Triebig nodded eagerly.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that is exactly how I felt.’
He gazed dreamily into a corner of the bunker. It was all present to him again: the undulating blue of the water, the white pebbled beach, the flickering brightness of the caressing air, the deep, moist green of the palms. With a little sigh he said:
‘All of southern France is like one garden. We lived in real mansions right on the beach. Swimming at any hour, day or night. It was indescribable: the sea, the palms, the beaches, the people, everything -’ Overwhelmed by his memories he stopped. Stransky was astonished to see him swallow with emotion. With a knowing smile he winked and said:
‘The women, you mean.’
Triebig raised his head inquiringly:
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I said, the women—I mean, in referring to the people you meant, of course, the women?’ Stransky repeated.
Triebig shrugged indifferently. ‘Not so much that. I am—that is -’ he became confused. ‘I didn’t have much time to think about women.’
‘Come now,’ Stransky raised his finger jokingly. ‘Occupation duty and no time for women—I’ve been in France myself!’ Triebig tried hastily to correct his slip.
‘Of course, there were opportunities now and then,’ he said. ‘But to tell the truth, I had other worries.’
He felt at once how unsatisfactory this explanation sounded and watched the commander’s face uneasily.
Stransky’s eyebrows rose:
‘Other worries. You mean to tell me you had worries in France? ' And suddenly Stransky became keenly alert. The story of voluntary transfer sounded fishy. Anyone who talked so enthusiastically about France was unlikely to volunteer for service in Russia. Triebig didn’t look the type who would risk a hero’s death for the sake of a few medals, and Stransky remembered the man’s reluctance to answer when asked the reasons for his transfer. He decided to probe a little further.
‘If you had worries in France, that is your affair. It is not my habit to intrude on any man’s private life. It is-’ He stopped abruptly. The relief on Triebig’s face was so patent that for a second Stransky lost the thread. But he caught himself quickly and continued in an even, casual voice: ‘Are you married?’ Triebig shook his head. ‘No, sir. When would I have had a chance to marry? I was only twenty when I started at Officers’ Training School. That didn’t leave much time for anything like that.’
‘I suppose not,’ Stransky agreed. His next question was a cautious generality: ‘Do you like soldiering?’
‘Certainly,’ Triebig declared with emphasis.
Stransky nodded patronizingly. ‘I am glad to hear that.’
‘It is like living in an altogether different world,’ Triebig added.
The candle had burned down. Stransky rose and lit another. Then he sat down again and folded his arms across his chest. ‘It would interest me,’ he said slowly, ‘to hear your definition of the differences between this world and the world of the civilian.’ Triebig smiled, abashed. ‘Hard to say, sir. I suppose it’s something in the environment, in the atmosphere.’ He shrugged. ‘I really don’t know.’
‘You are a keen observer,’ Stransky remarked innocuously. ‘But after all isn’t it always the people who make the environment, who provide the atmosphere.’
‘Certainly,’ Triebig agreed.
Stransky lit another cigarette and dropped the burning match to the floor. He waited until it went out; then he raised his head. The suspicion he had been nursing during the past few minutes began to assume a definite shape.
‘It is indeed a very different world, the one we live in,’ he now said. ‘A world of danger and a world of men, a world without women. You know, Triebig, we experience it in ourselves. Things that seemed simply impossible in the past, in ordinary civilian life, happen here.’ He laughed. ‘For example, in the army it becomes apparent that men are not absolutely dependent on women after all. It’s an old idea of mine that we men can get along, even without women. Dependency upon women seems to me a regrettable flaw in the male character. I tell you, man’s truly natural destiny is not only to breed children, but rather to be free, to rule, and fight—in other words, to lead a man’s existence in which women are no more than a fancy but superfluous dessert. Or do you disagree?’
Triebig looked up at him in great confusion. For a moment Stransky wondered whether he had not gone too far. But no, he had nothing to fear from the man. The bait was good; if his suspicion proved correct, Triebig was sure to bite.
