CANCELLED LEAVE

Partisans

On the train from Vinnitsa toward Lvov and Lublin, I was traveling with soldiers who'd been at Cherkassy and Kremenchug.

They told me about the hellish fighting which had taken place near those towns, now lost to us or slipping from our grasp. Everywhere, the crushing numerical superiority of the enemy was finally overwhelming our positions, which we defended with desperate determination, paying an appalling price in casualties. All the fellows on the train were going on leave too, but despite their joy, they seemed crushed by the experiences they had just lived through.

The train came into Lublin station at dawn on a winter morning. The ground was covered with snow, and the Polish cold felt much sharper than the cold in Russia. Even though we were used to sleeping outdoors, no one had been able to rest on the train, and we greeted the morning with turned-up collars and gray faces. Despite the early hour, the station platforms were crowded with soldiers walking up and down to keep warm, dressed and equipped for the front. There were many new recruits, easily distinguishable by their boyish, rosy faces. Military police had been stationed at intervals of ten yards down the length of the platform for incoming trains. I had overestimated my strength. As I obeyed the orders barked over the P.A. system, and jumped down onto the platform, I was shaking with sleeplessness and cold, and my legs were buckling under me.

We lined up parallel to the train, and marched into the big hall which stood at one end of the station. As we tramped toward the hall, the gasping locomotive pulled the empty train onto a secondary track.

In the hall, we were each given a cup of steaming ersatz and two spoonfuls of a curious jam. As we ate, several officers climbed onto a wheeled platform equipped with a loudspeaker. Military policemen were standing watchfully on either side of them, and at the foot of the platform.

First, the amplifier crackled and buzzed for a moment, and then a nasal voice roared unintelligibly until someone adjusted the mechanism. The principal thrust of the officer's speech struck all of us like a slap in the face:

". . . leaves must be cancelled."

We thought we must have misunderstood him, but then the familiar series-

"necessity ... difficulty . . . duty ... supplementary effort . . . victory" brought it home to us that this was no dream. The crowd buzzed angrily, and a few fellows even shouted their outrage. But the loudspeakers were already blaring the "Deutsche Marsche," drowning our fury in martial music. As the hopes and plans of several thousand men crumbled, the music grew louder. The jam we were swallowing suddenly seemed tasteless, and the ersatz bitter. Before we had time to feel sorry for ourselves, the M.P.s were herding us toward a train which was ready to leave for the East.

Three cars were loaded with supplies for the troops, and we were ordered to line up beside them. Because our nervous exhaustion and disappointment were so evident, and the desire to desert was so clearly stamped on so many faces, we were closely hemmed in by police. We were issued fur hats, like the hats worn by Russian troops, crudely made over-vests of reversed sheepskin, cotton gloves with woolen linings, and enormous overshoes with reinforced cork soles and felt uppers. A few boxes of tinned food were added to this voluminous issue, and we no longer entertained any doubts as to our fate: we were obviously being shipped back for another winter in Russia. Most of us were ready to cry with disappointment.

The train was crammed to the bursting point. Some of the passengers were young boys about to go into combat for the first time. Others were veterans returning from leave, who were scarcely any happier than we were, and others, like myself, had been suddenly obliged to replace their plans for leave with the sinking apprehension which all men, no matter how brave, feel as they are about to confront a highly problematical fate.

We rolled east for a considerable time, before we finally grasped what had happened to us. I was dumb with disappointment, remembering Magdeburg and my despair when the scope of that leave was abruptly limited. This time Berlin wasn't even on my route, and there was no chance of encountering Paula. There had been no period of grace at all-not even twenty-four hours. As I thought about it, the weight of what had just occurred seemed to increase, dragging me down into a black depression. However, I still had one hope. As soon as I had returned to my unit, I would have my status as a convalescent officially verified. Why hadn't I thought of explaining that to the police at the station? But, of course, no one in his right mind should ever expect anything decent from a military policeman. My last chance was that once I got back to the company Wesreidau would be able to arrange things for me.

As always, the trains for the front were moving at top speed, unlike westbound trains, which often made long, inexplicable stops. Ours was no exception to this rule.

Nevertheless, an important incident broke our momentum.

The locomotive had just refueled and resumed the speed which was to carry us through to Vinnitsa. The station where we had stopped had bristled with signs bearing the names of towns no longer accessible to us: Konotop, Kursk, Kharkov-names which evoked unbearably painful memories.

About fifteen minutes out of the station the train braked so violently that all the carriages shuddered, and we nearly left the rails. Inside, men and boxes were flung to the floor, and the air rang with angry curses. We all thought we had in fact been derailed. Soldiers in long coats were running down the length of the tracks, answering our shouted questions by waving ahead.

"You were lucky we could stop you," one of them yelled.

About five hundred yards to the east, the track, which ran between two walls of sparse woodland, was blocked by a chaos of overturned cars. We jumped down to the ground to find out what had happened.

Partisans . . . dynamite on the track . . . train loaded with munitions . . . 150 soldiers killed ... reprisals ... patrols ... pursuit.

