The Winter Soldier

by Daniel Mason

  He took a deep breath of relief, and, exhausted, stopped and drank some water from his rucksack. The road flanked a curving hillside, above a dense swath of trees. By the orientation of the sun, the trail ran north, sloping gently down. Tracks rutted the mud. A convoy must have passed recently; perhaps he wouldn’t have to wait until he reached the flats to hitch a ride.

  He had scarcely gone ten paces when he heard crashing in the undergrowth behind him. He turned. It was still early and the light was dim and so he didn’t understand at first what he was seeing, some kind of tank, festooned with camouflage, crackling, snorting through the brush…

  A bear.

  But the creature didn’t stop. It barely seemed to register Lucius as it surged forward, its brown fur heaving, casting off a spray of droplets as it cleared a small ledge and disappeared into the bushes. No sooner had it passed than there came more rustling. Two deer burst from the undergrowth behind the bear, tattered foliage flapping on their antlers. Then ahead on the road, more deer, coats red, breath steaming. A slow humming grew louder. A dark grey rabbit shot onto the trail. A flittering of little birds.

  He stood there, puzzled, uncertain of what was happening, when a memory came to him, an old memory, of a childhood story, likely told to him by his father, though he couldn’t remember when.

  An old knight and a young knight were traveling through a dark wood when a wolf broke across their path, followed swiftly by a hare. The young knight laughed. Ha! What is the world coming to? he asked. Are the hunters now pursued by prey?

  The old knight just quietly drew his sword.

  But how! said the young knight. Don’t you also think it’s odd? A wolf like that, running from a little hare! What will come next? A mouse! A toad!

  The old knight dropped his visor. It isn’t running from the hare, he said.

  From the far distance came a rumbling.

  The knights turned.

  Lucius turned.

  Before him, the outcrop disintegrated. The trees lurched toward him and stones sprang into the air. A bright light made itself known.

  12.

  He awoke to the sounds of hoofbeats and shouting.

  He was lying in the underbrush below the road where he’d been walking. The smell of earth and gunpowder filled his nostrils. Above him loomed the outcrop, the sky, a great hole ripped in the canopy. He blinked at the light, wiggled his fingers, hands, then slowly lifted his head. Then, with a jolting realization that whatever had just struck the mountain might strike again, he scrambled to his feet.

  He looked back up the road. A column of horses had appeared, the riders with plumed helmets, sabers rattling at their waists. Hussars, he thought, Hungarian. For a moment he felt relief: My own. They were perhaps a hundred feet away, close enough for him to register the golden braids on their jackets, when a second shell whistled through the treetops and struck the road.

  He ducked. A rain of mud came down upon him. He heard whinnying, more crashes. When he rose, he found a great crater had replaced the road where moments before he’d seen the first horses. Behind, the column had piled up as the riders tried to lead their bucking mounts down and out of the crater to the other side. He ran toward them, hoping to wave one down. Then, deep within the woods, from down the slope, he heard the rumbling again, now louder. Someone else was coming. He stopped and looked back down into the trees, and then he saw.

  Flashes of sabers, high fur caps, and dark grey tunics. Shouts now. He knew instantly who they were, the monsters of every Polish child’s nightmares, of the stories he had heard since he was very young…

  Near him, a horse was struggling up the shell crater, its lifeless rider dragging behind, foot still in its stirrup. Rushing forward, Lucius seized its reins and hurried upward to the road, clambering on just as they reached the crest. Around him, the fleeing hussars had begun to fire their pistols into the trees. He thought to grab the dead man’s weapon, but it was too late, his horse lunged forward, stumbling as the dead rider got caught between its legs. Lucius grabbed its mane to keep from falling. Then the rider’s foot broke free from the stirrup and his horse joined with the others just as the wave of Cossacks coalesced out of the darkness of the forest and, in one great roaring instant, struck.

