Forgotten Soldier (17 page)

In a state of near shock, I tried to put the dressing somewhere on that cavernous wound. When this proved impossible, I pushed a needle into the tube of morphine, and jabbed ineffectually through the thick nesses of cloth. Crying like a small boy, I pushed my friend to the other end of the seat, holding him in my arms, and soaking in his blood. Two eyes opened, brilliant with anguish, and looked at me from his ruined face.

Ernst!" I laughed through my tears. "Ernst!"

He slowly lifted his hand and put it on my forearm. Half choked with emotion, I started the truck, and managed to begin moving without too great a jolt.

For a quarter of an hour, I drove through a web of ruts with one eye on my friend. His grip on my arm tightened and eased in proportion to his pain, and his death rattle rose and fell, sometimes louder than the noise of the truck.

Choking back my tears, I prayed, without reason or thought, saying anything that came into my head.

"Save him. Save Ernst, God. He believed in you. Save him. Show yourself."

But God did not answer my appeals. In the cab of a gray Russian truck, somewhere in the vastness of the Russian hinterland, a man and an adolescent were caught in a desperate struggle. The man struggled with death, and the adolescent struggled with despair, which is close to death. And God, who watches everything, did nothing. The breath of the dying man passed with difficulty through that horrible wound, making huge bubbles of blood and saliva. I considered every possibility. I could turn back and look for help, or force the men I was carrying to tend Ernst, at gunpoint if necessary, or even kill Ernst, to cut short his sufferings. But I knew very well I couldn't kill him. I had not yet been obliged to fire directly at anyone.

My tears had dried, leaving the trace of their passage on my filthy face, to betray my weakness to the world. I was no longer crying, and my feverish eyes stared at the knob on the radiator two meters in front of me, which cut hypnotically into the interminable horizon. For long moments, Ernst's hand would tighten on my arm, and each time I was overwhelmed by fresh panic. I couldn't look at that horrifying face. Several German planes passed overhead, through the cloudy sky, and in a desperate attempt at telepathy every fiber in my body appealed to them for help. But maybe they were Russian planes. It didn't matter;

I had no time to spare. No time to spare: the expression assumed its full significance, as so many expressions do in wartime.

Ernst's hand gripped my arm convulsively. The pressure continued for so long that I slid my foot off the accelerator, and stopped, afraid of the worst. I turned and looked at the mutilated face, whose eyes seemed to be fixed on something the living can't see. Those eyes were veiled by a curious film. My heart was pumping so hard that I felt actual physical pain. I refused to believe what I could guess without difficulty.

"Ernst!" I shouted.

From the back of the truck my shout was answered by several others.

I pushed my companion down on the seat, imploring heaven to let him live. But his body fell heavily against the other side of the cabin. Death! He was dead! Ernst! Mama! Help me!

In a delirium of terror, I leaned against the truck door, and then let myself drop, trembling, onto the running board. I tried to persuade myself that none of this was happening, that it was all a nightmare from which I would wake to see another horizon.

As I sat and thought, I still had no idea of the extent of irremediable evil. I dreamed of what life would be like when I shook off this horrible nightmare in which my friend had just died. But my eyes could see only mud, sucking at my boots.

Two heads looked out from the back of the truck. They were saying something but I didn't hear them. I stood up, and turning my back on them, walked off a short distance. That small physical effort reawakened some sense of life and hope, and I tried to tell myself that all of this wasn't really serious, that it was only a bad dream I had to forget. I tried to impose an expression of smiling derision on my features. Two of the wounded men jumped down from the truck to relieve themselves. I stared at them unseeing, while the vitality of being alive beat back the darkness. I began to think with hope that surely all the German soldiers in Russia would be sent to help us, that something must be coming to help us. Suddenly I thought of the French. They were already on their way: all our newspapers said so. The first legionnaires had already set out. I had seen the photographs.

I felt a hot flush run through me. Ernst would be avenged: that poor fool who had never hurt a fly, who had spent his time making life more endurable for wretched soldiers shaking with cold. And his marvelous hot showers! The French would come, and I would run to embrace them. Ernst had loved them like his own compatriots. This surge of hope and joy could not be damped by facts I didn't know-like the fact that the French had decided on quite another course.