He was momentarily disappointed. Triebig remained extremely reserved. His innate sense of caution, sharpened by a good many bad experiences, had been alerted by Stransky’s remarks. Intertwining his fingers, he regarded his thumb thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think I disagree, sir.’ He hesitated. If Stransky was seriously feeling his way to an offer, he must not put obstacles in the way. He had played this nerve-wracking game of words dozens of times and thought he could trust himself to risk a step further. Forcing himself to adopt a tone as innocent and casual as possible, he said: ‘This seems to me an individual matter. There are men who simply cannot live without women, and others who never have been dependent upon them.’
‘And which class do you feel you belong to?’ Stransky asked. Triebig hesitated again. ‘That depends,’ he said tentatively. ‘I think that if I have to, I can live without women.’
‘I’m pleased to hear that,’ Stransky declared. For a moment he studied the burning tip of his cigarette. Then he looked up quickly. ‘In other words, you prefer the company of a man to that of a woman?’
Triebig, eyes half-closed, scrutinized him. He felt himself breaking into a sweat, and he shifted uneasily about in his chair. From here on every word could turn into a booby-trap. ‘It depends on the situation,’ he muttered.
‘Really?’ Stransky smiled. When Triebig did not reply, he shrugged. ‘Wearing a uniform does not relieve you of the obligation to display a certain amount of ordinary, everyday courage. But if it will help you, I shall put your thoughts into words for you.’ His smile broadened. ‘You prefer the society of men to that of women in any and all situations.’
The words hung in the silence of the bunker in all their brutal nakedness. Triebig retreated into himself like a snail sealing itself up in its shell. His chin trembled and he stared with mingled fear, assent and hope at Stransky’s face, which still registered nothing but friendly interest. Afraid silence might be interpreted as agreement, Triebig murmured, ‘I did not say that, sir.’
Stransky nodded reassuringly. He felt convinced that he was on the right track, and decided to risk everything on a single card. Softly, insistently he said: ‘Certainly you did not say it, but I wish you would.’ He grinned confidentially. ‘Let’s drop the hide and seek. By God, man, you don’t have to put on a front with me, of all people. What I said is true isn’t it? Say yes, man, for heaven’s sake.’
Triebig felt his mouth opening. He wanted to stop himself, but the word was already said. The smile on Stransky’s face went out at once. He dropped back into his chair, staring at Triebig as though seeing him for the first time. His eyes filled with contempt. ‘How very, very interesting, Lieutenant,’ he drawled. ‘Extremely interesting indeed. To tell the truth, I’ve never had dealings with one of your kind before.’
Triebig stared at him appalled, his mouth partly open as though he were on the point of screaming. ‘I don’t understand, sir -’ he stammered.
‘You understand me well,’ Stransky replied savagely. ‘Do you take me for a fool. You said yes, didn’t you?’
Triebig, lips quivering, did not answer. Stransky sprang to his feet and stepped directly in front of him. ‘Speak out,’ he bellowed. ‘You said yes. Don’t you dare lie to my face. You said yes, didn’t you?’ At the sight of the enraged face only inches away from his own, Triebig closed his eyes in terror. When Stransky gripped his shoulders and shook him, he nodded feebly and whispered: ‘Yes.’
At once St
ransky released him, took a step back, and ordered: ‘Stand up!’ Trembling, Triebig obeyed. Slowly Stransky looked him up and down. His voice was under control again as he said: ‘I can assure you of this: if I catch you trying any of that stuff, I’ll have you hanged, remember that! Now get the hell out of here and keep out of my sight for the next twenty-four hours. Get out!’ He suddenly shouted as Triebig stood immobile. For a second Triebig looked at the commander’s distorted face. Then he wheeled round, stumbled across the threshold and vanished into the night. Stransky remained standing in the same spot for several minutes. Then he fished for a cigarette, lit it and began to grin. For the first time in a week he was completely satisfied with himself and with the world at large.