The immediate work had already been divided among three hundred unhurt soldiers. One group remained on the spot to help the wounded and another left in pursuit of the partisans, who had not been content simply to derail the train, but had opened fire as our men struggled to get free of the wreckage. Officers were blowing their whistles, and at least three thousand men from our train climbed down. We were divided into three groups. The largest of these, about two thousand strong, was sent out in pursuit of the enemy. I was included in this section. The second was sent to help our wounded comrades, while the third was deployed in the immediate area, to ensure the protection of the train. The bulk of my belongings, like everyone else's, remained on the train, and at the blast of the whistle we dogtrotted off into the countryside, which lay under a foot of snow.

Running through snow isn't easy. In less than two minutes one is lathered with sweat, and after twenty it is almost impossible to breathe. Within an hour one's lungs feel bruised by the pressure of one's ribs, and everything is dancing with colored lights. The weather wasn't very cold, and the effects of our gymnastic efforts nearly suffocated us. The noncoms and officers who had followed us eventually grew tired of sustaining a zealous performance and resumed a walking pace. An hour and a half after leaving the train, we slogged into a large peasant village, our heads drooping with fatigue. Almost all the houses had thatched roofs, and attached sheds made of woven sunflower stalks, for storing winter supplies.

When we arrived, the place was already full of German soldiers, and the snow-covered central square was tightly packed with civilians men, women, and children-gesturing excitedly and talking loudly. Soldiers-some of them with spandaus ready to fire-were stationed all around the square, and toward the center other soldiers were shoving their way through the mass of civilians, roughly driving some of them off to one side. To the right, beside a building which probably served as the village hall, a third group of soldiers were standing with drawn guns over a dozen Russians lying on their stomachs in the snow.

At first I thought they were dead.

"Partisans we caught here," explained one of the soldiers standing beside me.

Were they really guilty, or were they only suspects?

None of the questioning was up to me. The interrogations lasted for at least an hour. The Popovs lying on their stomachs must have had frozen guts but that was true for our machine gunners too.

An S.S. section had been included in the pursuit group. I had the honor of being assigned by them to a smaller group of a hundred men who, like me, were returning to duty. Their attention was undoubtedly drawn to me by the edge of my left sleeve with its Gross Deutschland inscription. The S.S. preferred to use men belonging to elite divisions. Without explanation, we were loaded onto S.S. trucks, ignorant of the fate of the civilians lying on the ground. We drove for about twenty minutes over very hilly country. Then we were ordered to leave the trucks. An S.S. hauptmann in a long, dark leather coat addressed us briefly.

"You will fan out to the right, and move into those woods, taking every precaution. A factory which you can't see from here is situated about three-quarters of a mile to the west. The Russian informants who are accompanying us have indicated that this is an important center of terrorist operations. We must take them by surprise and wipe them out."

He appointed squad leaders, and we moved off.

What a splendid convalescence! I would have done better to stay in the hospital at Vinnitsa.

After a short time, we saw a series of metal roofs, which must have been part of the factory. But, before we had a chance to give them a second look, a burst of machine-gun fire broke the silence. One of the S.S. men shouted: "We've got you, you bastards! You might as well give up!"

It looked as though the Russian partisans we'd caught in the village had given this place away under pressure. There were some more shots, and then the familiar clatter of Russian machine guns coming from the edge of the buildings. Another fellow and I threw ourselves down under a small tree, whose snow-laden branches touched the ground. We heard whistles ordering us to advance, but for the moment I stayed where I was. It would be too stupid to get knocked off by a handful of terrorists. The other fellow muttered in my ear:

"The bastards! We've really got them this time! Now we'll teach them to blow up trains!"

After five minutes of hard fighting, German soldiers began to stand up all around us. We had taken about ten more Russian prisoners. Some were singing a Russian song of vengeance, but most were begging for mercy. About thirty S.S. men were herding them toward the truck, already beating them and shouting questions. We thought everything was over, when the S.S. captain blew his whistle to fall in.

"Those bastards," he said, gesturing at the sobbing prisoners, "claim they're the only ones here. Maybe they think they can fool us and protect their friends who are still hiding inside, but I want you to clear the place." He pointed at the factory buildings. "We've got to take the whole bunch, and all the weapons they're hiding there."

Of course, there was no question of argument. With dry mouths, we moved forward into the factory buildings, which were littered with hundreds of large objects-ideal for snipers and as bad as possible for us. The relatively large size of our force was in no way reassuring. Even if we overwhelmed the partisans in the end, each bullet they fired was bound to hit someone, and if I should happen to be the only casualty in a victorious army of a million men, the victory would be without interest for me. The percentage of corpses, in which generals sometimes take pride, doesn't alter the fate of the men who've been killed.

The only leader I know of who finally made a sensible remark on this point, Adolf Hitler, once said to his troops: "Even a victorious army must count its victims."

What was made in this factory lost in the wilderness? Perhaps they processed timber. The first shed housed a large band saw, and farther on we passed several others, as well as a kind of dredging machine with a string of rusty scoops. The first two sheds were empty. Perhaps the prisoners had been telling the truth. But our orders were to check the whole place. Our group surrounded the entire factory complex, and then began to move toward the center. We passed through a series of enormous barn-like buildings which seemed to be on the point of collapse. They had never been painted, and every iron fixture was half eaten away by rust, like the old anchor chains at a port.

The wind was blowing hard, and the buildings echoed with sinister creaking sounds. Otherwise, everything was quiet, except for an occasional clatter made by one of our men deliberately shoving aside some metal object, or overturning a pile of crates.

