Legion of the Damned (21 page)

I pray to God that He may hold His hand over you and protect you from all the horrors out there at the front. Although you call yourself a pagan and say you do not believe in God, I know that He loves you as well as He does the best of His priests, and when the war is over I shall be able to convince you of that and melt the hard shell of cynicism with which you poor wretches in the fowl-less units have to encompass yourselves. Remember, darling, that sooner or later there must be peace, and then all our lovely dreams will become reality.

I have thought that by that time I ought to be able to have a nice practice here in Munich or in Cologne, and my great hope is that you will train as a dentist or something like that. One thing only you must promise me, that you will not stay in the army if there should be an opportunity of making a career there.

In six months I shall have completed my special training as a surgeon, and then I shall begin to save for our home. I hope that I shall be able to have it all ready the day you come back.

But--no. I hope it won't be as long as that before you come to me forever. I wanted you to come today. Now.

Father and Mother have now grown accustomed to the idea of having a son-in-law. At first, of course, they were dumfounded, and you should have seen Father's face when I told him that you had been in prison and a concentration camp and were now in a fowl-less regiment. At first he thought I had gone mad, but when I explained a little more and told him that your "crime" was political, he accepted it without reservation and said that, as long as we loved each other, nothing else mattered.

I cannot write about political developments, which I am sure you will know of, for I expect you are pretty well-informed out there. I comfort myself with the thought that, since it is not going to be so long before we two can be together for the rest of our lives, one leave does not mean all that much.

Besides, leave now would also be torture, for I would be thinking the whole time that you were having to go back to it all again, and you would be thinking of that too.

I am sending you with this a little gold cross. I have worn it round my neck next to my skin ever since I was a little girl, and you are to have it. Wear it, as I have done; it will protect you from all evil out there. Kiss it each evening, as I kiss your ring. Darling, darling Sven, I love you so that it makes my heart ache, and I weep with joy at the thought that we shall soon meet again, and then I shall never let you go. You are mine, only mine, mine alone. I am well aware that now and again you fall a tiny bit in love with a Russian girl, or with one of the German women you meet on troop trains, but I also know that you cannot fall in love with them in the same way as you are with me; and therefore I forgive you in advance if you kiss other women out there and find comfort for a brief while. I am not going to ask that you live like a monk--only you must promise me not to embark upon anything that you cannot tell me about.

You have no idea how I cried when that wonderful friend of yours, The Old Un, wrote and told me that you had been killed. It was the loveliest though also the saddest letter I have ever read. But, shock though it was, it was nothing to that I got eleven months later when your letter came telling of how you had been a prisoner. I fainted for the first time in my life; my temperature went up and I had to spend a week in bed. It was quite a collapse. But, heavens, how happy I was!

You say that you don't believe in God, but I believe that it was He kept His hand over you, because you are a very proper person, as are your friends. You have your faults and weaknesses, but you are human and purer of heart and more honest in your thoughts than many of those who are never without a rosary in their hands. Do not think that I don't share your loathing of hypocrites and those priests who are mere sanctimonious servants of masters, who do not know, or are recognized by, the true God and genuine Christianity. But He who preaches mercy cannot help these hypocrites being there, and you must not think that by listening to what He has to say to us all you are making common cause with vicious priests. That is what I so badly want you to understand, and one day you will, I am sure of that.

But now I must stop, my dear, beloved husband, and lastly let me beg you to look after yourself out there. I know that it is difficult, but don't let yourself be affected too much by that cynical indifference that is so characteristic of you front-line soldiers. Keep on believing that there is goodness to be found in the world as well. Be careful when you can; that will always help a bit toward my getting you home alive. And now may this New Year be one that brings luck and happiness to us both, and to all others.

Your devoted wife,

URSULA

We had counted on being relieved before Christmas Eve, but our hopes were belied. Not only that, but we had to act as infantry and go through some hard fighting in the front line.

At seven o'clock on Christmas Eve I was detailed for sentry duty in the advance posts, some way out in no-man's-land. We were one man in each foxhole, with about fifty yards between each. The idea of these advance posts was that we should be able to give the alarm in time if the enemy should send a night patrol across. But, however good a lookout we kept, these patrols got across and back again time after time; and it was only when it grew light that we would discover that they had been across by finding our outposts with their throats cut. Or we would find a hole empty, the Russians having taken its occupant back as a prisoner.

We had drawn lots who was to go. Von Barring had insisted that sentry duty on Christmas Eve should be allocated in that way. On that one night he wanted not to have to order anyone out. The lots were put in his helmet--and not only the privates, but the whole company, including himself, had to draw a lot. One of our lieutenants had to go on duty from 22.00 till 01.00.

Thus I spent Christmas Eve 1942 in a foxhole in no-man's-land. In front of me, on the rim, I laid my grenades and submachine gun ready for use.

You become fearfully sleepy when you are on guard like that. Not only is the continual straining to catch and interpret all the faint little sounds and imagined sights of the lurking darkness tiring, but the isolation also acts as a soporific. You are quite alone. First and foremost, however, you are paralyzed by a sort of longing for death. The idea of going to sleep and being rid of it all, of falling asleep and never waking up, is very attractive-- so easy and painless. All the things you feel should be worth living for have dissolved into a sort of unreality, have become a ghostly sigh, a remote, wearied plaint, something it is far too much trouble to bring back.

