THE MARCH TO THE REAR

From the Don to Kharkov

First Spring First Retreat

The Donetz Battle

For three or four more days, we were involved in occupations of more or less the same kind. The snow was melting everywhere, and the cold was lessening as rapidly as it had increased-which seemed to be the way of Russian seasons. From implacable winter one was shifted into torrid summer, with no spring in between. The thaw did not improve our military situation, but made it worse. The temperature rose from five degrees below zero to forty degrees above, melting the unimaginable ocean of snow which had accumulated all winter.

Enormous pools of water and swampy patches appeared everywhere in the partly melted snow. For the Wehrmacht, which had endured the horrors of five winter months, this softening of the temperature fell like a blessing from heaven. With or without orders, we took off our filthy overcoats and began a general cleanup. Men plunged naked into the icy waters of these temporary ponds for the sake of a wash. No gunfire disturbed the tranquil air, which was sometimes even sunny.

The war itself, whose indefinable presence we still felt, seemed to have grown less savage. I had made the acquaintance of a sympathetic fellow, a noncom in the engineers, whose section was temporarily billeted in the hut opposite ours. He came from Kehl, right across the Rhine from

Strasbourg, and knew France better than his own country. He spoke perfect French. My conversations with him, which were always in French, were like rest periods after the painstaking gibberish I was forced into with my other companions. Hals often joined us to improve his French in the same way I tried to improve my German.

Ernst Neubach-my new friend-seemed to be a born engineer. He had no equal in his ability to knock a few old boards into a shelter as weatherproof as one a fully-equipped mason might build. He made a shower from the gas tank of a large tractor, and it functioned miraculously, with a lamp-heater continuously warming its forty gallons of water. The first men to use this shower unfortunately received a tepid downpour of water flavored with gasoline. Although we rinsed the tank repeatedly, the water remained tainted for a long time.

In the evenings waiting to use the shower there was always a crowd of shouting, pushing men which often included our superiors. Priority was awarded to whoever produced the largest number of cigarettes, or a portion of the bread ration. Our feldwebel, Laus, once paid three hundred cigarettes. The showers always began after the five-o'clock meal and continued late into the night in an atmosphere of rowdy horseplay. Those who got through the showers first often found themselves tossed onto their backsides in the liquid mud which flooded the outskirts of the camp. Here we had no curfew or other barracks regulations. Once all the day's work was done, we were free to joke and drink for the whole night, if we wanted to.

We spent about a week in this way, with quiet, uneventful days. Each fatigue party obliged us to flounder through a sea of increasingly sticky mud. We made three trips back to the front; each time it was unbelievably quiet. On horseback or in carts, we took supplies to our troops, whose laundry was spread out to dry on all the parapets. Across the Don, the Russians appeared to be similarly engaged.

We spoke to a bearded soldier and asked him if everything was going well. He laughed. "The war must be over. Hitler and Stalin have made it up. I've never seen it so calm for so long. The Popovs do nothing but drink all day and sing all night. They have terrific nerve, too, walking around in the open air, right under our guns. Werk saw three of them going to get water from the river, just like that. Didn't you, Werk?" He turned to a sly-faced soldier who was washing his feet in a puddle.

"Yes," Werk said. "We just couldn't shoot them. For once, let's all stick our noses out without getting a bullet between the eyes."

A feeling of joy and hope had begun to take hold. Could the war be over?

"It really might be," Hals said. "The fellows on the front are always the last to be told anything like that. If it's true, we'll know in a few days. You'll see, Sajer. Maybe we'll all be going home soon. We'll have a terrific celebration. It's almost too good to be true!"

"Don't count your chickens before they're hatched," said one of the older men from the Rollbahn. His realism damped us down a little. As usual, we set off down the track-more accurately, canal-of liquid mud which led to our camp. We stopped a moment to talk to Ernst, whose section was trying to restore the track to a usable condition.

"If it goes on this way," he said, "we'll have to take to boats. Two trucks came through here, and the stones we broke our backs shoving into the mud completely disappeared. It must be nice down in the trenches."

"They're in a mess," Hals said. "And their morale is really terrible, too. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they broke up their guns for kindling. Our fellows and the Popovs are having a real spree down there."

"Well let them make the most of it," Ernst said. "There's something funny going on. That radio truck over there is taking messages nonstop. And messengers all the time, too. The last one had to leave his scooter and wade in here to bring the Kommandant his message."

"Maybe it was congratulations for your showers," said Hals.

"That would be fine by me, but I doubt it. When those fellows run around like that, everybody else will too, before you know it." "Defeatist," Hals shouted as we left.

When we got back to the camp, nothing seemed to have changed. We devoured the steaming mess the cook served up and prepared for another evening of larking. Then Laus blew the whistle for assembly.

"Lord," I thought. "Neubach was right. Here we go again."

"I'm not going to say anything about the way you look," Laus said. "Just pack up. We could be moving out of here any time now. Got it?"

"Fuck," someone said. "It was too good to last."

"You didn't think you could just sit here and fart, did you? There's a war on."

"Packing up" meant that we had to be ready for inspection, with our uniforms in impeccable order, and all our straps and buckles polished and fastened in the prescribed manner. At least, that is what it had meant at Chemnitz and Bialystok. Here, of course, that kind of discipline was somewhat relaxed, but it all still depended on the humor of the inspecting officer, who could quibble at anything from the inside of a gun barrel to the state of our toes, and impose heavy details, or endless guard duty.

I could still remember only too well the four hours of punishment handed out to me a few days after I had arrived at Chemnitz. The lieutenant had drawn a circle on the cement of the courtyard, which was fully exposed to the sun. Then I had to put on the "punishment pack"-a knapsack filled with sand, which weighed nearly eighty pounds. I weighed one hundred and thirty. After two hours, my helmet was burning hot from the sun, and by the end I needed all my will power to keep my knees from buckling. I had nearly fainted several times. That is how I learned that a good soldier does not cross the barracks yard with his hands in his pockets.

So we rushed to get our gear in order, and frantically polished our sodden leather boots.

"And before we've walked ten yards, all this will be for nothing!" It took us a good hour to make our kit more or less respectable. Then we had another twenty-four before our country holiday on the Don was transformed into a nightmare.

The day after our sprucing-up, I was put on guard duty and given the period from midnight until 2:30 A.M. I had summoned up all my patience, and was standing on the platform of empty munitions cases which had been put there so the sentry wouldn't sink into the mud. Beside the platform, a foxhole half filled with water was ready to receive the guard responsible for the stocks of gasoline-in this case, myself.

The night was mild. A rainy wind blew fat white clouds rapidly across the sky, occasionally revealing a large white moon. To my right, the outlines of our vehicles and the camp buildings stood out sharply. Ahead of me, the enormous dark, hilly horizon melted into the sky. As the crow flies, the Don lay about five miles from our first line of German reserves. Between us and the river, some thousands of men were sleeping in conditions of almost unimaginable squalor. The sound of engines came to us on the wind. Both sides used the dark for moving supplies and troops. Two of the sentries patrolling our perimeter came by, and we exchanged the usual formalities. One of the men told a joke. I was about to reply when the whole horizon, from north to south, was suddenly lit by a series of brilliant flashes.

Then there was a second series of flickering intensity, and I thought I felt the earth shake, as the air filled with a sound like thunder. "Lord! It's an attack!" shouted one of the men on patrol. "I think it's them!"

We could already hear whistles in the camp and voices shouting orders through the still-distant noise of explosions. Groups of men went by on the run. Artillerymen who had been asleep were running to their guns on the edge of the abandoned airfield. As no one had told me to leave my post, I stayed where I was, wondering what would be asked of my comrades. A supply expedition through such a heavy bombardment would be an operation of an entirely different kind from the ones we had recently grown used to. The bursts of distant fire continued, mixed with the sound of our guns. Flashes of light, closer and more brilliant than before, turned the groups of men running through pools of water into shadow puppets.