About eight of us had moved into the darkness of a building littered with a jumble of miscellaneous clutter. There were no windows, and consequently there was almost no light. Then we all heard a series of clicking sounds. But the wind blowing through the building filled the air with the bangings and clickings of loose boards and tiles. Although everyone understood that theoretically each moment might be our last, no one really accepted that idea, and no one took any special precautions. Outside, the S.S. must have cornered several Russians. We heard a series of shots and cries, and sounds of running and shouting. Suddenly, our shed was filled with the noise of explosions. Five or six flares thrown from a room or closet in an upper story lit the darkness, and almost simultaneously four of our companions screamed with pain. A moment later, two of them had collapsed onto the dusty floor, while the other two staggered toward the open door. The rest of us looked hastily for shelter, stumbling through the darkness, uncertain of where we might find cover. There were several more shots, and somewhere to my right two more soldiers howled with pain. My gun shuddered violently in my hands. A bullet had struck it in the butt, taking a piece with it, and missing me by inches. The two fellows trying to get to the door were both hit again, but neither of them fell until they had reached a drift of white snow which the wind had blown over the threshold. Outside, more soldiers had run up, but they stopped at the door and fired a few shots which were far more likely to hit one of us than any partisan. There were two of us still unhurt, and we began to shout as if we were fifty. Some idiot might think of tossing in a grenade, which would finish us off along with all the Russians. Luckily, someone heard us in time to think of another tactic. While our comrades outside tried to break through the corrugated iron walls, the Russians inside were firing at every detectable movement. The bullets, which pierced the flimsy walls, were as dangerous to our men outside as they were to us. I was half dead with fright.

Was I going to be the last German soldier left in that damned shack? I knew that at least one other comrade was hiding somewhere. I felt even more caught in a vise of terror and danger than I had at Belgorod. I bit my lips to keep from screaming. Our men outside were pressing in, about to blow the building apart, while inside the Russians were perched in the rafters as silent as spiders. From where I lay, I could see nothing. Suddenly I heard a scratching noise behind me, somewhere between a haphazard pile of objects and an upright support. I froze as still as the large glazed pipe behind which I was hiding. The uproar outside prevented me from distinguishing anything clearly. I tried deliberately to extend my hearing beyond the limit of its capacity, and caught a series of scratching sounds, some very faint, some a little louder. I held my breath until my lungs were on the point of bursting, and tried to stop the pounding of my heart. My brain was teeming with horrible possibilities. I saw myself dead or a prisoner of the partisans, who would use me in an attempt to escape from our noose. I was overwhelmed with an intensity of panic greater than anything I had ever felt before, which was suddenly replaced by a savage passion of self-preservation. Trembling with terror and rage, I abruptly stopped thinking.

Some supplementary sense informed me that danger had drawn very close.

Had I been a millionaire, I would have staked my entire fortune on the certainty that someone was moving on the other side of the barrier which concealed me. I felt very much alone and desperate and determined to defend myself at any price. Suddenly I saw a man no more than five yards from me. I felt my skin crawl. Then a second man appeared behind him, crawling toward a pile of sacks. Although they had both been in shadow, I had seen enough to recognize civilian clothes. The one nearest me was wearing a large cap. His silhouette remains indelibly stamped on my memory. He was tall and looked strong. He froze for a moment and appeared to be inspecting the shadows. Then he moved a few steps away from me. As slowly and silently as sand running through an hour glass, I raised my gun until it was pointing at him. I knew that there was still one bullet left in the barrel, so I didn't have to move the bolt. Tightening every nerve, I tried to suppress the trembling which made my gestures uncertain. I knew that at the slightest sound the other fellow would let me have it. Luckily, there was plenty of noise outside, which divided his attention. My gun was now level, and my finger lay nervously against the trigger. Then I hesitated for a moment. It isn't easy to kill a man in cold blood, unless one is entirely heartless or, as I was, numb with fear. The man changed his course a little, and began to move slowly toward my hiding place. His companion was scarcely visible now, and must have been some twenty yards away from us.

I could hear the man breathing as he approached. For a moment, perhaps, he distinguished a figure crouching in the shadows, or glimpsed a dull metallic gleam. For a tenth of a second, perhaps, he hesitated. Then a sudden glow of brilliant light blinded him, and he collapsed in the dust, his belly torn open by the shot fired from the weapon which still quivered in my sweat-drenched hands. The other Russian had run off, leaving his companion dead at my feet. I felt as if my skull enclosed a black void, and that a nightmare enclosed me, like a fever. As the noise outside grew louder, I felt myself sinking into a pit of unimaginable depth. I was torn between the desire to flee and my paralyzing fear. I stared at the corpse lying face down on the ground in front of me. I couldn't really believe I had killed him, and waited for the tide of blood which would soon begin to seep from beneath his body. Nothing else mattered to me. The weight of the drama which had just occurred was so overwhelming that I could only stare at the motionless body.

Suddenly a piece of the wall collapsed. The soldiers outside had managed to pull off a section of corrugated sheeting, and the glare of full daylight somehow diminished the importance of what had happened. The sight of other German soldiers entering the building snapped me from my lethargy. I even distinguished the S.S. captain, who had just joined them, ducking down behind a piece of crumpled metal. He was facing me, at a distance of about twenty yards.