Triebig stood in front of the bunker gazing wild-eyed at the trees. From the trenches came the occasional hammering of a machine-gun. Isolated rifle-shots sounded disturbingly close, and tracer bullets whished in fiery trails above the dark hills. For a long while Triebig stood unmoving, incapable of a coherent thought. He felt his whole being trampled upon, humiliated, reduced to a pulp. Finally he moved off toward his bunker on unsteady legs. He stumbled down the steps, closed the door and dropped on to his cot like a stone. I must shoot myself, he thought; I must shoot myself at once. He groped for his pistol. But as soon as he felt the cool steel against his forehead, he lowered his arm, and with a sudden, violent movement hurled the gun to the floor. Then he turned over on his stomach, pressed his face against the blanket and began to sob unrestrainedly.
He made up his mind to kill Stransky.
V
LATE IN THE afternoon they came upon the Russians. They had just skirted a sizeable patch of swamp when the horse led by Dietz suddenly broke loose and galloped wildly off between the trees. The men stopped and looked accusingly at Dietz, who was staring in a daze at the place where the horse had last been. Since it was carrying part of their rations on its back, they felt the loss keenly. ‘Idiot!’ Krüger exclaimed in a fury.
Steiner came striding toward them. ‘Can’t you keep hold of a rope?’ he shouted at Dietz. ‘You get that horse back or I’ll show you something.’
Dietz stared for a second at his enraged face. Then he turned and dashed after the runaway horse. His feet were covered with blisters; for the past few hours he had only barely managed to keep going. But now he forgot his pain and exhaustion. He must make good his carelessness, he felt, and bring back the horse. He ran on among the trees and underbrush, stumbling, falling, picking himself up, scratching his face and hands on thorns and twigs till the blood ran. Still he panted on. Then he could no longer keep going. He leaned against a tree and dug his clenched fists into his heaving chest, while tears streamed down his face.
It was beginning to grow dark among the trees, and the woods were formidably silent. Turning his head a little, Dietz suddenly caught sight of the Russians. They were standing about a dozen yards away from him, not moving, just staring at him. There were five men in long overcoats, with sheepskin-banded caps, their tommy-guns pointing at him. Dietz gaped. But he felt no fear, nothing but a vast astonishment that gradually seeped throughout his entire body and transformed his legs into wooden posts buried deep in the earth. Movement was impossible. Then he suddenly remembered the platoon. He must tell Steiner about the Russians at once, must warn the men. How surprised they would be. They would certainly forgive him the loss of the horse. This thought so comforted him that he almost forgot the menace of the Russians. When they began coming slowly toward him, he pulled his numbed legs out of the ground and rushed away blindly. At his back he heard a shout and he hunched his head between his shoulders. How surprised the others will be, how surprised they’ll be, he thought. His face was contorted, but he smiled expectantly at the thought of the impression his news would make. The shouting behind him grew louder. It bothered him, made it hard to think but did not seem to mean very much. Suddenly something hit hint in the back and threw him forward on his face. Above his head sounded the hysterical hammering of several sub-machine-guns at once. At first he thought someone had thrown a rock at him, and he remained lying where he was, startled. Above him the bullets hissed, slapped into the trees, hummed through the air as they ricocheted. Why are they firing like crazy lunatics? Dietz thought. He tried to get up. Then he realized that his body no longer obeyed him. His arms felt dead, and there was a dull, painful pressure against his back. With great effort he managed to slip his hand underneath his pack, but he could feel nothing in particular. When he tried to turn on his side, a fiery pain shot through his chest. He let his face sink to the ground and began to whimper.
After Dietz ran off in pursuit of the horse, the men sat down on the ground, their heads bent with weariness. Steiner remained standing near the other horses, pondering. It would soon be dark, and the end of the forest was nowhere in sight yet. During the march he had discovered that the horses were a hindrance rather than a help; their obstinacy constantly made for delay. He would long ago have released them and chased them off if he had not been worried about the condition of the men. They had been marching almost without interruption, and were completely exhausted. Under normal conditions they should have covered three times the distance they had managed to march. But the ever-recurring barricades of thorny undergrowth, the miles of swampy ground, the many narrow streams, had forced them to swing in countless wide detours, and eaten up their strength. Their original intention to use the road had to be abandoned, since the Russian’s escape meant it would be guarded. They had followed it only for a few hundred yards beyond the brook, then struck out by compass in a south-westerly direction, straight across the woods. Since the road wound and turned, they had quickly diverged from it and were now somewhere in the heart of the pathless forest.