It was as if a giant, in a fit of terrible fury, were shaking the universe, reducing each man to a ludicrous fragment which the colossus of war could trample without even noticing. Despite the relative distance of danger, I bent double, ready to plunge into my water-filled hole at a moment's notice. Two big crawler tractors came toward me, with all their lights out. Their wheels and treads had churned the mud into a kind of liquid sludge. Two men jumped down, and almost disappeared in it.

"Give us a hand, guard," one of them called. They were splattered with mud right up to their helmets.

The bombardment continued to enflame the earth and sky, as we loaded some drums of gasoline onto their machine.

"There's always something to fart in your face," one of them said to me.

"Good luck," I answered.

Further off, the soldiers in my unit were rounding up the nervous, jostling horses, which kept falling in the mud and whinnying frantically. Several times, trucks came to collect drums of gasoline, so that by day break, when my relief hadn't appeared, I wondered how much there was left for me to guard. The bombardment was almost as strong as ever. I felt exhausted and confused. A group of boys from my company came by, led by a sergeant who waved me over to join them. At that moment precisely, one of the first Soviet long-range shells landed about a hundred yards behind us. The explosion shook us, and we all started to run as hard as we could. I didn't ask any questions, but looked in vain for the broad shoulders of Hals.

Other projectiles were now falling on the camp, which was lit up everywhere. We had thrown ourselves onto the ground, and stood up again covered with mud.

"Don't dive like that," said the sergeant. "You're always late. Keep your eye on me, and do what I do."

A significant howl filled our ears, and all twelve of us, the sergeant included, plunged into the liquid mess. An enormous explosion sucked all the air from our lungs, and a simultaneous wave of mud washed over us.

We stood up again, soaked with filth, and wearing the pinched smiles of civilians who climb unscathed from a bad wreck. Three or four more bursts quite nearby forced us down again. Behind us, something was burning. As soon as we could, we ran to the nearest munitions dump.

The sight of this mountain of canvas-covered boxes made our stomachs turn over. If anything hit it, no one within a hundred yards would have a chance.

"Good God," said the sergeant. "There's nobody here. It's incredible."

With no apparent thought of danger, he climbed onto the hill of dynamite, and began to check the numbers on the boxes, which indicated their next destination. We stood and watched him, petrified, like condemned prisoners, with our feet apart, and our heads empty, waiting for orders. Two fellows soaked through, like us, came running up. The sergeant began to shout at them from his eminence. They snapped to attention despite the thunder of the guns.

"Are you supposed to be on duty here?"

"Yes, Herr Sergeant," they answered in unison. "Then where were you?"

"The call of nature," one of them said.

"You went off to crap like that, both of you at once? Idiots! We've got too much trouble here for fun and games. Your names and units." The sergeant had not climbed down.

Silently, I cursed this animal with his niggling discipline, who stood there preparing a report, as if nothing unusual were happening. Fresh explosions which sounded very close threw us all onto the ground except the sergeant, who continued to provoke Providence.

"They're cleaning up our rear," he said. "They must have let loose their goddamned infantry. Get your fat tails up here and help me!"

Half paralyzed by fear, we climbed onto the volcano. The flashes of light all around us lit our bodies in a tragic glare. A few moments later, we were running as hard as we could, oblivious of the weight of the cases, in our anxiety to get away.

Daylight had now begun to rob the spectacle of some of its brilliance. The flashes of light were scarcely visible, and the horizon was shrouded by a dense cloud of smoke, irregularly punctuated by darker plumes. Toward noon, our artillery began to fire. We were still running from job to job, although we were nearly dropping with exhaustion. I can remember sitting in a huge crater which had been dried out by an explosion, staring at the long barrel of a 155 spitting fire with rhythmic regularity. I had found Hals and Lensen, and we were sitting together, with our hands over our ears. Hals was smiling, and nodding at each explosion.

For two days we had practically no sleep. The dance of death continued. We were carrying the growing number of wounded to shelters half filled with water, and laying them on hastily improvised stretchers made of branches. The orderlies administered first aid. Soon these rough infirmaries, filled with the groans of the wounded, were overflowing, and we had to put fresh casualties outside, on the mud. The surgeons operated on the dying men then and there. I saw horrifying things at these collection points-vaguely human trunks which seemed to be made of blood and mud.

On the morning of the third day, the battle intensified. We were all gray with fatigue. The shelling went on until dusk, and then, inside of an hour, stopped. Clouds of smoke were rising all along the battered front. We felt as if we could smell the presence of death-and by this I don't mean the process of decomposition, but the smell that emanates from death when its proportions have reached a certain magnitude. Anyone who has been on a battlefield will know what I mean.

Two of the eight huts that made up our camp had been reduced to ashes. The ones that remained standing were overflowing with wounded. Laus-who had a good heart when the chips were down saw that we were foundering, and allowed us each an hour or two of sleep, as he could. We dropped to the ground wherever we were, as if felled by sleep. When our time was up, and we were shaken awake, we felt as though we'd only been asleep for a few minutes.

With exhaustion threatening to overwhelm us again, we returned to the nightmare of carrying agonized, mutilated men, or laying out rows of horribly burned bodies, which we had to search for their identity tags. These were then sent to the families of the deceased with the citation "Fallen like a hero on the field of honor for Germany and for the Fuhrer."

Despite the thousands of dead and wounded, the last battle fought by the German army on the Don was celebrated the day after the shooting stopped. The mouths of dying men were pried open so that they could toast this Pyrrhic victory with vodka. On a front approximately forty miles long, General Zhukov, with the help of the accursed "Siberia" Army, which had just contributed to the German defeat at Stalingrad, had been trying to break the Don line south of Voronezh. Instead, the furious Russian assaults had broken against our solidly held lines. Thousands of Soviet soldiers had paid with their lives for this abortive effort which had also cost us very dear.

Three-quarters of my company left that evening. The trucks were jammed with wounded, who were lying almost in piles. I was separated from Hals and Lensen for the moment: a separation I never liked. Friendships counted for a great deal during the war, their value perhaps increased by the generalized hate, consolidating men on the same side in friendships which never would have broken through the barriers of ordinary peacetime life. I found myself alone with a couple of men who may have been more or less interesting, but with whom I never had the chance to talk. As soon as I could, I abandoned them for a truck seat on which I attempted to regain some of my strength.

The assembly whistle rang in my ears very early the next morning. I opened my eyes. The truck cab had made an excellent bed, more or less the right size, and I felt at last as though I'd had some sleep. But exhaustion had stiffened my muscles, and despite my sleep, I had a terrible time pulling myself onto my feet. Lining up outside, I saw the same exhausted, disheveled look on almost every face.

Even Laus wasn't feeling particularly energetic: he had slept with his equipment like all the rest of us. He told us that we were going to leave this area for a point farther west. As a preliminary, we should stand by to help the engineers load up, or destroy what we weren't taking with us. We filed past a big kettle from which we were served a hot liquid that made no pretense to being coffee, and went to join the engineers.

We were sent out with donkeys, under orders to range widely, picking up all the ammunition we could find, so that it wouldn't fall into the hands of the enemy. The departure seemed to be general. Long lines of infantry caked with filth were marching away from this sea of mud, to the west. At first we thought we were being replaced, but this proved to be untrue. The entire Wehrmacht along the western bank of the Don had been ordered to withdraw. We couldn't grasp the logic of following a heroic three-day resistance with retreat.

Most of us were unaware that the Eastern Front had entirely changed since January. After the fall of Stalingrad, a strong Soviet push had reached the outskirts of Kharkov, re-crossed the Donetz, and moved on to Rostov, almost cutting the German retreat from the Caucasus. Troops there had been forced to return to the Crimea by way of the Sea of Azov, with heavy losses. Our periodical Ost Front and Panzer Wolfram reported that there had been heavy fighting at Kharkov, Kuban, and even Anapa.

We never heard a frank admission of retreat, and as most soldiers had never studied Russian geography we had very little idea of what was happening. Nevertheless, a glance at any map was enough to inform us that the west bank of the Don was the easternmost German line in Russian territory. Luckily for us, the High Command ordered our retreat before an encirclement from the north and south could cut us off from our bases at Belgorod and Kharkov. The Don was no longer one of our defenses; it had been crossed both in the north and in the south. The thought that we might have been trapped, like the defenders of Stalingrad, still makes my blood run cold.

