‘Good, good.’ Brandt joyfully patted him on the shoulder, hurried on into his bunker and picked up the telephone. Kiesel stood close by and could hear Stransky’s voice, loud and seemingly excited, but he could not make out any of the words. He tried to read the gist of the conversation in the commander’s face, but found nothing to indicate any reason for further worrying. Finally Brandt nodded several times and said: ‘Very well, Stransky. Start at once. We will give you ample artillery support. Follow close behind the assault regiment and occupy the positions again. How are things over your way, otherwise?’
As he replaced the receiver, the smile had vanished from his face. ‘So it’s true,’ he turned to Kiesel. ‘Stransky has no officers left. Do you know who led the counter-attack on the hill?’
‘Triebig,’ Kiesel guessed.
Brandt shook his head. ‘No, it was Steiner. The boy was wounded in the course of it. In the arm.’
‘Steiner?’
‘Yes.’ Brandt pondered for a moment and then suddenly inquired about Kiesel’s brother-in-law.
‘He ought to be arriving within the next few days,’ Kiesel replied uncomfortably.
‘We’ll give him the 2nd Company,’ Brandt said, nodding. ‘Today I’m going to put in an urgent request for replacements. The 1st Company is practically wiped out and-’ He fell silent. Kiesel, too, raised his head to listen. Outside violent artillery fire had begun abruptly. ‘It’s starting,’ Brandt said with enforced calm. ‘Come along, we’ll watch from up above again.’
Kiesel followed him.
Steiner acted without thinking. It was as if he were being propelled forward. Krüger, too, had lost all his faculties, as though the black muzzle of the tank cannon had been a telescope showing him a ghastly pit that made the blood freeze in his veins. Nevertheless he reacted a fraction of a second faster than the invisible gunner inside the tank. As the explosion of the cannon struck like a club against their ears, they were lying on the ground about ten feet away from the tank, pressing their faces into the moist earth. Behind them the trench vanished in a dark cloud of smoke. But even before the hail of earth stopped pelting down on his back, Steiner crawled forward on all fours. Between the crushed walls of the trench he discerned a narrow crack. He squeezed his body into it, closing his eyes as he did so. Thirty-four tons, he thought, thirty-four tons above me. And he crawled underneath the thirty-four tons, followed so closely by Krüger that he could feel the East Prussian’s hands touching his legs. Every second he expected to hear the motor roar, he imagined he felt the masses of earth starting to shift, starting to crush his body. His head, arms and shoulders bumped and pushed desperately at some soft, dark obstacle in the way. Suddenly it gave. Then the ground sank beneath him and he took a fall of several yards. He lay motionless until a heavy body slammed into him and the sound of Krüger’s voice made him open his eyes wide. Panting, trembling with exhaustion, they gaped at each other. They were lying in a deep bomb crater, and Steiner noticed that his hands were still clutching hard at the soft obstacle that had nearly stopped him. It was the body of a man, and felt strangely spongy. From neck to knees it was nothing but an empty, bloody sack. He let go and looked up, where the tank still stood unmoving. Then he saw that the right-hand track hung slack on the wheels, ripped in two. Steiner groped for his tommy-gun, which he had dropped in falling, and stood up. He noticed that Krüger no longer had his MG, but asked no questions. They clambered out of the crater, crawled into the trench and went on without turning their heads. They moved slowly. From somewhere on the hill came the sound of firing. Isolated shells whined high above their heads from left to right and right to left. But they paid no attention. They were utterly weary and had no feeling left at all.
They reached the fork where the branch trench led off to the battalion command post, without having run into any Russians. Their way led downhill now, and the sun shone warmly in their faces, but they scarcely felt it. Their legs moved as though no longer part of them; it was as if they were dead. But the sun shone warmly and it was a lovely spring day.
The men lay behind their rifles on the edge of the orchard. Their faces were marked by the experiences of the past several hours. Hollerbach was staring vacantly at Faber, who sat beside him with eyes closed. Kern, carrying a canteen, came up to them and tossed the canteen on the ground, muttering a curse under his breath. ‘None?’ Hollerbach asked.