  The hussars plunged forward. Lucius clung tighter to his horse. He had no idea where he was going. On their flank, the Cossacks were gaining, the two armies merging now in roiling rivers of blue and grey. The air was filled with the sound of clashing swords and gunfire. Faster now, another Russian artillery charge striking high upon the hillside, showering them with gravel. Then another pulse, another shell, this from the opposite direction, straight into the Cossack charge. Another rain of rock. They swung right, then left again, sweeping around a boulder. Behind him he heard a shout, and turned to see two Cossacks gaining. They were close enough for him to see a pair of dark, determined eyes, when machine gun fire burst from the road ahead and the lead rider whipped sideways, his horse crashing into the other as they spun off, tumbling into the brush.

  A crossroad. Austrian artillery. A glimpse of howitzers, a machine gun lighting up the forest. The retreat broke left, zigzagging through trench works and into a clearing. For a moment, he felt a sense of relief, of safety. But the hussars had begun to mass, their horses neighing and fighting their reins. More shouts, and they were off again, to meet the Cossack charge.

  His horse followed on instinct. He grabbed at the reins, tried to pull her up, but she pounded headlong after the others. Around him he could hear the scrape of sabers emerging from scabbards, stirrups clanking, the snapping of whips. The horses wild-eyed, their mouths foaming at their bits. Like something from his father’s war.

  My God, he thought, how the major would be proud: My son killed in battle with the hussars, fighting the horde.

  He leapt and hit the ground, tucking his head inside his hands. Horses thundered past him, kicking up clods of dirt. He stumbled up, still trying to ward off the flying hooves. Gunfire churned up the ground around him. He ran, swerving through the horses, as behind him the armies struck each other with a sound like nothing he had ever heard before. But he didn’t turn, he could only think of fleeing. He crossed the clearing and ran up a slope to where an officer was shouting field commands, reaching him just as a bullet struck the officer’s neck and knocked him to the earth. “Down!” someone, somewhere, shouted. Stunned, staring, Lucius hit the ground. A few paces away, the officer clawed at his throat, gasping as blood spurted between his fingers. Out of instinct, Lucius crawled to him and pressed down on his carotid. Blood welled up and over his hands. Around him: bursts of pine needles. Something hot on his shoulder, like a bee sting. He tried to bury himself into the ground, hands stretched above him, still on the man’s neck, when the man twitched, a strip of his scalp lifted like a banner, and his eyes sprang open in surprise. Another pulse shook the earth. Dirt rose into Lucius’s mouth and he rolled away, coughing, as he scrambled to his feet. He began to run again. Away, faster, head down, until he reached a grove and threw himself behind a tree.

  His chest heaved. Still the image of the man’s surprised expression hung before him. He drew his hand over his eyes as if to wipe the vision away and found it red with blood.

  Ahead of him a soldier was beckoning. Lucius didn’t know if it was to him, but he followed, up and over a giant mound of earth. He reached the top just as it erupted with gunfire beneath his feet, and tumbled down the other side. Around him gunners manned machine guns behind an earthwork, firing through gaps of light. Still he didn’t stop. It seemed impossible that but a few hundred meters now separated him from the officer with his bleeding neck.

  Now, as he continued his retreat, a vast field camp unfolded before him. Soldiers carrying ammunition ran up to the machine gun nest, while others carrying buckets and entrenching tools fanned out through the forest. A cavalry platoon rode past, flags flapping on their lances. He stared. Where had all this come from? The front was supposed to be far off, still on the
plains. Advancing soldiers were staring at him with horror; he realized how gruesome he must have looked covered in blood. A medic approached, but he waved the man away. Around him: munitions trucks, stacks of shells being unloaded. Ad hoc stables. First-aid tent. A field kitchen. Safety, at last.

  It was only then that he stopped to catch his breath, chest heaving, hands on his knees.

  So that was war, he thought. For two years, in Lemnowice, he had thought he had come to know it, but it was only through its wounds, its scars, its vestiges. Never truly war itself.

  Then suddenly he straightened up. Lemnowice. He had to get back to Lemnowice, to Margarete, before the fighting got there first.

