Random Acts of Heroic Love

by Danny Scheinmann

  I have revisited the battle of Gnila Lipa many times, Fischel, not just in my nightmares but also through the history books. As infantrymen we merely followed orders and fought for the patch of grass we were standing on. We had no notion of the bigger picture, but now I know that there were nearly half a million Russians stretched along a fifty-kilometre front east of the river. We had a hundred and seventy-five thousand men. We were doomed from the start.

  There had been no time to entrench properly. All we had was a small knee-high furrow which only offered protection if you lay on the ground. We were set back fifty metres from the river in a clump of trees. To our right was open ground and to our left was thickening forest. The lay of the land was similar on the other side of the river: woods, meadows and rolling hills.

  I remember the air was still and silent, and that I was so tired from the night’s work that my eyes hung heavy on their lids. I reached over to Jerzy and squeezed his arm, ‘Good luck, my friend,’ I whispered.

  ‘We’ve got to win, Moritz,’ he said, ‘not for the Austrians but for Ulanow.’

  The order to attack came at daybreak. The artillery let loose an ear-splitting barrage, but what seemed thunderous at our end translated into a mild peppering of dust clouds over the Russian lines a thousand metres away. It was a random scattering of shells, but hardly a body blow to prepare the ground for an effective infantry assault. The bombardment lasted twenty minutes and the gunners sweated over their cannon but we simply did not have enough big guns to inflict serious damage. So it came as a shock when Lieutenant Neidlein told us to advance. ‘Advance’; the word sent my heart into my mouth. Király turned to the gangling Austrian and shouted, ‘Advance, what do you mean, advance? We’ve hardly laid a glove on them. More artillery, man, we need more artillery.’

  ‘It’s an order, Király, not a debate,’ Neidlein retorted angrily. ‘Now get out and fight, and may God be with you.’

  We picked ourselves up and clambered out of our furrows with bayonet rifles forward. Behind us the drummers beat out a driving rhythm to spur us on. I was expecting an instant volley of gunfire to rain down on our heads, but there was only an eerie silence. We left the cover of the trees and headed down to the river. To my right I could see a long line of men running shoulder to shoulder, three or four deep. Still the Russians were quiet. What were they doing? Perhaps I had been mistaken about the power of our artillery. Were they retreating? As we reached the river our shells let loose again to provide us with cover for the crossing. At its shallowest points the river was spanned with duckboards which had been laid in the night, but many men chose to wade across holding their rifles high above their heads.

  The sloped bank on the other side offered us some cover but we were told not to stop there. Ahead of us now was open meadow with a smattering of bushes and trees. The grass was long and wild, rising to the waist in places. Onwards we pounded, a wall of glinting bayonets bearing down on the enemy. The thick grass wound itself around our boots, slowing us down, willing us to stop. We were two hundred metres away and within rifle range, yet still the Russian guns were quiet. But they had not retreated, for now I could clearly make out the silhouettes of men against the fiery red morning sky, waiting solemnly like the keepers of hell. My blood froze and my legs began to shake. We were charging into a trap. I kept running forwards only because the Austrian stampede carried me, but my instinct was to crawl deep into the earth and commune with the worms. At a hundred and fifty metres I could see the Russians looking down the sights of their rifles, aiming at us and awaiting the order to fire. We, too, had brought our rifles up to our shoulders when suddenly there was a whistling sound above our heads. I dropped to the ground and at the same instant there was a terrific explosion somewhere close by. The earth shook beneath me and a second later another shell landed, then another. The air vibrated strangely around me as shell after shell dropped down upon us. Smoke clogged my lungs and burnt my eyes. Something thudded against my back. A bullet must have struck me. I remained rooted to the spot, paralysed by fear, with only the long grass as cover. I was going to die in that meadow, I was sure of it. I reached round and felt for the wound on my back. When I looked at my hand it was covered in blood but I could feel no pain. Then I saw a boot at my side leaking scarlet into the grass. A severed foot shredded at the ankle was still attached. I had not been shot, just kicked in the ribs. I looked around for Jerzy but he was no longer at my side. Our men were still advancing suicidally towards the Russians. I said goodbye to my family and told Lotte that I loved her. Then I got to my feet again and stumbled on. A brown haze hung over the battlefield. Bullets were flying in both directions now and men were falling all around me. A shell exploded ahead of me and three of my countrymen were blown to smithereens. I tripped over a body hidden in the grass and fell on to my face. I checked back to see if the soldier was all right and saw Piotr Baryslaw. Or what was left of him. He had been sliced in half; the left side of his face and chest were missing. His heart was hanging by a vein near his leg and one of his arms lay in the grass a few metres away. I turned away. Now the shells were cracking off every few seconds, sending shrapnel in all directions, and the noise was deafening. Lieutenant Neidlein dropped down beside me. He was trembling. ‘Come with me, we’re going to take out the gunners,’ he barked, ‘there’s an artillery post over there.’ He pointed to a clump of trees a hundred metres away. I could see a pile of sandbags and a gun poking over the top.