"Anyone still alive in here?" he shouted. I waved a hand, and he saw me. I knew that there was still at least one Russian in the building, and I didn't want to attract too much attention to myself. Another German, who must have been as terrified as I was, shouted from somewhere deeper in the ruins: "Over here, Kameraden. I've got a wounded man, too."

"Don't move yet," the captain shouted back. "We're going to clear out the rest of the Popovs."

He had just spotted the dead man, lying almost at my feet. We heard the sound of an engine, which was rapidly growing louder. From my hiding place, I could see a black machine-gun carrier rolling across the snow. A moment later, it was thrusting through the hole in the wall, with an S.M.G. pointing from its turret. A powerful headlight lit up the shed, and soldiers crouched beside the vehicle were aiming their guns at the interior. The beam of light passed over me for a moment, and a shiver ran down my spine. I could almost imagine the faces of the waiting Russians, contorted with terror. In the doorway, beside the two German bodies, I could see other German soldiers regrouping.

The hauptmann shouted: "Surrender, or we'll shoot you down like rats!"

There was no answer. Then a cry of terror rang out from the dimly lit rafters, like the cry I had fought back in myself a few moments before. The heavy machine gun began its slaughter. Each explosion echoed through the shed as if it would blow it apart. The bullets themselves were explosive and ripped open the roof, letting in new streams of daylight. All the German soldiers outside were firing into the rafters, where some fifteen Russian terrorists were still hiding. I doubled over onto the floor, and pressed my hands against my ears, trying to deaden the sound. Directly overhead, I could hear Russian machine guns. Once again, there were bloodcurdling screams, and a body fell to the floor with the heavy thud of a quarter carcass thrown down onto the butcher's block. The S.M.G. demolished the rest of the roof, and full daylight flooded in, destroying the partisans' last hope of invisibility and escape. Another fell to the floor as the rest began a frantic attempt to scramble away through the twisted metal supports overhead. Some dropped to the floor, others clung to the rafters. In the end, all were killed, and our deaths on the train were avenged. The place filled with German soldiers, and I was able to leave my hideout. I was covered with dust, and even found pieces of debris between my belt and my coat.

We marched back to the village singing:

Märkische Heide,

Märkische Sand,

Sind des Märkers Freude,

Sind mein Heimatland.. . .

We were still the masters, and no one under heaven could judge us.

The S.S. took over the few prisoners who had surrendered before the massacre and loaded them into their trucks, which then drove off down the road that had brought us here. We were ordered to fall in by threes, By the time we reached the village, the crowd that had watched us leave was gone, which was a relief.

The S.S. task force gave each of us a slip of paper to explain the delay in our return to our units. We were advised to rejoin the wrecked train immediately. No one regretted leaving that place, with its miserable memories. Unfortunately, a final spectacle, as depressing as anything we'd seen in the shed, was unfolding just as we marched by. A firing squad was performing its duties. Four consecutive salvos rang out, each one disposing of four partisans. Their bodies were left on the snow, and the squad marched back to the village. Not one of us said a word. At least a hundred of our soldiers had been summarily killed in the derailment and the disintegration of some of the cars. An officer spoke to us briefly about the tragedy we'd just witnessed. The partisans were held responsible for everything that had happened. Also, partisans were not eligible for the consideration due to a man in uniform. The laws of war condemned them to death automatically, without trial.

We spent the night on the motionless train. I was able to sleep only fitfully and with difficulty. Each time I closed my eyes, I was caught in a hideous nightmare. A huge stone rose up in front of me, and from beneath it a flood of dark, blackish blood flowed toward my feet, burning them as it touched.

The next day was piercingly cold. We joined another train which came to our rescue farther down the line, and settled down to listen to the penetrating clang of the wheels on the rails. We stared out at the tundra, buried under deep snow. From time to time the monotony was broken by a distant horizon marked by pine-covered hills. Once again, the vastness of this countryside, untouched by any human life, filled us with a sense of constraint. The idea of space, the conception of immensity, could not be more perfectly expressed than by this scenery designed for giants. Could anyone possibly control this country? Could we? Could the N.K.V.D.?

We arrived at Vinnitsa that evening. An air-raid alert had disorganized the traffic, and the station was overflowing with soldiers in long winter coats. At that time, the Gross Deutschland division was partly based in the town, and the military police were able to direct me to its command post. I was surprised by the efficiency of divisional organization. With only the name and number of my company, they were able to give me its precise location. I was horrified to learn that we had returned to the front, and, along with twenty other companies, were occupying a zone some three hundred miles from Vinnitsa. I was given a precise district and the number of the sector. I had mentally prepared myself for a reunion with my friends, huddled around some blazing Russian hearth, discussing my canceled leave and the possibilities of getting it revalidated. Instead, we were destined to meet in some frozen trench, in conditions of misery and danger. This misfortune overwhelmed me with the force of a stupefying blow. I stood, motionless and stunned, in front of the stabsfeldwebel who had just checked my name on the list. He would have paid me no other attention, but was suddenly struck by something about my appearance.

"What's the matter?" he said. "Are you sick?"

I was too numb to think of a suitable answer, so I told him the truth.

"I was just beginning a convalescence leave, Herr Stabsfeldwebel, and it was canceled at Lublin."

"The fatherland is living through a time of serious trial, young man," he answered after a short pause.

"You are not the only one to be deprived of a well-earned rest. The men who have gone through here before you and those coming after you are all in your situation."