For two days, the landser* (* Infantry) had been pulling out-either on foot or loaded in trucks. Soon only a small section of the Panzergruppe was left at the nearly empty camp. The passage of vehicles and men had turned the Luftwaffe field into an extraordinary quagmire: thousands of trucks, tanks, tractors, and men rolled and tramped for two days and two nights through terrain running with streams of mud.

We were in the middle of this syrup, trying to reorganize the materiel we had to abandon. The engineers were working with us, preparing to dynamite the ammunition we had heaped against the huts, over the carcasses of eight dismantled trucks. Toward noon, we organized a fireworks display which any municipality might have envied. Carts, sleighs, and buildings were all dynamited and burned. Two heavy howitzers which the tractors hadn't been able to pull from the mire were loaded with shells of any caliber. Then we poured any explosive that came to hand into their tubes, and shut the breech as best we could. The howitzers were split in two by the explosions, scattering showers of lethal shrapnel. We felt exhilarated, filled with the spirit of destructive delight. In the evening, the spandaus stopped a few Soviet patrols, who had undoubtedly come to see what was happening. During our last hour, we were under light artillery fire, which caused us a certain emotion. Then we left.

After the period of light artillery fire, the troops covering the Panzergruppe signaled several enemy penetrations into our former positions. A hasty departure order was given. We were no longer organized to hold off the Russians for any length of time. I was carrying my belongings, looking for a vehicle, when our feld assigned me to a truck we had captured from the enemy which was now carrying our wounded.

"Step on the gas!" he shouted. "We're getting out!"

Every soldier in the Wehrmacht was supposed to know how to drive. I had been given some idea of how to handle military vehicles during my training in Poland, but on machines of a very different kind. However, as one never discussed orders, I jumped into the driver's seat of the Tatra. In front of me, the dashboard presented an array of dials whose needles uniformly pointed down, a few buttons, and a series of words in indecipherable characters. The engineers had just attached the heavy truck to the back of a Mark 4. We would be leaving instantly; it was essential that I get the wretched machine to start. I considered climbing out and confessing my incapacity, but repressed the idea on reflection that they might assign me to something more difficult, or even leave me behind, to get out on my own feet as best I could.

If I couldn't move, I would be captured by the Bolsheviks-a thought which terrified me. I pawed frantically at the dashboard, and was blessed by a miracle. My desperate eye fell on Ernst, who was clearly looking for a lift. I felt saved.

"Ernst!" I shouted. "Over here! I've got room!" My friend joyfully jumped aboard.

"I was ready to hang on to the back of a tank," he said. "Thanks for the seat."

"Ernst," I asked in a voice of supplication. "Do you know how these damned things work?"

"You're a fine fellow, sitting here when you don't know the first thing about it!"

I had no time to explain. The powerful engine of the tank to which we were attached was already roaring. Hurriedly, we pulled at the controls. From the turret, one of the tank men signaled to me to put the truck in gear at the same time as the tank, to reduce the jolt for the wounded. Neubach pulled a lever under the dashboard, and we felt a responding throb from under the hood. I pressed down hard on the accelerator, and the engine made a series of loud bangs.

"Gently," the feld shouted at me. I smiled, nodded, and let up on the pedal. The chain stretched taut, and we increased our speed. How fast were we going? I had no idea. I knew with certainty only that we were not in reverse. The heavy truck took off with a brusque jolt, producing a chorus of groans and curses behind me.

Later on, in France, a pretentious bastard undertook to instruct me on a wretched Renault 4 CV, with all the airs of a commander of an ocean liner. I had to sit through a course of ludicrous demonstrations to receive a scrap of pink paper declaring me competent to drive an automobile. I didn't waste any time explaining that I had driven through Russia on a track which was more like a river than a road, fastened to a huge tank whose jolts were a constant threat to the front of my machine, which I felt certain would be wrenched off.

He would never have believed me. By that time I belonged to the Victorious Allies, who were all heroes, like every French soldier I met after the war. Only victors have stories to tell. We, the vanquished, were all cowards and weaklings by then, whose memories, fears, and enthusiasms should not be remembered.

The first night of retreat was complicated by a fine rain, which required of Ernst and me the agility and balance of acrobats simply to keep our Tatra in the wake of the Mark-4. Without the tank, we would never have been able to escape from that swamp. The driver stepped on the accelerator in fits of irritation, dragging the Tatra, which threatened to disintegrate. The tank treads churned the ground into a heavy syrup, which the rain thinned into soup. The windshield became completely caked with mud, and Ernst waded through the liquid ground to scrape it away with his hands.

The blacked-out headlight had been left with only a narrow strip uncovered. Within a few minutes this strip was sealed by mud, so that we had no light at all. I couldn't even see the back of the tank, although it was no more than five yards ahead of us. Our truck, more often than not at an oblique angle to the tank, was constantly being pulled back into line by the tightly stretched chain. Each time this happened, I wondered if we still had our front wheels.

Behind us, the wounded had stopped moaning. Maybe they were all dead-what difference did it make! The convoy moved ahead, and daylight dawned on faces haggard with exhaustion. During the night, the convoy had spread out. It no longer seemed to matter whether we were ahead of schedule or behind. The driver of our Panzer suddenly turned off to the right, leaving the track, which had become impassable even for a tank, and drove straight up the scrub-covered bank, crushing the sodden birches under his treads.

Our truck, whose wheels by this time were balls of mud, was pulled forward, while its engine rattled helplessly. Then everything came to a complete halt. This was the second stop since our departure. We had stopped once in the night to gas up. The poor bastards on the back of the tank jumped down among the broken branches. Their backsides had been burning all night on the hot metal over the engine, while the rest of their bodies froze in the cold rain. An exchange of shouted abuse which was nearly a fight broke out at once between a noncom in the engineers and the Panzerfuhrer. Everyone else took advantage of this opportunity to crap and eat.

"One hour's rest!" shouted the noncom, who had taken on himself the leadership of the group. "Make the most of it!"

"Fuck you," shouted the Panzerfuhrer, who had no intention of being pushed around by some half-baked engineer.

"We'll leave when I've had enough sleep."

"We have to get to Belgorod this morning," the noncom said in a steely voice. He undoubtedly nourished dreams of being an officer. Then, putting his hand on the Mauser which hung at his side, he added: "We'll leave when I give the order. I've got the highest rank here, and you'll obey me."

"Shoot me if you like, and drive the tank yourself. I haven't slept in two days, and you're going to leave me the hell alone."

The other flushed crimson, but said nothing. Then he turned to us. "You two! Instead of standing there asleep on your feet, get into the truck and help the wounded. They have their needs, too."

"That's it," added the tank driver, who was clearly looking for trouble. "And, when they're finished, the Herr Sergeant will wipe their asses."

"You watch it, or I'll report you," snorted the sergeant. He was now white with rage.

Inside the truck, the wounded had not died, despite the jolting of the journey. They were no longer making any noise, and we could see that some of their bandages were soaked with fresh blood. Fighting the exhaustion which made our hearts race, we helped them down and back as best we could-omitting only one man, who was missing both legs. They all asked us for something to drink, and in our ignorance we gave them as much water or brandy as they wanted. We certainly shouldn't have done this: two men died a short time later.

We buried them in the mud, with sticks and their helmets to mark their graves. Then Ernst and I curled up in the cab, to try to snatch a little sleep. But sleep wouldn't come, and we lay instead, with throbbing temples, talking of peace. Two hours later, it was the tank driver who gave the order to depart, as he had predicted. It was now midmorning. The day was clear and bright, and large chunks of snow fell slowly from the trees.

"Hah!" he said. "Our general left us all while we were asleep. Maybe he felt like taking a walk!"

It seemed that the noncom really was gone. He must have managed a ride in one of the trucks that had passed us during our rest.

"That shit has gone to make his report!" shouted the tank driver. "If I catch up with him, I'll drive right over him, flatten him out like a goddamned Bolshevik!"

