“Wolves?”
“Yes, wolves. And there are plenty of other things about Russia even worse than that.”
“But they could come after us right here, too.”
“Of course — if we’re in the open. But once we’re under canvas they’ll leave us alone. And then if they do come, we’ll shoot them.”
“Well, then it comes to the same thing. And by tomorrow, we won’t remember any of the directions.”
“We’re following a sort of track, aren’t we? We’ll keep on with it tomorrow, and that’s that. Believe me, it’s the best thing to do.”
I finally persuaded him to do as I said. We had just begun to attack the rock-hard ground with our picks when we heard the sound of an engine.
“A truck!” the young fellow shouted.
“A truck? You’re crazy! Don’t you hear the treads?” He stared at me. “A tank? Is it a German tank?”
“How the hell would I know?”
“But we’re behind our lines, aren’t we?”
“Oh, for God’s sake… of course… I hope so.”
People who need long explanations at moments when everything depends on instinct have always irritated me.
“What are we going to do?” he asked.
“Get the hell off the track, and try to hide in the snow.”
I was already moving back. The noise had grown terrible. The tank was nearly on top of us, and was still totally invisible. I know of no other experience which twists the guts harder than that. We waited for what seemed an eternity before we perceived a squat silhouette sliding smoothly over the ground. The noise was overwhelming. I stared through the darkness, trying to catch some distinguishing details. Finally, drawn by an inexplicable force, I got up, and moved forward cautiously, leaving my astonished companion to his own devices. After a moment, he joined me, staring at me with anguished, questioning eyes.
“It’s a Tiger — one of ours. We’ve got to try and catch it.”
“Let’s run after it!”
“We have to be careful, though. They might think we’re Russians.”
“But if we catch up with them they could take us along.”
“Exactly.”
We began to shout like madmen, running after the tank with some anxiety, but as hard as we could. The noise of its engines drowned our voices, and it passed us by.
“Grab your things,” I yelled at the recruit. “We’ve got to gallop behind them. We’ve got to catch them.”
We began to run along the ruts left by the treads. Although the tank was moving slowly, it was still going faster than we could run. We were already gasping for breath. I quickly realized that we were never going to catch it, and that we would have to take a chance. I grabbed my Mauser and fired into the fog, into which the tank had almost disappeared. This, of course, was extremely dangerous. The tank crew might think they were being attacked and let us have it with their machine guns.
The tank stopped. They must have heard the shot. We shouted, “Kamerad!” as loudly as we could. The engine was idling, and was making much less noise. We heard someone from the turret: “Was ist das?”
We rushed forward, drawing on all our strength. We were now very close. The fellow in the turret must surely have had his finger on the trigger.
“Only two of you?” he yelled when he could see us.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“We’re trying to find our unit, Kamerad. We’re lost.”
“I’m not surprised. We’re lost too.”
We noticed with relief that he was wearing a white helmet stenciled with tiger stripes — which meant that he belonged to the Gross Deutschland. We explained our situation, and they pulled us into the tank. “You’re both Gross Deutschland?”
“Yes.”
The interior of the tank, which seemed to be painted with orange lead, was filled with the dim, yellowish light of a metal mechanic’s lamp which hung from the ceiling. There were two fellows in the turret, and probably a couple more up front. The engine made so much noise that it was almost impossible to talk, but it warmed the air agreeably, and filled it with the smell of hot oil and exhaust.
Despite the ample dimensions of the turret, the steering gear and ammunition cases took up so much room it was a squeeze to fit us in. The tank commander was keeping his eyes and ears open, thrusting his head from the turret at closely spaced intervals. He wore a thick winter hat which looked quite Russian.
The tank crew told us that they too were looking for their unit. Some engine trouble had held them up for nearly two days. Now they were trying to orient themselves by the batteries and companies they passed a dangerous business, because a solitary tank is like a blinded animal. They didn’t have a radio, and their group leader seemed to be doing nothing about them. Maybe he had already classified them as missing.
They also told us that the new Panzers were coated with a magnetic anti-mine paste, and exterior fire extinguishers. The most dangerous weapon for them was still the rocket launchers which the Russians had perfected after encountering our Panzerfaust.
They said that none of the Russian tanks could stand up to our Tigers. In the spring, on the Rumanian frontier, we would see the Tigers in action for ourselves. The T-37s and KW-85s discovered the Tiger’s superiority for themselves, the hard way.
An hour later, the tank stopped.
“A signpost!” shouted the commander. “There must be a camp near here!”
It had begun to snow — large, feathery flakes which clung to every surface. A post bristling with signs loomed unexpectedly out of the darkness. One of the crew brushed the snow off the signs with his gloved hand, and read out the directions. It seemed that the company the young recruit was looking for, along with three or four others, was somewhere to the east. The rest of the regiment was to the northeast, which was the way the tank was headed.
The young soldier who was arriving at the front for the first time had to say goodbye, and walk off alone into the darkness. I can still see the expression of terror on his white face.
Twenty minutes later, we ran into my unit, and the tank crew decided to stop for the night. I jumped down, and went over to a cluster of wretched isbas to ask directions. The long, peaked roofs rose from the ground like large tents. In the command hut, a noncom was sitting at a rough desk made of a couple of boards propped up on boxes, and lit by three candles. As there was no heat, he had thrown a blanket over his coat. He was able to tell me roughly where I could find my company. I found myself moving through a succession of bunkers, foxholes, and trenches, as on my first visit to the front, only these were far more precarious and much shallower than the ones on the Don. The engineers, who were spread very thin on the ground in this sector, had done what they could, but most of the work had been left to the picks of the exhausted infantry. Winter had begun in earnest. The ground was frozen hard, and from now on things could only get worse.
I kept asking questions, and finally a fellow from liaison took me to our officers’ bunker. The sentry at the entrance inspected me narrowly before pulling back the canvas, astonished to see an ordinary soldier escorted like an officer.
Wesreidau was not asleep. A short pipe which had gone out jutted from the high collar which hid most of his face. He was bare-headed, and seemed to be studying a map. Two lamp-heaters lit the hole, but didn’t have much of an effect on the cold. At the back of the dugout, a man was lying on the ground, dead asleep. A lieutenant, sitting on a pack, was also sleeping, with his head in his hands. Captain Wesreidau looked up, to see who had come in. I was about to announce myself when the telephone rang — probably some unimportant report.