"What's happened?" asked one of the men, whose gray bandage was falling over his eyes. "Are we out of gas?"

"No. My friend has just been killed." They looked into the cabin.

"Fuck . . . that's not so bad. At least he didn't have to suffer." I knew that Ernst's agony had lasted for nearly half an hour. "We ought to bury him," one of them said.

The three of us lifted out the body, which was already stiffening. I moved like an automaton, and my face was without expression. I saw a small rise of ground which was less trampled than everywhere else, and we took Ernst there.

We had no shovels, so we dug the grave with our helmets, rifle butts, and bare hands. I myself collected Ernst's identity tags and papers. The other two were already pushing back the dirt, and trampling it down with their boots when I looked my last on that mutilated face. I felt that something had hardened in my spirit forever. Nothing could be worse than this. We pushed in a stick at the head of the grave, and hung Ernst's helmet on it. I slit the stick with the point of my bayonet, and slid in a piece of paper torn from the notebook Ernst always carried with him, inscribed naively in French: "Ici j'ai enterre mon ami, Ernst Neubach."

Then, to forestall another emotional crisis, I turned and ran back to the truck.

We started off again. One of the wounded had come to the front and taken Ernst's place: a stupid-looking man, who fell asleep almost at once. Ten minutes later, the motor coughed, and then died. The jolt woke my sleeping companion.

"Something wrong with the engine?"

"No," I said in an offhand voice. "We're out of gas." "Shit. So what'll we do?"

"We'll walk. On this nice sunny day it should be grand. The strongest will have to help the others."

My friend's death had abruptly turned me into a cynic, and I felt almost glad that the others would have to suffer with me. My companion looked me up and down.

"You don't mean that. We can't walk. We're all burning up with fever."

His stupid assurance made me furious. He was clearly a half-wit who never questioned anything, and had gone to war because he'd been sent. Then a Russian shell had gone off too close, and he'd been pierced, and that is all he felt or knew. Since then, he'd been dozing and stuffing himself with sulfanilamide.

"Well, you can stay here, and wait for help, or for Ivan. I'm clearing out."

I ran to the back door, kicked it open, and explained the situation. Inside, it stank. The men were lying in a revolting mess. Some of them didn't even hear me, and I felt ashamed and brutal. But what else was there to do? Seven or eight haggard men pulled themselves up. Their faces were amazingly drawn. Shaggy beards sprouted from their lined cheeks, and their eyes burned with fever. I felt sickened, and unwilling to insist that they walk. When they had climbed down, they discussed the fate of the others.

"It's impossible to get them up. Let's just leave without telling them. Maybe someone will be along to help them. They're still coming behind us."

Our wretched group set off, haunted by the dying men we had abandoned in the Tatra. But what else could we have done?

I was the only man without an injury, and the only man with a gun. I had offered Neubach's gun, but no one wanted to carry it. A short time later, a muddy sidecar caught up with us, and stopped, although we hadn't flagged them. It carried two soldiers who belonged to an armored unit: two generous men. One of them decided to give his place to a wounded man, and, collecting his belongings, got out and walked with us. Somehow, the sidecar managed to take on three wounded.

And so once more I had a strong young man to keep me company, whose humane gesture, if nothing else, made him a sympathetic human being. I no longer remember his name, but I do remember that we talked long and deeply about many things. He told me that the Russian offensive had been mounted very suddenly, and that throughout this vast region we might be stopped at any moment by a Russian motorized unit. My throat went dry, but my companion seemed sure of himself, and of our army.

"We'll resume the offensive now that it's spring. We'll throw the Popovs back across the Don, and then the Volga."

It's astonishing how agreeable it is to meet confidence and enthusiasm when one is feeling lost. It was as if heaven had sent me this healthy animal to revive my morale. I would have liked things more if Neubach had still been alive, but one must remain humble and resigned in the face of Providence. After all, it was I who should have been driving instead of Neubach.