  ‘We’re going to have to get closer – keep crawling until we get a proper view of them. I’ve got men coming at it from the other side.’

  We inched along on our bellies through the grass until we reached a welcome ditch. Volleys of rifle fire were flying in both directions above us. The Russians still hadn’t broken cover to advance, and some of our men had reached their trench and were engaged in hand-to-hand combat; others held their ground and were firing from the meadow. We were fragmented; all our training ground strategies were for nothing here. Orders were lost in the clamour of the battlefield and it was every man for himself. Except for me, my fate was not my own, I had an officer breathing in my ear, and he told me to raise my head above the grass to see how close we were to our target. This seemed like madness to me, it was a miracle that we had not been shot already. If I raised my head even ten centimetres above that ditch it would be blown off. I hesitated.

  ‘Come on, Daniecki, don’t be such a cowardly Jew, you bastards are going to lose us this war,’ Lieutenant Neidlein hissed.

  It was a provocation that I could not accept.

  ‘No, no, it’s you stupid, pig-headed Austrians who are going to lose this war,’ I shouted. ‘You’re nothing more than a nation of waltzing pastry-makers. What the hell makes you think you can beat the Russians? You have a look if you’re so damn brave.’

  We were lying on our stomachs side by side with our cheeks pressed against the earth, eyeballing each other like a married couple on the verge of divorce. Lieutenant Neidlein was indignant. ‘You will be punished for this, Daniecki,’ he roared.

  ‘If I’m still alive by the end of the day, I shall look forward to it.’ I thought the odds on us both surviving to play out the charade of retribution were negligible.

  ‘Daniecki, I am ordering you to look.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Lieutenant, please,’ I begged.

  Neidlein pulled out his pistol and put it against my head.

  The will to live is so strong that given the choice of two deaths one will always choose the one that buys more time even if it is a matter of seconds. People will jump to their death from a burning building rather than burn with it. For in those few seconds of accelerating flight the god that refused to save them from the fire might still reach down from heaven and bring them to earth alive. Battered, broken maybe – but alive. Hope defies reason.

  I held my breath and raised my head slowly above the long grass. A stream of bullets tore up the grass around me and I ducked back down sharply. God had delayed my death a little lo
nger. Neidlein laughed. ‘Still alive, little Jew? What did you see?’

  ‘We’re less than thirty metres from the enemy, Lieutenant, but we’re right at the edge of the long grass. There’s no more cover. What do we do?’

  Neidlein rubbed his moustache nervously; he was going through the options in his head. They were bleak. ‘Wait here,’ he barked and slithered back through the grass. It seemed like an age before he returned, though it probably wasn’t more than a few minutes.

  ‘All right,’ he said breathlessly, ‘we’ve got Hausmann and Kovak following up thirty metres to our left and Wodecki and Rolka beyond them. When the Russians finish a round, we run at them while they’re reloading, the others will follow; let’s see if we can shoot them in their lair. Then we’ll turn the gun round on them, try and get a foothold.’

