, before I’d swallowed even half of it, I was overwhelmed by nausea, and my vomit increased the filth of our refuge.
“Damn it,” Hals said. “You’re much sicker than I thought. Try to sleep.”
Shaking with fever, I let myself fall into the mire, which I pushed back with my elbows and feet to try to make a flat place where I could stretch out and perhaps really sleep. Several hours passed before I regained consciousness.
Later that morning, we were sent some reinforcements, and Hals was able to help me to another hole a little farther back, where two fellows put me on a makeshift bed laid across the shattered remnants of a ladder. Two other fellows were lying on boards which had been put directly onto the stones.
Behind my head and my ears, ringing with fever, the war went on. I lay where I was, listening to its roar for an indefinable time, shaking with feverish chills, despite the pile of covers and coats which several well-meaning companions had thrown down on top of me. Once, somebody woke me up and made me swallow a pill.
How much time went by? Perhaps a day. I fought my fever while Russians and Germans fought each other through the outskirts of the town. After turning the end of the enemy lines to the east of Konotop, we withdrew to the west, only to find a defensive wall which cut us off from our rear. Several attempts to move out to the west failed, and our autonomous group, already weakened, was faced with the prospect of entrapment in a Bolshevik noose, which was drawing tight, from the north, west, and south.
While I lay shivering on my ladder, our situation grew extremely critical. Our staff officers were doing everything they could to kill the terrible rumor that we were encircled.
The next night I was ordered to leave my ladder in a hurry, and tottered on my unsteady legs to a more secure shelter in a cellar, where about fifty sick or wounded men had been collected. I was almost turned away from this improvised infirmary, but as I looked pretty sick, an orderly stuck a thermometer in my mouth. When this registered nearly 104°, I was told to sit in a corner, where I waited for morning and someone to look further into my case.
Outside, the town was undergoing heavy bombardment simultaneously from the ground and from the air, and the orderlies were run off their feet by a flood of freshly wounded men. My comrades had gone back into the line, to face the increasingly ferocious enemy assaults. Toward noon, the orderlies filled me with quinine, and made me give my place to a fellow who was dripping with blood, and no longer able to stand on his feet.
With stars dancing in front of my eyes, I staggered from the dark cellar into brilliant sunshine. A final burst of summery sun lit a landscape of total devastation. Everywhere, columns of smoke were climb ing into the sky. Groups of slightly wounded men stood staring and talking, visibly stricken with desperation and horror. One of them told me we were surrounded.
This terrible news was almost as destructive as the bombardment. A sense of every man for himself had begun to spread, and our officers needed all the severity they could muster to prevent a hopeless rout.
Still another day passed, and I slowly began to recover, but my head swam, like the head of a convalescent who has gotten up too quickly. I stayed huddled in a corner as long as I could, gleaning fragments of news from the rest of the city.
Surrounded… dangerous situation… the Russians have already reached… we’re trapped… the Luftwaffe is coming…. But, instead of our planes, we heard Yaks and Its throbbing overhead in the pale blue sky, and torrents of Russian bombs shaking what was left of the town.
What, exactly, was happening? Almost no one really knew. I can still remember a roll call, and then the noncoms coming to comb the infirmary. A fellow had to be missing a foot, at least, to be able to stay behind. I was among those who could still be used, and was led back with several bandaged companions to a zone near the front of the fighting.
In a vast space bordered by roofless houses, a new group was hastily organized. Among the five or six officers present, I immediately recognized Herr Hauptmann Wesreidau. From nearby, to the northeast, the thunder of Stalin’s organs drowned our voices, and provoked a wave of panic which was difficult to control. I was still very sick. My mouth tasted sour, and I felt as if my thin, faltering body was supported only by my boots and my filthy clothes.
Wesreidau began to speak, raising his voice to make himself heard above the noise of the guns. He would probably have preferred to give us a more detailed explanation, but the continuous uproar, the pressure of time, and the risk of Russian planes suddenly diving at our three companies drawn up in the square forced him to be brief.
“Kameraden! We’re surrounded!… The entire division has… been… surrounded!”
We already knew it, but hearing it officially made us horribly afraid. A situation officially acknowledged to be dangerous by the staff must be very serious indeed. In the near distance, through the sound of explosions, we could hear the howl of Russian rockets. Both the earth and sky were filled with roaring noise, as if to emphasize the desperation of Captain Wesreidau’s announcement.
“We still have one hope,” he went on, “a swift and brutal breakthrough by all our forces pressing at a single point. This point must be to the west, and we shall engage all our units at once. The success of this attempt depends on the courage of every one of us. There will only be one attempt, and it must be successful. There are some strong infantry units which will be going into action to help us, on the other side of the Russian ring. If each one of us performs his duty, I feel confident that we shall break out of the Bolshevik noose. I know the qualities of the German soldier.”
Wesreidau saluted and requested us to get ready.
Our companies were directed to the points from which they were to press our final assault. There were many wounded men among us, more deserving of a warm bed than of further battles, and fellows like me, who were sick. The vast majority were utterly exhausted, staring with infinite weariness from glittering feverish eyes. These were the troops Wesreidau had been exhorting to an excess of courage: valiant German soldiers who looked more like worn-out stock ready for the slaughterhouse.