Cursing under his breath, Steiner glanced at his watch. Three minutes had passed since Dietz had rushed off after the horse, and Steiner suddenly felt an intense uneasiness. He turned to the men: ‘I’ll see how he’s getting along,’ he said. As he struck out in the direction Dietz had taken he reflected that his order had been idiotic. Once a horse started running a man could not catch up with it, anyway. He increased his pace. Since orientation was impossible in these dense woods, he relied on instinct. He had gone no more than 300 yards when off to the right he heard voices calling. He stopped as abruptly as if he had run head-on into a tree, and raised his head to listen. The calls became a furore of shouts, but he could distinctly hear single words. Russians, he thought with a stab of alarm. He peered into the darkening woods.
When the firing began, he doubled over, leaped behind a tree and raised his tommy-gun. The air was suddenly filled with a wicked hissing; ricochets slapped into the tree trunks, buzzed by his head like humming-birds and landed with a dull patter on the soft forest floor. It might be too late if he waited to fetch the men, he thought. If Dietz were still alive—and the Russians wouldn’t be shooting if he weren’t—there was not a second to loose. Scurrying from tree to tree, he covered about fifty feet. Then he began firing at random, holding the muzzle of the gun high. Once he thought he glimpsed a dark form among the trees. But since it might be Dietz, he did not dare fire at it. Then he realized that the fire of the invisible enemy was concentrating upon him. Bullets hissed over his head. Cursing, he darted behind a tree. He was in a bit of a fix. If the Russians realized they had only a single man to deal with, they would surround him quickly. Even as he thought this his fears were confirmed. From the right side a sub-machine-gun began hammering away, breathtakingly close. He swung round and began answering the fire—disregarding all caution, exposing himself to his previous opponents and blazing away blindly between the trees. Then he tumbled rapidly a few yards to one side, behind the next tree, and raised his head. The flanking fire had stopped; perhaps he had hit someone by chance. The rattling of the guns was continuing only from in front, where a strip of dense underbrush cut across the woods. He tried in vain to make out the flash from the hidden enemy guns, but it was still too light. For a while he lay mot
ionless, watching the cone of fire high above his head. They’ll strip the leaves from the trees, if they keep firing like this, he thought, and rolled a few yards away.
His excitement began to subside. He had survived worse situations, after all. Had he not been worried about the platoon he would have felt almost serene. In another ten minutes it would be too dark for the Russians to do anything. Flattening out behind the shaggy trunk of a black birch, he looked around alertly. The random fire of the Russians continued to lash through the leaves high up. He did not answer it. What could have happened to Dietz? He hoped the boy had not been hit. It didn’t seem likely, since his uniform would have confused the Russians momentarily. Undoubtedly he was crouching somewhere among the trees, waiting for full darkness to come. Where could the others be? Even as he thought this, hell broke loose behind him.
When the din of the skirmish started, the men had leaped to their feet and looked about them in shocked surprise. Krüger stammered, ‘Steiner,’ and looked at Schnurrbart. Schnurrbart silently took the tommy-gun from his shoulder, his hands shaking. ‘Bring the horses with you,’ he said to Pasternack. ‘Take the ammunition off them.’ He began pulling boxes of ammunition from the horses and issuing curt orders which the men obeyed in feverish haste. A few seconds later they rushed forward toward the increasing clatter of rifles and sub-machine-guns. When the first bullets began whistling over their heads, they scattered and began answering the firing.
Suddenly they came upon Steiner, who had sat up facing in their direction. Maag noticed him first and shouted. The men stopped firing and Steiner came dashing toward them. As soon as they recognized him, they felt an enormous relief. ‘Have you been lucky!’ Krüger bellowed. He slammed Steiner on the shoulder. ‘What’ll we do?’ he asked hastily. ‘Where’s Dietz?’
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