Toward evening, we came to an isolated country farmhouse. We approached cautiously. The partisans often used places like this: they had the same choices we did, and for anyone a roof is a roof.

The tall young man who had joined us walked out ahead, slowly and deliberately, with his hand on his gun. For a moment he disappeared behind the farmyard buildings, and we felt a twinge of anxiety. But he reappeared and waved us on. The farm was inhabited by a group of Russians who did everything they could to make the wounded men comfortable. The women cooked us a hot meal. They told us that they hated Communism. They had been deported from a small farm they had owned in the neighborhood of Vitebsk to work on the big kolkhoz we were now walking through. They said they had often given shelter to German soldiers. They had an amphibious V.W. in one of their sheds, which had broken down and been abandoned by one of our sections. They said that the partisans never bothered them because they knew that the Wehrmacht often used their buildings. Our tall newcomer felt somewhat uneasy about the V.W.; the Russians might be lying. They could have stolen it. We tried to start it, but although the engine turned over, the vehicle wouldn't move.

"We'll fix it tomorrow," the big man said. "We ought to rest now. I'll take the first watch, and you can relieve me at midnight."

"We're going to stand watch?" I asked in surprise.

"We have to. You can't trust these people. All Russians are liars." This meant another night of anxiety. I walked to the back of the shed, which was dark. There was a jumble of sacks, sheaves of dried sunflower stalks, ropes, and boards, which I arranged as a rough bed. I was about to take off my boots when my companion stopped me.

"Don't do that. You'll never be able to stand them tomorrow. You have to let them dry on your feet."

I was on the point of replying that the sodden leather would prevent my feet from drying ... but I didn't. What difference did it make if my feet were wet or my boots were wet? I myself was soaked through and filthy and so tired....

"You should wash your feet though. That will make you feel fresher, and better tomorrow, too."

What sort of a fellow was this? He was as dirty as I, but he seemed to be full of will and ardor and spirit, as if nothing fundamental to his being had been damaged.

"I'm too tired," I said. He laughed.

I threw myself down on my back, overcome by the exhaustion which ached in the muscles of my shoulders and neck. I stared into the shadows, caught by an indefinable fear. Above me, the dusty beams were lost in the darkness. My sleep was leaden and dreamless. Only happy people have nightmares, from overeating. For those who live a nightmare reality, sleep is a black hole, lost in time, like death.

A movement of air shook my heavy head. I sat up slowly. It was already broad daylight, and the sky was shining through the wide door of the shed. Beside the door, next to a large chest, my companion of yesterday sat slumped in sleep. I jumped up like a shot. The idea crossed my mind that he might already be dead. I had learned that life and death can be so close that one can pass from one to the other without attracting any attention. The fresh morning air was shaken by the sound of explosions.

I went over to the other soldier and shook him vigorously. He groaned like a drunk who is being questioned. "Wake up!"

This time he stood up in a single movement. His sleep had exploded like a bomb. Instinctively he reached for his gun. I felt almost afraid.

"Yes? ... What is it?" he asked. "Teufel, it's daylight. I fell asleep on guard, Goddamnit!"

He looked so furious that I kept myself from laughing. His inadequate vigilance had given us both a good night's sleep. Suddenly he pointed his gun at the open door. Before I could turn around, I heard a foreign voice, and one of the Russians who had received us the day before came and stood in the doorway.

"Kamerad," he repeated in German. "This morning no good. Boom boom pretty close."

We went out of the shed. On the roof of the little building in front of us, some Russians from the kolkhoz were inspecting the horizon. We heard some more long-drawn-out explosions.

"Bolsheviks very close," said one of the Ukrainians, turning to us. "We'll leave with kamerad soldat German."

"Where are the wounded?" my companion asked, irritated at having been caught off balance.

"Where you put yesterday," answered the Popov. "Two kamerad German dead."

We looked at him in confusion.

"Come and help us," my companion said.

Two of the more seriously wounded men had died. There were now four, all in poor condition. One of them was groaning and holding his right arm, whose hand was missing. His purulent dressing glistened with the gangrene which was already devouring him.