  At a communications center set up inside a farmhouse, dozens of wires hung down from the ceiling to a rank of radios. In the back, a man in tall boots paced. He wore a cape and a fur shako decorated with a high plume and a silver death’s-head. A captain. For a second he took Lucius in, his expression less one of shock than irritation that someone so bespattered had the nerve to enter his tent.

  Lucius saluted. “Medical Lieutenant Krzelewski, sir. Of the Austrian Fourteenth, based at a field hospital in Lemnowice.”

  The captain took in his medical uniform, the blood and mud. “Where?” The skull staring down unnervingly from his forehead.

  “Lemnowice, Captain.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Field hospital, Captain. South of Nadworna.”

  “God in heaven, Lieutenant.” The man whistled. “How did you get here?”

  For a moment, Lucius thought of his march through the mountains, then of Margarete and the river, then Horváth, his winter surgeries, the church, the hussar leading him through the snow. Then Nagybocskó. Debrecen. Budapest. Vienna. How far back do you wish to go?

  “I am sorry, sir. Where is here?”

  “Here? A stinking Ruthenian dunghill not fit for a shitting leper, which somehow Vienna sees fit to defend.”

  This wasn’t the answer Lucius was looking for. But the captain didn’t give him time to ask him more. Instead he turned to a batman, who had appeared protectively at his side. “Show the doctor back to Field Headquarters. I suspect men like him could be of use.”

  They set off down the road. The mist was retreating across the plains, revealing a landscape of farms and shallow valleys, patches of green and yellow and dun. Little black quadrangles lay like blankets in the distance, revealing themselves on closer inspection to be advancing Russian companies. It seemed impossible that they could be there, in sight, and he here, walking. Like the little regiments in his father’s paintings, bristling postage stamps that rode across the plains while peasants tilled their field. But here, the peasantry didn’t seem so indifferent. The roads were filled with people, some in packs, some traveling alone, all retreating from the rising sun. They carried bundles of belongings, children, chickens. A woman nursed a baby as she walked, blue flies dancing about its mouth.

  To the east Lucius could see trails of smoke rising through the sky. Early harvest lay stacked by the roadsides, smelling sweetly of cut grass. A soldier was sitting, struggling with puttees that had come undone.

  He looked back over his shoulder. There, the mountains lay beneath their dark green forest. They seemed so quiet. Somewhere, he thought, there, was Lemnowice, Margarete. Less than half a day had passed since he’d heard the church bells in the night.

  They stepped out of the way for an infantry regiment coming up the road, their coats faded to different shades of blue. Farther along he could see a scab of town, a train depot. Around them rose strange towers whose purpose he didn’t understand, thin, tapering pyramids with boxy heads, like ancient effigies of armless men.

  “Oil derricks,” said the aide, following his gaze. “The town is Sloboda Rungurska, on the line to Kolomea.”

  They had been encamped there for two weeks, the man told him. He was in the Twenty-Fourth Austrian Infantry Division, under von Korda. Or what was left of it. The army was in tatters, the men exhausted. Since the Russian offensive at the beginning of the month, they had been forced to retreat across the Pruth. It was worse in the north. Lutsk had fallen the week before. And to the south, Czernowitz was under siege, with reports coming in that it had fallen, too. Now they were concentrating defenses in the foothills, afraid that they would lose the oil fields, or worse, that the Russians would take back the mountain passes they had last held during the first months of the war.

  He stopped. He knew well that if he let the aide take him to Field Headquarters, they could reassign him on the spot.

  “Corporal, I must return to my hospital. How?”

  “Your hospital, Doctor Lieutenant? But the captain said—”

  “I heard the captain’s instructions. But I need to get back to my hospital. They have no doctor. How can I get there?”

  “The captain—”

  Now Lucius looked at him directly. In the batman’s eyes, he could almost see the reflection of the captain with his skull and crossbones. “Corporal—if you take me to Field Headquarters, I will tell them that you tried to bribe me for a medical exemption.”

  The man’s face turned red. “But—but I’ve said nothing!”

  “You said you were exhausted. That you would do anything to go home.”

