Finally our turn came to get out. On the platform, Feldgendarmen were examining documents and steering the men to various assembly points. They sent me to an office in the station where an exhausted clerk looked at me vacantly: “Stalingrad? I have no idea. Here is for the Hoth army.”—“They told me to come here and that I’d be transferred to one of the aerodromes.”—“The aerodromes are on the other side of the Don. Go see at HQ.” Another Feldgendarm got me into a truck headed for the AOK. There, I finally found a somewhat better informed operations officer: “Flights for Stalingrad leave from Tatsinskaya. But usually the officers who have to join the Sixth Army go there from Novocherkassk, where the HQ of Army Group Don is located. We have a liaison with Tatsinskaya every three days, maybe. I don’t understand why they sent you here. But we’ll try to find you something.” He set me up in a barrack room with a number of double beds. He reappeared a few hours later. “It’s all set. Tatsinskaya is sending you a Storch. Come along.” A driver ferried me outside the village to a makeshift runway in the snow. I waited some more in a hut heated by a stove, drinking ersatz coffee with a few noncoms from the Luftwaffe. The idea of an airlift to Stalingrad depressed them profoundly: “We’re losing five to ten planes a day, and in Stalingrad, apparently, they’re dying of hunger. If General Hoth doesn’t manage to break through, they’re fucked.”—“If I were you,” another one genially added, “I wouldn’t be in such a hurry to join them.”—“Couldn’t you get a little lost?” the first one joked. Then the little Fieseler Storch landed, skidding. The pilot didn’t even bother to cut the engine; he did a U-turn at the end of the runway and got into position for departure. One of the men from the Luftwaffe helped me carry my kit. “At least you’ll be dressed warmly,” he shouted out over the throb of the propeller. I hoisted myself up and settled in behind the pilot. “Thank you for coming!” I shouted to him.—“It’s nothing,” he answered, shouting to be heard. “We’re used to being taxi drivers.” He took off before I had even managed to buckle myself in, and veered off to the north. Night was falling but the sky was clear and for the first time I saw the earth from the skies. A flat, white, uniform surface extended to the horizon; here and there a track pathetically cut across the expanse, perfectly straight. The
balki looked like long grooves of shadow nestled beneath the dying light that skimmed across the steppe. Where the tracks joined, remains of villages appeared, already half swallowed up, the roofless houses full of snow. Then came the Don, an enormous white snake curved in the whiteness of the steppe, made visible by its blue-tinted shores and the shadow of the hills overlooking the right bank. The sun, in the distance, was setting on the horizon like a swollen red ball, but the red gave no color to anything; the snow remained white and blue. After taking off, the Storch flew straight ahead, quite low, calmly, like a peaceable bumblebee; suddenly it veered left and went into a dive and beneath me there were rows of big transport planes on all sides, then already the wheels were touching down and the Storch was bouncing over the hard snow and taxiing over to pull up at the rear of the aerodrome. The pilot cut the engine and showed me a long, low building: “It’s over there. They’re waiting for you.” I thanked him and walked quickly with my kit to a door lit by a hanging lightbulb. On the runway, a Junker was coming in for a heavy landing. With nightfall the temperature was falling fast; the cold struck me in the face like a slap and burned my lungs. Inside, a noncom invited me to put down my kit; he led me to an operations room buzzing like a hive. An Oberleutnant from the Luftwaffe greeted me and checked my papers. “Unfortunately,” he said finally, “the flights for tonight are already full. I can put you on a morning flight. There’s another passenger waiting too.”—“You fly at night?” He looked surprised: “Of course. Why not?” I shook my head. He led me with my things to a dormitory set up in another building: “Try to sleep,” he said as he left. The dormitory was empty, but another kit lay on a bed. “That’s the officer who’s flying with you,” the Spiess who was accompanying me said. “He must be at the mess. Would you care to have something to eat, Herr Hauptsturmführer?” I followed him to another room, with some tables and benches lit by a yellowish lightbulb, where some pilots and ground personnel were eating and talking in low voices. Hohenegg was sitting alone at the end of a table; he let out a guffaw when he saw me: “My dear Hauptsturmführer! What kind of foolishness has brought you here?” I blushed with happiness, and went to get a dish of thick pea soup, some bread, and a cup of ersatz before sitting down opposite him. “It’s not your failed duel to which I owe the pleasure of your company, is it?” he asked again with his cheerful, pleasant voice, “I wouldn’t forgive myself.”—“Why do you say that?” He looked at once embarrassed and amused: “I have to confess that I was the one who denounced your plan.”—“You!” I didn’t know if I should burst out in a fit of rage or laughter. Hohenegg looked like a kid caught in the act. “Yes. First of all, let me tell you that it really was an idiotic idea, misplaced German romanticism. And also, remember, they wanted to ambush us. I had no intention of going and getting myself massacred with you.”—“Doctor, you are a man of little faith. Together, we could have foiled their stratagem.” I briefly explained my problems with Bierkamp, Prill, and Turek. “You shouldn’t complain,” he concluded. “I’m sure it will be a very interesting experience.”—“That’s what my Oberführer pointed out to me. But I’m not convinced.”—“That’s because you still lack philosophy. I thought you were made of sterner stuff.”—“Maybe I’ve changed. And you, Doctor? What brought you here?”—“A medical bureaucrat in Germany decided we should take advantage of the occasion to study the effects of malnutrition on our soldiers. AOK 6 thought it wasn’t necessary, but the OKH insisted. So they asked me to conduct this fascinating study. I confess that despite the circumstances it does excite my curiosity.” I pointed my spoon at his round belly: “Let’s hope you won’t become a subject of study yourself.”—“Hauptsturmführer, you are becoming rude. Wait till you’re my age to laugh. And how is our young linguist friend?” I looked at him calmly: “He is dead.” His face darkened: “Ah. I’m very sorry.”—“So am I.” I finished my soup and drank the tea. It was vile and bitter, but it quenched one’s thirst. I lit a cigarette. “I miss your Riesling, Doctor,” I said, smiling.—“I still have a bottle of Cognac,” he replied. “But let’s keep it. We’ll drink it together in the Kessel.”—“Doctor, never say: Tomorrow I shall do this or that, without adding: God willing.” He shook his head: “You missed your calling, Hauptsturmführer. Let’s go to bed.”