It took us a while to extricate ourselves from the bank we had driven into. However, two hours later we arrived at a hamlet whose name I no longer remember, some five miles from Belgorod. It was filled with soldiers from every branch of the army. The few streets were perfectly straight, and lined with low houses; the way the roofs sat on the walls reminded me of heads with no foreheads, whose hair grows right into the eyebrows. There were swarms of soldiers, and a multitude of rolling equipment covered with mud, pushing through the shouting mob of soldiers, most of whom were looking for their regiments. The road at this point had been roughly resurfaced, and was much more negotiable.

We unhooked ourselves from the tank, and took on eight or ten of the engineers who had been riding on its back. Somewhat bewildered by this flood of soldiers, I had stopped the truck, and was looking for my company. Two M.Ps told me they thought it had gone on toward Kharkov, but as they weren't sure, they sent me to the redirection center which had been organized in a trailer and was staffed by three officers, who were tearing their hair. When I was finally able to catch their attention through the thousands of shouts and gesticulations besieging them, I was harshly reprimanded for straggling. They probably would have sent me to be court-martialed, if they'd had time. The disorder was incredible, and the landser, half furious, half joking, flooded into the Russian huts.

We might as well sleep while we wait for all this to settle down."

All they wanted was a dry corner where they could lie down, but there were so many men crammed into each isba that there was almost no room left for the Russians who lived in them.

Not knowing what to do with myself, I went to find Ernst, who had gone to look for information. However, he had run into a truck hospital, and had returned to the Tatra with an orderly, who was checking over our wounded.

"They can go on as they are," he said.

"What?" Ernst asked. "But we've already buried two of them. At least we should give them fresh dressings."

"Don't be stubborn and stupid. If I label them `urgent,' they'll have to wait their turn, lying in the street. You'll get to Belgorod quicker than that-and escape the trap that's closing on us."

"Is the situation serious?" Ernst asked.

"Yes."

So Ernst and I found ourselves responsible for twenty wounded men, some of them in critical condition, who had already been waiting several days for essential medical attention. We didn't know what to say when a man grimacing with pain asked us if he would soon be at the hospital.

"Let's get going," Ernst said, frowning anxiously. "Maybe he's right. If I'd ever thought it would be like this . . ."

I had been at the wheel for only a few minutes when Ernst tapped me on the shoulder. "Come on, little one, stop. You'll finish somebody off if it goes on like this. Hand over."

"But I'm supposed to drive, Ernst. I'm the one who's in the drivers' corps."

"Never mind. Let me do it. You'll never get us out of here."

It was true. Despite my best efforts, the truck was jolting and sliding from one side of the road to the other.

We arrived at the village exit point, where there was an interminable line of vehicles waiting for gas. Thousands of soldiers were walking up and down on either side of the road. An M.P. ran over to us.

"Why aren't you waiting like everybody else?"

"We've got to leave right away, Herr Gendarm. We're carrying wounded, and that's what the infirmary told us."

"Wounded? Serious cases?" He spoke in the doubting, disbelieving tone of every policeman in the world.

"Of course," said Ernst, who certainly wasn't exaggerating.

The policeman had to peer under the canvas anyway:

"They don't look so bad to me."

There was a furious outburst of swearing. From time to time, wounded men availed themselves of their special position to abuse the police.

"You sonofabitch," groaned one man, who was missing a piece of his shoulder. "It's shits like you who should be sent to the front. Let us through, or I'll strangle you with the one good hand I have left."

The feverish landser was sitting up in spite of his pain, which made him frighteningly white. He seemed quite capable of putting this threat into action.

The policeman flushed, and his nerve faltered at the sight of these twenty battered wrecks. The position of a big-city policeman roaring at some pathetic bourgeois for going through a red light is a far cry from that of an M.P. behind the lines dealing with a gang of combat veterans who are holding their guts in with their hands, or have just bayoneted the guts out of somebody else. His display of bad temper turned into a set little smile.

"Get out of here," he said, with the air of someone who doesn't give a damn. When the wheels of the truck began to turn, he vented the last of his spleen: "Go and die somewhere else!"

It was hard to get even eight gallons of gas, and when we managed it our tank swallowed them in an instant. But we were glad to take what we could and get out. A feeble attempt had been made at surfacing the road, but there were still long stretches of bare ground which had become deep quagmires, to be avoided at all costs. We proceeded on the highway, or beside it, as circumstances required.

Far to the right, we could see another convoy struggling forward in a line parallel to ours. The men were dressed for battle, and seemed to be prepared for an encounter with the Soviets. We were stopped by a new set of police, who combed our papers to see if they could find any mistakes. They checked the truck, verified our I.D. cards and our destination ... but when it came to the destination, they had to give us directions. One of them looked through the directory hanging around his neck, and told us, in a voice like a barking dog's, that we had to turn off the road a hundred yards ahead and proceed to Kharkov. We followed these instructions with regret, because the new road rapidly deteriorated into a ribbon of mire.

At our speed, we would soon have exhausted our supply of gas.

We kept passing vehicles abandoned in the mud because of mechanical failure, or because they had run out of gas. A short distance along the new road, we were stopped by a group of about fifty landser, on foot, and in a state of unbelievable filth. They took our truck by storm. There were several wounded men among them. Some of them had ripped off their filthy dressings, and were walking with their wounds open to the air.

"Make room for us, fellows," they said, hanging on as hard as they could.

"You can see that we haven't got any room," Ernst answered. "Let go."

But we couldn't get rid of them. They swarmed over the tailgate, trampling on our wounded to try to make them move over. Ernst and I shouted at them, but it didn't do any good: they piled on everywhere.

"Take me," whimpered a poor devil scratching at my door with bloody hands. Another waved a pass which was already almost expired. The arrival of a steiner followed by two trucks restored order.

An S.S. captain climbed out of the steiner.

"What's this ant heap? No wonder you've broken down! It's impossible! There must be at least a hundred men here."

The men scattered immediately, without asking for anything more. Ernst saluted, and explained the situation.

"Very good," said the captain. "You take five more along with your wounded. We'll take another five, and the rest will have to walk until the convoy comes by. Let's get going."

Ernst explained that we would be out of gas in a few minutes. The captain signaled to some soldiers on the steiner, who gave us six gallons. A few minutes later we were on our way again.

We kept passing groups of men wading through the mud who begged us to pick them up, but we didn't stop. Toward noon, with our last drop of gas, we reached a town where a unit was being assembled for the front. I escaped becoming an infantryman before my time by a hair's breadth.

We had to wait until the following day before we could use the reserve of five gallons of gas which Ernst was able to draw. We were about to leave, when an unexpected and unpleasant sound struck our ears. In the distance-still quite far away-we heard the booming of big guns. As we thought we were by now far from the front, we were both astonished and alarmed. We didn't know-and I didn't know until much later-that our course had been taking us parallel to the Belgorod-Kharkov line.

Nonetheless, after unloading two dying men to make room for three more wounded, we set off without delay. In the middle of that afternoon, everything went wrong again.

Our truck was more or less in the middle of a column of ten. We had just passed an armored unit whose tanks looked like a giant version of the slimy creatures that emerge on mud flats at low tide. They must have been on their way to meet the enemy, who seemed to be very close. We could hear artillery on our left, despite the loud laboring noises of the trucks. Ernst and l exchanged anxious looks. We were stopped by some soldiers who were setting up an anti-tank gun.

"Dig in, fellows," shouted an officer as we slowed down. "Ivan's getting pretty close."

This time, at least, they were telling us something. But I wondered how the Russians, who had been left some ninety miles behind, could already be in this district. Ernst, who was driving, stepped on the gas. Two other trucks did the same. Suddenly, five planes appeared in the sky, at a moderate altitude. I pointed them out to Ernst.

"They're Yaks," he shouted. "Take cover!"

We were surrounded by bare mud, with occasional clumps of stunted brush. There was a sound of machine-gun fire from the sky. The column drove more quickly, toward a shallow fold in the ground which might give some protection. I was leaning out the window, trying to see through the flying mud spun by our wheels. Two Focke Wolfs had appeared, and had shot down two of the Yaks, which crashed far to the west.