  We waited for our moment and then Neidlein gave me the nod. We scrambled to our feet and hurtled towards the artillery outpost through a barrage of bullets and shells. I was vaguely aware of other men running alongside us but by the time Neidlein and I had made it only Kovak was still standing. We pointed our rifles over the top at the unsuspecting Russians. There were three of them and as they looked up startled we shot them in the head, then as we were clambering over the sandbags Kovak was hit and collapsed lifeless on the other side. There was no way we could hold the position on our own, and Neidlein knew it. He fired a couple of shots into the mechanism of the gun to render it useless, and we turned on our heels and fled back towards a cluster of bushes. Lieutenant Neidlein stumbled over a root, but before he could recover he was shot in the leg. I should have stopped to help him but I just kept running. Neidlein got back to his feet and hobbled away as fast as he could. I reached the bushes and dived into the ground. Neidlein was limping some way behind me now. He was hit again in the back and he lurched forward but somehow stayed on his feet and staggered on. Another bullet passed through him and I saw blood spurt out of his belly. He fell to his knees but he would not die, the memory of life coursed through his leaking veins and with bulging eyes he crawled painfully towards me. He was only ten metres away when a shot appeared to puncture his head and he sprawled into the meadow. His legs continued to jerk mechanically for a minute and then he was still.

  For two hours we were butchered mercilessly in the fields and woods along the length of the river. Whole regiments were emasculated and hundreds of foolhardy officers sacrificed their lives cheaply as they led their men into undefendable positions. The meadow was covered in shell holes and scraps of blue-grey cloth. Severed fingers gripped rifle butts tenaciously. Bloody fragments of flesh stained the grass. The groans of mutilated men were ever increasing. It was about ten in the morning when the Russian infantry finally attacked, smashing through XII Corps who were holding the line on our left. At last someone gave the order to retreat, and it was shouted from man to man. Those of us who could, turned and fled helter-skelter through the fields, across the river and into the forest, chased all the way by Russian artillery. I passed six of our drummers all lying dead in a straight line with their drums still about their necks, their eyes and mouths wide open. They looked like toy soldiers knocked down by a petulant child. I don’t know what killed them, but their pallid faces had aged suddenly beyond their years.

  We continued running like demented chickens for several kilometres until we were brought under control and ordered to re-form. In the ensuing chaos I bumped into Király, the Hungarian. He stood out from the ranks because his uniform was clean. I asked him where he’d been hiding. He just laughed and winked.

  We found our way back to our company and it was only then that we learnt the full extent of the devastation. A register was taken and of the 260 in our company only half were present. Twenty thousand men died that morning at the Gnila Lipa.

  And where was Jerzy Ingwer? I couldn’t find him anywhere. I rushed from man to man asking if anyone had seen him, but to no avail. I was bereft. After only a day fighting I’d lost my two good friends Ingwer and Baryslaw and witnessed the death of my lieutenant. But my grief was premature, because two hours later a dejected figure emerged from the trees. He was carrying a body over his shoulder and plodding slowly towards us. As he approached I saw that it was Jerzy with Lieutenant Neidlein on his back. I ran up to him and helped him bring Neidlein to the ground. Then I threw my arms around him and hugged him tightly. I cannot tell you how happy I was to see them.

  Amazingly Neidlein was still alive. A double miracle. He was carried off for treatment but I did not expect to see him again. Jerzy was decorated for his bravery. As for me, I never received anything throughout the war. Your father is a survivor but not a hero.

  There was no time to rest. Word reached us that the Russian cavalry were coming. The thought of Cossacks filled us with dread. We hadn’t had time to get into a fighting formation, so a further retreat was ordered. As we headed west, the roads became busier and busier, as troops mingled with peasants and villagers who had been evacuated from their homes. And as if this miserable human traffic was not enough, we shared the road with vehicles of every possible description: gun wagons, hospital trucks, mobile kitchens and carts over-laden with the furniture and treasured possessions of the fleeing peasants. And with nearly every family there came a cow and a couple of chickens. Progress was slow, and occasionally the cry ‘Kosaken kommen’ came forward from the rearguard, and sent whole battalions scurrying across the fields in panic. By nightfall we had retreated some thirty kilometres, we were dead tired and starving. When the halt was given I was so exhausted I collapsed on the side of the road and fell asleep.

