Then, one evening, as we were returning to the damp and icy cellar we used as a dormitory during our rest periods, we noticed that the civilian population of Memel had almost disappeared. The last shipload of refugees must have left while we were at the front. We walked through the darkness of the town, which was more like an abandoned cemetery than a town, and returned to our cellar with something like joy in our hearts.
My companions sat huddled on their ragged pallets without talking, attacking whatever comestible Grandsk had been able to produce, without even noticing what it was. It didn’t matter a damn; their attention was elsewhere. They were dreaming in the heavy silence, fixing their eyes, which burned with accumulated distress, on the dirty gray vault of our cellar. They were dreaming of the deliverance which must be near at hand, of the leaking hulk which would carry us out onto the sea against which we had been pressed for so long. They were dreaming, staring from their dark sockets with mad, transparent eyes, and it was understood that no one would speak. Their eyes, which had grown used to staring only at the war, had turned toward the possibility of an inner vision it was just possible to glimpse, with an intensity which I also felt in myself. They were dreaming, and so that the war wouldn’t catch them at it, they tried to hide it, looking at no one and keeping their eyes fixed on some inner vision of hope.
I was the only one who saw them. I saw them because I had nothing else to see. I had already dreamed too much, and perhaps had lost that capacity. Too many of my dreams had been nightmares. Even if I had still been able to dream, I wouldn’t have dared, because in the end, when one of the dreams came true, it was too painful.
So I no longer dreamed but watched the others, drinking in some of their hope, and turning it for moments at a time into concrete images: worn boots on the slimy deck of a ship — boots, vomiting discolored, empty uniforms. And then I would stop, because hope was so horrible. What forms did the hope of others take? It seemed that I no longer knew how to dream.
And yet I too still possessed this impatience, which we hid and cherished like a treasure which life had not yet stolen. I still had it too, and was hiding it inside myself. I felt it, and heard it, shrieking through my silence, shrieking so loudly that it overwhelmed me, like the noise of explosions. My balance was damaged by that sound, because I no longer dared lay claim to any particular hope or promise. I was afraid to ask too much, afraid that the least desire might seem like a demand.
I was still alive, and was afraid that somebody might notice.
I had given everything else I had: my feelings, my anguish, my sorrow, my fear. I had also forgotten Paula, and, so that I wouldn’t still seem too rich, I had forgotten that I was too young. I was not in very good health, but everything at Memel was hard. People with holes in their stomachs as big as fists were asked to be brave. Others, whose blood was pouring out onto the snow, fired at the war until their eyes grew glassy. I was lucky. In spite of my fits of coughing and my bloody phlegm, I still had a spark of life, which I kept hidden. One must no longer ask anything of anybody. Even if God heard our prayers, whatever we received would be consumed.
So I watched my companions as they dreamed. They too knew how dangerous dreams were in that place. Memel needed everything — dreams and hopes included. Men who still could hope fought better than those who couldn’t. And we were all so tired of fighting.
From time to time one of us would emerge from torpor and scream. These screams were entirely involuntary: we couldn’t stop them. They were produced by our exhaustion, by our organs, writhing with fatigue.
Some laughed as they howled; others prayed. Men who could pray could hope, and for so many hope was dead — so they howled their prayers. In any case, it was too late. Even if their prayers had been heard, God would no longer have dared to appear. He had abused His mercy — as in the case of Smellens, who had died that morning. Smellens had wanted to die, but not until he had received some news of his little brother, whom he had only seen twice. With dry eyes, we had watched the road which should have brought us the post, but no news came. Smellens had hung on to life as long as he could; but here, in Memel, it was too late for the All-powerful.
During the following days the first military evacuations took place. First, the units which had been most sorely tried, with the gravely wounded given priority — except for the hopeless cases, who would be as well off dying in Memel as anywhere else. The silently impatient joy of the less seriously injured, who could go, helped them to forget their wounds, which were tortured by the cold. Gangrenous cases stopped thinking about the amputations which awaited them. It was as if a veil of confidence had drifted gently over the town. Except for the planes, which hammered at us continuously, life might also have become life again. Ships gutted by bombs blocked the approaches to the piers. Mutilated corpses floated in the debris. The Navy was performing a prodigious task. We would have been lost without it.
A barge packed with men had been bombed amidships by an adroit pilot who hit the bull’s eye the first time. We were summoned from our rest period to deal with the mess. I shall omit the details, the memory of which still nauseates me. Our boots were red with blood. The human refuse which we threw off the front of the half-submerged wreck drew a throng of fish, and the smell of bodies torn open by gaping wounds is beyond expression, even though the water washing over the carnage diminished it somewhat.
The water in which we worked at first seemed warm in comparison to the air. After a short time, however, it began to seem like torture. Our gestures became slow and hesitant, and our hearts felt the wrenching of pain which clouded our vision. We had to hang on. Two more ships were loading up with troops, and soon it would be our turn.
By mid-morning, the sky cleared. The pale sun attempting to shine over this scene of disaster filled us with unease. Any pleasure in the sun had long ago been killed for us. It invariably meant Russian planes.
Before we had finished our cleanup, the Russian fighter-bombers were overhead. This surprised no one. With good weather it could only be expected. Limping on our painful feet, we ran as fast as we could for whatever shelter we could find. All the true concrete shelters were used as first-aid hospitals, or shelters for the wounded. We had to huddle in the ruins, or in shell holes and bomb craters. We hid ourselves away in small clusters, and tried to concentrate on our imminent escape.
We could hear the anti-aircraft guns on all sides. Perhaps they would keep the planes away from the port itself…. But then we heard planes flying low overhead, making the icy air around us vibrate with their passage. We watched them, rubbing our fingertips, which were numb with cold, as they passed over the ruined town, and the men in rows, bowing beneath them like grasses in a wind. They passed over two ships which cast off their moorings to make less of a target. Five bombs fell simultaneously from the five planes gliding over the piers. Two fell in the water, where they burst, covering the waiting men with spray. A third scattered debris on the beach, while the last two opened a crater in front of a line of men who would not be leaving until much later. Bodies flew into the air. Some of the survivors gave way to despair, but those who still dared to hope supported them. There were no cries except from a few wounded men, who howled without meaning to.
There were now some forty planes overhead, and others were coming up from behind the cliffs to the north. One of them exploded in the air; perhaps one of our guns had hit it. But there were no cries of triumph, as in the old days. Here there was only the noise of war; the men were silent.
The ships had drawn somewhat away from the piers, but the men waiting to embark remained in their places so they wouldn’t lose them. The planes turned in the sky, probably looking for the most effective positions for letting go their bombs.