by Gert Ledig
‘When did you leave your unit?’
‘Why did I leave my unit?’
‘When!’ the Major roared at him. ‘When – I want to know!’
‘Over half an hour ago, Major.’
‘Your unit is to the right of the hill?’
‘Correct, Major!’
‘Then how can you have left your unit half an hour ago?’
‘That’s what I did, Major. A vehicle gave us a lift.’
‘What time did the Russian attack begin?’
‘Must have been about eleven at night, Major, sir.’
‘I’m talking about the attack, not the artillery barrage!’
A fighter roared over the roofs from the direction of the village, flying towards the front. Its machine gun was jabbering wildly. The Major identified a red star on the wing. The man with his arm in a sling rolled himself up into a ball on the street. The Major ducked under the window frame. The man with the head wound flattened himself against the wall. When it was gone, he stood up again.
‘The sons of bitches,’ he swore, ‘they haven’t started attacking yet.’
‘Are you telling me that as of half an hour ago, there’d been no move?’
‘Not in our sector, sir. And not left or right of us either. Nor against the hill. We would have noticed.’
‘Are you quite certain of that?’ the Major asked with a strange intensity.
‘Yes, sir!’
‘Thank you. There’s a Red Cross tent at the end of the village.’
The Major slowly turned back to the room. He called: ‘Sergeant?’
The room was empty.
‘I don’t get it,’ he muttered. He walked back and forth. As if he was already out in the open. Round him bare walls. A wooden ceiling. The roof that did nothing but keep out some of the sky. Alternating hot and cold draughts through the window holes. And the rattling and crackling of the flames.
The brown telephone box which had fallen over on the desk now began to buzz.
‘Command-post Schnitzer.’
The familiar voice from battalion HQ: ‘Just rang back to tell you the artillery’s been given permission to fire back.’
‘Thanks for letting me know.’ The Major’s voice sounded icy.
‘That’s all right. We’re catching it ourselves.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Heavy enemy artillery bombardment of Emga. We’ve just had an air attack.’
‘That was quick.’
‘Yes, a bit of a surprise. But now we’re getting our skates on.’
‘That’s good.’
‘Not exactly,’ the earpiece said in a peculiar tone. ‘We’re moving.’
‘You what?’
‘The division’s relocating.’
‘This is hardly the time for jokes.’ The Major frowned.
‘No joke,’ the voice gave back. ‘Just one of the facts that we deal in.’
‘But with all this going on, you can’t move the division!’
‘Oh, the division’s not moving. It’s staying put. The order’s going out to you that the position must be held. Only our HQ is being withdrawn slightly, or at least that’s how the General put it. By the way, he was in his pyjamas as he got in the car. Thought you might like to know.’
‘Unbelievable.’
‘Yes,’ said the voice after a pause. ‘And do you know why I’m telling you that?’
‘No, I can’t quite make sense of it after our previous conversation.’
‘You will in a minute. I have a personal command to convey to you as well.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You are instructed to join the blocking position, to set a personal example to the fighting men.’
‘Those your words?’ Shells gurgled overhead.
‘No. Those of a general in pyjamas. And he might have got them from a children’s storybook.’ The shells struck in the village. ‘Bastards,’ said the voice on the line. ‘But you should know who you’re putting your balls on the line for.’
‘Pretty encouraging, isn’t it?’
‘Highly.’ The officer in divisional HQ lowered his voice. ‘Now I understand why you kept badgering me for permission for the artillery. It doesn’t have to be that only the good guys die. A nod or wink at the proper moment . . .’
‘True,’ said the Major, ‘and I won’t be joining the blocking position because of the General’s say-so, but because there are still a couple of decent people there, who might have some use for me. Whatever decent things we do, we do for the decent people among us. Maybe that’ll help you? You could probably do with some help yourself?’
There was a click in the bakelite, but no further answer.
‘Hello!’ shouted the Major. He pressed the connection button twice. The line remained inert. Thoughtfully he put down the receiver, and stepped outside into the smoke-filled corridor. The Adjutant was leaning exhausted in an alcove.
‘What’s going on?’