Until the final stages of the war, Russian aircraft were no match for the Luftwaffe. Even in Prussia, where Russian airpower was its most active, the appearance of one Messerschmitt-109, or one Focke-Wolf would make a dozen armored Ilyushin bombers turn and run. At this period, when German airpower still possessed important reserves, the lot of the Russian pilots was not enviable.

Two of the three remaining Yaks had taken flight, pursued by our planes, when the last dived straight at the convoy. One of the Focke Wulfs was chasing him, and was plainly trying to get him in his sights.

We reached the dip in the road. The Soviet plane had come down very low, to use its machine guns. The trucks ahead of us had stopped short, and the able-bodied were jumping down into the mud. I was already holding the door open, and I jumped, with my feet together, plunging face downward, when I heard the machine guns.

With my nose in the mud, my hands on my head, and my eyes instinctively shut, I heard the machine gun and the two planes through a hellish intensity of noise. The sound of racing engines was followed by a loud explosion. I looked up, to watch the plane with the black crosses on its wings regain altitude. Three or four hundred yards away, where the Yak had crashed, there was a plume of black smoke. Everybody was getting up again.

"One more who won't give any trouble," shouted a fat corporal who was clearly delighted to be still alive.

Several voices joined in a cheer for the Luftwaffe.

"Anybody hit?" one of the noncoms called out. "Let's get going, then."

I walked over to the Tatra, trying to brush off the worst of the mud that clung to my uniform. I noticed two holes in the door I had opened to get out which appeared to have swung shut on its own momentum: two round holes, each outlined by a ring of metal from which the paint had been scraped away. Nervously, I pulled open the door. Inside, I saw a man I shall never forget-a man sitting normally on the seat, whose lower face had been reduced to a bloody pulp.

"Ernst?" I asked in a choking voice. "Ernst!" I threw myself at him. "Ernst! What . . . ? Say something! Ernst!" I looked frantically for some features on that horrible face. "Ernst!" I was nearly crying.

Outside, the column was getting ready to leave. The two trucks behind me were impatiently blowing their horns.

"Hey." I ran toward the first of the trucks. "Stop. Come with me. I've got a wounded man."

I was frantic. The doors of the truck behind me swung open and two soldiers stuck out their heads.

"Well, young fellow, are you going to move, or aren't you?" "Stop!" I shouted louder than ever. "I've got a wounded man." "We have thirty," one of the soldiers shouted back. "Get going. The hospital isn't too far from here."

Their voices rose over mine, and the noise of their trucks, which had pulled out, and were passing me, drowned my cries of desperation. Now I was alone, with a Russian truck loaded with wounded men, and Ernst Neubach, who was dead, or dying.

"You shits! Wait for me! Don't go without us!"

I burst into tears, and gave way to a mad impulse. I grabbed my Mauser, which I'd left in the truck. My eyes were swimming, and I could barely see. I felt for the trigger, and pointing the gun at the sky, fired all five cartridges in the magazine, hoping that to someone in the trucks this would sound like a cry for help. But no one stopped. The trucks continued to roll away from me, sending out a spray of mud on each side. In despair, I returned to the cabin, and ripped open my kit to look for a package of dressings.

"Ernst," I said. "I'm going to bandage you. Don't cry."

I was insane. Ernst wasn't crying: I was. His coat was covered with blood. With the dressings in my hand, I stared at my friend. He

must have been hit in the lower jaw. His teeth were mixed with fragments of bone, and through the gore I could see the muscles of his face contracting, moving what was left of his features.

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.

"Dig two graves over there," ordered the tall soldier. "We must bury these men."

"We not soldiers," answered the Popov, still smiling.

"You ... dig grave ... two graves," insisted the. German, aiming his gun at the Russians. "Two graves, and quick!"

The Russian's eye gleamed wildly as he stared at the black hollow of the gun barrel. He said a few words in Russian, and the others busied themselves with the job.

We had begun to change the dressings of the wounded when we heard the sound of a motor in the courtyard. Without thinking, we ran out. Several armored vehicles had just driven in, and a gang of German soldiers were running toward the big drinking trough. They were followed by four or five Mark-4s. An officer climbed from a steiner, and we ran to meet him, telling him who we were.

"Alles gut," said the officer. "Help us load up, and leave with us." We tried to get the amphibious V.W. to start, but that proved impossible. We dragged it from the hut, and one of the landser threw a grenade into the engine. A moment later, it blew to pieces. More vehicles arrived. Others left in the direction from which we'd come. We couldn't understand what was happening. The sound of explosions from the southeast was continuous. The road that ran through the kolkhoz was a stream of traffic of every description. Whenever anyone stopped I asked for news of my unit, but no one knew anything. It seemed likely that my companions of the 19th Rollbahn were far to the west by now-far from the front, to which it seemed I was being sent. A little while later, I turned west again, in a company of soldiers drawn from many infantry units. The fact that I was involved with this group caused me considerable difficulty a few days later. We appeared to be taking a line parallel to the front, at right angles to the Russian thrust. Far to the north, the Russians were pushing toward the south, hoping to surround the German forces still in the Voronezh-Kursk-Kharkov triangle. For a day and a half, we followed a muddy rut, on which our only troubles were mechanical. The machines we were using had been in Russia since the German advance of 1941, and had been pushed hard. Our forces were obliged to abandon large numbers of trucks and tractors and tanks.

The tanks in particular had taken a beating, often having been used for work their designers had never imagined. They were almost the only vehicles able to move normally during the winter months, and a tank pulling five trucks along a snowy mule track was not an unusual sight. When they had to face the Russian counter-offensive, this rough usage, coupled with their lightness, which had served us so well until then, made them no match for the famous T-34s, incontestably superior to the Mark-2s and -3s. Later, our Tigers and Panthers stood up to Soviet armor, and played with their T-34s and KW-85s.

Unfortunately, as in the air, our inadequate numbers had to yield to an enemy multitude fighting on two fronts. We were obliged, in effect, to defend a fortress with a circumference of two thousand miles.

To cite a single example: the fighting on the Vistula, north of Krakow, pitted twenty-eight thousand Germans supported by thirty-six Tiger tanks and twenty Panthers against two strong Soviet armies of six hundred thousand men and seven armored regiments disposing of eleven hundred tanks of various kinds.

Toward noon the next day, we arrived at a small village about fifteen miles northeast of Kharkov, with a name like Outcheni. I can no longer remember precisely. The place was filled with smoke, and to judge by the noise fighting was still going on quite nearby.

The steiner of the officer who bad picked us up at the kolkhoz drew ahead, while the rest of us jumped down from our machines. Flickering light a mile or so to the south marked the line of fire. The soldiers who had come with me peed into a hedge or chewed some food, with blank faces. I myself have never been able to achieve a resigned, indifferent attitude in the face of pressing danger; nevertheless, I tried to hide my desperate anxiety. Perhaps the others were doing the same thing. The steiner came back, and two noncoms wrote down our names. Then we were organized into groups of fifteen, led either by a sergeant or an obergefreiter.*( * Senior lance corporal, or acting corporal.)

 The officer climbed onto the seat of the steiner and spoke to us briefly, mincing no words.

"The enemy has cut us off from our line of retreat. To get around them, we would have to turn north, onto the plain, where there are no roads. This could be fatal. Therefore, we will have to break through their barrage to reach our new positions, which are quite close.

"As further elements of the Don army arrive, they will be used to maintain the passage already opened, which will allow all our soldiers to escape the Bolshevik noose. Thereafter, you will proceed to positions which will be announced, and which you will maintain until further orders. Good luck! Heil Hitler!"

I was about to say that I belonged to the transport service, when I suddenly felt ashamed. Munitions boxes were opened, and their contents distributed. My pockets and cartridge pouches were full, and I was given two defensive grenades, which I didn't know how to operate. We moved single file to the edge of the village past houses burning from enemy incendiaries. Groups of men were walking about in the debris; others were tending to the wounded. Some burnt-out German vehicles were still smoking. We were taken over by a lieutenant, who asked five or six of us to follow him down a long street which was still more or less intact. A salvo whistled past us, and we threw ourselves to the ground. It fell somewhere in the center of the village, about seven or eight hundred yards behind us. Enemy shells had dug several holes in the packed earth which lay between two rows of buildings, and occasional mutilated bodies lay sprawled on the street.

