by Sven Hassel
Tracer bullets draw dotted lines across the uneven ground. We lie still in the snow for a moment to pull ourselves together. The Oberleutnant nudges the Old Man in the side. ‘The last fence, Beier! Let’s see that finishing post! Keep contact, for Heaven’s sake!’
‘The wounded?’ asks the Old Man, carefully.
‘Each man must make his own decision,’ answers Moser, looking away.
We work our way in towards the positions. If they notice us, our chance of getting through will be zero.
‘Where the devil is Ivan?’ whispers Porta, amazed, when we reach the Russian positions and can see down the whole length of the trenches. There is no sign of a living creature anywhere.
‘The position must be manned,’ whispers Klockdorf nervously, clutching a potato-masher in his hand.
‘The German lines are over there at the edge of the forest,’ explains Moser quietly.
‘Then Ivan can’t be far away,’ whispers Tiny. ‘’E’s onto the arse of everythin’ German!’
‘Everybody here?’ whispers Moser over his shoulder.
‘All got your tickets ready to be handed over at the entrance?’ grins Porta, in a whisper, ‘any of you try to sneak in you’ll get fined heavily.’
Silently we crawl closer to the trench. Porta points with his Mpi.
‘There’s our old pal, Ivan. I was afraid for a minute there that he’d got tired of fighting us and gone off home by train.’
‘Wouldn’t seem like the same war,’ whispers Tiny. ‘Ivan wouldn’t never do that to us.’
A group of Soviet troops is sitting right up against the edge of the trench, half covered with white camouflage tarpaulins. There are hundreds of them. It’s incredible that they haven’t seen us.
‘Hand grenades,’ whispers the Oberleutnant. ‘All together?’ Working quickly we screw the caps off the grenades.
‘Throw!’ orders Moser, softly.
Grenades whirl through the air and land with the effectiveness of artillery in the narrow trench.
The surprise is complete. Panic breaks out in the position. Expertly we roll up the trench and break through into no-man’s-land.
A couple of mines explode. Human bodies are flung into the air on the tip of the explosion flame. Fire eating into their eyes. Skulls crushed like seashells under the wheels of a tractor. Porta and Barcelona cut the wire. We run straight into the arms of a Rusian spotter who immediately opens fire on us. In a giant spring Tiny is on him and garrottes him. He took five of us with him, though.
Porta and I are pulling Stege after us on a tarpaulin. He screams dreadfully as we pull him through and over the wire. He is one of the few wounded we still have with us. All the rest have been abandoned.
The Russians have got over the first shock of our attack. Shouts of command can be heard. Grenades whirl towards us and machine-guns sing their chattering song. Hundreds of flares hang in the sky above us.
With hands and feet we dig our way down into the snow. It would be certain death to keep moving in this sea of light. How long do we lie there? Years? Months? Days? Hours? We’d be amazed if anybody were to tell us it was only minutes. Bullets whistle and snarl over our heads. Explosive shells bore into the snow and rip great holes in the frozen fields. We hug the ground desperately. I turn to the man beside me to find that all that is left of him is a great lump of quivering flesh. He made a joke just now when he saved me from a shell. I can hear they’re using 80 mm mortars. Firing katuschkas which throw up earth like a breastwork in front of and behind us.
Moser makes a rush forward. The Legionnaire goes after him, but is thrown back by a burst of flame. He screams, pressing both hands to his face. Blood is pouring from between his fingers. I grasp his feet and pull him back under cover. One side of his face is gone completely. I bandage him as well as I can.
‘I can’t see!’ he mumbles. ‘I’m blinded! Give me my gun!’
‘Balls, there’s nothing wrong with your eyes. It’s the bandage covering them, that’s all,’ I reply. ‘Your left cheek’s gone, nothing more. It’ll give you at least three months at the rear. What the devil, Desert-rat, you’re lucky!’
He doesn’t believe me.
I have to lift the bandage carefully away from his eyes. He screams with joy when he finds he can see but I take his pistol from him anyway, for safety’s sake. People with head wounds can get the craziest ideas. I take him by the hand when we continue our flight.
The Professor runs alongside me. He has lost his Mpi and is scared stiff of getting a court-martial.