The Adjutant merely shook his head, and indicated his sleeve. There was a tear in the uniform from shoulder to wrist. ‘I was standing on the street when the fighter came over,’ he reported shakily.
‘Well, you’re in luck,’ responded the Major carelessly. ‘I need to go to the Front. I want you to take over the battalion. Don’t pull any stunts.’
‘Major?’
The Adjutant looked totally bemused. But the door was already closing, and the Major disappeared into the smoke. Heat batted into his face. Somewhere in the village small-arms ammunition was going up with a rattle. He ran to the back of the building, where his jeep was parked.
‘The Front!’ he barked at his driver. The engine wheezed into life. The smoke draped itself round the windscreen like a protective grey cloth. Once they had left the burning village, it got better. They headed east, in the direction of the fiery horizon. The sand hissed under their tyres. They drove faster. When the cemetery came, there was suddenly a yawning crater in the road.
The driver clutched his wheel, the brakes squealed, the windscreen flew towards the Major. He closed his eyes, the jeep seemed as if it would turn over. For a split second, the world drowned in shock. Then they came to a stop between the cemetery crosses. The jeep trembled like an exhausted animal.
The driver asked stupidly: ‘What now?’
‘Through the cemetery!’
The crosses clattered against the bumper, and the wheels bounced among the graves. The Major felt a vague unease. Just before they rejoined the tarmac, a couple of planes flew silently out of the treetops. They banked steeply up into the air, and wheeled down in a shaking trajectory. They had spotted the grey crate in the midst of the white crosses. Little red flames spat out of the propellers. Earth spurted up. The driver was already lying pressed to the earth, in front of the radiator. The Major stared fixedly up into the sky, at the two cockpits racing towards him. Bullets tracked towards the car. Birch crosses splintered. The air grew unbearably warm, then there was a brief thrumming, and the metal of the jeep was riddled with holes. The engine noise ceased. The cemetery lay there impassively, as though nothing had happened. A pale expanse of morning sky stretched over the swaying grasses. Peace and solitude. Even the burning village somehow participated. In the distance, a charred structure collapsed without a sound. The driver lay in the grass in front of the jeep. A whitish fluid dribbled from the back of his head. The Major laid the dead man out on his back. He found it hard to close the man’s eyes. He thought of his daughter. Pain, mingled with rage and helplessness. He leaned forward, and attempted something resembling a prayer. But he could produce no sound. Only a memory surfaced in him. Something that had happened twenty-five years ago seemed to have happened only yesterday . . .
A ring at the door. The landlady announces: ‘There’s a lady come to speak to you.’ The lady comes in. ‘I’ve been told you were the last company commander of my son. Private Lotz. He’s been reported missing.’ ‘Missing? That surely can’t be.’ The woman smiles through her tears.
‘I knew it. He’s alive after all. He must be in some field hospital somewhere. His letters have gone astray. The revolution. It’s terrible. Do you know where he is?’ Striped wallpaper. A green glass lampshade. The gloss peeling off the double windows. Shall I tell her he’s dead? She has wrinkles in her face. As if someone had taken a nail to a piece of art. Etched grooves all over her face. He was her only son. ‘I don’t have any information for you, I’m afraid. He was wounded.’ ‘Well, and?’ ‘We got him back. The revolution . . . The confusion . . . You understand. I’m sure you’ll hear before long.’ A wounded man caught in the barbed wire. The ambulanceman is shot in the head as he tries to get him back. The company commander forbids all further attempts to rescue him until cover of darkness. By then, the wounded man is dead. ‘But you were his company commander, weren’t you?’ ‘Yes.’ The mother cries. ‘If you hear from your son, will you let me know.’ The woman leaves, with tears in her eyes . . .
The Major got up and looked around. A black steel storm hung menacingly over the Front. The remnants of a company were fighting in the blocking position. Somewhere, women were waiting for their husbands, children for their fathers. He recalled his fatuous order, the attack on the log-road. He left the cemetery with grim determination. He selected the quickest route to the Front, the route through the swamp.