We walked for about fifteen minutes, sticking close to the buildings, until we heard the sound of automatic weapons. About a hundred yards ahead of us, the street was swept by mortar fire. We hesitated for a moment. Then we saw some running figures emerging from the wall of dust stirred up by the enemy salvo.

"Achtung!" shouted the lieutenant.

Instantly, we dropped to our knees, or even onto our stomachs, ready to open fire, but stood up again when we saw German uniforms. The other soldiers ran over to us, and threw themselves down by our sides. We could see that still more were coming through the flying dust. Several of them were howling at the tops of their lungs, a sound which combined fear, anger, and pain.

I watched a soldier without a gun, who was trying to run holding his right thigh with both hands. He fell, stood up, and fell again. Two others were staggering slowly after him. I heard someone shout, "A moi!" and was trying to see which of them had used my language, when a fresh salvo struck the group, scattering about ten of them in search of shelter.

Two of the men continued toward us, despite the danger. They ran to a door, which they were able to kick in without much trouble, and stood in its opening, shouting curses in French.

Amazed, and without a thought of danger, I ran across the street, bursting in on them like a whirlwind. They paid no attention to me. "Hey," I said, shaking one of them by his straps. "Are you French?"

They turned toward me and looked at me for a fraction of a second. Then their eyes returned to a cloud of dust and smoke pouring from a house which had just burst into flames.

"No. The Walloon Division," one of them said, without looking back a second time.

A series of explosions made us blink and hunch our shoulders. "Those shits shoot us just like rabbits. They never take prisoners, the bastards."

"I'm French," I said, with an uncertain smile.

"Well then, look out. Volunteers are never prisoners." "But I'm not a volunteer!"

The street was raked by a new salvo of mortar fire, somewhat closer than before. Twenty yards away, a roof disintegrated, and the retreat whistle broke off our conversation. We ran as hard as we could back the way we had just come, followed by a burst of machine-gun fire. Two or three men spun round and doubled up, screaming with pain. We almost ran over two men with a heavy machine gun, which they hadn't been able to fire, because we'd been in the way.

Several groups of men had reached a street at right angles to ours, and had scattered among the ruins. The lieutenant was blowing his whistle again, to regroup us, when two Mark-3s suddenly came into sight. They rolled up to the lieutenant, who stood in the middle of the street waving them forward. After a brief consultation, they moved obliquely into the street we had just left, advancing toward the Bolsheviks. The lieutenant tried to reorganize us again, and we set off in the wake of the tanks, which made an infernal din in the rubble-filled streets. I jumped from the corners of buildings to piles of rubble, in a state of terror, unable to grasp why I was there, or to distinguish anything to fire at.

For seconds at a time, our tanks would disappear from view in the turmoil of dust and smoke and flames, but they always re-emerged, with their guns firing. Soon we had run past the point where our retreat had begun, and into an open space surrounded by wooden peasant houses grouped around a pond. The tanks were driving around the pond, crushing every obstacle. On the far side of the pond we could easily see men running in several directions. We stood on the bank, and opened a concentrated fire. Another German company arrived on our right, and threw grenades at a house in which some of the enemy had taken shelter.

Our tanks were now on the other side of the pond, and were flattening the position just taken from the enemy. At last I had the opportunity to fire at some Russians. They were no more than thirty yards away,: running from the house our soldiers had attacked with grenades. At least ten Mausers fired, and not one of the Russians stood up again. The fact that we were advancing, and that we felt ourselves suddenly in control of the situation, stimulated us in spite of everything. We had just dislodged an enemy numerically stronger than we-as was always the case in Russia-and we felt as if we'd been given wings.

The sound of firing and the groans of the wounded incited us to massacre the Russians, who had inflicted us with so many horrifying wounds. An attacking army is always more enthusiastic than an army on the defensive, and more likely to accomplish prodigies. This was particularly true of the German Army, which was organized to attack, and whose defense consisted of slowing the enemy by counter-attack. A few of our men took over a Russian cannon, and immediately put it into action. A rapid liaison was established between our two tanks and this newly improvised artillery, which poured all the shells just captured from the Russians onto precisely selected targets.

Then the tanks turned back, leaving the defense of the area to us.

Directed by the lieutenant, we placed ourselves as best we could, in readiness for any new surprises. We could hear the sound of continuous firing all around us. A fine rain began to fall.

At dusk, we were still exchanging fire with the enemy, who had grown bolder, and were trying to come back. With darkness, our terror returned, and the firing almost stopped. The lieutenant sent someone to fetch some flares. To the southwest, the horizon lit up in time with sporadic heavy artillery fire. Without knowing it, we had become part of the third battle of Kharkov, whose front extended for some two hundred miles around the city. With darkness and rain, the fighting, for our group, was almost over. Behind us, we could still hear the sound of automatics, which penetrated the noise of engines. Our vehicles were using the darkness to try to get through the Russian barrage. We thought that at any moment we might see the Popovs running toward us through the night. A Volkswagen came up from behind with all its lights out. The driver spoke for a moment with the leader of our group, and then handed some flat mines to four of our men.

With white faces, they went off into the darkness, to place the mines on either side of the pond. Five minutes later, we heard a rough cry from the left, and a short time after that, two of the four came back from the right. After another half hour, we concluded that the two who had gone to the left had run into a Russian knife.

Much later that night, when we were all feeling overwhelmed by sleep, we witnessed a tragedy that froze my blood. We had just thrown about a dozen grenades at random, to forestall some suspected danger, when a prolonged and penetrating cry rose from the hole on my left. It lasted for several minutes, as if it were coming from the throat of someone who was fighting desperately. Then there was a cry for help, which brought us all from our holes and shelters. About ten of us ran toward the sound. The darkness was torn by the white lights of several shots. Fortunately, no one was hit.

We arrived at the edge of a foxhole, where a Russian, who had just thrown down his revolver, was holding his hands in the air. At the bottom of the hole, two men were fighting. One of them, a Russian, was waving a large cutlass, holding a man from our group pinned beneath him. Two of us covered the Russian who had raised his hands, while a young obergefreiter jumped into the hole and struck the other Russian a blow on the back of his neck with a trenching tool. The Russian let go at once, and the German who had been under him, who had just missed having his throat cut, ran up to ground level. He was covered with blood, brandishing the Russian knife with one hand, like a madman, while with the other he tried to stop the flow of blood pouring from his wound.

"Where is he?" he shouted in a fury.

"Where's the other one?"

In a few bounding steps he reached the two men and their prisoner. Before anyone could do anything, he had run his knife into the belly of the petrified Russian.

"Cutthroat," he yelled, looking with wild eyes for another belly to open.

We had to hold him so he wouldn't run past our lines.

"Let me go!" he shrieked.

"I want to show these savages how to use a knife."

"Shut up!" shouted the lieutenant, exasperated by having to deal with such a motley crew.

"Get back into your foxholes before Ivan machine guns the lot of you."

The lunatic, who was losing a lot of blood, was dragged to the rear by two men. I went back to the hole I was sharing with four others. I would gladly have fallen asleep, but nervous exhaustion kept me awake.

I had not yet absorbed all the emotions of the day, and was suffering a belated reaction.

The intermittent rain began to soak into our clothes and weight them down. The pond gave off a faint smell. Two men began to snore. Throughout the night, which seemed interminable, I kept up a dull conversation with my companions, to prevent a nervous collapse. In the distance, we could hear the continuous rumble of our retreating trucks. Enemy action began again well before dawn. Flares above our position blinded us with their unexpected white lights. We looked at each other in wordless confusion. The intensity of this diabolic light threw a sinister, almost indecent glare on our ghostly faces.

