The Cross of Iron (50 page)

He had recovered with surprising speed. The nasty splinter wounds all over his chest, arms and legs had begun to heal without complications. Nor did the wound in his shoulder prove troublesome.

About a month after his arrival in the hospital, the first letter from Schnurrbart had come, reporting with disappointment that he had not got as far as Germany. Schnurrbart’s wound had only been good for a trip to Odessa, and a month later he had been sent back to the division as fit for service. He wrote that the attack of the assault regiment had been stopped by Russian artillery fire and the line now ran definitively straight across the hill. He spoke of rumours of relief, of new replacements and a new company commander, and said that all they needed to hold the bridgehead was Steiner’s presence.

Three more letters had come from him since. The rumour was confirmed and the division moved to quiet positions on the coast for a few weeks rest. The last letter, the one Steiner had just been reading, had reached him on the day of his departure. When he reached Kerch, he learned that the division had meanwhile been transferred to Novorosisk. There could only be a few miles more to go. The big, boxlike passenger car had poor springs and Steiner was often startled out of his thoughts when the wheels thumped hard over switches, or when a shrill whistle from the locomotive shrieked through the glassless windows.

He studied the faces of his fellow travellers. All of them seemed to be veteran soldiers, probably returning from leave to judge by the indifference with which they occasionally opened their eyes and glanced out of the window, only to slip back into a doze again. Slumped in the corner opposite Steiner sat a corporal. He, too, had his eyes closed, and with every jerk of the train his head bobbed about on a neck of unusual length, as though on a coil spring. His big-boned face looked weary and lifeless.

Suddenly he opened his eyes and their glances met. ‘We should be almost there,’ Steiner said.

Stretching, the man threw a look out of the window. Then he nodded. ‘Another ten minutes.’ He yawned. ‘We’re coming to a long tunnel now,’ he added. ‘Once we’re through that, we’re there.’

‘Have you often come this way?’ Steiner asked.

‘Yes. Courier.’

Steiner regarded him with interest. Nice job, he thought; I’d like that. ‘Is the station in town?’ he asked.

The man grimaced. ‘Station is good. You’ll have an hour’s walk into town. But the road is good, and if you’re lucky some truck will pick you up.’

‘What’s the place like?’ Steiner asked. ‘This is my first time there,’ he explained.

The corporal shrugged. ‘A nice quiet position. The main thing is there’s plenty of champagne. All you can drink.’

‘Champagne!’ Steiner exclaimed in amazement.

The man nodded. ‘Haven’t you heard about it? Tremendous champagne vaults there. The war could go on for ten years before the stuff is drunk up.’

‘I’d just as soon it didn’t,’ Steiner replied dryly.

The locomotive let loose two piercing whistles. ‘The tunnel,’ the corporal said. ‘Here we are.’ He stood up and reached his things down from the baggage rack. Steiner followed his example. The others in the compartment started up, dazed from sleep, and foraged for their baggage. A moment later they rolled into the tunnel and everything grew dark. When daylight flooded in through the windows again, the train braked swiftly and finally came to a stop with a sharp jerk. The men tumbled over one another and cursed. ‘They act as if they’ve got cattle aboard,’ one man said. The man at his side laughed. ‘What else do you think we are?’

Steiner opened the door and jumped to the platform. Since he wanted to shake off the corporal, he pressed rapidly through the crowd to the barrier. After his pass was checked, he stood for a moment and looked around. The railroad station consisted of a few small buildings. To judge by the many trucks, the place must have been a shunting yard. He glanced back at the train. The locomotive was being uncoupled, and for a moment he felt a faint stabbing sensation in the pit of his stomach. He took several deep breaths. This is the way you wanted it, he told himself. You could be back home in Freiburg now if you had not refused to take a convalescent leave.

He started off rapidly down the road, and in a few minutes had left the last of the buildings behind. The road led straight westward, and he hit a smart pace. Apparently the corporal had not exaggerated. The highway was flanked by vineyards. The ripe grapes were of a size and sweetness he had tasted only once before, in southern France. Again and again he stopped to pick some. Looking around, he saw the rest of the train’s passengers following in loose formation. He walked faster. Here and there, between the green of the grapevines, gleamed the white-painted walls of a small house. Everything about the region seemed neat and orderly; it was more like the landscape south of the Loire than anything he had seen before in Russia. The scent of the nearby sea was unmistakable and grew steadily stronger as he approached closer to his destination. Silhouettes overcast with a yellowish shimmer gradually emerged out of the bright-blue mist on the horizon. Later he was able to see them as the precipitous slopes of a mountain range. He stretched his head forward and peered, trying to make out details. He was so absorbed in looking that he did not hear a truck bearing down on him from behind, and stood still only when a loud voice reached his ears. The truck stopped a few feet away from him and a good-natured face under a forage cap appeared at the window. ‘Where to?’ the man called out.