  We marched day and night for a fortnight, and to compound our misery it began to rain. And once it started, it did not stop. Day in, day out, the skies emptied on our heads. The roads clogged up with mud and soon we were up to our knees in it. The artillery wagons were sunk to their axles and the horses pulled them at a crawl until they were dropping dead from exhaustion. In places the wagons were stuck four abreast across the way. The cavalcade came to a standstill. Road and field were indistinguishable from one another. We were in a bog that stretched to all horizons. There was no choice but to unyoke the rest of the horses and abandon the wagons and their booty to the enemy.

  We crossed the River Dneister and surrendered Lemberg. At each village we passed we saw a similar sight, the Jews were fleeing but the Ruthenians were staying. They welcomed us, gave us food and lodged our officers, but they could not be trusted, for they were waiting to welcome their fellow Russians. Rumours were rife that they were betraying our positions to the enemy. Sometimes we were lucky enough to sleep in a barn but more usually we were left in our wet clothes in the rain to sleep under trees. Our only comfort were the fires we burned from the fences and gates that we ripped up on our way. If any peasant objected to this practice they were beaten on the spot. The Jews, most of whom were desperately poor, wandered through the fields in their sodden rags, sometimes gathering under a tree to pray alongside one of their famous rabbis. It was the Chassids with their unshaven forelocks who attracted the most attention from the soldiers as they passed. They called them vermin and in the case of Király even spat at them.

  ‘Why do you shave your women, Daniecki? It’s disgusting,’ he asked me.

  ‘We don’t all do that, only the Chassidim.’

  ‘All right, so why do they do it?’

  ‘Because for hundreds of years the Cossacks have been raiding Jewish villages and raping the women, so they started shaving their heads to make themselves unattractive. Now it’s a custom. A constant reminder that there are still bastards around like you who want to hurt them,’ I explained. But it didn’t stop Király from insulting them. I despised Király. He was pure vitriol, and my God could he moan. He moaned every step of the way. He would invariably begin in Hungarian and then translate into broken German, because to complain was not enough for him; his complaints had to be understood by those unfortunate enough to be near him.

  ‘I curse the cow that produced the cal
f that bore the hide that formed the leather that makes up this wretched backpack that weighs a tonne and rubs me raw,’ he would say. Or ‘I curse the river that flows into the sea that makes the clouds that piss on my head.’ His complaints were nothing if not elaborate. He poured scorn on all humanity for its greed and stupidity. It was a stance that was easy to understand in the context of war, but Király would have been just as abrasive anywhere. He lived to hate as I lived for Lotte.

  I hadn’t washed or changed for twenty days. My feet were never dry and my skin felt rotten to the bone. At the time I had never known such hardship, but God was preparing me for far greater trials than a twenty-day walk in the mud.

  On 16 September 1914 we crossed the San. Jerzy and I stopped on the bridge and wept. Ulanow was lost. We looked down on the brown soily water that a few hours earlier had passed through our town and wondered when we would see our loved ones again. I dropped two stones in the river and vowed that wherever Lotte was, even if she was in the hands of the Russians, I would find her. We had dangled our feet in those waters and made our plans, the San was our river, it flowed through our dreams. And even though the Russians had taken the river and the forest they could never take the dream. Not even death can steal our dreams, Fischel. When I pass away, the river and the forest will come to meet me. Lotte will be there, a girl again, catching the sun in her hair and washing her toes in the San. And I will see you there, too, Fischel, with Dovid and little Isaac running between the trees chasing butterflies.

  11

  IN THE EARLY PART OF THE WAR WE SUFFERED DEFEAT AFTER defeat. After only six weeks of war we had withdrawn all the way to the River Dunajetz. That’s a long way . . . maybe three hundred kilometres. Not only was Ulanow in enemy hands but so was most of Galicia. It’s almost impossible to imagine the scale of the loss but by the time we reached the Dunajetz some half a million men were dead on that front alone. Most of them ours. Can you understand the madness that had befallen mankind? And remember, Fisch, that’s half a million dead in only six weeks. Galicia was a graveyard. The earth was blood and bone.