I hear it coming. A deadly, whining whistle. I just manage to push the Legionnaire into a shell-hole and follow him myself. The Professor is worrying so much about his lost Mpi that he doesn’t hear the shell until it strikes in front of him. His arm flies high into the air and falls beside him. Astonishedly he picks it up, and can’t understand how it can be his. Blood streams from his shoulder. I try to staunch it. Make a tourniquet from the strap of his gasmask. He can’t feel anything, he says. I powder the wound with sulfanilimide and try to call the others. Nobody hears me. Now I’ve two to look after. Let’s hope I don’t run into a Russian patrol. I have to carry my Mpi slung around my neck. Before I could ever get it into firing position I’d have been dead ten times over.
Suddenly the Professor begins to scream. The impact anaesthesia effect has worked off. He will soon be moving in a hell of pain. It hurts hellishly to have your arm torn off, but now, at least, his war worries are over. If they ask where his Mpi is he can say it went with his arm. Even the toughest of courts martial couldn’t turn that one down, though I’ve no doubt some of them would like to be able to require both the limb and the weapon to be handed in to QM stores. Porta thinks it won’t be long before loss of an arm will be regarded in the same way as equipment shortage, a form of sabotage. A soldier who has lost his arm cannot be used over again. Loss of a leg isn’t so serious for the Army. After training in the use of an artificial leg the soldier can be utilized again in the Quartermaster branch. A man can be taught to march with a false leg. The Prussians have drill instructors – Feldwebels – who can turn almost complete invalids into acrobats.
105 mm shells roar over our heads. They sound like hundreds and hundreds of empty oil drums rolling down and down and down through a series of long, sloping tunnels.
A whole section, running a little in advance of me, goes up in flames. Fountains of snow and earth spout up with great, roiling clouds of smoke over towards the field path.
Porta works his way through the barbed wire. He is still dragging Stege after him on the tarpaulin. Suddenly he screams, and drops his Mpi as if it were red-hot. He goes down with both hands clutching at his stomach.
I throw myself across him, sobbing hysterically. For a moment I think he’s dead, he’s lying in such a strangely twisted position. One of his legs is turned the wrong way and lies along his back like a reversed rifle.
The Old Man rolls down to us together with Tiny.
Porta opens his eyes.
‘I seem to have hit the jackpot! That was some bang! Where’d it get me?’
‘In the leg,’ says the Old Man quietly.
‘In the leg?’ cries Porta in astonishment. ‘I’ve got pains in the chest and in the guts. I must have at least a hundred shell splinters in me!’
The Old Man slits his uniform up. There is no sign of a wound in his chest or stomach.
‘Stop your tickling,’ says Porta, beginning to laugh. ‘I never could stand being tickled.’
The Old Man runs practiced fingers over his body. He looks at me and then at Porta’s hip. It looks terrible. We have to use nearly all our first-aid packs.
Moser jumps down to us.
‘What the devil are you up to?’ He sees Porta and is silent. His mouth quivers. He is close to breaking-point. He lays aside his Mpi and passes a hand over Porta’s wild red hair. ‘It’s not so bad, comrade. Now you’ll go back to a hospital at home, and maybe you’ll be able to stay on garrison duty for
the rest of the war. As soon as we get in I’ll put you in for an EK.I. If you want to be an Unteroffizier then you’ll be one.’
‘No thank you, sir,’ grins Porta, modestly. ‘An EK.I’s all right, but garrison’s not for yours truly. What’d happen to 2 Section without me? Starve to death, probably!’
I fetch the Legionnaire and the Professor from the shell-hole. ‘Those boys too,’ groans Moser. ‘Are any of us going to get through this alive?’
When we move on, Tiny has Porta over his shoulder. The Old Man has Stege. Moser looks after the Professor and I have the Legionnaire.
We have got a good way on when I discover I have left my Mpi in the shell-hole. I have to go back for it. It’s too risky coming in without your weapon. Loss of limbs can be overlooked, but if you lose your weapon you pay for it with your head. I hand the Legionnaire over to Barcelona and wriggle back through the holes we have made in the wire. Suddenly I’m lost. Hysteria grips me. My nerves go. As if I were a raw recruit. I find myself in the middle of a minefield. Two connected mines are right in front of me. Touch one of them and hundreds of others with which they are connected will blow too. I go icy-cold. Lie still as a mouse for a moment. If I touch one of them there won’t be as much as a button left of me. I pray to God in my terror.