I was about to remark that this was in fact my official convalescence when he came on the paper from the S.S. hauptmann.

"I see that you recently distinguished yourself in an encounter with partisans," he said. "My congratulations. I shall include that information in your dossier, and your company commander will undoubtedly promote you."

Despite my nervous exhaustion, I smiled for a moment.

"I am very pleased, Herr Stabsfeldwebel," I said in a semi-sincere, semi-official tone.

"And I am equally pleased for you," he answered, holding out his hand.

I left with some thirty others in the same plight as myself, my mind torn by conflicting thoughts and feelings.

However, we were sent to spend the night in a warm and comfortable house which had been turned into a military dormitory. There weren't enough beds, but every room was heated, and the floors were thickly carpeted. We all slept well, despite our anxiety about the immediate future.

We had all learned to use waiting periods for sleep whenever we could, simply to stop thinking and lapse into unconsciousness. Reflection added nothing to such times except increased awareness of the misery that weighed on the world. Sleep, on the other hand helped in many ways: it blotted out the present, and revived one's strength. It seemed most unfortunate that one couldn't store up a surplus of its benefits to use in future emergencies when sleep would be impossible.

We spent most of that night and the next twenty-four hours asleep or dozing, interrupting our rest only for meals. During the second night, we were finally dragged from our torpor by a noncom who led us to the trucks which were to take us to our positions. The brutal winter cold fell onto our backs with the shock of a poorly regulated shower. Winter had arrived in full strength, coating everything with a bluish glitter. Roll was called, and we boarded the trucks.

Before daybreak, we arrived at a village of huts which had been built by the engineers. We were ordered out of the trucks and offered an ersatz drink which was kept hot through the day in three large kettles. The cold was piercing, and revived all our memories of the previous winter: the shivering mornings, the cold, which became an almost unbearable torture, the impossibility of washing, the lice, and the thousand other elements which made life insupportable. Everything smelled of the war, and every face was stamped with urgent anxiety. Large holes, which suggested air raids, also implied that matters were not entirely under control in this sector.

About fifty of us were rejoining units in sectors separated by as much as forty or fifty miles. We were divided into four groups, each of which was given mail and the supplies requested by particular companies. Then we were shown our approximate routes, and a noncom informed us in a tone of triumph that we would have to cover at least twenty miles.

We began our march, through a chain of long snowy valleys. A network of heavy defenses extended for about a half mile around the center we had just left: anti-tank guns, minefields, which we were careful to avoid, and innumerable nests of machine guns. Beyond us, wild, empty country stretched out into infinity, hardened by winter, and favorable to any kind of hostile surprise. As soon as we left the last line of defenses, we knew we were on ground which belonged to whoever was walking across it at any moment, and which could change hands from day to day. The front in this sector was never precisely drawn, but was more like a piece of lace embroidery, with a multitude of recesses which sheltered ambushes, and encounters more or less foreseen, and unpredictable clashes.

One of the men in our group was a new recruit, very young and tall and stringy, like a weed that has grown too fast in a spell of damp weather. His enormous gazelle-like eyes stared at the anonymous vastness of the landscape, which he was clearly incapable of absorbing. He was visibly affected by the loss of his native dimensions: the short vistas of the Rhineland had never led him to suspect that such a huge scale was possible.

A year ago, I had felt the same way.

The cold, which had turned dry after ten days of snow and cloudy skies, made the landscape into a white screen against which darker objects were startlingly visible. The wind of the preceding days had swept across the snow, piling it up against every barrier, filling in hollows, and leaving brown patches of bare soil in other places, like great stains. As long as we didn't have to make any excessive detours, we preferred to follow the bare patches. Every hour, we stopped for a short rest.

Five or six planes flew by to the south. We froze for a minute, trying to discern their purpose, but they vanished over the horizon before we were able to distinguish whether they were Yaks or ME-109's.

By lunchtime, we were still unsure of our bearings. The noncom responsible for getting us to our destinations claimed that we were moving in the right direction, but his face and voice betrayed his panic.

Country on such a vast scale cannot be trifled with.

One can play explorer in the forest of Fontainebleau, but not on the tundra, where one feels too small and trivial for games. The hostile indifference of nature seems so overwhelming it is almost necessary to believe in God.

We walked for a long time, and finally came to a line of telegraph poles stuck unevenly into the ground. They were following the edge of a road which we could see was in use, as it was deeply marked by fresh ruts.

The noncom decided we should take the road to the south, as the quickest way of finding our units. This seemed odd, as it was clear that we would be proceeding perpendicular to our previous direction. However, no one hesitated. We had long ago learned that it was useless to argue points which had lost all meaning. We also felt heavily oppressed by the prospect of a night in the open-the first of a long series which would require all the patience and endurance we could muster. For a fraction of a second the thought of my wrecked leave flared through my consciousness like a shooting star in the night sky. I swallowed hard, and everything sank back into uniform gray.

The weedy young recruit remained speechless. His astonished eyes moved from the snowy steppe to the faces of the experienced veterans we seemed to be. Trusting us as a shepherd trusts the stars, he plodded dutifully on.