Kern shook his head and dropped down beside them. ‘Nobody has any,’ he said grumpily. ‘The water down there is too filthy for me. Corpses in it. I’d rather go thirsty.’
‘We’ll have to wait till the field kitchen gets here,’ Hollerbach said.
Kern gave a fierce laugh. ‘By the time it comes we won’t need anything. By that time the whole battalion’ll be able to feed out of one mess-tin.’ He looked up the hill. ‘They won’t be coming any more,’ he murmured. ‘They should have been here long ago.’ He turned to Faber. ‘We should have looked for them.’
‘It was too late,’ Faber said. ‘You know yourself it was too late. The Russians were in the trench and we were out of ammunition.’
‘Not a round,’ Kern said.
Hollerbach sighed. ‘I never would have thought Steiner could get it,’ he said. ‘I still can’t grasp it.’
‘Neither can I,’ Kern said blackly. ‘A man like him should have realized what was happening.’
‘Death isn’t something you realize,’ Faber said. ‘It comes like the night. When the twilight falls among the trees, it’s there already and you can’t avoid it.’
‘What a way to put it,’ Kern said, strangely moved. He hunched his shoulders as if he were cold. Four men came by carrying a wounded soldier. His legs dangled at an odd angle over the edge of the canvas. They watched as the stretcher-bearers and their burden disappeared among the trees. Kern removed his steel helmet and scratched his head. He felt his mournful sense of loss deepening. And even now he was being pierced by the shock he had experienced when the tanks had appeared. He recalled how Faber had kept firing at the onrushing Russians until a man came dashing into the emplacement shouting that the Russians had broken into the trench on the right. For all that, Faber had stuck by the gun; they had not started to retreat until the last belt of ammunition had been fired. On the way they had encountered Hollerbach and his men, and had reached the battalion command post together. But neither Steiner nor Krüger had turned up. They would have to assume that the two were lying somewhere in the trench and would never return. The longer Kern thought about this, the more painful the dull throbbing in his chest became. Recollection of past ugly scenes between himself and both the missing men did nothing to abate his grief.
Suddenly Hollerbach produced a sound half-way between a squeal and a shout. Kern looked up in time to see him carrying on like a madman, jumping to his feet and throwing his hands in the air. Faber, too, was staring up the slope. Above them, in the chest-high communications trench, two figures appeared, trudging along with bowed heads as though there were nothing in the world that could ever arouse their interest again.
‘Steiner,’ Kern murmured incredulously. The orchard was suddenly full of excited men pressing forward, calling out to the two. Almost half an hour had passed since the last straggler had arrived at the command post; no one was expecting any more survivors. As Kern and Hollerbach rushed forward to meet them, someone brought news of the return of Sergeant Steiner to the commander’s bunker. A staff courier promptly appeared with orders for Steiner to report to the commander’s bunker at once. Steiner took his time. He exchanged a few words with Faber and the other men before following the courier down a lane of inquisitive faces.
When he entered the commander’s bunker, he found Stransky bent over a map. Stransky’s face looked aged and expressionless. Silently, he pointed to a chair. Steiner sat down. Arms clasped behind his back, Stransky strode about the bunker several times, finally halting in front of Steiner. ‘You’ve come from up above?’ he asked curtly.
Steiner nodded.
He made an effort to conceal his dislike, and looked down at the floor.
‘How do things look?’ Stransky asked.
The question seemed pointless to Steiner. He shrugged apathetically and replied: ‘Unchanged.’
‘What does that mean?’ Stransky asked sharply. His eyes became narrow and spiteful.
‘The Russians are still holding our positions,’ Steiner said quietly.
Stransky suppressed an angry retort. He went over to the map. ‘We are going to undertake a counter-attack,’ he declared. ‘The purpose is to restore contact with the 3rd Battalion.’ He outlined briefly the plan of the counter-attack. ‘The Stukas ought to be along any minute now. I need a man to lead the counter-attack. Would you like to?’