I wriggle cautiously backwards. I leave half my greatcoat behind me on a wire-post. I roll towards a shell-hole to find at the last moment that it’s been made into a Stalin trap. By the light of a flare I see the bayonets down there winking at me. If I’d rolled down into it I’d have had fifty of them through my body.
A little later I get caught in a barbed wire trap. You crawl into it and can’t crawl out again. Thank God I am equipped with wire-cutters. I can thank Porta for that. I set them to the wire. If it’s electrified I go up in a shower of blue sparks. I close my eyes and apply pressure to the cutters. The wire springs back, slashing across my face. The barbs cut deeply into the flesh. I hardly feel it. I only want to get out of the trap. I’m a sitting duck out here. If Ivan spots me he’ll riddle me.
I’m out. I crawl through the hole but still don’t know where I am. The frequency of the flares keeps me under cover. I crawl in circles. Lie still and try to steady my nerves. Try to get my bearings from the artillery fire, but can’t hear the difference between strike and muzzle report.
A Maxim bursts out suddenly quite close to me. I’m nearly into a Russian position. It happens often enough out here. A man crawls down expectantly into a trench only to find he’s dropped straight into the arms of the enemy.
I am close to giving up altogether when I find an Mpi. It’s not mine, but now I’ve got a weapon equivalent to the one I drew from the QM. I feel quickly to make sure my 08 is still in its holster.
Oberleutnant Moser gives me a dressing-down when I make contact with the section again after almost an hour’s absence. ‘Where the devil have you been? A minute later and I’d have written you off!’
I let him rave. We’ll be in in a few minutes. We can see our trenches clearly. Just back of the edge of the forest. Not far now!
Porta is unconscious. His leg joint is torn out at the hip, and they’ve tied a carbine to his leg to give it some kind of support. Tiny thinks they’ll give him a silver hip, and then he’ll always have something he can pawn if he gets desperate.
The Legionnaire asks for something to drink. We press snow between his lips.
‘Come on,’ mutters Moser. ‘The last hurdle!’
Klockdorf is first man up. He runs forward, together with the cavalry Oberschütze who is so fond of watching hangings. Their feet seem hardly to touch the hard-packed snow and, obviously, they intend to cover the last few yards in one long jump. They never make it! Klockdorf runs straight into a minefield. The explosion throws his body high into the air, it falls and explodes more mines, is tossed repeatedly. The Oberschütze gets both legs blown away. By the time we reach him every drop of blood has drained from his body.
Now our own people open up. Machine-guns rattle and 40 mm light mortars spit bombs at us. We lose ten more men. I’m about to jump a shell-hole when a blow like a mighty fist catches me in the stomach. I spin round like a top, teeter on the edge of the shell-hole, and go down. At first I don’t realize what has happened and am furiously angry. I think one of the others has knocked me down. Then a pain like a red-hot knife shoots up through my chest.
‘What’s up?’ asks the Old Man, bending over me. ‘What’d you want to get in the way of that for, now?’
‘Am I hit?’ I ask, wonderingly.
‘You have had the honour of being on the receiving end of a German infantry bullet,’ answers the Old Man. ‘Stay here quietly. We’ll come and pick you up as soon as we’re in touch with our chaps.’
Half a ton of earth and snow showers down on us as a series of shells burst close by.
‘Where did the bastard get me?’ I ask. ‘Oh hell, I’m tired!’
‘You be glad it was a German bullet and not one of those Russian explosive jobs,’ answers the Old Man. ‘It’s just an ordinary rifle bullet wound, son. Nothing to speak of!’
‘All right for you,’ I say. ‘It hurts me like the very devil! Are you sure I’ve not been hit anywhere else? I’m boiling hot all up my back.’
‘Maybe you’ve still got the bullet in you, and it’s touching a bone. Don’t eat snow. People with stomach wounds mustn’t have liquids in any form,’ warns the Old Man. He takes my pistol from me.