All at once the sound of steel on steel made me go rigid. It was a very slight noise, but from that instant my senses were strained and on the alert. I clutched a grenade in one hand and listened; but all was still. Then my blood curdled and turned to ice in my veins; something had gone gliding past just beside my hole. I began to tremble. I imagined that I could already feel the knife at my throat. I bit my lips till they bled and stared out into the darkness till my eyes smarted and watered. Then I thought I heard the slither of skis over snow. Shouldn't you fire a Very light? I asked myself; but I did not dare risk making a fool of myself. So strong is convention that in certain situations you will act in accordance with it even if to do so may cost you your life. To have sent up a light, of course, would have revealed my whereabouts to any Russians who might have been lying out there with their long knives ready. Away in the distance a couple of wolves were howling heartrendingly, but otherwise there was nothing but the frozen silence of the winter's night. Then a piercing scream rang out, followed by a ghastly rattle; and at that same moment another voice cried: "Help! Help! Ivan has got me!" The shout broke off abruptly, as though a hand had been clapped over the shouter's mouth. The hair rose up on my head and, as I thought I could make out some figures, I furiously flung some grenades at them and fired a burst from my gun. Frantically I fired off Very lights, and in a short while the whole sector was blazing away.

Nine of us had been out there. Six did not come back. Five had had their throats cut; the sixth was just not there.

The Christmas mail we had been expecting had not arrived, and at midnight came the explanation from the loudspeakers over on the Russian side:

"Halo! Halo, 27th Tank Regiment! We wish you a merry Christmas. If you want your Christmas parcels and letters, just come across to us. We have them here along with your runner. There are parcels for..."

Then the voice called out all the names of those for whom there were letters or parcels. As soon as that was finished, the voice went on:

"Comrades of the 27th. We shall now read a little of the letters, so that you can see they are good letters. Here is one, for example, to Kurt Hessner. 'Dear Kurt,' it says, 'there was a raid this evening... a bomb fell... Father is... dreadful grief!' If Kurt Hessner wishes to hear the rest of the letter let him just come over here."

They read out bits from letter after letter, so that we should think our people at home were either killed or maimed, or that some other horror had befallen them. Many nearly drove themselves demented wondering and worrying, and the end of it all was that five did go over.

When day broke we saw three dead Russians lying in front of the hole where I had been, and only six feet from it were ski tracks.

One day Porta disappeared without trace. We received permission for fifteen of the oldest and most experienced men in the company to make a raid. Leutnant Holler himself insisted on coming. He took off all his badges and bars before we set out. We lay for a while in front of the Russian trench listening so as to discover where their sentries were. Then we dropped down over them, flung a couple of mines into their dugout and let our submachine guns and flame throwers play along the narrow trench. The whole thing took a couple of minutes at the most, after which we were on our way back with two prisoners. As soon as we had got back to our lines we began interrogating our prisoners, one of whom was an officer. As soon as we described Porta they burst out laughing.

"He's absolutely crazy," laughed the officer. "At this moment he is sitting drinking our commissar under the table. He wants to buy a bearskin coat and a case of vodka and has five thousand cigarettes with him to pay for them."

To our amazed questions how he had got there the officer said that he had been captured by a patrol.

Two days later, when we were relieved, we had still seen no sign of Porta and sincerely we mourned his loss.

A week later he came sauntering into our village wearing a heavy Russian officer's fur coat and carrying a Russian brief case that appeared to be very heavy.

"Damn fine weather today."

That was all he said. We stood round him in a ring, gaping.

"I hope I'm not late for dinner. That would be a shame, as I've brought some schnapps."

There were six bottles of vodka in his case and he had also brought the five thousand cigarettes back.

"Russian commissars are hopeless at vingt-et-un," said Porta, and that was all we could ever get out of him about his peculiar trip across to Ivan, so there is no rational explanation of what happened that I can give.

Six bottles of vodka, a case to carry them in and a brand new officer's fur coat.

What a strange thing war is.

Because of the heavy losses the 27th Tank Regiment had suffered a lot of promotion came the way of us veterans. The C.O. had been killed, so Oberstleutnant von Lindenau became oberst. Major Hinka became oberstleutnant and our battalion commander, von Barring, became Hauptmann of 5 Company. The Old Un was made Feldwebel and platoon commander. The five of us now had a new tank of the type called "Panther" which was to be platoon tank of 3 Platoon.

Porta was to have been made an unteroffizier but he refused point-blank to let himself be promoted. There was a tremendous fuss, but it ended satisfactorily. Oberstleutnant Hinka said:

"All right, you red-haired monkey, you shan't be unteroffizier but Stabsgefreiter. Will that satisfy you?"

It did, for Stabsgefreiter was a superior private, not an NCO.

Our cat, Stalin, who now had a miniature Soldier's Book, was made obergefreiter and had the regulation two stripes sewn on the sleeve of his new tunic. He too became fantastically tight to celebrate this occasion.

"Here, Sven, have a schnapps. Take a decent pull. The swine! The bloody swine. God help them when we are finished here and get back!"

Porta asked what had happened.

"Now I'll read the letter to you," said The Old Un. "And here with the schnapps, so that Sven can drink and forget. But he mustn't drink alone."

The Old Un unfolded the letter from Ursula's father.

Munich, April 1943.

My dear son!

I have grievous news for you. You must take it with as much composure as you can, and promise me not to break down or do anything rash when you have read this.

Our beloved, brave Ursula is dead. The Nazis murdered her. When you come to Munich I shall tell you all the details; till then this brief account must suffice.

A famous gauleiter was to address the students at the university, but his speech was interrupted by an overt demonstration. A number of the young students were arrested and with them our beloved girl. A few days later they were brought before the People's Court and condemned to death. When the sentence was pronounced, Ursula replied: "The day is not far distant when you, our judges and accuser, will yourselves stand accused, while our comrades will be your judges. Be assured that on that day your heads will also come under the ax."

That is what she said to her Nazi judges, and she will assuredly be proved right if there is any justice left in the world.

I was with her the day before she was murdered and she asked me to tell you that she would go to her death with your name on her lips, and she asked you to believe in God and that you two would meet in heaven.