‘Freiburg,’ Steiner said.

Without a flicker of a smile, the man opened the door. ‘That’s where I’m going. Climb in.’

Steiner shifted his pack from his back and clambered up to the seat. ‘I don’t usually give rides,’ the man explained as he shifted gears. The truck started forward. ‘Not that I’m hard-hearted,’ he went on. ‘But I’ve been careful ever since a couple of bastards snitched two boxes of sausage from me.’

‘Are you in the supply train?’ Steiner asked.

‘Yes, I’m sorry to say.’

‘Why are you sorry?’

The driver laughed. ‘You’ve got no idea all the responsibility and trouble we have.’

‘Why don’t you transfer?’ Steiner said.

‘Where to?’

‘To us. We just sleep in nice warm bunkers.’

The man laughed again. ‘I’m not as mad as that. It’s no good wherever you are. The devil take this army.’

The houses to either side of the road were becoming more numerous. Apparently these were the outskirts of the town. Steiner leaned out of the window. The road led gently uphill, and when they reached the top he saw the sea before him. The memory wrenched so hard that he pressed his hands against his heart. Two weeks ago he had imagined that it was all over and done with, that he had come to terms with it, and now he realized how he had been deceiving himself.

He tried to distract his mind by studying the view of the city. The mountainous coastline formed a deep indentation, and the city spread out around this bay in a semicircle. The terraced construction reminded him of Zurich. Most of the houses were painted white.

The driver’s voice startled him out of his thoughts. ‘Last week the civilians were evacuated,’ the man told him. ‘A pity, too— you should have seen the women that lived here.’ He discussed this for a while, then asked about Steiner’s unit. ‘You’ll have to get out here,’ he said. ‘First street to the right. They’re posted down near the waterfront, I think.’ He stepped on the brake. Steiner offered him a packet of cigarettes, but he waved this aside. ‘Hell, all the supplies pass through our hands. Good luck.’ 

Steiner watched the truck until it turned a corner. The houses, some of them as much as four stories high, were quiet in the hot noonday sun. His nailed boots thumped loudly on the deserted street. On the way he met an MP and asked directions.

The company was quartered in a neat row of houses near the waterfront. Steiner encountered a man who, as soon as he saw him, clicked his heels and raised his hand to his cap. Steiner stopped and asked: ‘Where do you belong?’

‘Second Company,’ the man replied.

Steiner looked him over. He had never seen him before. ‘What platoon?’ he asked.

‘Second platoon.’

It seemed odd to Steiner to be speaking with a man of his own platoon, who was a stranger. Dropping his official tone he asked: ‘What is your platoon leader’s name?’

The answer was snapped out like a pistol shot: ‘Corporal Schnurrbart, sir.’

With difficulty Steiner repressed a grin. Schnurrbart’s real name was evidently lost for good and all. He asked the man to take him to Corporal Schnurrbart.

The houses were set in the midst of small yards, ringed by walls and fences. The man led Steiner to one such green-fenced dwelling which was Corporal Schnurrbart’s. The yard was planted with fruit trees which might have been battered by a hurricane, so ripped were their leaves. The flower beds were thick with weeds; only the gravel-strewn paths looked tended. Steiner slowly opened the chest-high gate and entered the yard, walking on tiptoe, careful not to make any loud noises. Seeing the front door of the house closed, he walked a few paces past it. As he turned the corner, he stopped abruptly. On a bench, facing the water which was about a hundred yards away, sat Schnurrbart, his face to the sun, his eyes closed, his pipe inevitably in his mouth. He looked as if he had been sitting there for ever, and he looked as he had always looked, thin, wiry, heavily bearded. Steiner felt his heart thumping; he smiled and wiped his eyes. Till this moment he had never realized how fond he was of Schnurrbart. Quietly, he went over to him, slipped the pack from his back and sat down on the bench beside the other man. Dropping his arms over the back of the seat, he looked at Schnurrbart’s face from the side. Schnurrbart did not open his eyes. He took the pipe from his mouth, threw his head back a little and said: ‘Have you men had a good rest?’ 

