Angst smiled. “You can go for me.”
A large group of enlisted men and officers had gathered in a field at the far end of the long row of houses. A table had been moved outdoors and served as a make shift altar. The chaplain wore a chasuble over a soiled uniform. Schmidt ran off, as the homily had already started, and Angst lugged his friend’s gear and his own onto the Hanomag. Corporal Hartmann told them to lash mess tins, gas mask canisters, and canteens to the hand railing on the top edge of the armor siding and allow the equipment to hang outside. Several water cans, marked in white, already hung from the siding as well. There were four benches in the crew compartment, two on each side, padded with oxblood-colored cushions. The seats could be raised, and underneath was stowage for ammunition boxes for the machine guns and antitank mines. The padded backrests were lockers to hold field rations, personal gear, first aid kits, and extra weapons and flare guns. Machine gun barrel tubes were fitted in clips just behind the seating, and the carbines were mounted on brackets on the inside armor plating. Canvas sacks for spent shell casings hung from each of the double doors. Lengths of waterproof tarpaulin, neatly folded behind the co-driver’s seat, were used to cover the crew compartment during inclement weather. “The lieutenant is a stickler for tidiness,” Hartmann informed them, “so whatever you use, be sure to put back in its proper place.” He then pointed out the different hatch coverings, made of the same nonskid patterned metal as the decking. These were the intakes for fuel, oil and measuring stick for the main gearbox; up front between the driver and co-driver seats was the oil intake for the turning gear, and the large hatch accessed the turning brake and hand brake tuning. As Hartmann was about to refuel the vehicle, he asked Schroeder to lift the fuel intake hatch located at the rear of the deck. Eager to ingratiate himself with him, the corporal did as he was told and then followed the driver to the front end of the vehicle where one of the gasoline cans had been tied. Hartmann then showed Schroeder where the funnel was stored, in the wood toolbox mounted on the fender over the track assembly. Reinhardt had Detwiler replace the MG34 with his ’42 on the aft swivel mount; and as the gunner tackled this chore, Reinhardt familiarized Wilms with the radio and the codes they normally employed. After Angst and Braun finished tying down their gear and storing the extra machine gun ammunition, there was little for them to do but try out the seats. The experience would prove novel for the two common foot soldiers. “So, what do you think of our new outfit?” Braun asked.
“Too early to tell. We could have done a lot worse.” Angst really couldn’t complain. Upon their arrival at the kolkhoz, everyone had bathed and shaved, and Andrei gave them haircuts. The Hiwi wasn’t a bad barber. Lieutenant Gottfried had even scared up clean underclothes and new socks.
“This might not be so bad, Angst. We could have ended up as rear guard for the entire retreat.”
The thought had crossed Angst’s mind, also, and he was grateful it wasn’t so. A delicate sound of bells carried on the warm breeze caught their attention. They watched as the chaplain raised the Eucharist to the assembly.
“Why didn’t you go with Schmidt?” Braun asked.
“I stopped practicing a long time ago.”
“But did you stop believing? Now, that’s the question.”
“I believe in the old gods. Wotan. Loki.”
Braun’s laugh was sarcastic. “The old gods! You? Norse mythology and rune symbols? That’s not going to help get you out of the muck we’re up to our asses in.”
“I wasn’t serious,” Angst replied.
Soon the crowd broke up and left the field in different directions. Schmidt returned, entered the crew compartment, and took a seat.
“Feel better?” Braun asked.
“Yes, I do. It’s been weeks since I’ve seen a chaplain, let alone gone to service. Not since all the moving around.”
“Did you know our friend the corporal here is a pagan? Had you even the slightest suspicion, Wilhelm?”
Angst had to accept the fact that Braun would hold just about everything and everyone to ridicule. It helped dispel the apathy, boredom, and, sometimes, the fear. At least his own spirits would be lifted, even if at the expense of whoever was the object of his derision. At the moment, Angst didn’t mind.
Schmidt shook his head in his quiet, serious way. “No. I didn’t know, but having an understanding, even a healthy respect for one’s ancient cultural origins and beliefs isn’t such a bad thing. Only it should not be misappropriated.”
“How do you mean?” Angst said.
“Well, I don’t know exactly. Twisting the meanings of things so they fit some belief or theory of convenience.” Schmidt spoke cautiously, hesitantly.
“Oh, you mean like the party?” Braun said, purposely loud and blustery so as to watch, with mirth, as his friend squirmed.
“I don’t know. I…I suppose. What about you, Friedrich?”
“Me? The Braun family is Lutheran, and I’m a hypocrite, because the only time I consider the Lord or my immortal soul is when I’m in combat. Or actually, right before the fight starts. I pray, feverishly, that I come out of it alive and swear all sorts of oaths and promises to God if he sees me through. Like promising never to get drunk or gamble and cheat at cards. And never, ever will I step foot inside a brothel. And guess what? So far I have made it through alive, and I pick up right where I left off.”
“That’s not hypocrisy; everyone does that. Those are merely soldiers’ amusements,” Schmidt said.
“But I don’t think about God until I’m in mortal fear of my life, and then I go running like some child hiding behind his mother’s skirts. My lack of conviction upsets me at times. You don’t know how it can make me suffer. And don’t think I’m making a joke of this, because I see Angst is smiling.”
Angst shook his head. “I was only thinking of something my father once said—that as creatures of intellect, human beings needed to invent God and thus an afterlife, despite their better judgment.”
“Is your father an atheist?” Schmidt asked with concerned seriousness.
“No, not really. He’s more a humanist, if anything. He believes in man’s better nature, although that expression has become somewhat stifled at this point. It’s an ongoing process that has to evolve. Father said no other animal has the awareness of its own mortality…that someday it will die. Not like us. Some belief had to be created to quell that unbearable knowledge. He’d go to church, on occasion, mostly to please my mother. She, on the other hand, went every Sunday and observed all the holy days, and she made my sister and me go as well. In one of her last letters, she wrote that Father had been going to Mass with her more often than not. I guess the point I’m trying to make is, the times have grown so very dark for the best and the worst of us. Don’t be so hard on yourself, Freddy, for your lack of convictions. There are some terrible ones at work in the world right now that aren’t worth having.”
“It quiets me,” Schmidt said. “This war has become our Calvary. I can’t say going to service gives me strength or peace of mind—I possess neither—but it makes me prepared.”
“Prepared for what?” Braun asked, his voice almost hostile.
“I don’t know. Certainly not dying, if that’s what you’re thinking, because more than ever I want to get out of this war alive and preferably in one piece. Perhaps I’m preparing myself to accept that this may not happen, and that I do not falter or become bitter, and that I never lose hope.”
Braun chuckled, even though he was not immune to his friend’s words. “Jesus, Wilhelm, you are praying for way too much.”
“Endure that you may continue to endure. Hope that there is still hope. That’s all we have going for us now.” Schmidt ceased talking. Down below from where they sat, Schroeder replaced the oversized funnel back in the toolbox on the fender. When finished, he closed the lid and climbed into the vehicle and inspected how well the equipment had been tied down. There did not appear to be any fault. “Everything seems to be in order…what are you three up to?”