We suddenly caught sight of a massive object buried in the snow about five hundred yards ahead of us. A long gun barrel poked through the white crust, and we realized we were facing a camouflaged tank. Of course, it was one of ours, otherwise we would all have been dead. The Panther was buried up to its turret, and behind it two or three bulges indicated bunkers. Suddenly a fellow appeared on top of the tank, wearing a sheepskin vest over his black tank-corps uniform. He jumped down and walked out to meet us, shouting his name. We did the same, according to the custom of the times. He told us that when his tank had broken down he had been ordered to half bury it and turn it into a blockhouse. With considerable difficulty, he and the eight other men with him had carried out the order. Separated from their armored unit by the force of circumstances, they had been standing guard over this vast, empty panorama for three weeks now. Once in that time some Russians had come by, but the tank's two S.M.G.s had forced them to pass far to one side. This accident had transformed them into an official surveillance post, and they were due to be relieved in two weeks' time. They had been there for three weeks already, and admitted that it was difficult to sleep really soundly at night.

"Where is the front?" our noncom asked.

"More or less everywhere," the other said. "And mostly mobile units. In the evenings, convoys come through on the track. They never have their lights on, and every time it scares us to death. A plane knocked our radio out, so we're completely cut off. It's enough to drive a fellow mad."

"We're supposed to be rejoining our units," the noncom explained. "Do you think we've still got far to go?"

"Well, the front is certainly five or ten miles east of here. But it's very fluid. It's impossible to be exact."

We all felt extremely perplexed.

"Let's go along that way," our guide said finally. "We're bound to find something."

The tank crew watched us go with regret. With darkness, which fell earlier than we had expected, accompanied by a heavy fog, we arrived at the precarious approximation of a front which existed in that sector. A few arbitrarily disposed Paks emerged from the darkness, and a sentry, green with terror, shouted, "Wer da?" in a trembling voice. The same terror made our noncom squeak an incomprehensible reply. Our preservation from the guns of our own men could only be laid to a simple collapse of vigilance. A frozen, ill-tempered soldier led us to the company commander.

"The Russians come through this way from any direction," he said as we walked along.

"It's pretty demoralizing, and unless the front is stabilized again, it'll go on this way, as far as I can see. Anyway, the regiment you're looking for isn't around here."

We ran into the company commander, a captain, coming up from a candle-lit hole. He looked old and ill. His long overcoat was thrown carelessly over his shoulders, and his chest was covered by a thick, pale scarf which stood out against the gray green of his uniform. He wore a forage cap instead of a helmet. We snapped to attention out of habit. The officer studied our map, trying to find some helpful directions he might give us. He seemed bewildered. The map included very few details, which made it almost as easy to get lost on paper as it was on the ground. He made some deductions in the light of a pocket flashlight, and decided to send us to the northeast. As the regiments were disposed, ours must be in that direction. This seemed a long way from the orderly procedures of the Gross Deutschland office in Vinnitsa.

Despite the exhaustion of the long, painful march on which we had been engaged since dawn, we set off again, into the icy, foggy darkness. Three-quarters of an hour later, some fellows in a company buried in that white desert huddled a little closer in their shelter to make room for us. We had to stop, or we might have been lost for good. The acid, almost palpable fog burned our throats and made every effort excessively painful. We managed to fall asleep despite the cold, which, as always, was much harder to bear at the beginning of the season, before our bodies were used to it. Outside, in the trenches, the sentries were stamping up and down to keep from freezing on their feet. The veil of fog wrapped them round completely, cutting them off from everything that lay beyond their parapets.

We spent a harassed night of half sleep. Despite the lamp-heaters and the canvas stretched across the mouth of our shelter, the cold, still only relative at the beginning of the season, was severe enough to make us feel half frozen. The thermometer must have fallen to as low as fifteen degrees, and the fog poured in, almost as thick as outdoors. The troops passed the time as best they could, either sunk in sleep despite the discomfort, or playing Skat, or writing home with a pen precariously balanced between numbed fingers. The candles, on which they had been ordered to economize as much as possible, were stuck into empty tins which caught the melting wax, prolonging their lives by as much as four or five times. The memory of those bunkers buried in the wildness of the steppe still haunts my memory, like a legendary tale heard in childhood.

The demoralizing dawn cold greeted us as we left the hole. Silently, we resumed our march and our search. Everything was quiet, as if paralyzed by the cold, as dangerous an enemy as the Red Army. For a long time, we walked parallel to a frieze of barbed wire, coated with frost. The fog, which had not yet lifted, clung to the wire in minute drops which froze instantly.

Toward the end of the morning, two-thirds of our group at last found their regiment, whose officers were able to tell us the approximate positions of the other two regiments we still had to find. More precisely, for the sixteen of us still at loose ends, we were looking for two regiments and three companies-the young recruit and I, for example, belonged to separate companies-and the weather was no help. The inescapable necessity of trial and error added a considerable number of miles to our progress. We grew increasingly angry. How could our instructions have been so vague? Organizational failure of this kind were particularly hard on German troops, who were accustomed to the utmost efficiency. In fact, the centers of responsibility had practically ceased to exist. The extraordinarily tight army organization, which had functioned so superbly in Poland and France and all the smaller countries invaded by the Wehrmacht, was lost in the immensity of Russia, where the front was nearly fifteen hundred miles long. Our rapidly dwindling transport capability further complicated the situation during the terrible winter, which was to be followed by only one more.

Our group of sixteen men was made up of fourteen fellows belonging to one unit; myself, attached to another; and the tall young recruit, who was looking for still a third. To be exact, he and I belonged to two separate companies in the same regiment.