  The aide bit his lip. For a moment, he considered this.

  “Your captain won’t even know,” said Lucius, trying to sound confident. “I think that I’m the least of his concerns.”

  “You said it was near Nadworna?” the corporal said at last. “Then I would go to Kolomea and then take the train to Nadworna from there.”

  “Oh, but that will take too long. How are the roads?”

  “What do you mean? To walk directly there? You would have to be mad. You’ve seen our line. By tomorrow, those roads will be swarming with Russian cavalry.”

  Lucius looked uneasily across the valley to the encamped armies, then down at the little town below. Now another long line of soldiers was heading up the road. He closed his eyes and tried to conjure up the map. Northeast to Kolomea, west to Nadworna, south along the valley to Lemnowice, this on foot. So: to travel one leg of a rectangle, he would have to travel three.

  In the distance, artillery crackled.

  “Thank you, Corporal,” he said, but already the man’s attention had shifted back to the distant battlefields, the pulsing mortars and the rising plumes of smoke.

  He found the train depot in chaos. Everywhere, people were running. Soldiers unloaded boxes of shells from the trains and onto motorcars and horse carts. The platform was piled high with bags of foodstuffs, boxes of ammunition, barrels of gunpowder left perilously near the track. Soldiers streamed off a train. There were flies everywhere, circling the food, the piles of horse dung. He pushed his way to the stationmaster, presenting himself as formally as he could. He saw the man take in his bloodied face and sleeve. “It’s not my blood,” said Lucius, as if this somehow made things clearer. Then he rushed through his story, how he needed to return to Kolomea, now.

  The man, swatting at the flies, accidentally caught one. Surprised, he looked about for somewhere to wipe the blue smear on his palm. At last he settled on his boot. He looked up.

  “You were saying?”

  Lucius again repeated his story. His post, his hospital. Kolomea. The next train.

  The man nodded toward an engine idling in the station. “That’s it.”

  “Where can I get a ticket?”

  “A ticket? Are you kidding?” He jabbed his elbow at the air. “Like this.” He laughed. “First class.”

  Crowds of evacuees, mostly peasants, were already jostling to get on board. Lucius grabbed the edge of the doorway, then a ladder, climbing onto the roof as the train began to move. There were people covering every inch of the carriages. The train groaned under the weight, and for a moment, with bodies everywhere, it seemed ready to topple. But then they were moving, slowly, out of the depot and through the little town. On the roof beside him, the
refugees clung to one another to keep from falling off. A pair of little boys gazed wide-eyed at his bloody face. He had a sense that this moment was being registered, that in their memories of the war, this vision would stand out.

  They clutched their bags protectively. He realized he must have lost his rucksack somewhere, though he couldn’t remember if he had set it down or if it had been blown off his shoulder by the shell-strike. In a panic, he patted down his pockets, relieved to find his billfold and his identification papers. An old warning from Margarete now stirred up in his mind: And keep your papers on you—​the Austrians have a bad habit of thinking everyone without them is a spy.

  They passed more farms, more open country. The sun was hot; around him people took shelter beneath articles of clothing. He raised a hand to shield his eyes. From his position, he could see far across the plain, to a broad river, beyond which the Russian armies marched. If he stared hard enough, he could even see specks of horsemen galloping across the plain. There were enough infantrymen alone to fill at least three or four divisions. And yet so distant, he could fit them in his palm.

  He looked back to see the mountains, now retreating behind the rising smoke. It was almost impossible to believe that at the same time yesterday morning, he had just set out with Margarete on their walk to the river. And now? When would she learn of what had happened? News was slow to make it up the valley, but if the winds were right, they might have heard the shelling…How he wished he had a way to let her know he was alive, returning! Again, in his mind, he conjured up the map. If he was lucky, if the trains were running out of Kolomea, perhaps he could get to Nadworna by that evening; from there it was thirty kilometers up the valley. And with the troop movement, perhaps he could hitch a ride. But he would walk if needed, even through the night.

  They reached Kolomea shortly after noon. By then his face was burnt, his legs asleep.