“First, your documents,” an M.P. shouted across the table.
The lieutenant, who was directly ahead of me in the line, was being interrogated.
“Where is your unit, lieutenant?”
“Annihilated, Herr Gendarme. Missing or dead. We had a hard time.”
The M.P. said nothing to this, but went on leafing through the lieutenant’s papers.
“Did you leave your men, or were they killed?”
The lieutenant hesitated for a moment. We were all watching in frozen silence.
“Is this a court-martial?” The lieutenant’s voice was exasperated.
“You must answer my questions, Herr Leutnant. Where is your unit?”
The lieutenant clearly felt caught in a trap, as did we all. Very few of us could have answered that question with any precision.
He tried to explain. But there is never any point in explaining to an M.P., their powers of comprehension are always limited to the form they wish to fill.
Further, it appeared that the lieutenant was missing a great many things. This fact obsessed his interrogator. It didn’t matter that the man in front of him was effecting a miracle simply by staying on his feet, and had lost at least thirty pounds since entering the army. The M.P. only noted that the Zeiss field-glasses, which are part of an officer’s equipment, were missing. Also missing were a map case, and the section telephone, for which the lieutenant was responsible. In fact, the lieutenant, who had managed to save only his life, was missing far too many things. The army did not distribute its papers and equipment only to have them scattered and lost.
A German soldier is expected to die rather than indulge in carelessness with army property.
The careless lieutenant was assigned to a penal battalion, and three grades were stripped from his rank. At that, he could think himself lucky.
The lieutenant’s eyes were wild, and he seemed to be fighting for breath. He was a pitiful and terrifying sight. Two soldiers dragged him off to the right, toward a group of broken men, who’d been dealt with in the same way.
Then it was my turn.
I felt stiff with fright. I pulled my crumpled documents from an inside pocket. The M.P. riffled through them, throwing me a reproving look. His bad temper seemed to soften somewhat at the sight of my apprehensive, mortified face, and he continued his inventory in silence.
Fortunately, I had been able to reintegrate with my unit, and had saved the scrap of white cardboard which stated that I had left the infirmary to take part in an attack. My head was swimming, and I thought I was going to faint. Then the M.P. read off a list of articles which ordinary soldiers like myself were supposed to carry at all times. The words rolled off his tongue, but I didn’t catch them quickly enough, and didn’t immediately produce the items still in my possession. The M.P. then treated me to a certain German word, which I was hearing for the first time. It appeared I was missing four items, including that fucking gas mask I had deliberately abandoned.
My pay book was passed from hand to hand to be inspected and stamped. In my panic, I made an idiotic move. Hoping to gain favor, I produced nine unused cartridges from my cartridge belt. The M.P.’s eyes lit on these like the eyes of an alpinist who spots a good foothold.
“You were retreating?”
“Ja, Herr Unteroffizier.”
“Why didn’t you try to defend yourself? Why didn’t you fight?” he shouted.
“Ja, Herr Unteroffizier.”
“What do you mean — ja?”
“We were ordered to retreat, Herr Unteroffizier.”
“God damn it to hell!” he roared. “What kind of an army runs without shooting?”
My pay book came down the line. My interrogator grabbed it, and riffled the pages for a moment. His eyes traveled from the filthy, tattered page to my face.
I followed the movement of his lips, which might be about to assign me a penal battalion — to the life of a prisoner, to forward positions, mine clearing, infrequent leaves always confined to camp, so that the word “liberty” lost all meaning, and the cancellation of mail…. I held back my tears with difficulty.
Finally the M.P.’s rigid fingers handed back my liberty. I had not been assigned to a penal battalion, but my emotion overwhelmed me anyway. As I picked up my pack, I sobbed convulsively, unable to stop. A fellow beside me was doing the same.
The crowd of men still waiting stared at me in astonishment. Like a miserable tramp, I ran past the line of tables and left by a door opposite the one we’d entered by. I felt that I had disgraced myself.
I rejoined my comrades, who were standing in the rain in the other part of the camp. They weren’t resting on the soft beds we’d dreamed of before coming to this place, and the rain streaming down their shoulders and backs was another hope disappointed.
However, despite the slap in the face we had just received from our grateful country, we could still count ourselves lucky.
Three days later, we learned that the day after our crossing, with six or seven thousand of our men still waiting on the east bank, the Russians had attacked. They were probably discouraged by their failure to retake Kiev, where the heavily outnumbered German Army was fighting desperately, and had decided to clean up the pockets still occupied by the Wehrmacht. Twenty-four hours after our group left, our comrades on the east bank were suddenly dazzled by the flares that flooded their temporary encampments with brilliant light.
The lookouts in the shallow trenches scratched into the hills overlooking the river, who were supposed to provide an illusion of protection, watched the shouting hordes of Russian infantry flood down to the river. These soldiers quickly realized they would never be able to stop that irresistible tide, and succumbed to a moment of absolute panic. Some ran, through the deafening explosions of Soviet rockets which drowned out our spandaus and light mortars. The Russians, driven by expectations of victory and by the exhortations of the people’s commissars, pushed forward regardless of the cost.
The cost was enormous. Each German projectile seemed to hit home. But Ivan continued his inexorable advance. On the mud landing stage from which I had embarked, panic gave way to madness. One of the rafts, which was loading up as usual, was swamped by a human flood. The few who managed to keep cool heads shouted for calm, and sometimes even used their guns. In the grotesque, trampling rush, mooring ropes gave way, and the raft drifted out a few yards, shuddering under the weight of the mob which had overrun it. Hands trying to grip the edges of the raft were trampled and crushed by heavy boots. On the landing stage, friends were fighting each other. Some of the officers committed suicide. The raft moved out another couple of yards, and then suddenly tipped away from the bank like a child’s toy. A loud cry mingled with the sound of the approaching battle, and two hundred terrified men floundered in the water, clinging together or trying to swim. A great many sank and drowned instantly.
At that moment, Ivan appeared at the crest of the hills, having swept the defenders aside. Drunk with excitement, the Russian soldiers dropped to the ground on one knee, and picked off Germans as if they were clay pigeons at a fair. A few Germans, white as ghosts, fired back with their F.M.s, but their numbers were so small the Russians scarcely noticed them. Several thousand others were running, screaming, trying to get away, and dying as they ran. The Russians also fired at the men in the water who were trying to swim, using flares to light the darkness.
An hour after they had appeared on the skyline, the Russians reached the river. There were a few more scattered shots, but their victory was complete. A third of the remaining German troops were taken prisoner, and for the rest everything was over. Their military responsibilities had come to an end, and they would never again be victimized by military police.