At daybreak, enemy artillery poured a hail of projectiles of every caliber onto the road about a quarter of a mile behind us. Beyond my hole, when I dared look outside, I could see other helmets poking up here and there from below the ground. Under their visors, eyes gleaming with fatigue were trying to discern our immediate future on the dim bank across the pond.

I scraped up some crumbs of vitamin biscuit, which was the last food in my possession. Insomnia and exhaustion made us incapable of grasping the situation with any precision. We were simply there, shivering and wet, and if even a small group of Russians had appeared, we wouldn't have been able to stop them.

Fortunately, the Soviets didn't attack, and we were only subjected to one round of mortar fire, which nevertheless wounded nine of us. At last the sun rose, and we felt somewhat better. When it reached its zenith, we were still waiting in our holes, which the spring warmth had not been able to dry out. We had not been given any more food, but then a soldier of the Reich was supposed to be able to withstand cold, heat, rain, suffering, hunger, and fear. Our stomachs growled, and the blood beat in our temples and at our smallest joints. But the air and the earth and the universe were growling too. From habit, we were almost able to persuade ourselves that this was a possible way to live. I know of many who actually managed it.

Toward six o'clock that evening, we were ordered to abandon our positions. This step required many precautions. We had to cover a considerable distance with all our equipment, while two men stayed behind to lay mines for the enemy. When we reached the ruins of the first house, we were finally able to straighten up. We went into the battered buildings, whenever we could, to look for food. I can remember devouring three raw potatoes, and finding them delicious.

We arrived at the crossroads from which our group had set out twenty-four hours earlier. The two mutilated but recognizable roads we had taken the day before had been turned into a jumble of churned earth. As far as I could see, the disabled carcasses of Wehrmacht vehicles lay scattered in a haze of whirling smoke, across the ruins of what must once have been houses. There were several muddy German bodies, too, lying in rigid attitudes beside wrecked machines, waiting for the burial squad.

Some men from the engineers were setting fire to the vehicles that blocked the road. We walked through this chaos for a while, supporting our wounded. A hundred yards away, another group, larger than ours, was also withdrawing, with arms and equipment.

We followed the lieutenant as far as the re-groupment center, abandoned by the officers two hours before we received the order to withdraw. Not a soul was left in the battered building which had housed the officers responsible for the defense of the town. A sergeant on a motorcycle was waiting alone in front of the building to instruct stragglers. The lieutenant seemed disgusted by the available options, and continued to lead us westward.

We covered another twelve miles on foot, constantly threatened by Soviet patrols, who would open fire without hesitation on even a single famished landser. After diving down some thirty times or more to avoid Russian salvos, we arrived at a Luftwaffe airfield, which had already been abandoned. We thought that the wooden buildings-which were like the ones we had occupied on the Don-might still contain some scraps of food. Carrying our four wounded men on improvised stretchers, we walked toward one of the huts, stumbling with exhaustion. But we never reached it: a scene of intense horror stopped six or seven of us.

We had just passed a bunker in which we noticed a body lying at the bottom. Two emaciated cats were eating one of its hands. I felt sick.

"Get out, you damned cats!" shouted my companion.

Everyone came over to look. The lieutenant, as sickened as I had been, threw a grenade. The two ghostly cats ran off into the countryside, while the explosion sent a column of more or less human debris straight up into the air, like a chimney.

"If the cats are eating stiffs," somebody said, "there couldn't be much left in the pantry."

There were still two bi-motors with Maltese crosses on their wings standing on the empty field-probably inoperable in some way. From the sky, we heard a disquieting sound, which was growing louder. We all turned our white faces the same way, suddenly realizing that we were standing beside two planes in the center of a vast, flat space, and could hardly fail to attract attention.

We scattered without waiting for any orders, flinging ourselves onto the ground, trying to escape those six black dots, which were already falling toward us like lightning. I thought immediately of the bunker where the cats had been feasting. Six others had the same idea, and although I ran as fast as I could, I arrived next to last beside the hole where four soldiers were already trampling on what was left of a human being.

I looked desperately into that crowded space, hoping that some miracle would make it larger. Two others were doing the same thing. Maybe we'd made a mistake; maybe the planes were really ours.... But that was impossible; the sound was unmistakable.

The noise grew louder and louder. We threw ourselves down, painfully aware of our absolute exposure. I held my head between my hands, and closed my eyes, trying to obliterate the muffled explosions which reached my partially blocked ears. I felt the fury of hell pass over me like a hurricane. The blows striking the earth shook every organ in my body, and I knew that I was going to die. Then the storm passed as quickly as it had come. I lifted my head to see the enemy formation break apart as it climbed higher into the pale blue sky. Here and there across the field, men were getting up and running for better cover. The Russian planes had regrouped and were turning as tightly as they could. Then they swooped down at us again. I felt a bitter presentiment freeze my blood. I began to run like a madman, with my legs flying, trying to force myself to go faster. But I knew that exhaustion had the upper hand, that I would never reach the road, with its ditch, which might shelter me. I kept stumbling over my heavy boots.

In desperation, and despite myself, I fell onto the wet grass, instinctively aware that the planes were on top of us again. The first explosions shook the ground, filling me with a frantic fear. I scratched at the ground like a rabbit whose last hope of escape is to bury itself. I could hear the earth being torn, and horrifying human shrieks. White flashes burned into my eyes through my clenched fists and eyelids. I lay there for two or three minutes, which seemed like an eternity.

When I finally looked up, the two bi-motors were burning like torches. The Russian planes were far off, turning back into formation for another attack. They had pulled up after this one in all directions. Once again I called on all my reserves of strength to get up and run, the other way this time, to the wooden buildings, which suddenly seemed to offer refuge. I had covered about a third of the distance when the Russian planes attacked, shooting rockets into the buildings, which disintegrated like matchwood. After a few moments of further terror, we could hear the engines of the planes fading into the distance. Everyone who was able stood up again. No one spoke. We stared at the flames, at the sky, at the reddening heaps of human remains. Our lieutenant, who seemed to have lost his sanity, although he was unhurt, was running from one wounded man to another.

"Shit," someone shouted. "Another attack like that, and there won't be anyone left. They've just left us here. We'll never get out. . . ."

"Shut up!" shouted the lieutenant, who was supporting a wounded man. "War is never a picnic."

Who did he think he was telling? We gathered around him. He lifted the shoulders of a poor fellow covered with mud and blood, who was laughing to split his sides. For a moment, I thought he was crying with pain, but he was in fact howling with laughter.

"Das ist der Philosoph," someone said.

I had never noticed the man before. His friend added that he had always believed he would return home unscathed. Three of us tried to lift him to his feet, but soon realized this was impossible. His bursts of laughter were interrupted by words which I understood perfectly, and thought about for a long time afterward, and which still trouble me. As I remember his laugh, there was nothing mad about it, it was more like the laugh of someone who has been the victim of a practical joke, a farce in which he had believed until suddenly he realized his folly. No one questioned the philosopher, but he himself, through his hilarity and his agony, tried to explain:

"Now I know why. . . . I know why. ... It's too simple.... It's idiotic. . . ."

Perhaps we would have learned what he meant, but a sudden surge of blood poured from his mouth, and ended his life. We dug graves for the new victims, and then stretched out, exhausted, on the bed of warm ashes that marked the site of the destroyed buildings.

At nightfall, we were wakened by the sound of guns, which seemed to be following us. By now we all felt desperately hungry and thirsty. Despite our rest, we had not recovered our strength, and we looked appalling. We stared at each other suspiciously, wondering if the next fellow didn't have a couple of biscuits hidden somewhere, forgetting the lessons of comradeship we had been taught in Poland. But apparently we were all cleaned out. If anyone had been hiding something, we could scarcely have reproached him, as we all might easily have done the same thing.

In the darkness, as we fled the curtain of flares which had pursued us since our retreat from the Don, we heard once again the sound of a moving column, and were once again filled with panic. The night was as black as pitch. A fine rain was falling. We followed the lieutenant: God knows where he was taking us. No one spoke. Our strength seemed barely adequate to move our legs, weighted by exhaustion and mud.

Finally the lieutenant spoke: "Maybe they'll go by without seeing us. Are any of you anti-tank gunners?"