Just before dark, the main group of fourteen ran into their unit unexpectedly, as had the others. The young fellow and I were left to fend for ourselves on the icy track already packed hard by endless comings and goings. Feverish with anxiety, we pursued our tentative route, passing through a half-deserted hamlet. The few soldiers occupying it, dressed as they pleased, or as they could, stared at us in silence. We felt embarrassed and frightened.

According to our instructions, we were to keep on to the northeast. As long as there was any light, we tried to fix reference points on the slightest hollow or hump in the ground, on features more imaginary than real, which we projected onto the infinite monotony. We kept the earthworks and trenches of the front on our right. However, the fog soon reduced the possibilities of navigation to nil.

Despite my youth, it seemed that circumstances required me to assert myself. The other fellow was looking at me with wild, questioning eyes. I suggested digging a hole deep enough to cover with our two canvases to make a shelter for the night. This idea terrified my companion, who wanted to keep going.

"Our regiment must be quite close now," he said.

"You're crazy," I said. "We can't keep on like this. We'll only get completely lost, and then the wolves will eat us."

"Wolves?"

"Yes, wolves. And there are plenty of other things about Russia even worse than that."

"But they could come after us right here, too."

"Of course-if we're in the open. But once we're under canvas they'll leave us alone. And then if they do come, we'll shoot them."

"Well, then it comes to the same thing. And by tomorrow, we won't remember any of the directions."

"We're following a sort of track, aren't we? We'll keep on with it tomorrow, and that's that. Believe me, it's the best thing to do."

I finally persuaded him to do as I said. We had just begun to attack the rock-hard ground with our picks when we heard the sound of an engine.

"A truck!" the young fellow shouted.

"A truck? You're crazy! Don't you hear the treads?" He stared at me. "A tank? Is it a German tank?" "How the hell would I know?"

"But we're behind our lines, aren't we?"

"Oh, for God's sake . . . of course . . . I hope so."

People who need long explanations at moments when everything depends on instinct have always irritated me.

"What are we going to do?" he asked.

"Get the hell off the track, and try to hide in the snow."

I was already moving back. The noise had grown terrible. The tank was nearly on top of us, and was still totally invisible. I know of no other experience which twists the guts harder than that. We waited for what seemed an eternity before we perceived a squat silhouette sliding smoothly over the ground. The noise was overwhelming. I stared through the darkness, trying to catch some distinguishing details. Finally, drawn by an inexplicable force, I got up, and moved forward cautiously, leaving my astonished companion to his own devices. After a moment, he joined me, staring at me with anguished, questioning eyes.

"It's a Tiger-one of ours. We've got to try and catch it." "Let's run after it!"

"We have to be careful, though. They might think we're Russians." "But if we catch up with them they could take us along." "Exactly."

We began to shout like madmen, running after the tank with some anxiety, but as hard as we could. The noise of its engines drowned our voices, and it passed us by.

"Grab your things," I yelled at the recruit. "We've got to gallop behind them. We've got to catch them."

We began to run along the ruts left by the treads. Although the tank was moving slowly, it was still going faster than we could run. We were already gasping for breath. I quickly realized that we were never going to catch it, and that we would have to take a chance. I grabbed my Mauser and fired into the fog, into which the tank had almost disappeared. This, of course, was extremely dangerous. The tank crew might think they were being attacked and let us have it with their machine guns.

The tank stopped. They must have heard the shot. We shouted, "Kamerad!" as loudly as we could. The engine was idling, and was making much less noise. We heard someone from the turret: "Was ist da?"

We rushed forward, drawing on all our strength. We were now very close. The fellow in the turret must surely have had his finger on the trigger.

"Only two of you?" he yelled when he could see us.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"We're trying to find our unit, Kamerad. We're lost."

"I'm not surprised. We're lost too."

We noticed with relief that he was wearing a white helmet stenciled with tiger stripes-which meant that he belonged to the Gross Deutschland. We explained our situation, and they pulled us into the tank. "You're both Gross Deutschland?"

"Yes."

The interior of the tank, which seemed to be painted with orange lead, was filled with the dim, yellowish light of a metal mechanic's lamp which hung from the ceiling. There were two fellows in the turret, and - probably a couple more up front. The engine made so much noise that it was almost impossible to talk, but it warmed the air agreeably, and filled it with the smell of hot oil and exhaust.

Despite the ample dimensions of the turret, the steering gear and ammunition cases took up so much room it was a squeeze to fit us in. The tank commander was keeping his eyes and ears open, thrusting his head from the turret at closely spaced intervals. He wore a thick winter hat which looked quite Russian.

The tank crew told us that they too were looking for their unit. Some engine trouble had held them up for nearly two days. Now they were trying to orient themselves by the batteries and companies they passed a dangerous business, because a solitary tank is like a blinded animal. They didn't have a radio, and their group leader seemed to be doing nothing about them. Maybe he had already classified them as missing.

They also told us that the new Panzers were coated with a magnetic anti-mine paste, and exterior fire extinguishers. The most dangerous weapon for them was still the rocket launchers which the Russians had perfected after encountering our Panzerfaust.

They said that none of the Russian tanks could stand up to our Tigers. In the spring, on the Rumanian frontier, we would see the Tigers in action for ourselves. The T-37s and KW-85s discovered the Tiger's superiority for themselves, the hard way.