‘No, let me keep it,’ I plead. ‘I won’t do anything silly. I need it if Ivan turns up! I won’t be taken prisoner!’
The Old Man thinks a moment, looking at me consideringly, and then returns the pistol to me. He pulls me up so that I’m sitting with my back propped against the wall of the shell-hole. It’s a good position to meet anybody jumping down to me. Tracer lies across the terrain like a fiery shield. The whole front is active. Both sides think there is a big attack coming. I am alone. All by myself out in no-man’s-land. Midway between the German and the Russian lines.
Where is Porta? Stege? The Legionnaire? And all the other wounded? The Old Man said they would leave us out here and come back for us later. That’s sensible. Then the German machine-guns can give us covering fire, and above all, we won’t have the risk of being massacred by our own people.
A long, burning pain shoots through my body. Fear gives me nightmares. I clutch the pistol tightly in my hand.
‘Job tvojemadj!’ That wasn’t far from my shell-hole.
Somebody laughs. I try to dig myself down into the snow. Too difficult. My body hurts all over. I run a hand over my stomach and look at it. It’s covered with blood. I lie still and play dead.
A fur cap comes into sight over the edge of the shell-hole. Black Mongol eyes examine me intently. He throws a piece of ice at me. Then he disappears. If the hole hadn’t been so deep he’d have pushed his bayonet through me. Just to make sure.
I can still hear them. They’re crawling around close to my hole.
‘Njet germanskijs!’
‘Job Tovjemadj!’
‘Piestre, piestre!’14 A harsh, commanding voice that one. A little later a scream comes. A long, wailing sound. It sounds like a belly-wound. A German MG-38 roars madly, than barks in short, brutal bursts.
The Old Man comes sliding down the side of my hole, catches me by the neck and throws me forward like a sack of flour. Brown boots and gaiters flash past. Russian feet! Black jackboots follow them. German feet!
A barrage of shells curtains off the whole front. A shell-burst batters me with snow and ice. A ricochet tears open my helmet.
Suddenly I’m in the German trenches. I look with glazed eyes at the infantryman who is holding a bottle to my lips and am about to drink when the Old Man knocks the bottle to one side.
‘Belly wound,’ he says in explanation to the Stabsfeldwebel.
‘I see,’ nods the old soldier, who has already been through one World War and knows the taste of defeat, and what comes after defeat.
The wounded are carried down into a deep dug-out. The infantry commander presses the hands of every one of us, and hands out cigarettes. Junos.
‘We really thought you were Ivan,’ an old infantry Leutnant apologizes to Moser.
‘That’s all right,’ replies Moser, tiredly, sucking cigarette smoke deeply into his lungs. ‘I can’t believe we’ve really made it,’ he says, a little later. ‘We’ve been through hell!’
We’re transferred to lorries. At the Field Dressing Station the Old Man and Barcelona take leave of us.
Oberleutnant Moser stares out over the lip of a trench and follows a flare with his eyes. The sun is just coming up behind the Russian positions. It is a lovely morning. The frost tinkles. He lights a cigarette, concentrating on the job, and never feels the pain of the shell splinter which tears away his face. His hand loosens its grip on the Mpi which has become almost a part of him. His body bends slowly forward. Another shell burst buries him in earth and snow.
‘I saw the boss go, just before I left,’ says Tiny. We are lying in the hospital train. ‘’E got ’is wish, anyway. ’E’s got away from us now!’
‘C’est la guerre, mon ami!’ says the Legionnaire, quietly.
‘He promised me Schwarzer Heinrich15 but if he forgot it what’s it matter,’ says Porta slowly. He is being stretched, and rocks with every movement of the train.
‘The doctor wouldn’t cut off my trotters,’ says Tiny, disappointedly, indicating a gigantic pair of feet swathed in bandages.
‘’Ave to march on ’em all me bleedin’ life, I suppose. People who’re born with a club-foot don’t know ‘ow lucky they are!’
‘They’ve stuck a long tube right down into my stomach,’ I tell them, pointing at the drain tube which sticks out of my throat.
The Professor is crying again. He doesn’t want to go back to Norway with only one arm. The Oberartz has promised to send him to the recruit depot, but he doesn’t believe it.