Quickly, our solitary spandau was set up for a final effort of defense. Luckily, the exhaustion which made my temples throb under my leaden helmet prevented me from clearly grasping the seriousness of our situation. The simple fact that we had stopped walking presented my foundering body with a moment of relief which had to be used to the utmost. I knew that my fear would return with my breath, and that I would again be aware of everything that was happening.

The first black mass which came into view, with all its lights out, seemed to be some kind of light vehicle. We tried to see what it was, but the darkness was too thick. Then we heard tank treads, unmistakable and frightening, as those who have heard the sound on the front at night will appreciate.

As the noise grew louder, our panic increased. While some were trying to see where the tanks would come from, others-including myself-lay with their faces pressed into the ground. Two black shapes loomed against the sky some thirty meters away. Another, less than ten meters from us, made the earth shake, and every hair stand on end. Someone called out: "Die Maltakreuze, mein Gott! . . . Kameraden! Hilfe! Hilfe!"

For me, who spoke German so badly, and understood it even worse, this was a signal for everyone to save his skin. I jumped up and started to run. This, evidently, is what one should not do. Through the noise of the tanks, I could hear shouts and curses. The group had taken my action as a signal for general flight. Everyone had jumped up, and was running, shouting at the tanks-with the exception of the lieutenant and one or two more reflective, prudent soldiers. Later it occurred to me that even German tanks might have machine-gunned us, taking us for Russians. Also, they might have been Russian tanks.

However, we managed to make ourselves recognized, and were taken in by a detachment of the 25th Panzerdivision, commanded by General Guderian.

These men were extremely well-equipped, and had not been involved in our retreat. They put us wherever there was room, on the backs of the tanks, where the heat of the engine burned our buttocks. No one asked if we'd eaten, and it wasn't until hours later, under the rolling fire of the Russian artillery which was raking Kharkov, that we were served a hot, greasy soup, which we received like a benediction.

It was here that I first saw one of the enormous Tiger tanks and two or three Panthers. I also saw, a few hours later, the appalling avalanche of the famous Katushas, which poured hours of devastating fire on the German infantry advancing with appalling losses through the outlying district of Slaviansk-Kiniskov. Guderian's tanks took us right into Kharkov, where the Donets battles had already been in progress for more than a week. Once again, the Wehrmacht took the battered city, before losing it finally in September, after the failure of the Belgorod counter-offensive.

Dawn found us in the sand pits to the northwest of the city, where our group was gone over with a fine-toothed comb by the Kommandos responsible for sending men back to their original units. As they didn't know where most of these units were, the best they could do was to form the strays into new groups, which everyone wished to avoid. These new units, with no official affiliation or assignments, simply sapped the actual strength of the army as recorded by military registration and on the maps at headquarters. The men assigned to these varied and un-measurable groups could not be fitted into any logical organization. Already classified as missing or dead by their original units, they were officially considered dead, and used as unexpected reinforcements whom there was no reason to spare. Long lines of soldiers, sitting, lying down, asleep and awake, were waiting for orders which would somehow fit them into the battle.

I can still remember the look of the Donets Valley, and the river, with its wide sand banks stretching some eight or ten miles back from the water. The thunder of guns reached us from the front, which was about twenty miles to the south. The German attack was moving from the north and west. With their left wing protected by the Donets, the Panzer assault was driving into the Russian artillery, which had rapidly crossed the river in an attempt to follow up their counter-offensive. Now these batteries had been driven back to the river, and were unable to re-cross it, as all the bridges were out. In effect, the Russians had just made the same mistake as the Germans at Stalingrad, although not on the same scale. In their haste to drive us out, they had overextended their supply lines and underestimated the forces pitted against them. A hundred thousand Russians, of whom fifty thousand were killed, were caught for over a week in the Slaviansk-Kiniskov pocket.

Of course, I didn't know what had happened around Kharkov until months later. For me, the Donets battle, like the battles of the Don and of Outcheni, was a smoking chaos, a wellspring of continuous fear, alarm and rumor, and thousands of explosions.

I had just been reassigned, and was waiting for further instructions with a handful of other filthy, shaggy men, when a policeman handed me a scrap of paper. The police, like the Kommandos, were authorized to organize strays, and the scrap of paper purported to give us the route we must take to return to our company. It seemed that the 19th Rollbahn was operating in the neighborhood, and the three other fellows also belonged to it.

We cleared out as quickly as we could. The fear of being incorporated into an impromptu battalion lent wings to our feet. I have never had a very strong sense of direction, but here in this chaos of mud and ruin even a migratory bird would have lost the north. Our scrawled note only gave us the principal points to look for, which might have been recognizable to regiments camped on the spot. To us, however, in an entirely new landscape, it was almost impossible to distinguish one point from another. The rare signposts that remained on the battered streets had been twisted in the fighting, and had to be disregarded.

After a thousand false leads and a thousand delays, we finally found our company two days later. In the meantime, we had been pressed into service unrolling telephone wire for an S.S. regiment which was mounting an attack. I still remember a railway embankment which some very young S.S. were charging under heavy machine-gun fire.

We huddled in a drainage pipe which had been uncovered in a bombardment, waiting for the S.S. to take the area-which they did, with heavy losses. Beyond the two cement walls, the flash of mortar fire and red-hot metal fragments streaked through the air. Then the same regiment used us to supply a Haubitz battery, which had been engaged for several days in an artillery duel with the Soviet guns on the east bank of the Donets. We were moving the heavy projectiles from their distant depot when we ran into some men from our company, repairing a collapsed bunker.

The first familiar face I saw belonged to Olensheim.

"Hey!" I shouted, running to my friend, followed by the three others. "It's us!" Olensheim stared, as if he'd been struck by lightning. "Another four!" he shouted.

"God must be with us! Laus scratched you off the list long ago. There are still thirty who haven't showed up. We thought you must have been put in one of the scrap units."

"Don't mention bad luck," I said. "Where's Hals?"

"That fellow has all the luck. Right now, he's in Trevda, being taken care of, while we dig up this damn dirt."

"Was he wounded?"

"A fragment in the neck. Absolutely nothing. But he was collected along with the seriously wounded. He said he was unconscious for two hours. But he always exaggerates."

"And Lensen?"

"He's fine. He's changing a tread over there." Laus arrived, and we instinctively saluted.

"Glad to see you, boys. Really glad." He shook each of us by the hand, his old soldier's face filled with emotion. Then he took a few steps backward. "Announce yourselves clearly and intelligibly, the way I taught you."

We conformed to the prescribed pattern with a good will that came from a deep sense of comradeship. But, apart from this encounter, everything looked dark. The sky was filled with lowering clouds which threatened rain, and at the four cardinal points white flashes preceded geysers of damp earth and rubble by fractions of seconds.

A short time later, Lensen, who was heavier and stronger than I, lifted me bodily from the ground in his delight at seeing me again. Despite the heavy labor we had to perform, the day was colored by the joy of this reunion.

Two days later, I managed to get to Trevda, which was some twenty-five miles from the front. Another fellow gave me his place in the D.K.W. he was supposed to drive, and I was able to visit Hals. I found him in a swarm of wounded men, singing at the top of his lungs. Spring had arrived at last, and the heavily wounded were cavorting between two avenues of wild pear trees.

Hals was unable to curb his delight at seeing me. I was carried in triumph by men who had lost arms, who were powdered with sulfanilamides and smeared with unguents. I was made to finish the remains of all the bottles they had opened, and accordingly was not able to keep the appointment I had made with the fellow who had brought me out. After waiting for a while, he grew bored, and left without me. I was taken back much later by a driver attached to my camp. Hals made me promise to visit him again, but I never had the chance: a few days later, the doctor found him fit, and he rejoined us.

Hals detested the squalid cellar where we were established, and following his lead, I volunteered for service in the motorized infantry. We were fed up with digging and acting as maidservants to the rest of the army.

This decision almost cost us our lives many times, but even now, looking back on everything that happened, I cannot regret having belonged to a combat unit. We discovered a sense of comradeship which I have never found again, inexplicable and steady, through thick and thin.