An hour later, the tank stopped.

"A signpost!" shouted the commander. "There must be a camp near here!"

It had begun to snow-large, feathery flakes which clung to every surface. A post bristling with signs loomed unexpectedly out of the darkness. One of the crew brushed the snow off the signs with his gloved hand, and read out the directions. It seemed that the company the young recruit was looking for, along with three or four others, was somewhere to the east. The rest of the regiment was to the northeast, which was the way the tank was headed.

The young soldier who was arriving at the front for the first time had to say goodbye, and walk off alone into the darkness. I can still see the expression of terror on his white face.

Twenty minutes later, we ran into my unit, and the tank crew decided to stop for the night. I jumped down, and went over to a cluster of wretched isbas to ask directions. The long, peaked roofs rose from the ground like large tents. In the command hut, a noncom was sitting at a rough desk made of a couple of boards propped up on boxes, and lit by three candles. As there was no heat, he had thrown a blanket over his coat. He was able to tell me roughly where I could find my company. I found myself moving through a succession of bunkers, foxholes, and trenches, as on my first visit to the front, only these were far more precarious and much shallower than the ones on the Don. The engineers, who were spread very thin on the ground in this sector, had done what they could, but most of the work had been left to the picks of the exhausted infantry. Winter had begun in earnest. The ground was frozen hard, and from now on things could only get worse.

I kept asking questions, and finally a fellow from liaison took me to our officers' bunker. The sentry at the entrance inspected me narrowly before pulling back the canvas, astonished to see an ordinary soldier escorted like an officer.

Wesreidau was not asleep. A short pipe which had gone out jutted from the high collar which hid most of his face. He was bare-headed, and seemed to be studying a map. Two lamp-heaters lit the hole, but didn't have much of an effect on the cold. At the back of the dugout, a man was lying on the ground, dead asleep. A lieutenant, sitting on a pack, was also sleeping, with his head in his hands. Captain Wesreidau looked up, to see who had come in. I was about to announce myself when the telephone rang-probably some unimportant report.

A moment later, I began again: "Gefreiter Sajer, Herr Hauptmann." "Back from leave, my boy?"

"Not exactly, Herr Hauptmann. My leave was canceled."

"Ah. But you're well now? How do you feel?"

I wanted to tell him how disappointed I was, and how much I still hoped to have at least a few days off, but the words stuck in my throat. I suddenly felt the full strength of my attachment to all the friends who must have been very nearby, an emotion which struck me as both idiotic and profound.

"I'm all right, Herr Hauptmann. I can wait until my next leave." Wesreidau stood up. Although I couldn't really see his face, I thought he was smiling. He put one hand on my shoulder, and I felt myself tremble at his touch.

"I'll take you to your friends. I know that being with friends can make up for the lack of a comfortable bed, even for the lack of food."

I felt stunned. Herr Hauptmann led the way out, and I followed him.

"I always try to group my men as friends," he explained. "Wiener, Hals, Lensen, and Lindberg are covering a Pak position. They'll be glad to see you again."

Wesreidau's tall figure strode through the ghostly fog, which drifted against the darkness in white patches. As we passed, fellows stupefied by sleep stumbled to their feet, and noncoms signaled that everything was calm.

We came to a hole which was somewhat deeper than the others, and which seemed to be occupied by three hunched-up sacks, and two figures leaning against the parapet. I recognized the veteran's voice immediately.

"Welcome to our hole, Herr Hauptmann. We'll be able to talk tonight. Everything's quiet."

The familiarity of that voice astonished me.

Wesreidau said: "Here's Sajer, who's just come back."

"Sajer! I don't believe it! I thought he was living it up in Berlin."

"I felt lonesome for you fellows," I said.

"That's a good boy," the veteran answered. "You're quite right, too. Here we sometimes even have fireworks, and in Berlin it's total blackout. I remember that from the last time I was there, over a year and a half ago."

I could hear Hals grumbling sleepily: "What the hell's going on up there?"

"Wake up, steppe boy," Wiener shouted even louder than before.

"Herr Hauptmann is here with our dear friend Sajer."

Hals jumped up as if he'd been shot.

"Sajer!" he said. "But he's crazy to come back here!"

Wesreidau felt obliged to make a formal intervention. "If I wasn't aware of your courage in combat, I should be forced to assign you to a penal battalion, Gefreiter Hals."

Hals was suddenly fully awake.

"Please excuse me, Herr Hauptmann. I was half asleep." "Your sleep is pessimistic, Gefreiter Hals."

The veteran answered for him. "The day before yesterday, the Don; yesterday, the Donets; this morning, the Dnieper . . . You must admit, Herr Hauptmann, that even an elephant hide would find that somewhat discouraging."

"I know," Wesreidau answered. "It's just what I've been afraid of ever since we came to Russia. But if we lose our confidence everything will be much harder."

"It's territory and men that we're losing, Herr Hauptmann, much faster than confidence."

"The Russians will not be able to cross the Pripet, for absolute geographical reasons. Believe me."

"Where could we retreat to after that?" Lindberg asked stupidly. "To the Oder," the veteran said.

The cold seemed to strike all of us in the vitals.

"God keep us from such a catastrophe," murmured Herr Hauptmann. "I would rather be dead than see that day."

Probably Wesreidau believed in God. In any case, his prayer was granted.