‘Yes,’ Steiner said, watching his face. At first it showed no change. Then suddenly all his features began to move. He blinked opened his eyes slowly and turned his head. They looked at one another, silently, searchingly, with unnatural calm. Finally Schnurrbart turned his face back to the water and said: ‘In this weather the fish bite.’

Steiner nodded. There was a long pause. The garden sloped down toward the water’s edge, and beyond the green pickets of the fence piers stretched out into the oily surface of the sea.

‘Although,’ Schnurrbart commented, ‘when it rains they bite too.’

Steiner yawned ostentatiously, holding his hand over his mouth. ‘In point of fact, they bite in all weathers,’ Schnurrbart said stubbornly.

‘No doubt about it,’ Steiner murmured. He felt very content. 

‘We weren’t expecting you yet,’ Schnurrbart said abruptly. ‘How was it back home?’

Steiner reached into his breast pocket and after some fumbling brought out a sheet of paper. He placed it on Schnurrbart’s lap. ‘Read that,’ he said tersely.

The letter was short. ‘Dear Rolf,’ Schnurrbart read, ‘I am sure you will not understand my behaviour, but I could not help myself. When we first met in the canteen, I was very angry with you. Then I felt pity for you, and later I loved you. I hoped that some day I would be able to free myself. You see, Rolf, I’m married and I thought I loved my husband. It was a proxy wedding, because he wanted it so much. After that last night together I decided firmly to get a divorce. But a week afterwards word came that my husband had been seriously wounded. They have had to amputate his right leg. I struggled with myself, but now I know that I have no right to leave him. Please don’t think too badly of me. I was not honest with you, but I loved you and couldn’t bear to lose you. Forgive me. Gertrud.’

Schnurrbart handed the letter back. Steiner was staring vacantly across the water. ‘So her name was Gertrud,’ Schnurrbart said after a while.

Steiner nodded.

‘Where did you meet her?’

‘In Gursuf.’

Schnurrbart looked up in surprise. ‘In Gursuf, of all places. And why didn’t you go back home?’

‘How do you know I didn’t?’

‘You wouldn’t be here so soon if you had,’ Schnurrbart replied with assurance.

Steiner leaned forward, propping his arms on his thighs and letting his head droop. ‘What would I do at home?’ he asked wearily. ‘After I received that letter at the hospital, I didn’t feel like it.’

Again it occurred to Schnurrbart that Steiner had never spoken of his family. But he did not dare to ask about it, and the opportunity passed when Steiner suddenly changed the subject and asked about Krüger and Kern.

‘They’re snoozing,’ Schnurrbart said. ‘Taking their siesta. Since we’ve been here I’ve never seen either of them really awake.’ Schnurrbart then imparted some general information: that he was sharing this house with Krüger; that Kern, Faber and Maag were quartered next door. Stransky was trying to introduce regular barracks discipline and drill. The new company commander, Lieutenant März, had been raised on dynamite. When Steiner asked about the front, he jerked his thumb to point across the bay. ‘We’re dug in out over there, half-way to the right, near the big factory. With binoculars you can see the barbed wire. It’s quiet here, except for an occasional 17.2 around noon.’

‘Who held the place before?’ Steiner asked.

Schnurrbart waved his hand contemptuously. ‘A marine unit. Were those boys in clover.’ He warmed up, and before long had told Steiner virtually all the news. Both of them shied away from speaking of Hollerbach. Finally Schnurrbart lit his pipe and stretched his legs. ‘It’s so nice sitting in the sun,’ he said. ‘Once I get back home I’ll just spend several weeks in the sun and be glad that everything is so.’

‘What do you mean by so?’ Steiner asked.

‘Just so,’ Schnurrbart waved his hand vaguely. He drew violently on his pipe and looked across to the opposite shore of the bay. ‘You know what I think,’ he said at last. ‘I think we’ve just forgotten to live in the present and it seems to me that the present is our life and the future is what we hope for, and I’ll pull my own beard out by the handful if we don’t pass life right by when we do it the other way.’

‘Hold on,’ Steiner said. ‘I didn’t quite follow that.’