“Frösch! You left your work. Why?”
“I was only asking him about the war, sergeant.”
“You were forbidden to talk during punishment fatigue, Frösch, except to answer my questions.”
Frösch was about to reply when a sonorous whack cut him short. I looked back. The feld’s hand, which had just given it to Frösch full in the face, was still raised. I took myself off as fast as I could, as a torrent of abuse poured over my unfortunate companion.
“Bastard!” I shouted silently at the feld.
At the sanitary service, the aide looked at me without enthusiasm. I understood immediately that he was one of these fastidious fellows for whom a day of filthy scarecrows like myself was less than a pleasure, especially as he received no fees to encourage civility. He fingered all my parts, poking me a little all over, and concluded his examination by sticking his finger into my mouth to check the condition of my teeth. Then he added a string of numbers and letters to a card clipped to my papers, and I was sent down the line of tables to the surgical service. Five or six fellows there checked my documents and asked me to remove some of the clothes I’d thrown over my shoulders. A brute who must have been a wild man of the woods in civilian life gave me a shot in the left pectoral muscle, and I was taken to the hospital hut, where there were beds for the officially disabled. My papers were checked once again, and then, like a miracle, I was shown to a bed — which in fact was only a simple pallet covered with gray cloth. There were no sheets or blankets, but it was nonetheless a genuine bed on a wooden frame, in a dry room protected by a roof.
I collapsed onto the bed, to relish its comforts. My head was ringing with fever, and filled with a host of half-realized impressions. I had grown so used to sleeping on the ground that the degree of well being a soft, clean mattress can induce struck me with astonishment. The room was full of cots like mine on which fellows were lying, whimpering and groaning. But I paid no more attention to them than one does to a hotel carpet which is not entirely to one’s liking. I felt almost lightheaded with well-being, despite the pain which tore at my entrails. I took off some of my clothes and spread my filthy coat and ground sheet over my body instead of blankets, burying myself in them and in the sense that I had been saved. I lay like that for a long time, trying to control the cramps which knotted my guts.
After a while, two orderlies arrived, carrying a cumbersome piece of equipment. Without a word of warning, they pulled off my covers.
“Turn over, kamerad, and let us have a look at your ass. We want to clean out your gut.”
Before I understood what was happening, they had administered a copious enema, and moved on to the next patient, leaving me with some five quarts of medicated liquid gurgling painfully in my distended abdomen.
I don’t know anything about medicine, but an enema has always struck me as a strange treatment for someone who is suffering from excessively frequent evacuations. The fact is that two repetitions of this operation enormously increased the misery of the next day and night, which I spent tottering to and from the latrine. This was situated some distance from the infirmary, which meant fighting the strong, icy wind which blew continuously. Any benefits I might have received from this amount of time ostensibly resting in bed were thus reduced to almost nothing.
Two days later, I was pronounced cured, and sent back to my company on rubber legs. My company — the one which had been organized as an assault group — was stationed in the immediate vicinity, only five or six miles from divisional headquarters, in a tiny hamlet which had been half abandoned by the Russian civilian population. Despite my intense joy at reuniting with my friends all of whom were present, including Olensheim — my condition remained as precarious as it had been the day before I went to the infirmary.
My close friends, Hals, Lensen, and the veteran, made a special effort over me, and did everything they could to help me get well. Above all, they insisted on pouring large quantities of vodka down my throat — which, according to them, was the only reliable remedy for my complaint. However, my precipitate visits to the latrine continued despite these excellent attentions, and the sight of my bloody excrement worried even the veteran, who went with me on these trips in case I fainted. Twice, on the urging of my friends, I tried to re-enter the hospital, which was inundated with wounded from the battle of Kiev. But my papers, stating that I had been cured, presented an insuperable barrier.
I began to look like a tragic protagonist, made of some curious, white diaphanous substance, instead of flesh and blood. I no longer left the pallet which had been given to me in one of the isbas. Fortunately, a reduced service requirement allowed me to stay where I was. Several times, my friends took guard duty for me and did the other jobs which would ordinarily have been required of me. Everything was going well in the company, which was still commanded by Wesreidau. Unfortunately, we were still in a combat zone, which meant that at any minute we might be sent to some exposed position. Wesreidau knew that I would not be able to function in combat conditions as well as I knew it myself.
One evening, about a week after I’d left the infirmary, I became delirious, and was completely unaware of a fierce aerial battle which took place directly overhead.
“From some points of view, you’re really the lucky one,” Hals joked.
Hals even went to speak to Wesreidau about me. But, before he was able to explain himself, Wesreidau stood up and smiled.
“My boy, we’ll be pulling out almost immediately. They’re sending us to an occupied zone at least sixty miles farther west. We’ll have a certain amount to do there, but even so it will seem like a holiday after this. Tell your sick friend to hang on for another twenty-four hours and spread the news that we’re moving. We’ll all be better off.”
Hals clicked his heels hard enough to shatter his shins, and burst out of Wesreidau’s quarters like a hurricane. He looked into every but he passed, shouting out the good news. When he reached us, he shook me from my torpor.
“You’re saved, Sajer! You’re saved!” he shouted. “We’ll be leaving soon for a real rest.” He turned to a couple of fellows who shared the hut with us. “We’ve got to get all the quinine we can for him. He has to hang on another twenty-four hours.”
Despite my overwhelming weakness, Hals’s intense joy communicated itself to me, and ran through me like a restorative balm.
“You’re saved!” he said again. “And just think: with a fever like yours, they’re bound to take you in a hospital — and they won’t cut it off your leave either. You are a lucky dog!”
Every time I moved I felt it in my stomach, which seemed to be rapidly liquefying. Nonetheless, I began to collect my things. Everyone around me was doing the same. I put my packet of letters within easy reach. A voluminous backlog of correspondence had been kept for me by the divisional postal service. There were at least a dozen letters from Paula, which greatly eased my illness, as well as three from my parents, full of questions, anxiety, and reproaches about my long silence. There was even one from Frau Neubach. Somehow I found the strength to write everyone, although my fever undoubtedly interfered with the coherence of my messages.
Finally, we left. I was given a place in a small Auto-Union truck, and we drove to Vinnitsa on roads which belonged to the Carolingian era. Our faltering machines almost drowned in incredible quagmires, whose condition was aggravated by the rain. For a while I thought we had reached the notorious Pripet marshes, which were in fact not very far away. We avoided them by driving around them, on extraordinary wooden pavements which seemed to be floating on mud. These uneven roads made of split logs, on which one could obviously not drive very fast, were surprisingly effective in wet weather. However, it took us at least eight hours to travel ninety miles. The weather was cold and bad — snow flurries alternating with violent bursts of rain — but at least this protected us from Soviet aircraft, which were very active at that time.