Steiner had been expecting something of the sort and had already planned his answer. ‘I don’t think I would like to,’ he said slowly. ‘I don’t believe I have the qualities needed to cope with such a situation.’
Stransky turned abruptly, stalked to the door and looked out of the little window for a few seconds.
‘You are forgetting one thing,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘You forget the fact that actually it doesn’t matter at all to me whether or not you would like to. May I suggest that you examine your mind to see what, if anything, justifies your attitude.’
‘What makes you think that I haven’t done that?’ Steiner asked coolly.
Stransky leaned his back against the door. ‘I make that assumption because of your total lack of discipline and-’ he hesitated. Then he went on: ‘And because young people do not take the trouble to think when they know that if need be, someone else will do that thinking for them.’
Steiner frowned.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I can put it more clearly,’ Stransky said scornfully. ‘You need not be honest toward me. I am quite accustomed to having my subordinates lie to my face. But for once be honest with yourself.’
Not knowing what he was getting at, Steiner shrugged impatiently. ‘I try,’ he said, somewhat contemptuously.
‘Good. Then perhaps you can answer this question: isn’t your display of independence based simply on the fact that you have— I’ll put the thing in terms of civilian life—that you have an influential uncle.’
As Steiner started to rise angrily, Stransky raised his hand quickly. ‘No one likes to be reminded that his so-called individualism depends on having powerful backing-’
Having delivered that insult, he fell silent. Steiner leaped to his feet and stared balefully at him. ‘You wanted to talk about the counter-attack,’ he said loudly.
‘Right,’ Stransky said. ‘I’m coming to that in a moment. You see, Steiner, even if we did have something in common, there is one highly essential difference between us.’
‘Your rank,’ Steiner interjected.
Stransky smiled superciliously. ‘I was not referring to that,’ he said quietly. ‘If I were to proceed from that angle, I assure you that our conversation would take an entirely different course. I have already told you, and I should like to repeat with emphasis, that you overestimate yourself. Granted, you have had luck so far, and you have connections which stiffen your backbone. But there’s no personal merit in that and it doesn’t raise you above the average. I assure you, in spite of your connections, I could apply pressure that would make your life thoroughly miserable.’
‘Then why don’t you try?’ Steiner asked slowly.
Stransky grimaced, but his voice remained patronizing. ‘You are very young. I don’t doubt that in my position you would not hesitate to throw into the scales your authority as a superior officer. The fact that I forbear ought to give you something to think about. Perhaps this alone demonstrates the nature of the difference between us.’
Steiner regarded his amiable face with distrust. Then he laughed aloud. ‘You overlook a few facts. In the first place, those good connections you harp on didn’t come about by chance and are not unmerited. In the second place, I never angled for them and have made a point of never making use of them. If I had, you would scarcely have any chance to give me orders at all. As for-’
He broke off. Stransky had raised his hand for silence. A low drone filled the bunker. ‘The Stukas,’ Stransky said hurriedly. ‘We’ll have to continue our conversation some other time. Look here.’ He bent over the maps and sketched briefly the details of the counter-attack. ‘When you reach the hill,’ he went on, ‘wait until the assault regiment arrives and follow behind it into your old positions. All clear?’
Since the bombing began at that moment, Steiner merely nodded briefly and left the bunker. The men were standing in a knot staring up at the hill, where a dark cloud of smoke was mounting to the sky.
Steiner stood for a few seconds watching the planes dive vertically and release their bombs. The sight gave him grim pleasure, and he clenched his fists. For Meyer, he thought, for Meyer and Pasternack and Dorn and all the others lying dead up there.
A loud voice reached his ear. As he turned his head he saw Krüger striding toward him. ‘What’s up?’ the East Prussian asked.
‘Shit.’ Steiner growled, and ordered Krüger to assemble all the NCO’s. When they were gathered around him, he explained what they were to do and began dividing up tasks among the various platoons. Then he turned to Krüger, who stood gloomily plucking at his nose, and said: ‘You stay near me. You and Hollerbach and Kern and Faber.’
‘The bastards,’ Krüger cursed fiercely. ‘They don’t give a man ten minutes rest.’