6
The Sergeant stood behind a tree, watching the figures swarming in front of the artillery Colonel’s building. The roof was well ablaze, and its collapse was imminent. Soldiers were dragging boxes and cases and items of furniture out into the open. A basket of crockery came tottering out, pieces of uniform clothing were handed along a line. A couple of men tried to put out the flames, dragged buckets from the well, and emptied them over the smouldering beams.
The Sergeant recognized the soot-blackened faces. And he noticed too that the Russian shelling was moving west. The shells wailed past the ruins of the village; and exploded in the forest, among the dense trees by the sawmill.
The Sergeant stepped out from behind his cover, and cautiously looked about him. No one was watching him. He progressed hesitantly towards the village street, then, under cover of some shrubbery, bent round the back of a burned-down house. Boxes and cases lay around in the wild garden. Some exhausted men were standing together, staring into the collapsing beams. No officer about. The Sergeant walked resolutely out. An energetic swing of the arm:
‘You can’t just leave that stuff lying around.’
The startled men looked at him. They saw his stripes, and began to get to work on the chaos.
‘Over here!’ ordered the Sergeant, picking up a low chess-table and taking it to the spot he had in mind. Artillerymen, he saw they were. He felt a little out of place. When a jeep turned off the thoroughfare, he recognized the Colonel at once. ‘Carry on!’ he called. Walked with firm stride to the jeep, raised his hand to his helmet in a salute.
‘All right, all right,’ the Colonel said distractedly. He looked at the ruins of his house with irritation. ‘Can you get a car for my things?’ He screwed in his monocle, and looked at the Sergeant: ‘Oh, a field engineer – well, that’s very nice of you,’ he gruffed as he saw the black tabs, ‘but we can manage this by ourselves.’
The Sergeant was going to say something back, but the Colonel had already turned away, and was giving the necessary orders. The Sergeant therefore spun on his heel and dismissed. Where now? The village street was empty. He drifted off to one side and rejoined it at another spot. An officer came out from between the ruins. The Sergeant squared his shoulders. Made as though he had important business to do. Saluted, and passed the man. He sensed the officer’s glance in his back, and he speeded up. He reached the track. A horse and cart clattered up to him. The driver was standing upright in front of his seat, holding the reins taut. He didn’t look at the Sergeant, and disappeared into the village in a cloud of dust.
Brushwood beside the track. The Sergeant thought for a little while, and decided to stay on the road. A jeep curved round the corner and raced up to him. He leaped aside. It stopped. An officer leaned out.
‘Have you come from the Front? I’ve orders to block off any breakthrough with my battalion, but I’ve lost my way.’ He didn’t let the Sergeant get a word in. ‘Podrova – am I right for Podrova?’
‘Yes, sir . . .!’ He pointed in the direction he’d come from. The smoking village was already obscured by the treetops. ‘Another half-mile.’
‘Thanks. Now where are you headed for?’
‘Divisional HQ.’ The Sergeant looked sternly into the officer’s face. The jeep sped off. The Sergeant tramped on, but now he kept his eyes peeled on the road ahead. When a fresh dust-cloud rolled up on the horizon, he promptly jumped into the wood, and threw himself behind a bush. Marching steps, rattling gear, muffled voices. All he could see through the leaves were the boots. Infantry, evidently. Then the wheels of the support vehicles. Heavy machine guns, probably. A gap. Then more pairs of boots. An entire company. More wheels, this time light artillery. Finally, silence.
The Sergeant bided his time. Then he got back on the tarmac. Walked on, keeping to the side. From the direction of Podrova, the sounds of large-calibre explosions. Spinning shells overhead. Behind him, the soft drumming sounds of the Front. A figure appeared. The Sergeant hesitated. Marched on. A lone soldier, sweating under a heavy radio transmitter. His steel helmet bouncing along on his belt. His lank hair falling in his face. He wanted to go by. The Sergeant stopped.
‘Hello there – where’re you off to?’
The other set down his transmitter. With his sleeve he wiped the sweat off his brow. ‘Reserve radioman,’ he replied grumpily. ‘Join the artillery at Podrova. They’ve lost a wireless there.’
‘And where are you coming from?’
