“Hilfe, kameraden!”
The Russian jumped to one side, and the sound of his machine gun tore into the quiet of the night, as its white flashes striped the darkness. To my left another machine gun opened fire, and its bullets followed the howling Russian as far as the earth embankment in front of the foxhole, into which he finally plunged.
From the hole, we could hear voices shouting: “Germanski! Germanski!”
With a leap which looked beyond his capacities, the veteran propelled himself forward, hurling a grenade from his right fist. The object vanished into the darkness for two or three seconds. Then the hole was lit by a brilliant white light, and we heard the outcry of several voices, before a moment of silence.
We withdrew as fast as we could, keeping parallel to the barbed wire. Behind us, we could hear a rising tumult. Risking mines and bullets, we ran for a small hillock, and, gasping for breath, hastily attempted to organize a defensible position in a thicket.
“Idiots!” the sergeant exploded, meaning Kraus and the veteran. “I didn’t give an order to fire. We’ll never get out of this now.” He was as scared as anybody else.
“But Grumpers asked for help, sergeant,” Kraus answered. “He was in bad trouble.”
An instant later a dozen flares lit our surroundings as brightly as day, and a Russian fusillade shook the air all around us. The Russians were also heaving grenades at random, the way we would have done. “We’re finished,” whimpered young Lindberg.
“Quick, a shovel,” shouted the Sudeten. “We’ve got to dig in, or they’ll slaughter us.”
“Nobody move!” the veteran commanded authoritatively. In our terror, we obeyed him. His voice sounded more confident than the sergeant’s. We tried to freeze absolutely, even down to the fluttering of our eyelids. A flare burst into brilliant white light directly overhead, and anyone whose face wasn’t buried in the ground could see every detail of our circumstances. Just beyond us lay the bodies of Grumpers and the Russian, and five or six foxholes preceding a V-shaped infantry position. Other flares lit the edge of the wood from which our adventures had begun. Luckily, the Russians nearest us hadn’t noticed the rise of ground which was giving us cover. However, their soldiers in the more distant positions which we had seen in the light of the flares could see us. They began to throw grenades too, and they were using the superb Russian grenade throwers.
“God,” said the veteran. “If they’ve got those damned things, we’ve had it.”
“We ought to dig,” sniveled Lindberg.
“Shut up. Dig with your belly if you like, but don’t move anything else. If we play dead, maybe they’ll think we are.”
Something fell with a dull thud on the other side of the hillock. Its crest disintegrated, and we were spattered by a rain of earth. There were no new flares coming over, and the ones still falling were fading. As usual, the Russians were shouting curses at us. Another grenade landed somewhere to our left, and we could hear the whistling fall of its fragments through the noise of the explosion. Someone lying beside the veteran groaned.
“Shut up! Hold it back!” muttered the veteran between clenched teeth. “If they hear anything, that’s it.”
He was talking to his number-two man. The boy was clawing at his face, which was twisted with pain. His hands were trembling.
“Don’t make a sound,” said the veteran, putting his hand on the boy’s forearm. “Be strong.”
Grenades were still falling all around us. The boy clenched his fists, and his eyes flooded with tears. He sniffed.
“Quiet,” insisted the veteran.
The flares died out, and everything around us became pitch black. The Russians must have spotted another group of our men somewhat to the north of us: it was their turn to get the lights and the noise. Then we heard other sounds directly ahead of us. By deliberately dilating our pupils as wide as we could, we were able to distinguish several men creeping forward parallel to our position. A cold sweat trickled down our backs. The veteran was holding a large grenade about four inches from my nose. Once again, we froze. The hunched figures came toward us as far as the barbed wire, and then turned back.
We all breathed again. The wounded boy buried his face in the ground, to try to stifle his groans.
“They’re just as scared as we are,” said the veteran. “Somebody orders them up here to see what’s going on, so they take a few steps and then run back as fast as they can and say they don’t see anything.”
“It’s almost dawn,” whispered our noncom. “I think we could stay here. It seems a pretty good spot.”
“I don’t, sergeant. I think we should get out.”
“Maybe you’re right. You,” he said, pointing to Hals. “There’s a hole about twenty yards from here, level with the barbed wire. You get over there.”
Hals and Lindberg slid off like snakes.
“Where are you hurt?” the veteran asked the wounded boy, touching him on the shoulder.
The young man lifted his face, which was smeared with dirt and tears.
“I can’t move,” he said. “Something hurts here.” He touched his hip.
“A splinter. Don’t move. We’ll send someone to help you.”
“Yes,” said the boy, thrusting his face back into the dirt.
“Our assault troops should be here in ten or fifteen minutes, if everything goes well,” said the noncom, looking at his watch. The horizon was beginning to turn pink. Soon the sun would be up. We waited feverishly.
“Isn’t there going to be a bombardment first?” asked Kraus. “Lucky there’s not,” said the veteran. “We’d get it just as badly as the Popovs.”
“There won’t be,” said the sergeant. “The first waves are supposed to take the enemy by surprise. We’re here to neutralize enemy defense.”
“But our fellows might mistake us for Russians, and do us in.”
“Exactly,” said the veteran, laughing.
Russian voices came to us in bursts as clearly as if we were in the trench with them.
“At least they don’t seem worried,” the Czech remarked.
“What’s the use of worrying? We’ll all be dead in an hour anyway,” said the veteran, as if he were thinking aloud.
The light was increasing rapidly. Everything was still gray, but we could distinguish a portion of the Russian V position in line with the veteran’s spandau, and lower down to the left, a motionless gray mass: Hals, Lindberg, and the F.M.
“You, young fellow,” said the veteran, looking at me. “You’ll replace my number-two man. Get over here on my left.”
“Right,” I said, worming my way toward him. A minute later, my nose was pressed against the metal of the F.M.’s magazine.
We could see most of the details of the Russian position a hundred yards ahead of us. From our hillock overlooking the enemy, we glimpsed momentary snatches of pale faces, like faces in a dream. It now seems to me astonishing that the Russians hadn’t occupied our little hill. However, there were similar rises in the ground all around us, and they couldn’t have occupied all of it. We were staring straight ahead when our leader’s hand pointed to our rear left.
“Look!” he said, in almost full voice.
We carefully turned our heads the way he was pointing, and saw the bodies of many men slithering along the ground, breaking through the network of Russian protection. As far as we could see, the ground was covered with creeping figures.