“I’m sure he’s aware,” Angst said quietly. He looked at his wristwatch. Guard duty was drawing near. He had time for a cigarette before it became completely dark. He smoked about half and gave the rest to Braun. “See you in the morning,” he said, and walked in the direction of where Schmidt was standing. In the distance, small tongues of flame licked the darkness. His friend stared intently at the display. “How are you feeling, Willi?” Angst asked. When Schmidt turned, his face was no more than a pale blur. Angst could sense that he’d been crying. He did not say anything at first but turned back again to watch the flames, some far off, some closer. They were surrounded by a great ring of fire. Then, after a minute or more, he spoke. “I sometimes wonder if we fight this war on some other world…that this sad, wretched country is not of this earth but exists some millions of kilometers away. Something is taking place here, and I have difficulty expressing it to myself, let alone to someone else. Even a friend. Something more than what meets the eye.” He sighed, exhausted, but drew a deep breath and continued. “‘The trumpet of the first angel has already sounded. Hail and fire has been hurled down upon the earth.’ The apocalypse. Do you not believe it to be so, Johann?” Angst was chilled by the thought. This was a belief he had been running away from since childhood. “You push the thought away, don’t you, and tell yourself this is not happening, not in your lifetime?” Schmidt went on. “But deep down you know it is here, now, and there is no turning back. Wading through blood and fire, we convince ourselves that nothing is unusual. Horrible, yes, men and armies can tolerate so much horror, but never do we admit to the unusual. This is not only a country put to the torch—an entire world is on fire, and we refuse to see beyond the narrow focus of our rifle pits. But you know, as every soldier at the front knows. You might not see the entirety of the drama unfold, yet you sense it deep within your soul.”
Angst had to take a few moments to collect his thoughts and, more pressingly, to stifle old fears. “I know you’re a devout man, Willi, and that your beliefs are sincere, but you have allowed some of the more strident, and I would go so far as to say the hysterical, pronouncements of National Socialist political officers to cloud your judgment.”
“I could never be influenced by some party hack in an army uniform. Not when I compare their hollow words with what I have seen with my own eyes,” Schmidt replied.
“Perhaps not, but it has grown increasingly difficult to escape the doctrine. It’s served up whenever there is the opportunity. When I first got to Russia, during the last leg of the trip, a political officer boarded the train. He addressed not only the troops new to the eastern front, like me, but those returning from leave and medical furlough. A lot of those guys had heard it all before and didn’t balk at having to hear it again. They sat, enraptured, as though the words would make their slaughter more bearable. The officer went on to describe the Fuehrer and the party as instruments of God entrusted with a sacred duty to defend Germany and western civilization. Communism was a creation of Satan let loose upon the world to destroy it. We weren’t fighting other men, like ourselves, but automatons under the control of the devil. The war in Russia went beyond economics or ideology, he said; it was a fight for the spiritual life of German culture. The very soul of the German people. On an intellectual level, what he said struck me as utter nonsense, but emotionally the idea scared the shit out of me. Maybe we are fighting for the spiritual and cultural existence of western civilization, despite the Brits and the Amis. I don’t know. What I do know is, we’re all locked into a nightmare that there’s no getting out of. I only hope to be still alive after it plays itself out. There is one thing I do know: the Bolsheviks and Stalin are no more the physical embodiment of the antichrist than the Fuehrer is the savior the party makes him out to be.”
“The same beast, only with different heads. You’ve read your bible, Johann. You know of the false prophets who come in his name.”
With a conviction of this magnitude, it was futile to argue, Angst thought.
“I am sorry for the way I treated Braun,” Schmidt said quietly.
“Don’t give it another thought. Ten seconds after you left, he didn’t feel a thing.”
“How I envy him. No matter how terrible it all is, he takes it on and still manages to have a good laugh.”
“Even if it is at our expense. He has a talent for keeping us all from going mad, God bless him.”
“It is a terrible burden to know how things really are. To know the truth,” Schmidt said.
Angst no longer knew what to say. He could not change his friend’s beliefs, and he hadn’t the strength to continue a political or moral discussion to try to sway his opinions. Besides, it was late, and he had a long stretch ahead of him. Schmidt was a decent fellow, but he was a trifle maudlin; and at present he was allowing this aspect of his temperament to rule. Now Angst was feeling morose. Over the last couple of days, he’d been depressed as well, and the last thing he needed to hear that he was witnessing the end of the world. “You had better get some sleep, Willi. Your turn at watch will come around sooner than you’d want.”
Schmidt agreed and said good night. Alone now, with the darkness as no comfort, Angst’s mind raced, and his stomach knotted. The only apocalypse he was experiencing was personal and caused by men. He knew the chances of surviving this conflict were slim. Maybe the only thing left to save is my soul, he thought. Maybe that is what Schmidt is struggling with, but he’s put it into a larger context. As a boy, the Book of Revelation had filled Angst’s impressionable young mind with fear and dread. Back home, the parish priest, Father Günter, would read the entire book at Christmas Day mass. Whether the insufferably long reading was a canonically legitimate inclusion to the nativity celebration, or if it had significance for the priest alone, Angst did not know. He could visualize the portly, white-haired priest turning purple as he bellowed the scripture. He suffered from a severe speech impediment, a lisp, and it was an awful experience to have to sit and listen to a voice that sounded as if it came from the mouth of a deranged baby who had only just learned how to talk. Having to go to church on Christmas would ruin the rest of the day. No amount of holiday treats or toys could dispel the lurid images of stars falling from the sky, the moon turning the color of blood, and, most horrific of all, the dead rising from their graves to receive the last judgment. His child’s mind would quake at the thought of legions of skeletons in moldy rags, parading through the streets of town. He could never gauge the effect this prophecy had on his parents. They drank their fill of punch and schnapps, feasted on the Christmas roast, and laughed with relatives and friends. His mother reprimanded him for brooding on such a joyful day. When he told her what he was brooding about, Father Günter’s sermon, she told him nothing bad would ever happen to him, if he was good. He ceased going to church after he turned seventeen. The old tale from the remote past had long ceased to have a hold over him. Until now, that is, with this mass exodus of armies, civilians, and countless animals; fires raging everywhere—an eerie sight that filled him with a dread far more potent than anything he’d ever felt as a child. Schmidt could be right, he thought; perhaps this is the last great conflict, the battle for the souls of men. And what judgment will I receive for my contribution? he wondered.
Soon after he had eaten, Schroeder took a shelter half for a cover and lay down on one of the benches. He suggested Wilms do the same before somebody else in the crew beat him to it. The signalman wasn’t ready for sleep yet, however, so he sat on the bench opposite the corporal and smoked. Voss had taken his place in the co-driver’s seat to monitor the radio, an indication that the first watch had begun, and Detwiler, armed with an MP40, had since taken his post on the south side of the laager. Schroeder had closed his eyes and was intent on going to sleep, but Wilms’s fidgeting made it difficult to shut out his surroundings. “How long do you think this is going to take?” Wilms asked the corporal.