‘Back in the forest somewhere. They radioed us, and I had to go.’ With a vague gesture, he waved somewhere behind him.
‘Too bad,’ said the Sergeant, and offered the man a cigarette. ‘Any news of the fighting troops?’
‘A little.’
‘How’s it looking?’
The fellow didn’t seem terribly communicative. He gestured again: ‘Pretty chaotic.’
‘Details!’
‘The Russians have got through. Anyone still standing is running for it.’
The Sergeant held out the cigarette packet: ‘Here, keep the pack.’
‘Thanks.’ He grew more talkative: ‘There’s already talk of them moving the Front back to the rail crossing-point. No idea where that is.’
‘Left of the hill.’
‘Never heard of it.’
‘This road goes to Podrova. Things are going to get pretty hot around here . . .’
‘Road!’ The soldier shouldered his radio-pack again. ‘It’s a bloody forest path if you ask me.’
‘Break a leg, eh!’ said the Sergeant, and went on. Bit of luck, he thought. He felt a little more optimistic. He could stay on the road. With all the confusion, who could ever prove whether he had received orders or not? In Emga, he would join the baggage train. In fact, it was his duty to do just that. There’d be plenty for him to do. Collect up scattered groups of men. Double rations for the company. Maybe even chocolate. They would certainly need him there. Thoughtfully, he went on.
He never saw the soldier who was leaning casually against a tree. At most a shadow entered his unconscious.
‘Sergeant!’
He turned with a start.
‘Just a minute, please.’
The Sergeant saw the Corporal’s stripes. ‘What’s got into you? Are you crazy?’
The Corporal walked calmly up to him: ‘All right, where to?’
The Sergeant was bewildered: this had never happened to him before. He said: ‘I won’t be spoken to like that!’
He wanted to say more, but thought better of it. He walked resolutely on. The Corporal was holding him by the sleeve. Unexpectedly, he had seized hold of him.
‘Goddamnit!’ The Sergeant knocked t
he hand off his arm, less furious than bemused. Then he saw the tin badge on the Corporal’s chest. He shut up. ‘Well, about time,’ said the Corporal with irritation. ‘Military Police. Your documents please.’
The Sergeant grew unsure of himself. He had a feeling of foreboding in his stomach. As he opened his wallet, his hand shook. Hope he doesn’t notice, he thought. ‘You probably think I’m a spy or something,’ he tried to joke. The Corporal looked him up and down while the Sergeant held out his paybook as if it were a disappointing school report.
‘Orders?’
‘No orders.’ He was amazed how calmly he said it.
‘From where? Going where?’ The Corporal kept staring into his eyes.
‘My company is at the Front, by the side of the hill. I have to get to the supply column at Emga.’ He was too agitated to consider what he was saying. What he said corresponded to an intention he had only recently thought of as perfectly acceptable. He couldn’t think of anything better. He tried to calm himself, but still had a sensation of being garrotted.
‘What’s your business with the supply column?’ The Corporal’s voice had a strange undertone as he asked.
‘As a Sergeant, my place is with the supply column.’ This is crap, he thought in alarm.
‘Not necessarily.’
The Sergeant started to cough. The Corporal waited politely till he had finished.
‘At what time did you leave your company’s position?’
Got to get this one right, he thought. The answer he gave now might be decisive. But everything in his head was a tangle. Shall I say: ‘Before’ or ‘After’? ‘Before’ seemed better to him. But what about the intervening time? Suddenly he had the notion of running away. But the Corporal had a pistol, the holster was unbuttoned, the butt was sticking out. He abandoned the idea.
‘At midnight,’ he answered stoutly.
‘You probably imagine we don’t know what time the Russian bombardment began?’
What’s that about? thought the Sergeant. He pondered. ‘Well, of course, before,’ he added.
‘Exactly,’ the Corporal remarked ironically. ‘Why don’t you come along with me.’ He spun the Sergeant round, gave him a brusque shove in the back, and pushed him in front of him towards a clearing in the forest. The Sergeant involuntarily remembered the Russian prisoner. ‘Human shield,’ he thought. The night had begun with the push he had given the Russian; it would end with the push in his own back.