“How long is what going to take?”
“The mission.”
“You heard what the captain said. We will remain on this side of the river until Red Vengeance is destroyed. Now, stop annoying me and go to sleep.”
Wilms was able to contain himself for no more than a minute before he spoke again. “I wonder if we will be assigned to another Stug when we finally get back to brigade,” Wilms said, referring to the self-propelled assault gun that had been destroyed.
“I seriously doubt it. There weren’t enough guns before the Tortoise breakthrough, and there’s even less now, I would assume. Unless brigade gets re-outfitted—and I don’t see that occurring—we will be sent to join the infantry at the front line.”
“Did the captain signal headquarters to inform them of our whereabouts and ask permission to borrow us for the time being?”
“He said he would, although I don’t know if he extended the same courtesy for Angst and his bunch. I doubt if they’d be missed at all.”
“I wonder what headquarters will say about losing Pieper and the assault gun?”
Schroeder threw the shelter half off to the side in anger and sat up. “You won’t have to worry about that.”
“There’s bound to be an inquiry.”
“What if there is? They will have to question me, but it won’t matter, because we will have Red Vengeance as our trophy by then. That alone will even the score for Pieper and Naumann and the rest. That’s why I jumped at the chance to serve under the captain.”
“I’m all for it, you know that.”
“Good, but I want you to get the idea out of your head that we were in some way responsible for the Stug’s destruction. Especially me. It’s as though I failed everyone, and I didn’t. I explained it all to the captain and he understood, perfectly. He knows what we were up against better than anyone.”
“I just want to be made to understand…” Wilms fell silent. The lieutenant stirred about in his seat, and the signalman worried if their voices had grown too loud.
“Understand what?”
“That night in the thicket. Why won’t you and Detwiler speak of it?”
“Perhaps you should have asked Ganz while you still had the opportunity.”
“That isn’t funny.”
“It wasn’t meant to be. I was only trying to illustrate the fact that even he hadn’t the desire to speak of the matter.”
“Did Captain Falkenstein order you not to discuss it?”
“He said no such thing. It’s very difficult to explain, because the experience had more to do with what we were feeling than what had actually occurred. Detwiler grew so scared he nearly shit his trousers.”
“I can’t imagine that lout being afraid of anything.”
“Well, he was, as were we all. When we reached the thicket, it seemed impassable at first. A tangle of brambles with long sharp thorns. I’d never seen anything like it growing on the steppe. We walked along the outside for a couple of hundred meters, to get a sense of how far the brush extended. There was no way any Russians could be hiding through that mass of growth, so I figured Pieper would circle around it. We were ready to give up and return when Ganz spotted an opening, a wide path of five or six meters across. There was no choice then, so we had to go in and take a look, just to make sure. We entered. It was like a thoroughfare, even and symmetrical on both sides, and I guessed it continued through to the other side. The ground felt dry and lifeless under hands and knees as we crawled. Then the path angled this way and that until it opened up to a clearing. It reeked of diesel fuel and oil. The ground was soaked with the stuff and littered with small pieces of metal and machine parts. The smell of pollution and death was overwhelming, and Detwiler urged that we leave immediately. There was something odd about it all. Evil. I think that’s what Detwiler said. The place was evil, and we got scared. Really, terribly scared. The clearing was large, and I didn’t think we had wandered that deep into it, but we couldn’t find the path where we had entered. Ganz was starting to panic and kept blabbering about the stars having disappeared. I looked up and he was right, there weren’t any. The sky was opaque, as though it was overcast, but it cast no illumination. I risked turning on my flashlight in order to find the path again and discovered that the growth didn’t consist of brambles at all but was barbed wire, acres of barbed wire with vines and tall grass growing amid the coils. It seemed as if the wire had been sown and grew like some living thing on its own. I couldn’t imagine who had created this obstruction, or for what purpose. The layout appeared carefully planned, but by whom? The clearing was in the shape of a perfect circle, and the engine parts lying on the ground looked ravaged and chewed. The impression was that of a den or lair where an animal would drag its kill to devour and live amid its own waste. Ganz finally happened upon what we thought was the original path, but it wasn’t. The wire was laid in a hedgehog manner, a labyrinth, shifting, falling back on itself, leading to dead ends. I lost all sense of direction, and it took everything I had to maintain discipline. It seemed like we’d been lost for hours. Then we saw flames in the distance, flickering through the coils of wire and the growth. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was the assault gun burning. We kept walking and kept the flames in sight, as it was our only reference point. I don’t think we even cared what the fire signified, as long as we got clear of that terrible maze.”
“I would have thought the star shell would have lit up the way out for you.”
“It didn’t. That is to say, we had no visual confirmation that a star shell had been fired. The flashlight was our only source. I’d become so unnerved I left it on, and to hell with the consequences. And we heard nothing, other than our hearts beating and the shortness of our breath. No cannon fire or machine guns, nothing. The skirmish was over by the time we finally cleared the thicket.”
“How did the captain react when you told him all this? Did it strike him as implausible?”
“On the contrary. He asked questions but only to extract more details. He had no doubts about what I had observed, because he’d come across a similar bivouac once before. He described it as a nest, which was the term he used, where Red Vengeance lies in wait, repairs itself, and, in our case, launches an ambush.”
“Repairs itself,” Wilms repeated with fascination. “What did he mean?”
“The captain didn’t elaborate. He understood everything I said, and that was all that mattered. I was relieved.” Schroeder lay down again and covered himself with the shelter half. “The captain said we might witness many strange things on this hunt. When Red Vengeance is finally destroyed, the war should return to normal. There will be a great about-turn, and our armies will go on the offensive once again. You must follow the captain’s lead, Wilms, and make his quest your own with equal purpose and desire. I know I have. We will serve by example—you, Detwiler, and I—to instill the same in the rest of our Kameraden. The sanctity of this mission must be preserved at all times. That is what the captain expressed.”
The discussion was over now that the corporal had closed his eyes. Wilms did the same, although he was more awake now than before. He lit another cigarette and listened to the wheezing snores of the overbearing, fanatical corporal, who could fall asleep so easily, and felt terribly homesick for the familiarity of the brigade.