‘When you’ve got six feet of ground over you you’ll have more rest than you like,’ Steiner said mirthlessly.
He looked over the group of about a hundred men. They were holding their weapons, and intent on the signal from him. Raising his hand, he started up the slope. As the hum of aeroplane engines faded away in the west, the men spread out in a skirmishing line and followed the point group up the hill over the shell-torn terrain. Not a shot had been fired yet. Steiner walked with bowed head, wondering what they would do if a Russian tank turned up. Although most of the tanks were undoubtedly somewhere beyond Kanskoye, raising cain in that area, there might still be a few stragglers on the hill. Even one would be enough. Steiner had no illusions about that; he knew that the men, exhausted as they were and with their morale at zero, would run back in wild flight at the first sound of motors.
As he circuited a large crater, Hollerbach came over to him. He had evidently been considering the same question. ‘What are you going to do if tanks come?’ he asked, with a testy note of challenge in his voice.
Steiner shrugged indifferently. ‘How do I know?’
The hill was steep, and they panted with the climb, but the top was now slowly drawing nearer. Steiner glanced back to reassure himself that the men were following, and for a moment he felt a grim satisfaction and pride that he was leading the whole battalion. Then he grinned ironically. He had no more than half a company there behind him. For a few seconds he thought of Stransky; it should have been the captain who was heading the line, not some low-down platoon leader. Remembering their talks, he smiled cynically. The conceit of the bastard, he thought with infinite contempt. The hill was flattening out and they could already see part of their old positions, which ran along the hill on the left. Nowhere was there any sign of life. It looked as if the Russians had long ago advanced behind the hill, further to the west. There was hardly any incline now, and they speeded up.
‘They’ll start shooting in a minute,’ Krüger panted. As though set off by his words, violent sounds of skirmishing suddenly broke out far ahead of them. They stood still and looked around. The scorched earth, still covered by swaths of smoke in many places, seemed to stretch on all the way to the horizon, where several white flares were now rising.
‘That’s the Third,’ Steiner said. And in answer to Krüger’s uncomprehending look he explained: ‘The 3rd Battalion is attacking from the other side of the hill. We must send up flares.’ He took the pistol from Faber’s hand and sh
ot up two flares in succession. Looking back, he saw far below the orchard where the command post was situated. Behind stretched the long ridge on whose other side the regimental command post must lie. The sky was quite cloudless; visibility was splendid back that way.
The noise of fighting to the north increased. Most of the men had dropped into shell-holes, their steel helmets protruding above the ground like huge dark mushrooms. ‘What are we waiting for?’ Krüger asked, looking down uncomfortably at the barren moonscape beneath their feet.
Kern was sitting on the ground, his legs dangling over the edge of a bomb crater. Faber, crouching somewhat, was standing beside Hollerbach, leaning on the machine-gun.
‘Why the hell should we pull the others’ chestnuts out of the fire,’ Kern growled. ‘What’s the sense of rushing on.’ He turned to Steiner. ‘We’ve reached the top; we can wait here until the men of the Third get to us. ’
There was something tempting about the proposal. The men looked at one another significantly. ‘If we go on,’ Hollerbach said, ‘they’re going to see us from the woods, and then there’ll be hell to pay. ’
Steiner turned his head indecisively. Kern kept close watch on him. He had made up his mind to disappear into a shell-hole at the first shot and wait until the fighting was over. He’d had more than enough for the day; a man should not push his luck too long.
‘I tell you what,’ he went on when the others remained silent. ‘It seems to me we’ve carried out our orders, and now they can just stick it, the goddamned idiots. What the hell do they think they’re doing, sending us against tanks without anti-tank guns.’ Faber, listening in silence, had been watching two of 1st Company’s NCO’s. They were sitting about a dozen paces away, taking in the whole incident. He suddenly had the uncomfortable feeling that they were amused by Steiner’s indecision. He thumbed his steel helmet back on his head. ‘I think we’d better go on,’ he said quietly, indicating with a half-gesture the sounds of battle. ‘We’ve got to help them, and those are our orders. ’
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